The Making of a Dark Gamma - Book 1

She gives the girl more time than she’d stated, probably closer to fifteen minutes, knowing that this has come as a shock to her probably quiet and mundane life.

“Alpha Knight, it’s time.”

Toni nods briefly to the Alpha, more to keep things calm, not because he deserves her respect, bartering with his own blood isn’t something that has a justification that she can understand, not when she knows he’s got the money, or at least access to it via a small loan.

Watching him carefully, she sees cold determination as his only daughter falls to her knees begging him not to let her go as he officially removes her from the only pack she’s known, not a single trace of remorse on his face.

The things she’d like to do to this Alpha, if she’s ever ordered to kill him, well she’s not sure she’d need to be commanded and that scares her, there’s a demand for justice bubbling deep inside her.

His Luna is devastated but trying to hold it together as she looks at her mate with open disgust.

Stepping forward and pulling her charge gently to her feet, Toni can feel the sobs wracking her body.

“We are going”

Toni’s words are calm but authoritative, knowing it’s ingrained in any wolf to follow authority, she’ll react better to that than sympathy, she follows Toni meekly as she is led away.

An hour later, they stop walking and Toni turns to face her.

“Do you know who I am?”

She nods at Toni, dropping her gaze

“Do not try and run, you won’t succeed but you will piss me off and trust me, you don’t want to do that.

Now strip, but put your pack back on with your cloak over it, I need to adjust them for your wolf form, and then we are going to run for a while.”

They ran slowly for six hours until Toni could see her charge couldn’t continue anymore, stumbling and tripping more as time went on, this trip back was going to be painfully long she thought, but at least it would give her time to school her in her new packs ways.

She’s going to have gone from one asshole Alpha, her father who wrote her into a contract, to another, Alpha Vincent, this kid lucked out.

Catching two rabbits for their evening meal, Toni cleans and skins them, all the while watched by her charge.

“I don’t eat rabbit” she announces

Toni shrugs her shoulders as she throws the meat onto the makeshift spits, she hadn’t bothered putting clothes on, the cloaks she uses are adapted to give her privacy and enough warmth.

Shredding clothes regularly just becomes expensive, not that she pays for her uniform, but it’s less time-consuming than changing all the time and leaves no trace of her passing, no evidence to follow, allowing her to travel lighter this way.

She had noticed her charge however had dressed once they stopped, clearly not as comfortable with nudity.

Once the rabbit is cooked, Toni offers her one and Louise turns her head away.

Stabbing the spit into the ground to save it for now, she takes the other one and starts to eat, saving half for the morning, it’s a light meal tonight, tomorrow, she’d try for something bigger, she just needed to be further from the pack, to stop her charge from thinking of running.

“What can I eat?” her charge asks

Toni cocks her head at the spit in the ground

“But I...”

“Then you’ll go hungry”

Cutting her off quickly, she’ll learn better that way

“If you aren’t eating you should sleep, we have a long day of travel tomorrow.”

She watches as Toni wraps her cloak around, using her backpack as a pillow closing her eyes

“Is that it?” she asks

Toni doesn’t bother opening her eyes.

“Well, I don’t intend to sing songs and braid hair around the campfire.

If you don’t sleep, or eat, that’s your choice.

Either way, we leave early tomorrow and will be travelling for twelve hours minimum”

Toni makes herself comfortable and closes her eyes.

A short while later Toni hears her taking the rabbit to eat.

“Save some for the morning, I won’t be hunting until tomorrow night.”

The bulk of the night passed uneventfully, but in the hour before dawn, Toni, well Tyra, could hear her charge moving very quietly picking up her backpack, she waited until she was moving away.

“Don’t try it.”

Her voice is louder than it needs to be and the girl gasps

“Your brothers may be waiting for you, but if the eldest couldn’t land a punch on me, how do you think the two of them will cope with the rogues that are pacing behind them?

Closing in as we speak.

They won’t kill you; they have a worse fate in mind for you.

But your brothers... Well, I guess you may not care what they do to you after you see them ripped apart”

Her charge starts to cry, Goddess this is going to be a long trip Toni thinks

“Just stating facts, tell your brothers to come into the clearing”

Getting up, she shakes her head, seeing the twin that tried to punch her and his fourteen-year-old brother come out of the shadows

“There are no rogues and we’re taking her back”

The older one blusters, holding a knife pointed towards Toni.

“You”

She points to the youngest

“and you”

Jabbing her finger in the direction of her charge

“Get as high as you can up that tree”

She looks at the seventeen-year-old and how he’s holding the knife, shaking her head

“You go too.”

Toni can see he’s about to challenge her, raising her eyes to the skies, Goddess above you are killing me, she thinks.

Toni closes the distance quickly between them, slamming the heel of her hand into his wrist, thrusting it downwards meeting her raised knee, the jolt makes him drop the knife, and seconds later she has him pinned to the trunk of the tree, hand around his throat claws out, her voice emotionless.

“Move, don’t move, I don’t care that much, but the rogues are coming and you won’t survive.

So, you may also want to retreat up a tree too.

If you don’t, know this.”

She pauses letting a sneer come on her face, she doesn’t care if he hates her, as long as he is safe, so making herself into more of an asshole isn’t a bad thing.

“I won’t mourn your death; stupidity is a choice only you can make.” she growls out

She walks away leaving him standing, almost frozen in place as he hears the howls from the rogues signifying, they are getting ready to attack, the noise finally sends him scampering up the nearest tree.

“Do you mutts know who I am”

She calls out calmly but loudly, still keeping Tyra hidden.

She’d sensed these guys were rogues, not yet fully feral, so still had some humanity to them, just lost their sense of right and wrong along with their remorse.

Ferals, well usually it was kinder to put them down without question.

With a human side still there, there’s always a chance, so let’s talk before we dance, she thinks

There’s noise as one shifts and steps out in human form, embracing his own nakedness it doesn’t embarrass her, but she can hear a gasp from her charge, he’s tall, lean and sinewy but with no real fat on him, every muscle was accentuated and for a rogue, in good condition.

“Mutts? That’s rich coming from some pack bitch” he spits out

“Why would we care who you think you are?” he sneers

“No reason, I just like to know if it’s a personal or random attack.

So today it’s random, what’s the plan?”

She pulls out two silver daggers from the internal cloak pockets slowly, the cloak shrouding her movements.

“You and the girl come with us quietly and we’ll leave the males alive.

Fight us and, well, we get you anyway and they die.”

He smirks, far too confident in his abilities.

“Ok, my terms are simpler, leave now or you all die.”

Toni hears their leader’s laughter, the sound has a maniacal quality to it, the edge of madness creeping in, he’s not all that far from losing his humanity.

As the leader lunges forward, she throws two knives towards the closest rogues, before unclipping the cloak, launching herself at the third one, shifting in mid-air, as the thud and grunts of the daggers hitting their targets resound across the clearing.

The last one tries to counter, forcing Toni to clamp her teeth around his front leg instead of his throat, he was fast, she’d give him that.

His teeth rake across her shoulder, a fatal mistake for him, as he does, she lets go of his leg, swinging her head round and up, before clamping her teeth around his throat, like a steel vice, his panic increases and he thrashes to try and break the grip, bracing her feet she rips his throat out, not much of a fight, but at least it was a quick death she thinks.

Watching as he lies dying, the sound of his last gurgling breaths echoing around the forest, as he chokes on his own blood, is never a good one, the ground is stained a deep brown, almost black, it takes less than five seconds before his eyes glaze over into death, the light gone.

She shifts and walks back and picks up her cloak before heading to the leader, her silver dagger hitting straight to his heart, pulling it out, she cleans it off on the floor, before going to the bush where the last rogue had dragged himself, his heartbeat erratic from his panic, but weaker thanks to the silver poisoning.

It was a sloppy throw, he hadn’t been fully visible, she berated herself, knowing she should have thrown at the third wolf and attacked this one.

Grabbing his shoulder, she drags him into the clearing, hearing his whimpering, the dagger hasn’t killed him yet, and it's questionable if he’ll survive, assuming she gives him that chance.

“You”

She points to Kade

“didn’t think there were rogues nearby, what do you think this is?”

The red eyes of the rogue clear in the inky darkness of the forest as she yanks the rogue's head backwards so his eyes are to the sky

She looks at Kade, face pale and shocked, he just hangs his head.

All of them look ashen and scared, she guesses her appearance isn’t helping, releasing her grip on the rogue, she steps over to the brook, washing the blood off her face and shoulder, grabbing alcohol from her bag, she cleans her shoulder wound, it’s not a bad wound, more surface damage, before taking a large mouthful of water before putting the cloak back on.

Grabbing the rogue, she bends to look him in the eye.

“Do you want to live or die?”

Her voice is emotionless as if asking if he wanted a drink.

“Fuck you” he spits at her

She nods, he’s made his decision, grabbing his head she breaks his neck, giving him a quick death, before putting his body back with the others, hiding them from the sight of the camp, retrieving her other dagger as she does so.

At least these three faces won’t burn on her conscience, she consoles herself, self-defence kills she can live with.

She kneels over each of the bodies, reciting the prayer for a lost wolf for each of them, but using the ancient language, releasing their spirit back to the Goddess before cutting a lock of hair from each and burying them together.

Turning back to the camp she looks up.

“Come down and sleep, I’ll take watch for the next few hours.”

The three siblings are all looking at her scared, not wanting to move.

“Trust me” she sighs

“If I want you dead, you would be, the trees wouldn’t protect you.”

Babysitting idiots is not her idea of fun.

“Then why did you send us up here?”

The youngest asks

“Why do you think”

He looks at her blankly

“To keep you out of my way.”

She sighs shaking her head in frustration.