Gamma No More - Book 3

Toni sighed again, mind linking Fee, Tommy and Karl to come over bringing the other guests; her Beta had started this, so now he gets to be a part of it.

Not long after Toni does the introductions to Fee, who looked a little uncomfortable being singled out and introduced to vampires.

‘Relax, the object of this game is me, not you, Fee.’

Toni winks at Fee, as she smiled gently and mind linked her, watching her relax a little.

Fee is just twenty, but gifted with a keen sense of smell and an eye for things out of place in the forest.

“Fee, I want you to come and get a good smell of myself and Lord Leif. Ignore the top notes that tell you our individual scent and any underlying blood smells.

I want to see if you can differentiate between us, but with your eyes closed, don’t be worried we will guide your arm to our shoulder to give you a reference point, take your time and get as close as you want, this is just a little test.”

Prince Einar smiles at her, but Fee looks over to Toni, who gave an encouraging nod, watching her close her eyes, as Leif stepped forward and takes her offered hand. Placing it on his shoulder, she steps forward and takes some deep breaths. She stops for a while, then sniffs again.

“There’s an underlying smell of iron from blood, but you have a vampire smell, old wood and earthy, very earthy.”

Fee drops her hand and Prince Einar walks up; she wrinkles her nose a little.

“This is a strong underlying earth smell, but there’s also a smell of myrrh, but this has a sweet woody twist I don’t recognise. I would guess this is the pure blood smell of the Prince.

My wolf is telling me to be careful, more so than the last.” Fee steps back, eyes still closed.

“You have a good nose, for reference the smell you can’t identify, Oud, marks a pure-blood vampire.

Now you are going to do the same again, but I have a few here for you to smell. Tell me their species.”

Prince Einar signalled to each of the wolves to step up one at a time, and Fee identified each one accurately.

Fee is grinning, far more comfortable having a wolf in front of her. She acknowledged each one as wolves.

Prince Einar sprays Karl, Tommy, Alaric, Iris and Toni with a light dusting of scent mask before motioning Karl forward again to repeat the process.

Fee inhales a few extra times.

“Wolf, I’d guess Beta Karl again. His scent markers are faint but there. ”

“The next ones stepping up won’t be so close, can’t make it too easy,” Prince Einar speaks as he motions Tommy forward, stopping two paces away.

“Wolf,”

Then Iris stepped up, followed by Alaric,

“Human... Vampire,”

Alaric grinned as he walked away, before finally Toni stepped forward. But she could tell Fee was relaxing into this game.

“Normally I’d say wolf, there’s the woodsy musk smell, but it’s slightly sweeter than normal, over that, there’s a spicier smell, a form of liquorice that is twisted within it, that I’ve never noticed before, but…” She steps forward, taking another long deep breath.

“I can pick up faint sandalwood and vanilla, which is our Alpha’s scent, but I’ve never noticed the liquorice smell, nor the different woodsy smell, before.” Her brow furrows in confusion.

“You can open your eyes now Fee, you are an impressive tracker,”

Fee blushes at Prince Einar’s words, and Karl’s smug grin is back.

“Fee, Tommy, thank you. I’ll explain it later, but for now, please keep this test and the results to yourself.”

Toni gets in quickly, shooting Karl a look before he can speak as Fee and Tommy walk away.

“That’s the difference between a wolf and a Lycan,” Prince Einar smiled gently.

“So why don’t others notice it?” Toni turns to both the Prince and Leif.

“They do, but because they see a wolf, they smell a wolf, so they ignore the differences, putting it down to your individual smell, because they have no other reference point.

Even Leif almost missed it as it’s been so long since we had Lycans around. The key difference is that wolves will find they want to submit to you, once you hit your third form, they will struggle not to.

Lycans also form bonds across packs. Essentially, they pick their own pack members, with no oaths needed to link the wolf or Lycan to them. A wolf picked as part of a Lycan’s pack won’t become a rogue, although most set oaths to pacify wolves that joined them.

And the reason you had a mate…” Prince Einar grinned before he continued,

“Exceptionally rarely a Lycan was born to a pair of wolves, rare because usually Lycans didn’t mate outside, either their Erasthai or Chosen Mate, but occasionally half-blood wolves were born, often becoming lone wolves as they didn’t fit into either society.

If two of those met, it was possible they would carry a Lycan pup or one that was at least sixty per cent Lycan and therefore had a third form.

I knew of maybe three in the past, each was born with dual destinies; had you fully marked and mated each other, your Lycan side would probably end up suppressed.

But I’d guess the bond from your side was weaker than it usually was.” He shrugged before continuing,

“Tell me about how you met,”

Toni thinks back, smiling sadly at the memories that were less sacred if she was going to share them.

“It felt real. We met in the Neutral zone; Tyra was eating a kill we’d just made when he broke the tree line.

I’d smelt him and as he approached, Tyra stepped over her kill to mark it as hers.

He understood and backed off until she had sated herself, but not feasted as she would normally do.”

Karl laughed loudly.

“The day I met Leah, I’d have killed multiple beasts to let her feed before me. No way would I have let her wait while I ate and she would say the same if you asked her.

The mate bond is that strong, Toni. Your need to be close to him would have driven you to allow him closer.”

Leif just raises his hands.

“Now, do you believe us?”

Toni nodded.

“It’s not that I didn’t believe, just I had some concerns I needed clearing up. I guess I can say you’ve done that.”

Prince Einar looked at her with understanding.

“One thing you may want to know is a history lesson of sorts.

Lycans with blue eyes were said to be purer or stronger, coming from Erasthai’s. Those with gold were from chosen or arranged mates and were weaker. This meant that blue eyes Lycans were almost like Royals, usually being the one to lead the packs, but at some point Lycans seemed to prefer the Gold eyes.

That was part of the reason for the downfall of the Lycans. By the end, there was only one blue-eyed Lycan left.

Lycans rarely mated until they were at least two thousand years old, wanting to live life a little, so had only one, maybe two offspring leading to lower population numbers.

Even when they did, usually, they took a Lycan as a mate, rarely mixing with wolf packs other than their own, trying to keep their bloodlines pure.

All of that led to a lot of distrust by wolves, since Lycans kept to themselves, rather than searching for their Erasthai and mixing with ordinary wolves.”

There’s a look in the Prince’s eyes as he thought back to an earlier life and Toni can’t help wondering what it’s like to live for that long, to see the world changing. While they don’t live an eternity, it must seem like it at times.

He pauses before he continues.

“Ironically, the mating bite of Lycan on their Erasthai triggers a wolf to become a Lycan, so bloodlines shouldn’t have been an issue.

In the end, even though they had forgotten their history, pride, and feeling superior was their downfall, never forget that, Toni.”

The rest of the evening goes off smoothly, but Toni remained distracted, the last reason to hold back on admitting she is a Lycan had gone, but with that, she once again gets marked as different and if packs are already talking about there being a rogue pack, how long until they are talking about Lycans existing again because then she’s made the pack a bigger target.

So, you are still here, huh? Well, honestly, I think a healthy dose of scepticism is a good thing in life. Remember, I had rules that taught me to not trust in anyone or anything except myself.

It only makes sense that if you then know the odds of being born were almost impossible, wouldn’t you have a reason to doubt if it were true?

In case you forgot, there’s a rule I’ve broken already, but it guides me towards wanting actual proof.

Rule Number four: Never trust anyone. That way, you can’t be betrayed.

Now clearly, I have learnt to trust my pack, but information… well, it’s wise to not take everything at face value. It’s not like I felt any different.

But the eye thing, well yes, I can’t explain that and then the scent. I guess those darned vampires may know what they are talking about.

I am still not ready to announce it to the pack though, so no, that will have to come later, for now, there are a few who know and I guess, yes, you guys as well, but you’ve not betrayed me so far, so for now that has to be good enough.

Just don’t think about telling others. I have to think about how to protect the pack first, in case the information gets out.

Gradually, Toni makes her way around the pack, talking to each of the people attending before she ends the night with their vampire guests.

She doesn’t understand how they came to be so involved in her life and not with others, it cannot be just because she’s a Lycan, but ignoring the Freedom pack who work together as Neutral Zone partners, she doesn’t know of any wolf that they help in the same way.

As she stood watching them, her eyes fell on Iris, she had hardly said a word, staying close to Alaric at every point in the night, but her body language was far more confident than when she’d first seen her all those months ago.

“Iris, how are you finding being a Novitius?”

Iris turns to look to Alaric, who nods to her, a small smile breaking the edges of his mouth before she answers Toni.

“I’m enjoying it a lot. I’ve learnt more about vampires than I ever knew before, but then I wasn’t a Thrall for long, I guess I was lucky in that respect.”

Her voice was far more confident and stronger than when she first saw Iris in the club, in front of Leif.

“And when will you be turned?”

Once again, she looks to Alaric, this time he speaks to her.

“You may talk freely with the Alpha to show respect, but with any other wolf, you need to seek permission first.”

“Yes, Master” She inclines her head to Alaric before turning back to Toni.

“That’s up for debate; I wish to be turned as soon as I complete my tutelage, in about six months from now, Lord Leif and my Master would prefer I wait a few more years.”

Toni frowns, a slight edge comes out in her voice as she doesn’t like to think of others controlling someone’s right to voice an opinion.

“Alaric, is it part of the process that she cannot talk without your permission? That seems unreasonable.”

Alaric shakes his head; his deep voice sends a light blush to Iris’s cheeks as she listened to his reply.

“Not usually, but Iris was pushing for an earlier transformation.

Leif came up with this as a test, to give her an idea of what her life will be like initially as she is not at the usually accepted age.

For the next six weeks, she has to live under my direct control, I cannot tell her when to eat and when not to, she’s human and the human body isn’t like a vampire, she needs regular food, so instead, I control her voice.

A fledgling vampire has almost no free will, they have to be controlled by their sire until they learn to control their bloodlust; they must also remain within a few meters of their sire, they sleep when their sire decides they sleep, eat only when and how their Sire decides. It’s not a simple life for them to start with.

This is to show her what her life would be like.”

Toni blows a breath out slowly.

“And are you finding the task difficult?” she looks inquisitively at Iris.

“Not at all Alpha, he hasn’t compelled me. I am free to talk if I choose to, but I know what I want, so I will do whatever is needed to succeed.”

Toni grins, knowing Iris may play the game, but she’s pretty sure she is also the one in control.