Gwen
I was so shocked, scared, and angry, I barely felt the cold. My emotions had numbed me. Or maybe it was the fact that this was life-or-death.
“Before I beat you half to death,” she sneered down at me. “Are you kin to Where the River Crashes Upon the Rocks?”
"I don't have any kin that are wolves." I said as I managed to get back to my feet and brush the snow off myself. I tried to stand tall but a spasm of pain went up my back. I really wasn't off to a good start. "I'm friends with Where the River Crashes Upon the Rocks and her pack."
At least she had said half to death.
I looked around the area and tried to come up with some sort of game plan. The ground was slick, which gave me my only real idea. If I could get her to slide full tilt into a tree, it might knock her out. It felt like a real longshot, though.
The goons were helping Tori walk, at least. Helping her keep the weight off of her damaged leg.
I cocked my head at the alpha. Despite the way she was talking she seemed... off.
It hit me. I was wearing the perfume. If it was affecting the alpha like it was Tori... well I wasn't sure what someone like this going into a heat state would be like. It could either make this go a lot worse or a lot better.
I had some hope.
"You gonna give your name?" I asked as I tried to make a show of stretching. "I'd prefer to know the name of the wolf I'm about to make submit to me."
Her laugh was different this time. It was ragged… unhinged.
"I am Snow Drifting Down on the Dark Waters." Her smile was too filled with teeth, her eyes wild. “But you will call me Master.”
I was going to throw her an insult, tell her I had a friend with a dog named Snow.
The words were stolen from me by a fist in my gut. She was slower than she had been, but a slow werewolf was still fast by human standards. I let out a grunt of pain, feeling her bury a hand in my hair, grabbing a fistful, forcing me to my knees.
She had pushed my face right into her mound. Her hairs ground against my face and I could smell her arousal.
Turning my head, I goaded her.
"My, is this puppy horny too?" I did my best to smirk up at her through the pain. My head hurt where she was gripping my hair, pulling at my scalp. My stomach was hurting from the punch. My whole body was aching like I had already been thrashed though. "If you wanted to experience what Tori did, all you needed to do was ask."
I got what I wanted, though I wasn’t sure if that was good or not now. She threw me at the ground, my shoulder hitting first, my head smacking against the frozen dirt next.
I wasn’t sure how I had survived it.
The sound of muscles stretching, bones popping assaulted my ears. Snow was shifting.
I pushed off the ground, feeling a chorus of snaps rip through my body. I was sure my bones were broken, but I was fine when I tried to move.
I barely managed to stay on my feet as another series of snaps ripple through my body. It felt like my body was collapsing on itself, only to barely hold on and rebuild. It hurt bad enough that I wanted to curl up into a ball and cry.
Everything hurt, but something deep inside myself said that was good. The pain was good. What I was feeling was good, not bad. It needed to be embraced. Despite part of me wanting to reject that voice, I listened. I embraced the pain and managed to lock eyes with Snow through the sudden haze in the clearing.
"Let's play, Puppy." I growled before charging at her.
* * *
Tori
I watched in shock as Gwen shifted, as she became the brute. Alpha was a blur of snapping jaws and tackles, scratches and snarls... but Gwen landed a few surprising hits before any of the three of us watching regained our voice. Her chest was heaving, gouts of steam billowing from her mouth. Blood was running down both of her arms.
"Oh shit." Fang looked at me, awkwardly given that I was still leaning on him. "You didn't say she's a wolf!"
"She's not!" Or at least... I didn't think she was. She had handled the poisons, the silver and been unaffected.
So what the fuck was happening?
Alpha was in dire, apparently taking this more seriously. And she spoke the Wolftongue as she gave Gwen some space. It was a threat, a demand for submission.
The brute that had been Gwen was not submitting. With a sneer, with an animal glee that I had never seen on that face, she taunted her again. She was smirking, but it wasn’t the sarcastic amusement. There was something new to it.
“Afraid?” They circled, Alpha snarling and snapping, warning Gwen to back down. "I think I'm going to keep you as a pet when I win, Snow. I think you need to spend some time as the lowest member of the pack so you can learn some humility. I think I can teach you to behave."
Fang and Spike instantly burst out laughing. Fang with shock, Spike with his usual twisted humor.
I wasn't laughing. Alpha was far scarier than Gwen.
"Gwen, don't!" Taunting Alpha was a mistake.
Fang turned toward me, a look of surprise in those eyes, the only eyes I could count on in this pack. "Whose side are you on, Runt?"
"Is she your girlfriend now? You gonna go save her?" Spike let go of me, leaving me to stand on my own. I yelped as my weight went fully onto my leg unexpectedly, and I flailed and reached for him again out of instinct. He stepped aside and let me fall. It was enough that Gwen took her eyes off of Alpha for just a moment, and that was a mistake.
Alpha's dire form barrelled into her, sending both of them into the snow, then Alpha was the brute, her fists slamming into Gwen's face again and again and again. I winced, I looked away... but only for a moment. I had to watch. I needed to.
Gwen’s hand lashed out, an open palm, and slammed directly into Alpha’s nose with a sickening crunch. Blood splattered, and I stared in shock. Before Alpha could react, momentarily stunned by her nose exploding, Gwen grabbed Alpha’s arm with both hands and sunk her teeth in. She tore, ripping a chunk of flesh from Alpha.
And she fucking swallowed it. Alpha’s blood stained her lips, her chin, and Gwen used that horrible moment to shove Alpha from her, regaining her feet, steam pouring from her mouth and nose as she huffed.
None of us could stand up to Alpha like this - but we tended to give up pretty quickly. She was the Alpha, after all.
And she showed everyone why. A howl of rage came from her and where her brute had been before, now stood a hulking, seven-foot-plus tall wolf on two legs.
The Beast.
"Oh shit." I wasn't sure if it came from Spike or Fang or both.
She was so fast, an open-palmed clawed hand slammed into Gwen, sending her crashing to the ground. Alpha was on top of her before I could even scream. Claws punctured Gwen's chest in three places, holding her down. The other giant hand pinned Gwen's brute by the throat.
"YIELD."
I watched in horror, still sprawled on the ground in the snow.
“You know Snow.” Gwen’s blood-smeared grin hadn’t fallen. "You can kill me or keep me, but you couldn't win without this. I beat you in a fair-" Alpha snarled and Gwen’s eyes went wide for a moment. Somehow, she managed to continue, "-fight. I didn't use silver. But you needed the beast to overtake me. I broke your nose, I took a chunk out of your arm without it. You'll spend the rest of your life haunted by that knowledge." She smiled at the three of us, but I could see the fear in her eyes. "Do you respect a pack leader that can't even win on fair grounds?"
There was no way for me to stop the trembling in my body, looking at Gwen from across the yard, looking at the beast that called the shots in my life.
...I didn't want to be in her pack anymore. I wanted to stay here with Gwen.
But none of us were going to speak out against Alpha. All three of us had the same reaction - we looked away. We said nothing. And I hated myself for it.
The sound of a sharp slap snapped my eyes back to the fight... or the aftermath.
Alpha had gone back to her brute form and was standing, the outline of her hand beginning to redden on Gwen's face. Gwen’s betrayed face. She had seen us all look away.
"Do not give me reason to kill you." She folded her arms, looking more beat up than I had ever seen her. "And I can't keep you. You're wolf. And you should have said so." Her eyes snapped to me. "You should have said so."
"I'm not. I'm a silversmith." Gwen sounded lost as she laid in the snow. "Go look in the barn if you want. My work equipment is there. Not a ton I can do with silver if I was a werewolf now, could I?"
"Your job just got a lot harder then, pup. Or fatal. Where the River Crashes Upon the Rocks is a good enough Packleader, though she is soft and her pack is soft." I stared, unsure of what to do, what to say... I had turned her. And Alpha wasn't offering to take her in.
Gwen sat up slowly, staring in some stage of shock at her own body, at her hands, at the defined muscles on her larger legs.
She was dazed, which was no surprise. "What now? Are you just going to leave? If you're going to kill me then perhaps you'll give me a few minutes to get my affairs in order."
"What now is: you're not my problem. I don't kill wolves without a good reason." My heart raced, I was already full of adrenaline from the fight. Slowly, I picked myself up, with the help of Fang.
Maybe it was the adrenaline that gave me the strength to speak out.
"Can she join our pack?"
Alpha’s eyes locked onto me. I looked at the ground instantly. “No, she can't join my pack. She is stupid and I have no interest in constantly beating her every time she heals up. Let Where the River Crashes Upon the Rocks deal with her." She glared down at Gwen, pointing a harsh, blood-covered finger. "If you were not wolf, I would keep you as a pet and burn your home to the ground. If you challenge me again, I will kill you and burn your home to the ground. We're done."
"Alpha, please! I- "
She was on me in seconds, her hand around my throat. "Quiet Runt, you turned her, you caused all of these problems because you don't listen."
Gwen snarled from the other side of the clearing. Somehow, she was already on her feet. Barely.
She half-screamed her words at us. "Tori is mine and I want your hands off of her. If you're so fucking upset with her then cut her loose. She's my mate and we can have our own pack."
...her mate? The words were a spear through my heart. She wanted me... she loved me. It was a whirlwind of emotion after all she had done to me. She had knocked me out, poisoned me, stabbed me, taken me against my will... but she had also cared for me, given me safety and comfort...
Alpha let me go, turning around. Fang was trembling ever so slightly - none of us wanted to piss her off right then. Spike had backed away.
"Your mate? What do you know of mates!?" Alpha snarled with a rage from deep inside, and I wasn't sure why. Alpha squeezed, sending fresh pain and panic through me. "The Runt is weak, and you are not fit to lead a pack. You know nothing. Go find Where the River Crashes Upon the Rocks. Learn not to be stupid."
"I know a lot more than you think." She wavered on her feet, but her eyes never left Alpha’s. "What I don't know is why you're so desperate to hold onto her. You don't want to teach her. Why not let her go so we can both go and learn from Where the River Crashes Upon the Rocks? Tori won't get strong if you won't help her get there. I want to help her."
Slowly, Alpha’s hand released my throat.
But I felt helpless as I watched the two of them just... talk about me. I was naked and tired and hurting and I just wanted to go lay down in bed... and I knew that I wanted to lay down in Gwen's bed. I wanted to be with her. I wanted her to take care of me.
"It is not her place to get strong." Alpha waved a hand at me, not even looking, and shame flooded me. "It is her place to learn that she is weak and needs her pack. She is full of these human ideas that anyone can be anything they want. They cannot! She cannot."
She was right, and it hurt. It felt like she had just torn open my stomach, like my blood was gushing from me. My emotions felt like they were spilling out of me from a wound.
Gwen started laughing. I stared in shock, scared for her, scared for me, my emotions wild inside me. And she was laughing. I didn’t understand.
"I'm apparently a newly turned werewolf. I busted your face and bit open your arm within minutes of turning. How many of your pack could do that?" She spat blood on the ground in front of her, giving Alpha that cocky smirk. "I ain't no Trueborn yet here we are. You needed to reach a form I'm incapable of ever reaching. Ask yourself Snow, if I wasn't newly turned do you really think you would have won? You were so close to losing not only the fight, but your pack. You're right. Tori does need a pack, but not yours."
"So proud, you are." Alpha spat on the ground in return. But the anger was gone from her, her voice was cold. "I fought you as I would have a human, not a wolf. You find so much pride in me taking the Wolfmother's gift, it shows how little you know. The Runt," she snapped the word, driving it home - she never used my name, "does not need my pack, but I see no other pack here? And before you ask, no she will not go with you to find Where the River Crashes Upon the Rocks, and neither will my pack." She turned back toward the three of us. "Shift. Take her back to the den."
I stared, looking to Gwen.
She was trying. She was forcing her body to take step after step, blood seeping from three horrible, round puncture wounds in her chest. Her legs shook with each movement, and I could see there wasn’t much fight left in her. It had taken everything she had just to stay standing. Her adrenaline was fading, the pain was likely getting to her.
There was such sadness in her eyes as she looked down, swaying.
She managed three words before she fell.
“I’m sorry, Tori.”