The Heat #WATTYS2019

Chapter 37

     The smell was getting stronger now, undoubtedly so. Freki was sure of it. It flew on the wind like a great raptor, beautiful and fierce and untouchable, and both he and his twin could not wait to get back to their Queen.

     While his brother worried about their impending meeting with the Queen, Geri's gut coiled and roiled in a very familiar way. Because the scents on the wind from the North weren't only carrying good news— for them at least. A slimy, oily and familiar smell coated it too. It was sickly sweet, like roses that had rotten in the sun, or a sugary syrup that clogged the senses and made one want to through it all up. Intertwined with it was the smell of a moonless night, when the eye of Ghealach the Silver did not show and murderers roamed. Luna had come back as well.

     He just hoped it wouldn't end like last time, when the crazy silver female had been killed by Amarok's sacrifice.

     He'd suffered enough.

Freki was confused with doubts and fear. He seldom showed it, but he felt, and deeply. The male just hid it behind coats upon coats of smiles and sassiness and jokes. Like wolf coats shed when summer came, only the brightest smile from a female he had not yet met would make the excess covering fall away and reveal the true him.

Of course, Amarok, or whoever she was now, would brush off the dead fur and prepare him for summer, but only his soulmate would make it come. He hoped he'd live long enough to meet her.

Too preoccupied by their thoughts, the two wolves didn't pay attention to their surroundings. It happened fast.

One second they were alone—or so they thought—and the next Geri was being bowled in from his right, and he was thrown to the side. Like a ray of sunshine rebuilding itself as soon as the shadow moved, he got back up, just to be attacked again. There were two wolves, and only one him. He fought like he was going to die, because although he was as good a fighter as they came, he couldn't beat two Wolves working for Luna.

Freki saw his brother get knocked down, and heard the whoosh of air behind him, and turned around to meet the coward that had attacked him from behind head on. Animated by a savage fury, guided by an intense need to survive, he tore into the tawny wolf's throat, shredding it. The mercenary collapsed to the ground as life bled out of him.

Freki rose his head, blood staining his coat crimson and pink, and licked his chops. He lived to fight. It was the only thing he was good at anyway. Fight and protect. Joke around maybe.

Geri was the admirable twin.

And so when a gray wolf—from the North according to his size and thick fur—leaped onto him, he gave no mercy. He wasn't nice, he was efficient. It didn't matter that the wolf smelled female. Whoever they were had wronged him.

And when he was finished with her, he attacked the ones who had wronged his brother. Like light chasing after the shadows, and the shadows hunting the light, brother fought next to brother— not only to save their one life, but to save their brother's. Because like light and shadows, one could not exist without the other.

And as the mercenaries kept coming, and as the twins kept fighting, and blood was shed, and the pile of bodies grew larger, and the stench of gore grew stronger, and they started tiring. And when they were the last ones standing, streaks of deep, flowing crimson, and half-circles of dark red marking their bodies, and only then, did they collapse, just wounded, dying wolves among tens of other wounded, dying wolves.

•••

Eclipse hated messing around. Sahara did too. It was why they made the perfect Alpha females for the small Pack of twenty females. They made the right decisions in efficient time and worked their miniature army hard. If the females wanted to survive, they needed to know how to fight. From the sunrise to the middle of the day, they trained. From noon to sundown, they hunted and travelled.