SWNOVELS Chapter Facing the past
“Right, next on the agenda, where are we on the new building?”
Prince Darius is pacing the room
“We’re coming in under budget on the new packhouse, but we are running a little behind, probably looking at a two or three month delay.” Nat answers
“Once we have the materials on site, we can assign a few more to help in construction, so should be able to catch up on some of the time we’ve lost” Dan offers.
“What’s behind the delays?” Darius asks
“There’s been a run of bad luck on the delivery trucks.
We’ve had them all serviced so it shouldn’t be an issue going forward, but just one of those things I guess” Nate states
Darius stops his pacing
“Right last item then, how are we doing on tracking down Antonia Woodfield?”
“We have nothing concrete.
Each pack has sent details of anyone even close to her description on those that have joined in the last year, mates, any transfers etc. Each has been checked out.
Every wolf that is registered to a pack has been cross-checked during the annual hunt competitions, so we’re confident she hasn’t found her way into a pack.
At this point, it’s been twelve months since her last sighting, so we are assuming she’s either dead or fully feral by now.”
Beta Dan’s answers seem to annoy Darius.
“At this point?” Prince Darius spits out
“That sounds like the words of someone who has given up!”
“Apologies, I just meant to say we’re looking into details of every reported rogue death.” Beta Dan finishes.
“No contact with her friend?”
He turns to Chief Delta Alek
“He’s taken to running his wolf alone, once a week, sitting by a cliff in the clearing and talking to the moon, first did it 2 weeks after she’d run, but never misses it, every Wednesday, regardless of the weather.
After the first few, they planted a recording device there but took it away after a month, but it was just him talking randomly, about life, about the meals he’d made, never any reply and no one else there.
He just says it’s where they first met before she joined the pack, so going there to talk feels like he’s closer to her” Alek answers
“I don’t understand how after a year, we have no record of her, not here, not in the neutral zone and no human entry points.
How can the most notorious of wolves disappear?
I want proof she’s dead, and if you can’t do that, then maybe it’s time for me to find others who can.
This is beyond ridiculous; she’s made a fool of this pack for long enough!”
Prince Darius slams the door as he storms out of the room.
“The poor girl can’t cut a break, even in death she’s hunted,” Alek says sadly
“Are you so sure she’s dead?” Alpha Nate asks
“How else could she be untraced and no sightings of her, by any pack?
The worst bit, she was religious, so there would have been no one to release her soul, something she believed heavily in, even doing so for rogues she killed.” Chief Delta Alek goes quiet
“No one does that anymore” Alpha Nate states calmly
“The idea you need to manually release a soul is a little old-fashioned.”
“Yes, but she believed in it, that’s the point, she should be allowed to be in peace, rogue or dead, hunting her is wrong.”
After all the planning, they are here, sitting around an old nondescript table looking like it’s a normal meeting, except they are asleep, at least for now.
Toni is dressed simply in a sun dress, with no makeup, just her looking as young and as unthreatening as she can, her backpack hidden from view, holds her travelling clothes.
Toni is fully aware that she doesn’t need to dress powerfully to be powerful, but this is not just for them, this is about to be broadcast to the wolf community along with those in the Neutral and Human zones, that way it can’t be hushed up, so she wants to look as much like a fresh-faced innocent youngster as she can.
The ping on her phone tells her everything is set up and ready to go, she loads up the app, ready to record everything that goes on.
Alek starts to wake first, she watches as his face goes from confusion to understanding within a minute, the smallest flicker of fear crosses his face, brief, but it was there as he checked his restraints, standing in the shadows, he can’t see Toni yet.
One by one they wake up
“Anyone know where we are, or how we got here?” Prince Darius asks quietly.
As they each test the bonds that hold them, chains running to the floor by each chair there are murmurs of no and Toni sets the remote recording into action, along with a more local one, never hurts to have a backup.
“Need some water?”
Heads snap around to where her voice comes from, realising the who, if not the where or how, as Toni emerges from the shadows, the shock isn’t hidden in their faces, she places a bottle of water in front of them with a straw in each, opening up each on camera.
“What have you done Antonia?”
The concern is clear in Alek’s voice and not for himself, but for her.
She looks at him before speaking, Alek is the one that has the least blame in this, but he was involved and so here he is, his testimony will be needed.
“How do you feel Chief Delta?”
He’s surprised at her words
“Like I’ve been hit with a ton of bricks.
What….”
“The feeling will pass soon.” she interrupts him
There’s a spray going off regularly in the room, to mask the base scent and she is drenched in it, not wanting anyone to notice her changed smell.
This room, part of the maintenance structure, looks so unlike the ones they are used to, it’s almost poetic to think that they are still in the same building they were in for the earlier meeting.
Using their building was far easier than capturing and moving each one individually off their pack land
All of them are still drugged to keep their wolves asleep, no mind linking for them, the same drug removing their inhibitions, making them a little cocky or boastful, is a form of truth serum if you will, a gift from one of Leif's contacts.
“Thank you for all coming here”
Irony clear in her words, they didn’t exactly have a choice.
“Toni, do you understand the gravity of what you’ve done here?”
The Beta’s voice is calm throwing as much authority into his voice as he can, reaffirming Alek's earlier words
“You need to let us go before this gets worse.”
“Toni died the day you all forced me back to the Nightshade pack; I’ve told you that before”
She lets the information sink in a little, getting no argument in response, no one challenging the way she phrased it, she smiles inwardly.
“You all saw to that, along with Alpha Vincent, and we know how that worked out for him.”
“And let’s face it, the gravity of what I’ve done?” she laughs coldly
“When you imposed the death sentence on me, you took away your ability to threaten me further, what could be worse than that?
If I kill four people,”
She pauses to let the number sink in as they glance around the room
“Or a hundred more, or even live my life quietly alone, my sentence is still the same.
You see, that’s the consequence of choosing the worst of all the sentences to impose, you leave the person with nothing left to lose.
When that happens, you lose all control of them, let’s face it, what need is there for me to show restraint, when my life is already forfeited?
It’s one of life’s sweet ironies, you stripped me of my basic rights as an adult, I was forced into a life I didn’t want, and yet you still had control.
But now, with my life in the werewolf world forfeit, I have never been so free.”
She sees the realisation hit the faces of all of them, Prince Darius is the first to speak
“It doesn’t have to be a death sentence; I’m in a position to commute it to a prison term”
“And what would be the term for taking the life of an Alpha, being found guilty of Treason?
As you did for me, except without the need to present evidence or have a public trial?
Life in prison?”
She looks at him knowingly
“Well, we’d need to decide at what point you were no longer a risk to the packs…” he starts
“I was only ever a risk because I was a slave to Alpha Vincent’s command, thanks to some of you here, in this room.
And of course, my stay would be indefinite, because what pack would take me in, after I was no longer a ‘risk’, as you put it?
But the reality is being locked away for that length of time, is, in itself, a death sentence, wolf cells are not meant for long-term occupants and wolves need to run free or they go mad, we both know that, so you are offering me a long slow death.”
She holds his stare, not backing down.
“Plus, I’d have to trust you to accept that offer.” she shakes her head
“And history has taught me that I’d be a fool to do so.”
“We both know at the moment you’re trying to talk yourself out of this situation and that the offers are not real.”
She lets her hand move around the room where they are chained up.
“If I were to agree to the plan and release you all, how long would I survive?
Unless it were to be a puppet and I’ve had my fill of that life, no person will control me like that again.”
“So, what’s your plan then” Alpha Nate speaks up
“I thought it would be good to talk, and air some secrets, let’s see what secrets you’ve hidden from each other, I’m curious to know how much you all knew.
I’d have sent you invites in the normal way, but you probably wouldn’t come, and if you did, I fear it would be with warriors, so you have to excuse the current facilities…
So first we talk… then well, let’s see how honest we can be with each other.
To coin a phrase from the humans, the truth will set you free.”
A sardonic smile graces her lips
Her eyes look cold and hard, it’s a look perfected from years of closing off emotions, it’s rarely a gaze people can hold, she’s been told it’s like looking death in the face, but with her back to the camera’s, she can afford to make them worry.
Of course, there’s a plan, but always a plan, but she also knows to plan for failure and never, no matter what, tell people your whole plan.
It’s been silent for five minutes, she has fifteen more to go before she needs to take action to keep their wolves suppressed, Tyra is probing each mind gently, searching for signs of their wolves waking. This meeting will start to be broadcast in thirty minutes and that’s when she needs to have left before someone recognises the room.
Getting up, she walks behind their chairs in an arc, her feet making no sound as she walks, but she can feel their eyes watching, nervous in case she stops behind them, they know she holds the power, they justdon’t know just how much.
Her inner beast is happy, it wants justice and this is a start.