Before the alphas could begin to ask what was the situation that had folded out before them, a 19 year old girl dressed in a very short red dress stepped forward. She could barely speak through her slurred speech from the no longer hidden bottle of booze in her hands. Her hair was knotted and sticking up, her make up wiped and smudged across her face. She clearly had many a partner over the time of the party.
"You guys always ruin everything," she stumbled forward, "You always have to be the center of attention and have everyone worry about you....you whores!"
My head turned achingly slow to face her completely as a sigh left my nose. I locked eyes with the girl, "I think you have been the center of attention in plenty of private circumstances tonight."
She went to reply when her face scrunched up at a smell. You heard a word slip quietly from her lips as she stared by the main doors. A sort of average looking male with sandy blonde hair and grey eyes looked back at her. His expression blinked from surprise to pain. His head dropped and he turned away without a word to her. She scampered after him, her heels wobbling under her drunk walk. She left a heavy scent of perfume, alcohol, and sex in her wake. It took us a long while to focus back. At this point, the packs had found each other, forming groups around the room as they stared skeptically at their alphas.
That is when Alpha Harris, my alpha, walked into the ballroom. He stared at each of us girls in turn in confusion. "Well, it seems that you all have become the full hybrids."
"We need to talk, perhaps it would be better for us to go to one of the conference spaces while the others return to their festivities."
The girls and I shared a look before nodding. We let Claire go first, barely cutting off the man we saw looking at her earlier. Sherri made quick work of him though, and he was hanging from the chandelier by his suit coat as we walked out. That didn't seem to help the air of the situation, the alphas lining up behind us as if we were prisoners going to whatever end was set out for us. This was the moment we knew, that even though we had no true idea what any of us were like, we only had each other and that we had to band together. Whatever came, it would be us. Something scared me thought, about myself. When I entered that ballroom again, I felt no sympathy for their fear. It filled me with a pride I did not enjoy. I felt an anger burning in my soul for those people, and I was afraid on where my path was truly leading me.
The room was silent as we were made to sit down with all the exits covered by the alphas. This made me nervous, and the other girls seemed to tense up at the action. We watched them file in slowly and they looked unhappy.
"Girls. We need to talk."
We didn't answer.
"You've set off a beacon tonight. Now, it isn't your fault for shifting, that is something that cannot be controlled. Now..one of you decided to run off. We now have alarms going across the pack lands stating hunters have been passing through the area. We have confirmation of a hunter vehicle being in front of the apartments as you ran out, Morgana."
I locked eyes with the alpha speaking. My head tilted slowly and I placed my hand on the table. My nails clicked against the metal table. "Why would they have been so far into our territory without anyone being informed sooner?"
There was a silence for a moment. The alphas glanced around, looking at each other for an answer. It started to get rather stiff in the room as no one could answer the question. I sighed deeply.
"Should we now start assuming that we just communication issues or that we have compromises in our ranks?" I gave a pointed look to the alpha who stated the information. "Please tell me why it took you all so long to get the information to everyone? This party should have never happened if they were even on the border."
"It is tradition." Someone mumbled around the room.
"We have broken tradition before for less dangerous things." Sherri pulled something from her pocket. It turned out to be her phone and she pulled up a few videos of a very drunk Alpha and some rather interesting incriminating videos showing that they were home partying when they should have been at the new crowning of the wolf queen. To explain, the wolf queen isn't actually a queen that rules over the people. It is sort of like show casing of someone who supposedly represents the goals of the packs and such. Normally it is just the college girls who party too much and such. So I guess they do represent most of the packs. It is supposed to be a position of honor, but I suppose that every position of honor gets tarnished after a while.
"So why was this not postponed? Who told you where these hunters where coming from?" This came from Kat, who was writing things down into a small note book at a fast pace. Where did she get that? Where did she keep it? Before anyone could answer our questions or own up to the videos, someone burst into the room shouting that the hunters are moving in closer into the pack territory towards the family homes. They don't seem to be after anything specific, but they have a few trucks for a possibility of multiple kills. The girls and I nod and with out permission from anyone else in the room, took off down the hall. Some of the older males and females were moving the younger ones out of the lower ball rooms and into safe rooms.
We ignored the shouting behind us as we burst into the lobby and through the outer doors. The rain was still coming down in sheets, our feet were sliding all along the side walk and asphalt as we struggled to cross the road. After a few near misses and falling down the ditch to avoid getting hit by a semi, we looked around to make sure no one could be seen from the road before shifting.
Shifting into our wolves to run was the smartest option, we didn't need much to track them as they had blooming spotlights in the distance. The pads slammed on the ground rhythmically as we closed the gap between the trucks. It was odd, they didn't seem to be moving like they should. We made good time and soon we were running side by side with the vehicles. There was a large group. There were at least three males each in two of the trucks, then the last truck has two females and one child. I couldn't tell an age very well but looked to be middle-school age. I couldn't see the drivers, but there seemed to be at least two people in each of the front cabs. We kicked it up a notch or two and made it onto the road a mile up from the trucks. We stayed as wolves as we saw the beams coming down the road. The trucks' tires squealed to a stop about 3 feet from us and the sound rifles being lifted and set on the tops of truck cabs were loud against the night silence. We stay low to the ground, but otherwise don't move or make any noise.
They watched us closely, waiting for us to probably make a threat to them. One of the cabs opened and an older man leaned out of it. He stared down at us for a while before his eyes widened in shock. He mad the others lower their weapons and stepped out of the truck. As we saw the weapons disappear, we looked around at each other before shifting. We stood up in a line and watched everyone still cringing at the cracking noises echoing through the night air. The rain soaked us once again and the man who got out of the truck had to keep wiping his brow to try and see properly. I couldn't see all the people in the back of the trucks and to be honest, not all of them that I could see looked human. Why were other creatures hunting with the humans.
"Identify yourselves." Sherri shouted over the roar of the rain. No one answered for a long time. The air seemed to shift and everyone was definitely all suspicious of each other. I heard a gun move and saw the shift of light from the back of the middle truck and the wind decided to pick up at that moment, shifting into our faces. An overwhelming scent hit me, and I went on alert looking for it. I wish I hadn't. Everyone else seemed to notice the change in my behavior and Claire went to grab my arm to pull me back. It was covered by a heavy scent of cologne that was slightly overwhelming and seemed ridiculous to me. There was a deep smell of cigarettes as well, and a cheap laundry soap that I had only smelt when I worked at the pack house. I found it interesting how easy it was to pull apart the applied scents from the natural ones. The natural ones were a little different, it was a deep spice that I couldn't identify and the smell you get from burned wood after they turn to embers. There was the smell of salt blended in as well that made it odd but not unpleasant.
The man who stood up from the back of the middle truck was tall, with a look that he had worked out in the sun most of his life. His shaggy black hair fell into his eyes and I am not sure how he was able to actually see out of his rifle. I couldn't even see what his eyes looked like, only seeing a scar across his lips and a chain with a jewel hanging around his neck. There was a shimmer that seemed to follow him in a way and I started to realize that he was something that I had never encountered before. I couldn't get a read on what he was though. The humans seemed to shift in concern and I try to regain my composure and ignore who is standing in that truck.
The old man had made his way in front of us, and had the same shimmer as the man in the truck. He stood his ground in front of the four of us. He looks us over before tilting his head to Claire. "So you're the only alpha heir here, so what do you think you all could do?"
"Identify yourself," Sherri demanded again.
"Lokat, and you?"
"Sherri. Why are you coming through here? What are you looking for?"
The humans seemed to shift and started to look at their rifles again, there only seemed to be a few that were not human. They all had that shimmer that seemed to almost make them look like mirages. The humans seemed to be the ones that were the people marketing this trip and were really angsty to get to what ever they were hunting. I watched them start pacing and I stepped up to Lokat. "If you are here to hunt wolves, you are not welcome here and you have one chance to get out."
There was a growl type sound that came from the middle truck and I heard someone jump onto the asphalt. There was a low buzzing coming from the south and the humans started to all point their rifles at us once again. Lokat shook his head, trying to keep things relaxed. The buzzing slowly began to get louder. It seemed to unnerve the humans and the other two beings with the shimmer got out of the vehicles and stepped towards Lokat. I started to back towards the girls and Lokat seemed to make a truce with us in that one moment to figure out that sound. The girls and I had to place some earplugs in to attempt to ease that pain of the noise on our ears. We turned around, our backs facing the trucks as to try and watch if it was coming from behind us. The other group did the same. As we all sort of backed into each other, I bumped into a body and was sent numb where I hit the person. Before any other reaction could be understood, a group of shadows came rushing over the horizon and the buzzing noise was louder than ever.
The humans let out a few shots into the air but obviously that wouldn't stop shadows. The shadows combined into one spiral and bent down, the speed indescribable. I watched frozen as the spiral passes the tree line and is headed straight for Lokat. Without thinking, my body worked on autopilot to step in front of him and take the spiral head on. The world goes black.