Werewolf single dad, p.29
Werewolf Single Dad, page 29
“Aw, man…”
“Don’t worry, you’ve got the best security team in town.” I winked. “Five bears and another Alpha.”
As far as the bears were concerned, Dayzee was a real Alpha, so I didn’t think it was right to make them think otherwise, and the same went for Jackal and his crew.
Dayzee tucked the sheathed knife into the waistband of his sweatpants, and the rest of our dysfunctional resistance squad traipsed through the junkyard to find somewhere that would work well as our individual hiding spaces.
The bears went off ahead, and I settled on a flat patch of litter-strewn ground at the side of a mound of miscellaneous junk within close proximity to Dayzee.
I decided I was going to go into this fight bare-knuckle, but I saw the bears rummaging through the junk to try and find melee weapons on their way to searching for their own suitable spot to hide.
I had a cursory look in the junk piles around me, and I couldn’t really see what good a rusty rake or a bent-up TV aerial was going to be to me, but as I navigated the base of the junk heap a little more, I found a nice space to hide nestled between a pair of busted industrial AC units.
I leaned my elbows on top of one of the units, and I looked out at the lone Beta-Alpha scapegoat as he nervously awaited the big bad wolf to pick him up as bait.
There seemed to be no movement out there for a while, but I knew Jackal and his pack would soon be coming.
As I took to absentmindedly watching the mice and cockroaches scampering all over the piles of crap, I imagined what their lives must be like as kings of their own little trash castles, and I felt myself fall into something of a temporary God complex.
But the time for religion and imagination soon came to a grinding halt when I caught the first lingering whiff of another Alpha’s scent somewhere in the distance.
I could tell I wasn’t the only one who had caught the dangerous scent, because Dayzee snapped his head toward the junk piles and looked for me with frantic, searching eyes, and even the muffled rustling from the bears stopped as they realized The Jackal Pack was approaching.
Our Bear-Wolf resistance party waited in silence as the stench grew stronger and stronger, until finally, we heard the cackles and chatter of a rabble of raucous men, and the scent of the third Alpha was thick like smoke in the air.
I dropped into a crouching position behind one of the AC units, and I stuck my head out and watched the other side of the fence like a hawk in its nest. Sure enough, I saw a swarm of around fifteen huge-built Betas approaching, and they were led by an absolute totem of a guy, with broad muscles, thick russet hair, and a cocky swagger to his gait.
There was no doubt about it.
The Jackal Pack had come for us.
Chapter 17
Jackal led his crew up to the fence bordering the junkyard, and I saw him suddenly recoil as the combined scents of the Bear-Wolf resistance party-- mixed with a little bit of raccoon piss-- smacked him hard in the face.
“Phewwwwie!” The pack leader overacted flapping his hand in front of his nose. “He’s definitely in here, boys! And it smells like a lot of other things are in here, too!”
The pack laughed, jeered, and howled as they huffed in the strong cocktail of scents for themselves, and as they all let out overexaggerated shouts of disgust, they put me in mind of a bunch of dumb college Fraternity Chads.
As per the plan, I used my time hiding in the shadows to shift, so I’d be ready to strike Jackal as soon as the moment was right.
I was used to the pain of shifting as the skin all over my body stretched and my tendons lengthened within my twisting and tearing muscles, but it still didn’t stop me from wanting to howl out in agony every time it happened.
But the knowledge that our whole mission could be compromised if Jackal or his cronies heard me was enough to make me adhere to a strict vow of silence, and I let my body mutate into its deadliest form without so much as a whimper.
For now, Dayzee and I were both hidden from The Jackal Pack’s view among the scrap piles.
Now that I’d shifted, I had to really make sure I kept myself tucked in behind the AC units I’d taken as my shelter, because even though they were those big industrial beasts, I was still way bigger, and one whisker out of place could be enough to alert The Jackal Pack to my presence.
Because Dayzee and I were still in close proximity to one another, our scents combined to make one particularly potent Alpha perfume, and I watched as Jackal leaned left and right with his nose pointed in the air to follow the strong scent trail that would lead him to us.
Though he wouldn’t know there was an ‘us’ until the time was right.
“Goddamn!” Jackal snapped his head back and jerked it in the direction of where the bears were currently lying in wait. “It would appear the trash took itself out. There’ve been werebears in there up until very recently!”
“Maybe they’re still in there,” one Beta piped up.
“Maybe.” Jackal shrugged, and I could just about make out a sneer parting on his lips. “That’ll make things a bit more interesting, won’t it? If you see any Betas or bears, go get ‘um. Make a day of it! But leave the Alpha to me.”
I got down low behind the AC unit, and I craned my neck to see if the werebears were where I’d last seen them, but they were nowhere to be found.
I surmised they were probably already making their way through the junk piles to sneak up on The Jackal Pack and engage them in our planned Guerilla maneuver.
Next, I carefully leaned back around the AC unit, and I looked to see how Dayzee was doing.
The Beta was standing in the same spot we’d planted him in with his eyes closed and his fists clenched, and I could see he was muttering to himself and trying to control his fearful, rapid breathing.
“You’re doing great, just stay calm and stay right there,” I whispered as I looked at Dayzee, and I hoped my message of support would somehow get across to him.
With Dayzee and the bears all seemingly sticking to their orders, I turned my attention back to Jackal, and I saw he was assessing the height of the fence and scanning its perimeter for an entrance to the junkyard, much like Dayzee and I had done when we first got there.
Something in the nearby distance caught the Alpha’s eye, and he leaned down to look along the bottom of the fence, directly at the mound of fresh-dug earth from the tunnel the bears had made.
“Aha!” The pack leader crouched down to the hole in the ground. “Looks like those good-for-nothing bears are good for something-- dumb shits have left a tunnel for us to get in!”
Jackal’s pack of yes-men Betas all praised their leader for his ‘good eye,’ and they continued hooting and jeering as they all made their way along the fence and down through the tunnel.
Jackal was the last of the pack to come through the tunnel, and he made sure to take his purple peacoat off and hand it to one of the Betas, who was waiting on the other side of the metal slatted fence, before dragging himself through the dirt to get into the junkyard.
Once everyone was on the other side of the fence, Jackal put his jacket back on, and he led his murderous brigade deeper into the junkyard.
And it didn’t take long for his keen sense of smell to lead him directly to our live bait.
I wanted to step forward and help Dayzee, but I needed to let the bears start their sneak attack on the Betas, then I could make my move.
Our foe Alpha squared up to our faux Alpha and towered over him, and though Dayzee stood his ground and stared up into Jackal’s eyes with his teeth bared, I could tell he was absolutely shitting himself with terror.
And Jackal could clearly tell, too.
“My, my…” The russet-haired Alpha looked menacingly down over Dayzee. His voice was smooth, but it had a threatening sort of edge to it. “If you ain’t the smallest Alpha I’ve ever seen… but the stench you’re kicking off-- Phew! It’s potent! You must transform into something amazing when you shift. I can’t begin to imagine it… Oh, the suspense is killing me!”
The Jackal Pack leader exposed his sharp teeth as he grinned and feigned a lunge at Dayzee, and the Beta instinctively flinched, much to the amusement of the yes-men.
“What could be hiding in this tiny package?” Although he’d only just put it on, Jackal started to shake off his precious purple jacket. “I don’t think I can wait any longer to find out…”
The time for me to stage crash this showoff’s one-man show was imminent, but I was still waiting for the werebears to start their attack like we’d planned.
Fuck it. If the werebears weren’t going to sneak-attack the Betas from the back in the next few seconds, then I was just going to have to go in for Jackal now.
I needed to get a shot in before he shifted into his notorious behemoth form.
I couldn’t help but feel slightly frustrated, and I craned my neck to try and spot the werebears.
At first, I still couldn’t see them, but a huge sense of relief washed over me when I spotted five fully transformed monster bears emerging through the edges of the junk forest with catlike tread. Then I held my breath as they spread themselves out behind the back row of un-shifted Jackal Pack members with all the stealth of a team of trained assassins.
Jackal had half-taken his jacket off, but he was still making his last few threatening remarks to Dayzee, who was taking it like a pro.
I readied myself to leap over the AC unit and fly at Jackal, and I kept the bears in my sight as I held my breath for just one moment longer while they found their final positions.
I saw a couple of The Jackal Pack members suddenly stand to attention, and their nostrils flared with the sudden fortified scent of werebear that had gathered around them. But, before they even had the chance to turn their heads, all five of the bears leaped into the crowd and began furiously and mercilessly tearing the jacked-up Jackal Pack Betas limb from limb.
In mere seconds, the junkyard was awash with a spray of crimson, and pink organ matter splattered over the scrap and the treasure as the werebears clamped their jaws around the heads of the unsuspecting Betas and burst them like overfilled water balloons.
Five Betas were dead in a millisecond, but ten more shifted in the same instant, and I could see now how The Jackal Pack had been successful in all their prior coups.
The Jackal pack turned around to fight the werebears, and our allies lunged forward to take the whole lot of them on.
The Betas were extremely fast at shifting, and somehow almost as big as Alphas, and I could only imagine how big Jackal was going to get.
As much as I wanted to stand around and see how the battle with the bears played out, Jackal was exactly who I had to turn my attention to.
The pack leader had turned around along with the rest of his pack when the commotion caused by the bears began, and he hadn’t shifted yet, but I could see he was about to.
Now was my chance.
Everything was going according to plan, but I couldn’t have anticipated the sudden burst of bravery that came from Dayzee, which was totally heroic but may have acted as a little bit of a wrench in the works.
My feet faltered, and my brain and eyes could barely register the moments as the faux Alpha reached underneath the sweatband of his pants, pulled out the silver knife, and flicked its sheath off to plunge the long blade into Jackal’s side while his focus was on the carnage that had befallen his pack.
The russet-haired Alpha let out a howling yell as the silver blade pierced his flesh, and he flung his precious purple peacoat to the ground as he bared his teeth with violent indignation toward Dayzee.
That’s when I knew shit had really hit the fan for Jackal.
The Alpha smacked Dayzee hard in the chest with a backwards sweep of his huge hand, and it sent the small Beta flying across the junk-laden terrain like a flicked flea.
Dayzee had let go of the knife’s handle, and it was still sticking out of Jackal’s side as the Alpha stalked his prey down with murderous intent in his eyes.
Then Jackal pulled the blood-dripping knife out from his own flesh and marched toward Dayzee with it held high above his head.
“You’re fucking dead!” the Alpha gnashed his teeth and snarled, and Dayzee laid on the ground, completely frozen in fear.
Shit. Now I really had to move.
I took a running jump toward one of the heavyweight AC units, and I used it as a pommel horse to vault myself toward Jackal at amazing speed.
I flew through the air with my claws outstretched, and I slammed into the Alpha just as he was about to dive on top of Dayzee.
The knife flew out from his grasp and clattered against the shards of metal on the ground, and the pair of us rolled through the terrain as all kinds of garbage and shrapnel stabbed into us, like we were the trash-attracting protagonists in a real-life game of Beautiful Katamari.
I was fully shifted while Jackal was not, and I had him pinned underneath me, with my claws submerged deep into his flesh.
“Pick on someone your own size, asshole!” I bared my fangs and threw my head toward Jackal’s soft human neck, and it looked as though I could have already had the battle in hand.
But, in the blink of an eye, this buff, russet-haired humanoid summoned the strength of ten men, and he threw me off him and transformed himself into the biggest, most nightmare-inducing Alpha werewolf I’d ever seen.
Shit. They weren’t joking when they said this dude was ungodly.
Now that he’d shifted, Jackal’s eyes were like two glowing yellow bowls of acid, and his teeth were like those of a saber-toothed tiger’s.
The Alpha’s mouth foamed, and his teeth glistened with thick drool as he fixed his shocking yellow eyes onto me.
I quickly rose to my feet, and the two of us snarled as we circled each other like a pair of fighting dogs. Behind Jackal’s barrel-sized head, I just barely caught a glance of the carnage that was still ensuing between the yowling Jackal Pack and the bears, but then I lunged at the Alpha and sank my claws into his huge forearms.
I gnashed my teeth at Jackal’s face while the Alpha drilled the claws on one of his hands into the side of my head and pushed my spring-trap jaws away, and I felt a searing pain in my torso as he brought the other handful of claws forward to slash at my stomach.
With my claws sunk into Jackal’s arms, it was like he became my puppeteer, and I realized I wasn’t going to be able to get close enough to Jackal’s neck to bite it out that easily. So, I quickly released my grip on his forearms using the same motion I would if I was scooping up handfuls of sand, and I tore two jagged clumps of his flesh away from his arms. Then I repositioned my claws into his chest in the hopes that I would be able to hook a claw through his heart or his lungs between the prison bars of his ribcage.
I pulled my dagger-like claws in repeated horizontal motions like I was a dog digging a hole to hide a bone, and I watched as a waterfall of blood cascaded down from Jackal’s chest and soaked the fur on his stomach.
Unfortunately, Jackal stopped me digging for gold by picking me up by the scruff of the neck and Hulk-slamming me down hard onto the ground, where he proceeded to place his enormous leather-padded foot down on top of me and dig his heel deeply into my pelvis.
Sit-ups always were easier when you had a workout partner to hold your legs down, though, and I sprang up like my waist was on hinges and snapped my jaws shut on one of Jackal’s clawed toes. Then I ripped it off in one feral motion, like I was tearing a mouthful of raw meat clean off a T-bone.
I never expected it to be so soon after my wife died that I’d have another werewolf’s toes in my mouth, but I guessed that would just be another thing I’d have to ask Katherine’s forgiveness over.
For the first time in our battle, the monstrous Jackal let out a pained roar, and he instinctively pulled his foot back and gave me the millisecond I needed to roll out from under it.
I jumped to my feet, and I spat the clawed toe out onto the ground in front of the foot it had belonged to until recently.
Jackal glowered at me with his ears flat against his head and his teeth bared as we began circling each other again, and in between flashing my eyes toward Dayzee-- who was cowering behind an empty car chassis-- and pricking one ear up at the sounds of the bears and Betas struggling, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Jackal’s blood-pissing toe wound had already healed.
I looked at the lacerated stripes that should have still been raw on his chest, and at the fistfuls of flesh that should have been hollowed out from his arms, but they were all pretty much fully healed.
So, not only was this guy bigger than me, but he could also heal himself in unprecedented record time.
How the fuck was I supposed to win this?
I wasn’t sure right now, but I sure as hell wasn’t about to throw in the towel.
I had two children to get back home to. They had just lost their mother, and there was no way I was about to let this jerk-off take their father away from them, too.
The thought of their little faces when I’d see them at home gave me all the strength and courage I needed, and I lunged at Jackal again as a guttural snarl rumbled in my throat.
The Alpha and I locked our claws into one another, and we engaged in a vicious tango as we snapped our jaws at each other’s faces.
Jackal used his lumbering stature to try and topple me over like a Sumo wrestler, but as I pushed my weight forward to try and stop him from putting me back onto the ground, I was hit with a sudden bolt of inspiration.
Jackal was trying his hardest to push me onto the ground, so why not lean into it?
I stopped pushing Jackal back, and I twisted and pulled from him so suddenly that the Alpha ended up falling face-first to the ground. Jackal put his hands out in front of him to catch his fall, and I was able to jump clear as the ten-ton Alpha smashed into the ground like a falling tree.
