Runt's Revenge

Evening Training

Athena suspected that West had spoken with Alpha Eric after that uncomfortable moment after the pack run. The next day was when she was offered a job as a “helper” in the pack house and a room of her own in the former pantry. A grateful Nea accepted and moved out of her family home the same day. As she was walking out the door with her pillowcase of her belongings, her mother gave her the first smile she had seen since before her father had died. Ouch.

After sneaking away from the hallway outside the Alpha’s office, Nea raced back to the kitchen. She finished making the salad that she had started before training. She added the croutons and dressing and brought it out to the buffet table in the large dining hall. A few of her former classmates were there, but she ignored them, even when a few spit balls landed in her hair.

“Look, Breanna,” said Ashley, “It’s the dropout rrrrrrunt.”

Breanna screamed, “oh Goddess! My eyes, my eyes, even looking at her ugly face hurts!”

Ashley tried to give Athena a kick behind her knee to make her drop, but Nea saw it coming and deftly dodged it, pushing Breanna gently to the side to get away from Ashley and back to the kitchen.

Collin, Breanna’s mate, started walking over to them menacingly. “What are you doing to my mate, runt? Did you just shove her, runt?”

Breanna suddenly started rubbing the arm that I had touched, pretending it hurt.

“Sorry, Collin, I’m just clumsy, I guess.” Nea said, keeping her eyes down as she backed toward the kitchen door.

Collin faked a lunge at Athena and she turned and ran. All of the students burst out laughing behind her. Fortunately, Carol was back in the kitchen with her trays of steak. The rest of the dinner service was under her watch, so no one else messed with Athena. She considered herself lucky. Once the dinner service was over, Nea cleaned the kitchen by herself. Everything takes longer when you have a night of studying hanging over your head. No one else knew that she was taking college course, much less that she had finished high school. But they wouldn’t have cared anyway. Only West and Alpha Eric knew and they kept close tabs on her grades. “No pressure,” she thought sarcastically. She felt an emotional eye roll from Angel as her wolf agreed with her. They had high expectations of her.

Nea went to her little room and closed and locked the door, settling in at her desk to study. Two hours later, feeling that she had a good grasp on capital markets and how they worked, it was already dark. Athena decided that she had better go on her run before knocking on the Alpha’s door to discuss her step-father. He usually worked late into the evenings, unless he was spending time with West.

West and Alpha Eric were mates. It wasn’t common knowledge, mostly because West didn’t want to live in the packhouse or be expected to do Luna-like tasks. He liked his little cottage on the lake. More than that, he liked his privacy. Nea suspected that it worked for Alpha Eric too, as he was a classic workaholic. The Alpha lived and breathed the pack. Athena liked being around the both of them when they were together, because it was so chill. There was definitely love there, but even more than that, deep respect. You could feel it. That was what she wanted someday. A mate who would love her madly, but respect her too.

Athena thought about mates and love as she changed back into her grubby workout clothes from earlier. No need to get a fresh change of clothes when she was going to be working out hard. What if Damien was right and she wouldn’t be able to feel her mate when she met him… Or what if he rejected her because she was a runt?

“No way,” chirped Angel, her wolf. “The Moon Goddess had our perfect mate waiting for us somewhere! All we have to do is find him! We are bad-ass and beautiful warriors! Any wolf would be lucky to have us.”

“Angel, you were born an optimist… and just a little narcissistic!” Nea responded laughing.

Warrior West had assigned her a ten-mile run with intervals for this evening’s workout. The patrols were used to seeing her running in the evenings… she just had to go slower when they were around and pretend of be out of breath. They thought it was “cute” that she was training. She tried to avoid them when possible. Sometimes they would giver her a sarcastic slow clap as she ran by. Goddess, she hated that.

Athena ran the first five miles in human form. She was actually surprised to see and sense absolutely no patrol wolves on the East side of the pack lands. It was unusual, but not unprecedented, so she kept on going without too much concern. She was getting ready to shift and give Angel her turn when she heard the first scream. It was high pitched, frantic, and angry. At first, she thought it was an animal’s cry, but then she heard voices.

“Oh Goddess, Angel,” she said to her wolf, “where are those asshole patrollers when you need them?”

She followed the noises to investigate, getting more cautious as she closed in on them.

“Rogues!” Angel warned. The smell was overpowering. How could any guard within miles be missing this?

Careful to approach downwind, Nea peered from behind a large stand of bushes. There was a little girl, maybe five or six years old, with wild blond hair tangled with leaves and sticks. She was tied to a tree, but struggling against the ropes. And there were three big, dirty rogues sitting in the dirt nearby, gorging themselves on a raw rabbit.

“Let me go!” She screeched. “My father is going to beat you up when he gets here!” She said in a lower, more menacing tone. “He is really big and really strong!”

The three rogues were laughing at her, one of them, sporting long brown dirty dreads, threw a chunk of rabbit meat at her head, leaving a bloody smear on her dirty pink shirt.

“Your father won’t ever see us, or YOU, again, you scrawny runt,” he taunted.

Athena looked at the girl again curiously. No, she was definitely not a runt… just a little girl.

“Yeah,” said shorter, blond one, “and you aren’t our problem anymore after tonight, so save your breath for the big guy.”

“Where is he,” growled the third, in a tattered Grateful Dead t-shirt. “Damn, I hate waiting. And I hate runts!” he spat as he chucked some rabbit guts at the girls head, which stuck in her hair.

Athena was thinking hard. If someone was meeting these rogues here, then it had to be a member of her pack. If she sent out a mind link message for help, she might just be reaching out to the “big guy.” And if she reached out to West or Alpha Eric, they would tell her to wait before trying to help.

“Angel, what do you think?” She linked.

“I think we could take these three, but if another person joins them, especially if we know them, it will be harder,” Angel replied.

“I’m not a RUNT! You are just a bunch of dumb rogues,” screamed the girl, “and ugly! I hate you all! You don’t deserve to have a pack! That is why the Goddess made you rogues!”

“Oh crap,” said Angel, “that is going to piss them off.”

Before she had even finished that thought, the “Dreads” wolf had leapt to his feet and was slapping the little girl so hard that Nea heard her head hit the tree that she was tied to. Nea was running toward him before another thought went through her head.

“What do you know about me…” he started screaming getting ready to hit her again.

As Nea ran, she scooped up a tree branch on the forest floor. “We get one shot, Angel. One shot at each one.”

“Right” Angel replied, “no mercy.”

We both knew that this was what West had drilled into us. We were quick. We were skilled. But we were vulnerable.

“When it is time, little one,” he always said, “You must go in with the intention to kill. You do not have the luxury of just incapacitating someone. If they get a shot at you, it is over.”

West had been drilling this into her head as long as he had been training her. She had never killed anyone before though. She had never been sure if she would be able to, when it came down to it. But seeing him hit that little girl brought all of Nea’s wolf-rage to the surface. She swung the branch with all she had, like a baseball bat going for the home run. He stumbled to the left and she reached out with her hand, Angel claws extended and ripped out part of his spine.

“What the F…?” She heard one of the other two rogues exclaim as they struggled to get on their feet.

Nea glanced that the girl, and saw that she was conscious, staring at her with her mouth wide open. Winking at the girl, she turned to greet the two rogues now racing in her direction.