The Alpha's Mutt

“Alpha! A wolf just crossed the eastern border, running at high speeds! The scent of blood was detected.” The words rang out in Farris’s mind, causing him to jump to attention.

We had been lying in bed together, tangled up in our own little world. We had ignored the outside world last night and the early hours of this morning. Just wrapped up in each other, acting as normal wolves would when being newly mated. We were not two Alpha wolves trying to save the wolf race from a virus. No. We were simply lovers exploring their new love.

“Alpha! I have just crossed the Elwood Pack border! I must speak with you immediately!” A voice suddenly called out in my own mind.

“Due?!” I questioned, recognizing it immediately.

This was one of the warriors that I had left behind at the Bristlecone Pack. What was she doing here? Why had she abandoned her post without a word? Where was Emlyn?

“Yes, Alpha. Something terrible has happened.”

“I’m on my way to meet you.” I assured her.

I jumped to my feet without hesitation and began to throw on the first pieces of clothing that I could find. If Due was here without Emlyn, then something was very wrong indeed. Due was one of our fastest runners and I could understand why Emlyn would send her to relay a message of the utmost importance.

“There is a wolf at the eastern border.” Farris informed me, as he too began throwing on clothing as quickly as he could manage.

I froze in my steps, suddenly becoming concerned for Due in a more immediate sense.

“Are your wolves after her?” I demanded without explaining myself.

“Yes, of course. Do not worry, we take our border security very seriously.” Farris assured me.

He, obviously, mistakenly believed that I was worried about some kind of border breach. But, of course, that was not the case. I had to get his wolves to leave Due alone so that she could deliver her message to me without delay.

“Call off your wolves!” I commanded; one tone short of using my Alpha influence.

Farris looked at me, startled for a moment. Obviously surprised that I would challenge him so suddenly. Though this is not what I had meant by the declaration, it was obviously how it was received.

“It is one of the wolves from my pack. A warrior that I left in the Bristlecone territory.” I explained further, so that he would understand my reasoning properly.

As my words dawned on him, his shock quickly dissipated. He shook off the urge to respond to the challenge and quickly mindlinked his wolves; alerting them that they could stand down. There was no threat. At least not on the Elwood territory.

We hurried to meet with Due, eager to receive whatever message it was that she carried. As soon as we closed the distance between us, I could smell the scent of blood on her fur, a mixture belonging to different beings. I had smelt something like this before, but I could not place where or when. She looked haggard, exhausted, and I was betting that she had ran almost the entire fifteen hours straight.

“Due!” I called out, waving my arm, once we were close enough.

She quickly shifted and I hurried to hand her a robe that I had brought with me for her to wear. I tossed it over her shoulders, and she rushed to adjust it before addressing me further. I could see that she looked even worse in her human form than she had in her wolf. She was pretty beaten up with a large gash on her head and nasty looking cut on her leg. Her hair was caked in blood, and she had large, dark bags under her eyes.

“Alpha!” She huffed out in acknowledgment as she struggled to steady her breathing.

“Due, what happened?! Are you alright?!” I demanded, wanting answers for her dismal state.

Someone had harmed her, and I wanted to know who. And I wanted to know now. No one was allowed to lay a single finger on one of my wolves without me having something to say about it.

“We were attacked, Alpha.” She gasped, still struggling for air.

“Attacked?! By whom?!” I growled, growing angrier by the second.

Farris stepped forward, placing his hand on my shoulder as we both studied Due. I knew that he was attempting to calm me down with his presence. However, he was seeming to have the opposite effect on me as I could feel his anger flaring through our bond. He wanted answers as well. Not only were the Bristlecone Pack longtime allies of the Elwood Pack. But Farris had sent a group of his own warriors to protect the Bristlecone Pack too. I was certain he was worried for the welfare of his wolves.

“Vampires, Alpha. The Vampires have attacked.” Due stated with a serious and fearful tone.

Farris and I both stared at her in shock. It was not that we did not believe her. I knew Due well and she would never have lied about such an important issue. However, it had been decades since wolves had heard from the vampires. We had been mortal enemies long, long ago, fighting bloody wars against each other. But an uneasy truce had existed amongst our species for centuries. They kept to themselves, and we did much of the same. As a matter of fact, it had been so long since a vamp had been spotted, that rumors had circulated that they had to be all but extinct.

“There were, at least, a hundred of them. They appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the night and were able to begin the attack before we even knew that they were on the territory. Somehow, they had slipped past all of the border security, completely unseen. It was horrific, Alpha…” Due reached forward and grasped both of my arms.

I looked into her eyes, and I could see the tears forming in them.

“I have never seen anything like it. They were ruthless. It was like they knew that the Bristlecone Pack was weak. Like they were aware any resistance would be minimal. They just tore apart those wolves. Ripped them to shreds like they were nothing. There was not anything that we could do but fight for our own lives. We could not help them.”

I watched as the tears began to fall from Due’s eyes. I was completely stunned by her words. Due was no weak woman, she was one of my top warriors. She had seen blood before, she had been forced to cause the death of another to protect herself in the past. But whatever she had seen on that battlefield had affected her greatly. It really must have been truly awful for her to be acting like this. I worried about what this meant. I worried for what was to come.

“Where is Emlyn?” I pressed, wanting to know the state of my Gamma.

Due simply began shaking her head, slowly. Her eyes dropped to the floor as the tears continued to spill.

“Gamma Emlyn is the one that told me to come find you. She survived the initial attack, but I’m afraid that she is gravely wounded. There are only a handful of survivors left I’m afraid and very few of them are from the Bristlecone Pack.”

“How many were left before you came here?” I questioned, harshly.

I wanted to know about the rest of my warriors. I had left ten of them there as it was all I could afford to be without. My pack was not a large pack by any means, but we still wanted to do our part. I prayed that the numbers were still on our side. I prayed that we had come out of this without any loss of life. It may have been a bit selfish, but I cared for my pack members deeply and if anyone had to die, I just did not want it to be one of them.

“There are seven of us left, including myself and Gamma Emlyn.”

Damn. I winced at the thought of it. That meant that I had lost three wolves. I had left them to fend for themselves and now three of my pack were no longer alive. Three wolves who had expected me to protect them when I was voted in as Alpha. Three wolves that I had let down. Three wolves that I had failed.

“Who was it?”

“Dolph, Guadalupe, and Rollin.” She stated, her sobs growing louder.

“They were fine wolves and great warriors.” I assured her, as I fought back my own tears.

“Yes, Alpha.” She agreed with a sad nod.

We were quiet for a minute, but I could feel Farris’s anxiety beginning to rise. He was trying to give us a moment of silence for our loss, but he was dying to know about his wolves as well. He was certain to have experienced a few losses and he was desperate to know how many. Finally, he could not stand the wondering anymore.

“I’m sorry to interrupt. I really am. I just…I have to know…what of my warriors? Did any survive?” Farris asked, the worry evident in his voice as he gripped my shoulder a little tighter.

“I cannot completely recall how many of your warriors were in the pack to start. But I do know that after the battle, seventeen warriors checked in as belonging to the Elwood Pack. But I do know that several of your wolves had contracted the virus before the attack. This would have made them easy prey for the vampires. I am sorry, Alpha Farris.” Due explained, her voice low, heavy with sorrow.

I turned to face Farris, wrapping my arms around him, and holding him close. Those numbers meant that he had lost eight wolves in the battle. We had been aware that several of his wolves had taken ill, and Farris had expressed regret for not forcing his pack members to live outside in the camp with mine. However, no matter the circumstances, losing eight wolves, eight members of your family, was a hell of a thing. I was devastated by the loss of the three from my pack; I could not imagine the amount of pain that Farris was feeling with having lost eight. My heart went out to him.

“I am sorry that I cannot tell you their names.” Due apologized, the tears building in her eyes again.

“Do not feel badly, Due. You have done everything that you could. Thank you. Now please report to Dr. Lyall to have your wounds checked over. He is in the Elwood Pack hospital building.” I instructed, turning back to face her.

“Yes, Alpha.” She nodded and one of Farris’s wolves walked with her, escorting her to the hospital in case she did not know her way to the building.

“We will need to speak with Jamari.” I announced, turning my attentions back to Farris.

I knew that we both wanted and needed time to wallow in our sorrow, but we did not have that luxury. We had to figure out how to coordinate getting our wolves back from the Bristlecone territory. Not to mention, if Bristlecone’s pack numbers were as devastated as Due said that they were then it may be necessary to just transfer the rest of the remaining members here. They would be safer in the Elwood territory than they would if they were left alone at Bristlecone.

“Agreed. We also need Deene and Alessa back for this. I think that we should make certain that they receive some of the first couple of doses of the vaccine once it’s ready.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t wait.” I suggested, suddenly, a thought springing to mind. “This is an emergency situation, and we may need them to be back on their feet as quickly as possible.”

“What are you planning to do?” He questioned.

“What if we just got a syringe and directly injected my blood into them?”

“Do you think that would work?”

“I don’t see why not.” I shrugged. “You drank my blood and then you were cured. I should imagine that giving them my blood directly should do the same thing.”

“It would be good to have my Betas back, sooner rather than later.” Farris concluded. “Especially, if there is the threat of war coming.”

I agreed. While I was not eager to go jabbing myself with needles and injecting every single member in the pack house that was ill with my raw blood. I was more than happy to get things started though and the Betas were definitely a good place to do that. It was also a good way to quickly confirm our theory that the blood of a mutt is the answer. There really was not a con to this. Even if my blood did not help, it is not as though it would cause them any harm. They are wolves after all, blood is a fairly normal thing for us between the hunting and the fighting.

After much discussion, Farris went to meet with Jamari to go over what we had learned from Due. He had wanted to come with me to see Deene and Alessa, but I was worried about his ability to recontract the infection. For this reason, I had convinced him to stay out of the pack house until we had the illness more under control. We agreed to meet back at my old cabin again later in the day.

I had a needle and syringe brought to me from the hospital and informed the doctors of my plan. They understood our need to have the Betas cured quickly and agreed that it was a good way to further test the blood theory. Which was probably a wise choice being that we planned on drawing blood from all of the half-breeds the next day.

I went straight to Deene and Alessa’s bedroom. Deene was fast asleep, but Alessa was sitting awake in bed. I was grateful that at least one of them was already up as I did not want to have to wake anyone if I did not have to. Until the blood worked its magic, they were still suffering greatly from this illness. I knew that they needed all the rest that they could get.

“Alessa, we think that we have a way to stop this virus.” I spouted out without hesitation.

“What do you mean?” Alessa questioned, her eyes sparkling with sudden hope.

“It is in the blood, Alessa. In the blood of the hybrids. That is why we are immune.” I explained.

I described to her everything that had happened over the last couple of days. Starting with deciding to complete the mating ritual with Farris to his miraculous recovery to our discussion with the doctors about a vaccine. All the way to the information that Due had delivered earlier today.

She seemed overwhelmed at all the information she was receiving. It weighed heavily on her as she struggled through her mental fog to process it. I felt badly for dumping it all on her as I did. I probably could have waited to tell her about the vampire attack until after they were feeling a little better. But I could not seem to help myself. Once I had started talking, it all just kind of came out of me at once. I had needed this.It may have been my selfishness again, but I had needed to confide in my best friend. I needed her to help bear the weight as she had always done before.

“Okay…then…” Alessa started, hesitating at first, her words coming out in raspy breaths. “So…what’s the plan?”

Even as she struggled to speak. You could still hear the determination in her voice. She was not about to take this lying down. She was the Beta Female of the Elwood Pack, and she was going to defend them until her last breath. I smiled at my friend with pride. This was why Alessa had been my strength for so many years. She found it in herself to be strong for others even in her weakest moments.

“Well…I’m going to inject you with my blood.”

“Your blood?” She questioned. “Not like a vaccine with SOME blood in it?”

“Nope. We haven’t made that yet. Just raw blood.”

“Does it…have to be…a shot?” She asked, squirming a little as she spoke.

“You could drink it. But that seems weirder.” I offered.

She thought about this for a moment before nodding her head.

“Yeah…I agree...that is weird. I hate needles. But let’s just…get this over with.”

I chuckled a little at her admission. After all the things that Alessa had seen and done as wolf. I was a little amused that she was bothered by a tiny injection from a thin needle.

“Don’t laugh.” Alessa scolded. “Just do it.”

I quickly found my vein and gave it a couple of taps with my finger. Then I pushed the needle in carefully just as the doctors had shown me how to earlier. I slowly pulled the plunger on the syringe and drew out my blood until the entire thing was filled.

“Alright. Give me your arm.” I instructed.

Alessa turned her shoulder towards me with a cringe before closing her eyes and turning her face away from me. She obviously did not want to even accidentally catch a glimpse of what was going to happen.

“You’ve gotta relax a little.” I coaxed.

“Easy for you to say.” She clipped back.

“Hey, I had to take it straight in the vein. At least, I’m just injecting it into your arm.”

“That’s true.” Alessa sighed, doing her best to relax her muscles.

Without giving her a second in which to tense up again, I sunk the needle into her arm up near her shoulder. I carefully watched my blood inside the syringe, making sure to inject her with only half. I needed to save the other half for Deene, so that I did not have to draw more blood from myself. I pulled the needle slowly from her arm and she let out the breath that she had been holding in.

“How fast does it work?”

“We don’t know exactly. Farris and I fell asleep afterwards and he was better by morning. So, it could be any time really.” I explained.

As much as I hated to do it, we needed to wake up Deene. So, I got up and walked over to his side of the bed. I woke him gently, but that did not stop him from going into a coughing fit immediately upon waking. I felt instant guilt, grabbing the glass of water at his bedside to hold out for him as soon as his coughing calmed. Alessa leaned over and began to lightly rub his chest, trying to ease him in the only way that she could at that time.

Eventually, Deene settled down and I was able to explain to him much of what I had told Alessa. Of course, he agreed to the injection without even a moment’s hesitation. He wanted to be back on his feet again. He wanted to connect with his wolf again. He wanted to be able to defend his pack again. It was easy to see why he was mated to Alessa. They really were two of a kind.

I left them shortly after to allow them time to rest and recover. I could only hope that they would be back on their feet in the next few hours. We were going to need their help if war was coming. The vampires had attacked the Bristlecone Pack after the virus had rampaged against it leaving them weak and vulnerable. Bristlecone was not that far away from Elwood. Fifteen hours was not much in the life of a wolf or a vampire for that matter.

How much longer did we have before the vampires came after us? How much longer before another ally fell prey to whatever these vampires were planning? How many wolves were going to be slaughtered in the name of vampiric hatred?

Had this war been what the Moon Goddess was ultimately warning me about in that dream? Was solving the virus the only part that I had to play? Or was I going to have to face an even deadlier foe?

To cure the virus, I was having to give up my blood and the blood of my pack members. What was I going to have to sacrifice in order to win a war?