The Heat #WATTYS2019

Chapter 40

     The delegation of mated males from Shifting Sand Pack—the Capital Pack of the East Clan—had come in the middle of the night, five days before the start of the Heat. They had barged in the two female Rogues' small cabin in a forgotten packless territory of East Clan like it was theirs. The first female was useless, they'd said. She was nineteen, long past her last chance at having the heat. She was infertile, unable to have pups. Cursed.

     The second female was seventeen, almost eighteen, but they'd taken her, just in case she went into heat on her last year. They'd release her like some wild animal if she, too, could not bare offspring. That female was Sahara.

      She had fought, like her sister had taught her, using jaws like clamps and teeth like daggers and paws like heavy stones, raining hits on the adversary. She'd aimed at the eyes and throat and nose, to blind and inflict pain to slow them down. She's been taken anyway.

     But she hadn't forgotten.

     The smell of every male that had dared to harm her and her sister was imprinted in her nose.

     The smell of her sister was imprinted in her nose.

     So when she picked it up on the wind that afternoon, she didn't hesitate to howl up to the sky.

And then she turned to the black wolf at her right side and the gray one on her left, and at the white one next to the gray, and her eyes spoke for her.

She was almost home.

The Pack of twenty individuals had been trotting for two days now after the males had recovered and been introduced, and hunger was starting to claw at their stomachs, but they kept on. Who amongst them would have known why? It was a gut instinct, pulling them forward, in the direction of the North.

•••

     I tossed again, trying and failing to block out the noise and movement of Etna's restlessness. She kept getting up every few second before lying back down in a tight ball and starting the cycle once more. A soft growl rose in my throat and she stilled. I lay back down.

     And then she got up. Quiet whines were seeping from her throat, her tail swishing anxiously behind her. She turned to look at me, impatience and excitement in those amber eyes. I frowned and snuggled deeper into Fenris' white flank.

Stop.

I can't. I have this— this feeling that something big is about to happen.

Like my jaws in your face if you don't calm down? I'm trying to sleep Etna.

I know, I know, but it's eating at me and I don't know how to explain. It's this feeling I know something big—no huge—is on the brink of happening, Cassandra. I don't know what will happen but something will! she linked anxiously, curling up once more.

Try to sleep or Gods forbid I will tear your legs off so you can't move.

That's a bit extreme, isn't it?

I don't care, I'm sick of your shuffling, I nodded at a stirring Teras, and I think he is too. Wouldn't want to wake the big bad Beast.

I'm trying, Cassie, I'm trying.

Try harder.

     Distantly, I felt a slight caress on the bond, soothing and warm. Meanwhile, Fenris started licking the top of my head comfortingly, like a mother would her cub. I blinked drowsily once, twice, and then... nothing.

•••

     I woke up to Etna pacing again. Grian the Golden's fiery eye stared down at us from the blue sky, illuminating Morrigan and Lycaon trotting out of the makeshift den dug out under an overhanging rock. Fenris was still curled around me, but the small waves of awareness from the bond told me he was awake.

Will you stop with your pacing? I snapped at Etna.

Hey! You don't talk to me like that! Etna replied, teeth bared. I'm not your puppet, and if you continue like this, certainly not your Packmate!

     I rose, hackles high and muzzle set in a snarl.

Excuse me, Etna? When did I ever make an allusion to the fact you were my puppet? I don't have puppets!

Don't start with that 'I don't have puppets' shit we all know you do. What do you call Fenris, ay? Or Teras or Lycaon? They not your puppets? Then what are they, your boy-toys?

     A slash of pain struck my heart at her words. Was that really what she thought of me? Did I really use them like puppets? Vainly, I grappled at the last of my confidence. But non-Pack Wolves trying to put me down was one thing. Packmates was another. For the Packbond to form I'd had to trust Etna, and the other people of my Pack. Etna had just torn her bond from me, breaking my trust in her. It hurt like Hells.

     She wasn't Pack anymore. And if you weren't Pack you were a threat to Pack.

     I lunged at her, fangs out, ready to tear, shred, kill. She rolled under my attack, reestablishing herself in no time, and pounced on me. I growled, loud and dominant, wrapping my jaws around her throat.

Submit! I ordered through a link.

No! I don't submit to shitty sluts who think they're the reincarnation of Amarok when they visibly aren't!

     My jaws clamped down tighter.

Submit!

•••

     Sahara had never thought that the next she would see her sister was when she was sprawled underneath Cassandra, her Alpha, as the smaller wolf made her submit.

A/N) So... Yeah, I'll just run.

Have you been to prom and if yes, how was it?

Yup I was at prom last Friday. Great music, my best friend and I danced like sluts (accentuated by the fact that I, indeed, do have and ass and a smaller waist and I was reading a red bodycon dress with lace down to my feet), my crush came with another girl, but stared at me for many parts of the night (like pretty much every other guy in the room, if I do say so myself) and I found his IG today. My best friend and I did stupid shit that is biting us in the butt right now... It was great.