Tori
My heart was breaking. There was no hope of stopping the tears that ran down my face, freezing when they hit the ground.
"Shift." Fang gave me a nudge, his voice firm but quiet. "Let's go."
"But... what about Gwen? We can't leave her here, we can't leave her out in the cold." My heart was breaking. My mind was racing, trying to figure out a way I could convince them - but Alpha didn't listen to anything but force. "We're not leaving her here like this."
Her body twitched on the ground, returning to her human form.
Alpha snapped at me. "I told her to be smart. Instead she decided to be stupid and pass out in the snow. If she dies it's her own fault. I gave her many chances to live already, she's not the pack's problem."
"We're moving her inside, then we go. Not before." I shifted, taking the brute form so I'd be better able to carry her and began limping over. Fang put a hand on me, but I brushed it off. "I don't want to be here anymore." I'll come back after dark... "But I..."
My heart was pounding - Alpha was injured but there was no way I was going to be able to fight her off. My only hope was that she would let me. Maybe that was the key. She just needed to see my throat.
"I understand that I'm weak. I... I'm not going to try and stay with her, I need my pack. But she's a wolf, and we shouldn't leave her to die before she even has a chance to learn what that means."
Alpha stepped in front of me, inches from my face. She gave one breath before she grabbed me by the wrist, pulling, and threw me several feet across the clearing. The landing hurt, a dull thud barely silenced by the snow. The thing that shocked me most was how I had managed to forget just how strong she was in a few very long days. The snow was so cold against my hands and knees as I pulled myself up, not realizing she was already kneeling beside me until she spoke.
"You know what, runt? Fine. I am not so blinded with pride that I can't concede to a fair point. Why not let the silversmith try to figure out what her life is now. She'll get to spend the rest of it with the gift you gave her." She stood, not bothering to help me. "Spike. Fang. Move her inside. Beware of silver, it's all over the damn place. Find a bag and take any good looking food or expensive looking items. It'll be her payment for dragging her inside."
I wasn't going to challenge her.
My only hope, really, was to run away under cover of night and come back here.
I didn't care that we were robbing her - she wasn't going to need money or shelter anymore, she wouldn't need to buy food unless she just wanted the taste. Gwen had told me many times that she knew much more than I did about being a wolf - now she'd have the chance to prove it.
As the two males carried her none-too-gently into the house, I shifted, taking my wolf form - it was still so much easier to favor one leg this way.
Den. Warmth. Safety.
I spoke the wolf language at Alpha, wondering if she wanted me to head home alone... it would be easy to slip away that way, but they'd know where I was going.
Was Gwen my mate? Did I love her? She had done so many terrible things to me... but she had been right about so much, too.
"You'll wait." Alpha growled at me, watching the other two. "You'll be staying in my sight for a while. You obviously can't be trusted to be on your own."
Waiting for them was a small, horrible eternity. Spike might want to do something to her in spite of Alpha’s order, but Fang wouldn’t. Right? He’d drop her somewhere safe.
They came back with a familiar backpack along with another bag, stuffed full. They showed their stolen loot - beer and meat, cash, some small bits of jewelry, granola bars, canned goods, Gwen’s laptop and wallet, and a goddamned garden gnome which Alpha snatched and smashed against a tree.
"Good enough. You two will be carrying those bags. I'm not going to let the runt slow us down even more by having her run with an injured leg and a bag in her mouth. Let's go." She turned, the dire in two steps, the white wolf in the next one.
With a nasty looking wound on her left foreleg.
I hobbled along, managing to keep up with the weighed down tweedle bark and tweedle borf. I was mad at them for not standing up to her… not that I had. It took incredible effort not to look back, and my thoughts were a mess. I had known Gwen was going to lose... but there was no way I could have expected that I had turned her... I didn't know how it worked, as far as I knew, just biting someone didn't turn them, or there would be mutts everywhere.
Should probably stop using that term...
After everything she had done to me, why did I even care about Gwen?
Because she was the first person in my entire life who had ever shown me real love. I knew what rotten treatment without love behind it felt like. My parents had never loved me. Alpha sure as fuck didn't love me. But Gwen... she actually cared. By the end, she actually did care, and she showed it.
She had taken care of me when I was sick.
...and I cared about her too. Not that I knew how to love, really - not that I even know the real meaning of the word. How can you understand an emotion you've never felt?
I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't even notice we had made it back to the den. I followed as Spike shifted to let us all in easily... I didn't bother shifting back. I found my way over to the fireplace and curled up.