Deep Wolves (14 page)

“Wait,” he said. “You’re serious.”

“Yes.”

“No,” Sosa shook his head. “No, no, no. You’re not from around here, so I don’t think you understand.”

“I do. The Nakas have already killed dozens of people. But I know that there are thousands of them. I know that they are holding back.”

“Yet you still persist.”

“Yes. They must be stopped. We can’t do it alone. We must join together and stand up against them. Maybe we can negotiate with them so that they’ll return to peace. Like it’s always been.”

“But you need my help to do it?”

“There are only a few of us. If we get enough of the clans to join together, then maybe we can reason with the Nakas.”

Sosa sighed after listening to Vaughn’s reasoning. He paced back and forth in his spot, his head drooping down while he stared at the ground. We all patiently waited for his response. There were hundreds of Capes in this cave alone and if we could get their support, it would increase the size of our union exponentially.

He finally raised his head back up after a few moments. His face was scrunched with indecision as he scratched his gray hair.

“This doesn’t sound like it’s going to work,” he said. “It sounds like you’re going to get us all killed.”

“Some of you have already died,” Cyrus interjected. “Would you not avenge the loss of your brothers?”

“They’re at peace now,” Sosa reasoned. “Vengeance would not bring them back. I only care about the comfort and safety of those who are still here.”

“You have no honor!” Cyrus shouted at him.

“Who is this guy again?” Sosa asked Vaughn.

Once again Vaughn was forced to separate Cyrus from Sosa. While Sosa crossed his arms and chuckled, Cyrus bared his teeth and snarled at him.

“Stop!” Vaughn yelled. “I did not come here to start a war.”

“But you did,” Sosa said to him. “You come here asking for me to comply with your wishes because you have personal business with the Nakas. I will not put my people in further danger simply because you told me to.”

“We saved your brother. Rio would be dead if we had not come along.”

“And I have repaid your generosity by offering you my hospitality and lending you my ear. I have listened to your request and I have deemed it unreasonable. We will not leave the safety of the cave. At least, for now. I am the Alpha of the Capes and that is my decision.”

“Coward!” Cyrus yelled.

“The insults of an inferior clan do not hurt my feelings. Bite your tongue before you and the rest of your brothers meet an unfortunate end.”

Vaughn raised his arm and held back Cyrus, who was now growling with frustration with the rest of his men. I leaned in closer to Irvine and worried that they might begin to fight right in front of me. I wasn’t sure that Vaughn would be enough to hold them back. It was beginning to look like a bad idea that Cyrus brought some of his clan along with him.

“Are you done?” Sosa asked. “Because I have listened to your request and I have refused.”

“So you refuse to defend your brothers and sisters?” Vaughn asked. “You refuse to protect your territory?”

“I said no such thing. When and if the Nakas decide to invade, we will stand up for ourselves. But we will not go picking fights with the thousands because a single man decided he wanted to go hunting in the middle of the Bronx.”

Sosa seemed steadfast in his decision. Vaughn turned to Irvine, who could only shrug his shoulders to say that he had no idea what to do next. Cyrus had calmed down but he offered no solution to our dilemma. We had come out here looking for an alliance but Sosa had no intention of making one. Vaughn walked up to Irvine and I listened as they discussed their next move.

“I guess we move on to the next clan,” Irvine said.

“We don’t have a choice,” Vaughn replied. “He simply refuses to listen. I was beginning to see what Cyrus said. He is not like any wolf I’ve ever known and unlike any leader I’ve ever heard of.”

Resigned to our defeat, we turned our backs to Sosa and slowly started to make our way out of his cave. I looked back one last time and watched as the two women once again joined him. With a woman at each side, I could see that Sosa had no reason to become a part of this. The grin on his face was practically painted on and there was no doubt what they had planned next.

As I watched them, something came over me. Everybody else was leaving the cave but I just stood there and watched them. I started to walk back toward Sosa. He didn’t notice me standing in front of him as the two ladies had already gotten his attention.

“Please,” I said.

All three of them turned their attention to me.

“Please,” I repeated. “We need your help—”

“Ariel…”

Vaughn saw that I was pleading with him and made his way back to me. He grabbed my arm and tried to lead me away but I pulled it from him.

“Please. We need your help,” I said. “
I
need your help. We’ll do anything for you. Whatever it takes. We can’t do this alone. If you don’t, they’re going to kill us.”

“Ariel…”

Vaughn once again tried to grab me and pull me away but I stood my ground. Sosa looked at me curiously, his eyes narrowed with a look I couldn’t describe. He lowered his arms from the ladies and slowly started to walk toward me. He looked me up and down and the smile suddenly appeared on his face.

“You… You’re not a wolf,” he sniffed into the air. “You’re a human… I couldn’t smell it because you were masked by the stench of the others.”

Cyrus heard the comment and started to growl. Sosa started to rub his hands together as he continued to eyeball me.

“So you’ll do
anything
for the support of the Capes, you say?”

Vaughn growled and raised his hand up in front of me.

“Erase those thoughts or I will erase them for you,” Vaughn snarled at him.

The look of desire in Sosa’s eyes disappeared and was replaced with confusion.

“You?” he said. “But she’s a human. A human and a wolf… I… Hmm, I’ve never heard of that before. But I must say that I am intrigued…”

“She is my queen,” Vaughn growled. “I will send you to Hades before you—”

“Now, now, Shadow. I have no interest in fighting over a human. But this girl… Ariel, he said your name is? Ariel, you’re different. Your smell is… You smell like one of us.”

I swallowed as Sosa lowered his head closer to me and sniffed me. Vaughn raised his hand and pushed him away. The two ladies with Sosa gasped and the rest of the cave took notice. Some of the men that were lying down started to stand up. But Sosa only smiled and calmed them down.

“Settle down, my brothers,” he shouted. “Nothing is going to happen.”

He looked me up and down and then sighed. It felt strange being in the presence of so many men and women and being one of the few that was wearing clothes. I knew what was going through Sosa’s mind but I also knew that I wasn’t in any position to protest.

“Fine,” Sosa said. “You want the allegiance of the Capes? Then you have to do me two favors.”

“Two favors?” I said. “Wh-what are they?”

“The first is to feed my clan.”

“You want us to get you food?”

“Not just any food. You’re right. I am tired of the Nakas’s stranglehold on this city. We never get anything besides what’s available in the forest. Sometimes our human instincts kick in.”

“So what do you want exactly?”

“Donuts. Cakes. Pies. Candy. Sweets. Sugar…”

“
What?
”

“You heard me.”

“This is stupid,” Cyrus grunted. “Shadow, rip his head off and be done with him.”

“Silence! This is not your decision to make. Shadow, Ariel, will you complete this request for me?”

“You want us to go into the city and risk our lives for you… for junk food?”

“You said
anything
. But since you didn’t really mean
anything
, this will have to do.”

I looked at Vaughn to see what he was thinking. He nodded his head to me. We both knew that we didn’t have much of a choice. I swallowed and looked back at Sosa, who was patiently waiting for our answer.

“What is the second favor?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you when you come back with our feast.”

He winked at me then returned his attention to the two ladies with him. I sighed and made my way back to the rest of the group with Vaughn. We all stood around each other and decided what to do next.

“Well, you heard him,” I said. “ We have to go get him what he wants.”

“You are targets in the city, not my clan,” Cyrus said. “I will not risk my life to get
candy
for this idiot.”

I looked around the cave and at all of the men and women that occupied it. There were hundreds of them just lying around peacefully. If we could get their allegiance, it would be a huge step in the right direction.

“How are we going to get that much candy here?” I asked.

“I’ll contact someone,” Irvine said. “They should give me something big enough to haul it in.”

Chapter 15

Cyrus returned to his territory with the rest of the members he had brought with him. Once again, Vaughn, Irvine and I were forced to venture into the city to fulfill the first of Sosa’s requests. It wasn’t just going back into the city that was the problem. We had to figure out how to get enough sweets to feed the entire clan. Irvine made a phone call to The Agency and they managed to provide him with a van that had to space to hold it all.

“Did you tell them what it was for?” I asked him.

“Ms. Everhart. How would you respond if I said I needed a van to go trick-or-treating with?”

He smiled at me and I was reminded of just how ridiculous Sosa’s request was. Nonetheless, we were on our way back into the city. I’d never felt so nervous before away from the forest. New York City was so warm and inviting when we first arrived. Now I feared that there was something lurking behind every corner.

The van was parked just outside of an empty building on one of the streets in the Bronx. My clothes were dirty and tarnished from our long journeys into the woods. Vaughn’s clothes were torn and practically hanging off of him. Irvine was the only one of us who looked somewhat normal, dressed in the same motorcycle jacket and pants he wore when I first saw him. We managed to make it to the van without drawing any attention to ourselves.

Irvine drove the van through the streets and I was able to see what the city was like during the day. The sidewalks were packed with people going about their day. The streets were filled with cars and cabs. In some alleys, there were homeless digging through trash cans and sleeping on the pavement. I felt somewhat ashamed that it was this and not the busy streets that reminded me of home. I reached into my pocket and searched through my phone to see if there were any messages for me. I managed to tell May that everything was okay so far before the battery ran out. A part of me wanted to tell her to come out and help me but I knew that there was nothing she—or anyone else—could do.

We managed to find parking outside of a supermarket in the city. We all took a shopping cart and we quickly looked for the section where all of the sweets Sosa desired were. The circumstances of our situation were already unusual enough. We were searching for candy for a clan of werewolves. But even though nobody knew that, our appearance alone was enough to draw strange glares from all of the other shoppers. We began fitting as much candy as we could into the carts.

“Who’s paying for all of this?” I asked as I filled my cart.

“You are, Ms. Everhart,” Irvine said to me.

“
What?
I don’t have any—”

I rolled my eyes at him after he smiled. I only had a few dollars on me. I knew that The Agency was backing Irvine but I wondered what they would think if they knew what he was using the money for.

“Are these any good?”

Vaughn held up a box chocolate snack cakes. I laughed at him but he seemed genuinely curious about them.

“Because they look good,” he said.

“I can make you something better than that,” I said. “Besides, I still owe you for the cake you baked me earlier.”

“I think it would be easier to just buy them. I should have just bought you a cake. I think you would have liked it better.”

“Vaughn…”

I sighed at him. He shrugged his shoulders then dropped the box of chocolate cakes into his cart. We cleared the entire aisle out. Our carts were loaded with every single sweet that was on the shelves. Donuts. Cakes. Pies. Cookies. Candies. Everything Sosa had requested was sitting inside all of the carts we had prepared. While I waited for the cashier to finish totaling everything up, Vaughn and Irvine quickly started to load all of our offerings into the back of the van. We couldn’t waste a second longer in the city. I nervously tapped my foot on the ground as the cashier scanned each of the items one by one. When she finally finished, Irvine handed her a wad of bills and we all finished loading up the van.

With the van completely stocked, we locked it up. Before we got inside, I noticed that Vaughn was standing there and looking out into the city. His head was held high and he looked lost in thought.

“Can you sense them?” I asked him. “Are they out there?”

He closed his eyes for a second then exhaled a deep breath.

“I can feel… something. But they are not here. Let’s go. Quickly.”

We hastily made our way into the van. I couldn’t lock the door fast enough. I sighed a deep breath because we managed to make it this far without getting killed. But I couldn’t completely shake the feeling that there was something out there waiting for us.

Irvine navigated his way through the streets and we lost ourselves in the traffic.

“Have you ever heard of anything like this before?” I asked. “A wolf with a sweet tooth…”

“I don’t know wolves long enough to know their personal tastes, Ms. Everhart,” Irvine said to me. “But there are wolves of all shapes, sizes, colors, ages… Just like humans. It is an odd request but not completely unreasonable. I’m beginning to see why Cyrus was hesitant to speak to Sosa in the first place.”