Deep Wolves (13 page)

I ran between the trees and listened to the sound of more howling. It echoed through the forest and grew louder. We were getting close to the sound. Vaughn and the Doras were moving so fast that I could no longer see them in front of us. I couldn’t stop. I had to keep going.

It had gotten to the point that the wailing was right near us. It wasn’t any ordinary howl though. It was the kind of cry that would send a chill through your spine. We were heading right into the mouth of danger. Just as I wished we could avoid any fight with what was waiting for us in the forest, it appeared we were heading right into it.

I eventually came upon a small clearing in the woods. I slowly exited the forest and found that Vaughn and the others had already shifted. They were all looking down at the ground. Instead of a fight, we had found something much worse.

There were bodies of wolves spread across the ground. They were all resting in pools of their own blood. Some of them were lifeless while others were only breathing their last breaths.

“Is this… the Capes?”

I looked around in search of an answer to my question. Vaughn inspected the ground closer and saw a trail of blood that led deeper into the forest. I followed him through the trees and just a few feet away was another opening in the woods.

We found a man lying upon the ground at the edge of a small lake. He was dark-skinned, his entire body shivering as he rested half his head in the water. When we moved closer to him, he turned around and I could see the blood pouring out of his arm.

“Stay back!”

Another voice shouted from within in the trees. We all turned to see where it had come from when a gray wolf suddenly emerged. It eyeballed all of us, slowly moving toward the man that was resting at the water.

“It’s okay,” Vaughn said as he put his hands up to try and calm the wolf down. “We are here to help. We are not the ones responsible for this.”

The wolf growled and stared hard at Vaughn shortly before shifting into a man. He was tan-skinned with a firm physique. His gray hair matched his gray eyes. Despite the circumstances, it almost seemed like there was a smile on his face.

“He’s hurt,” he muttered. “I need to get him some help.”

“We can help him,” Vaughn said. “And the others—”

“The others are already gone. The rest have gone into hiding. Help him. He is the only one left.”

Vaughn nodded to him then turned to Irvine.

“They were attacked,” Vaughn said to him. “By the same person who fired upon me.”

“
What?
” Irvine exclaimed
.
“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I can smell it. Don’t you see it? The blood of the others and this one in front of us. It is boiling just the same as mine was and now it is dripping out of him. His life is being drained from him. Irvine, you must save him. You must do what you did to me.”

“But I can’t. I don’t have the right equipment. Phoenix’s—”

“You must do something! Quickly!”

Irvine turned to the tan-skinned man who was standing over the fallen man. There was a look of desperation on his face. I didn’t know how Irvine and Phoenix had managed to save Vaughn but now another man needed to be saved.

Irvine fell down to the ground and dragged the man away from the water. He turned him onto his back and located the spot where all of the blood was coming out. Blood was pouring from the side of his arm. Irvine reached into his jacket and pulled a small dagger out. He then held it to the man’s arm and dug it into his skin. I turned my head away at the sound of steel ripping through flesh. The man howled to indicate that there were still signs of life. I slowly looked back at what Irvine was doing and watched as he dug the knife deeper into the skin. He then pulled it out and reached into the man’s arm with his gloved fingers. His fingers rested inside of him for a few moments before eventually pulling out a small object.

“His blood,” Irvine started. “You need to drain it from the wound quickly before it spreads.”

“But how?” the gray-haired man asked.

“There’s nothing else we can do. You have to suck it out manually. I can’t do it because I’m not a wolf and the blood will burn me.”

“Is this a joke?”

We all looked at the gray-haired man, who looked incredulously at all of us.

“You really expect me to fall for that?” he asked. “How do I know that his infection won’t spread to me?”

“It won’t,” Irvine said to him. “You have to spit it out before it begins to linger.”

“He’s been poisoned. How do I know that this will work?”

“You don’t know. But you don’t have any other choice.”

“Enough of this!”

Vaughn shouted and pushed Irvine out of the way. He lowered himself down and began sucking the blood out of the man’s arm. It was beginning to pour out of the wound. At the same time, Vaughn’s mouth was quickly covered in red. He spit out more and more of the man’s blood in an attempt to keep the life within him. I was worried that what the other man said was true. Vaughn had been poisoned before and the thought of him being hurt again wasn’t something I wanted to witness. But Vaughn didn’t relent. He continued to suck and spit out the tainted blood of the man until there was a small puddle of crimson right next to the two of them.

After what seemed like an eternity, Irvine placed his hand upon Vaughn’s shoulder and told him to stop. The black man’s eyes closed and his head drooped to the side.

“I-is he…”

The gray-haired man looked on in anxiety, his hand rubbing against his chin. Vaughn placed his head upon the unconscious man’s chest .

“No,” Vaughn whispered. “He’s just unconscious. He lost a lot of blood. But we will need to seal this wound.”

Irvine knelt down next to Vaughn and grabbed the man’s arm. Blood was slowly beginning to trickle out of it. Irvine then started to look around.

“Fire,” he said. “Build a fire.”

“But they’ll find us!” the other man panicked.

“I only need enough fire to cauterize the wound. Hurry.”

Cyrus and the rest of the Doras began gathering twigs and sticks that were laid around the forest. They worked together to build a small fire next to the lake. Irvine then grabbed the same blade he had used on the man and stuck it into the flames. It started to glow red hot from the heat. He brought it back to the man’s arm. The melting of flesh was loud and the smell of it forced me to cover my nose. But the man’s injury was sealed and the blood stopped.

Vaughn and Irvine stood back up and looked at the gray-haired man.

“Do you know who did this?” Irvine asked.

“No,” he shook his head. “I don’t know who it was.”

“Why did this happen?”

“I don’t know. We were minding our own business on the edge of the forest when someone suddenly started firing upon us.”

“Did you see where it was coming from?”

“I only caught a glimpse of him. It was a man. We tried to retreat but he continued to fire upon us. But he stopped. I don’t know why, but he did. You arrived only a few minutes later.”

Vaughn and Irvine looked at each other, confused.

“Did you hear any shots being fired?” Irvine asked him.

“No,” Vaughn shook his head. “And I didn’t hear shots being fired when I was attacked. Could it be…”

“But why? Why would he attack you then attack this clan? What reason is there for that?”

It was apparent to us that Vaughn’s assassin had made the trip here to New York. His motives were still unclear. After being attacked by the Nakas, we were in danger from every direction. But we did what we had to do. We finally found what we were looking for in the Bronx.

“We need to get out of here,” the gray-haired man said. “We need to get him into safety.”

He picked the man up from the ground and started to wander into the forest. We began to follow him before he stopped and turned around.

“You are this man’s savior,” he said. “But if this is an attempt at deception, you won’t leave this forest alive. We have lost wolves but there are many more of us that live.”

His threat was loud but not unwarranted. I sighed and finally started to breathe easier after everything that had just happened. I was worried that we would be caught in the middle of more violence but the worst was over for now.

Chapter 14

We followed the man through the forest eventually expecting to come upon the rest of his brethren. But instead of a forest clearing like I was expecting, he stopped in front of a wall that was covered with thick, hanging branches.

“Here.”

He motioned with his head to Irvine and Vaughn. They slowly walked forward and grabbed the branches, revealing the entrance to a cave. I got between Vaughn and Irvine as we made our way through the darkness of the cave. Slowly, light started to emanate from deep within. The small cave opening led to a larger pit deep under the earth that even I wasn’t expecting.

We stood up above on a ledge and looked down upon what looked like hundreds of wolves within their den. They were all bunched together in the center and facing us. The torches lit upon the wall allowed me to see the looks of anger on their faces.

“Brothers and sisters,” the man cried out to all of them. “It is okay. The worst is over. We have guests. Take your human forms to make them feel more comfortable.”

The wolves slowly began to shift into their human counterparts. Men and women of all shapes, sizes and colors started to appear before us. They all looked different from one another but every single one of them was just as beautiful and attractive as any other shifter I’d ever seen.

“I’m Sosa,” the gray-haired man said to us. “I am the Alpha of the Capes. And here we are before you. Come. I must lay this man down so that he can rest.”

He carried the man we saved down the steps and laid him upon a bed of fabric. Several women rushed up to him and tended to him.

“Rio will be all right,” Sosa said. “These men saved them. However, I cannot say the same for the rest of our brothers and sisters.”

The women gathered around the one called Rio and started to weep. They brushed their hands softly upon his face. Sosa turned to us and the seriousness on his face started to disappear.

“I’ve welcomed you into my home,” he said. “But something tells me you would have barged in here even if I didn’t. Do you have the answers I’m looking for?”

“The man who attacked you,” Vaughn started. “He attacked me as well.”

“And who is this man?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, that doesn’t help us much, does it?”

“I don’t know who he is but it does have something to do with the Nakas.”

“The Nakas? What business do you have with them?”

Sosa sniffed Vaughn then looked at him strangely.

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

“I am Shadow of the Rucai.”

“Rucai? I’m not familiar with your clan.”

“But you are familiar with the Doras, correct?”

Cyrus took a step forward. Sosa looked him up and down then a smirk came across his face.

“I have heard of the Doras,” Sosa said. “But their clan doesn’t hold much weight in this city.”

“We lack the numbers but I am just as strong an Alpha as you are.”

Cyrus got into Sosa’s face and growled. The grin on Sosa’s face grew even wider. Vaughn stepped between the two of them to separate them.

“Calm down,” Vaughn said. “We did not come here for a fight.”

“So why did you come here?” Sosa asked. “I’ve invited you into my home. You’re welcome to spend your time here since you did save Rio’s life. But I can’t offer you anything more. You are not of my clan.”

Cyrus had a look of frustration on his face from Sosa’s apparent disinterest. Vaughn turned to Irvine, who shrugged his shoulders and urged him to continue. Despite losing some of his wolves, Sosa didn’t seem too upset. It was impossible to tell with the smile on his face. As Vaughn tried to speak to him, two women walked up to Sosa and started to console him.

One of them had short white hair, her skin tanned just as Sosa’s was. Her slanted eyes were gray like his as well and her body just as firm. Her eyebrows were arched and her thin lips were a small mark on her otherwise petite face. The other woman was looked nearly identical except her skin was pale and her hair was jet black.

“You look tired Master Sosa,” the white-haired one said.

“What can we do to please you, my king?” the other asked.

Sosa wrapped an arm around each of them as they began to lavish the sides of his face with their tongue. I could understand why he had a grin on his face as the two women were gorgeous. But now wasn’t the time for this and Vaughn was frustrated as he was interrupted.

“We’re here because of the Nakas,” he said.

“You still haven’t told me what they have to do with this,” Sosa said, his face twisted in confusion.

“They attacked us while we were in the city.”

“Boy, you sure do have a lot of enemies, don’t you?”

“It’s not a coincidence. They’re working with this man. The Nakas will be coming for you.”

“Nonsense! We ignore the Nakas and they ignore us. Our business is our own.”

“It doesn’t matter. Something has happened. Something has changed. They’re murdering innocent people in the city.”

Sosa sighed as Vaughn had apparently gotten through to him. He pulled the two ladies away from him, much to their disappointment.

“Okay, my queens,” he said. “This will have to wait for another time. I have to listen to the rant of another serious wolf.”

“Aww!”

The two ladies seemed disappointed but reluctantly let Sosa be. While they left, Sosa squeezed one of their asses between his hand, getting a squeal of delight out of her. But even though Sosa was laughing, nobody in our party was in the mood for it.

“All right,” Sosa said. “I’m listening. You came here to tell me this. You’ve delivered your message. The Nakas are dangerous.”

“We didn’t come here just to deliver a message,” Vaughn said. “We need your help.”

“You need
my
help?”

“Yes. We need to stop the Nakas from continuing what they’re doing.”

“Ha!”

Sosa started laughing. He was so loud that the sound bounced against the walls of the cave. Some of the other Capes turned and looked at his reaction. For no reason at all, they all started to laugh along with him. I looked around. It felt strange as we were the only ones not laughing. Vaughn continued to look at Sosa sternly, no sign of a smile coming upon his face. When Sosa finally realized this, the laughter finally started to die down.