Chapter 26: 4

Darrell carried Katelyn into his house. She was still out, but then again, it did not take him long to reach his property. He lived a good twenty minutes out of town, but he made it in ten. Of course, he had sped all the way. Darrell lived alone on a small patch of land deep in a heavily wooded area just outside their small community of Feral. Feral had a population of fifty, and they were all Lycanthropes. The pack had built themselves a little community out in the middle of nowhere. They were off the main highway, and they did not get a lot of visitors, and frankly, that was the way the pack preferred it.

Darrell had built this house with his own two hands. Perhaps it was more than a single man needed, but he had built his dream home, and he could see himself living here happily into his old age if he should he live that long. When you were a Lycanthrope, you had to learn to live in the moment because you never knew if it was going to be your last. Things could go from quiet to deadly in seconds and without warning.

Standing in his living room, Darrell held Katelyn in his arms as he looked around, wondering what he would do with her. He had to restrain her somehow, so she did not run before he could figure out what to do with her. Come to think of it. He was pretty sure he had some rope in the garage. Darrell carried her over to the couch and laid her down gently. Then he headed for the garage. As he was going through his stuff looking for the rope, he paused, his ears perked. He heard something… movement from inside the house.

Oh shit, she woke up. He grabbed the rope and ran back inside. He rushed into the living room just as Katelyn reached the front door. She threw it open and ran outside and down the porch steps. Darrell tossed the rope on the floor and ran after Katelyn. He overtook her in seconds. As a Lycanthrope, he was a lot faster than she was. Darrell tackled Katelyn to the ground and pinned her beneath him. She screamed as loud as she could, begging someone anyone to save her, but no one was coming. She could scream until she lost her voice, but no one would hear her.

Darrell got up, dragging Katelyn to her feet, and then he hoisted her up over his shoulder and carried her back to the house as she struggled. Once inside, he dropped her on the couch and pointed a warning finger at her. “Don’t do that again.”

Katelyn stared at him with fear in her eyes. He did not like that look. He did not want her to fear him, but he understood why she did. She had seen him in transition. To her, he was an inhuman monster, and she had watched him kill a man. It was safe to assume she thought he would do the same to her.

How did he convince her that he was only trying to protect her?

“I understand that at this point, you must have a lot of questions?”

“What are you?” She blurted out with no thought at all. He should have known that it was going to be the first question to cross her lips. “You are not human?”

“No,” he confessed, “I’m not.”

“What are you?” She was terrified, and he wanted to put her at ease, but he knew that if he answered her question, it would likely only freak her out more.

“It is complicated,” he said.

“Uncomplicate it,” she barked.

“Ok,” he said, taking a seat in the armchair next to the couch. “Let me try to explain. I’m…” How did he answer her question without sounding like a lunatic? “I’m a Lycanthrope.”

“A what?”

“Humans call us werewolves,” he hated that term, but it was the easiest way to explain what he was.

“You are a werewolf?” She said in disbelief.

“I don’t really like that term; we find it kind of… derogatory.”

“Werewolf is derogatory?”

How did he make her understand? “Calling a Lycanthrope a werewolf is like calling an African American the N-word. It is offensive.”

“Oh, politically correct monsters.”

“Don’t…!” He snapped and stopped himself quickly. He did not want to yell at her. Yelling would not help the situation. “Please don’t call me that. I’m not a monster.”

“You are a werewolf,” she snapped, and Darrell took a deep breath, trying his best to remain calm.

“And I saw you rip a man’s jugular out with your teeth?”

“Ok, I can see how, in this instance, you may think I’m a monster, but I’m not.”

“You ripped a man’s throat out with your teeth,” she barked at him.

“Yes, I did.” He scooted to the edge of his seat, moving closer to her. “I don’t kill people because I want to. I’m not a psychopath. I’m not a serial killer. I’m an everyday guy. But being what I am. There are humans that hunt my kind. They track us and massacre us. All of us… men… women… children. They slaughter infants in their cribs just for being born. We call them hunters. They kill us because they think we are monsters. But we are not. We just want to live in peace. We mind our own business. We don’t hurt anyone if we don’t have to. We will kill to protect ourselves and only to protect ourselves. We just want what anyone wants.”

“What is that?”

“The right to exist. Hunters have hunted my kind to near extinction. There is only a handful of us left in the world. The man in the alley, he was a hunter. He was a scout. Scouts track Lycanthropes. When they find us, they go back to their buddies. Then they come after us in teams… and they kill everybody.

I had no choice. I had to kill him before he could bring back a hunting party. He would have killed us all.

It was self-defence.”

“It didn’t look like self-defence.”

“Everything is not always as it seems.”

She looked anxious. “Are you going to kill me?”

“Only if you leave me no other choice. I like you, Katelyn, but I have to protect the pack.”

Her eyes widened in shock. “Pack? How many of you are there?”

“Here… fifty.”

She looked like she could not breathe. “Fifty? How is it that people don’t know about you?”

“People don’t want to know about us. They want to believe they are the dominant lifeform on this planet. Hollywood has turned us into myth. Most people don’t believe we exist. That allows us to walk among them undetected.”

She shook her head. “How did this happen to you? Were you bitten? Oh my God, are you going to bite me?”

Darrell chuckled and shook his head. “No, it doesn’t work like that. That’s all Hollywood propaganda.

You can’t be turned. I wasn’t bitten. I was born just like you. I have always been a Lycanthrope. You either are, or you aren’t. There is no in-between.”

She looked him over. “You look human.”

“It is how we blend in.”

“How can you tell if someone is like you or like me?”

It was a fair question. “The eyes,” he told her. He knew he should not give away their secrets, but he really wanted her to understand. “Look into my eyes. Do you notice anything unusual?”

She studied him for a second. “The colour.”

“The colour,” he confirmed her suspicions. “No matter how we change, no matter what form we are in, our eyes always remain the same. They are always amber.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes as Katelyn tried to absorb the information she had just received.

Darrell understood it was a lot to take in. She must be having trouble accepting what he was telling her despite what her eyes had shown her. “It is so much. It is so hard to believe.”

“I know,” Darrell said softly. “Honestly, I mean you no harm. I need to trust you will keep my secret before I let you go. Otherwise, I’m going to have to kill you too.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” she said quickly.

Unfortunately, he did not believe Katelyn. At this point, she had no loyalty to him. She was just telling him what she thought he wished to hear so she could get away. Like any other witness of a brutal murder, Katelyn would, without a doubt, go right to the police, and they were all screwed.

“I’m truly sorry, but I just don’t believe you,” he said, reaching for the length of rope he had brought in with him. Standing up, Darrell began to pin her down as Katelyn struggled against him while he tied her down. Once he had her successfully bound on the couch, the front door burst open, and Gordon and his founding friends came in with Aster and Darrell’s friends behind them. The midsize room was packed.

Darrell positioned himself between his prisoner and his Alpha. Gordon looked Katelyn over and then glared at Darrell. “Why haven’t you killed her yet?”

“I don’t think it is necessary to kill her,” Darrell argued.

Gordon cocked his head to the side thoughtfully. “She witnessed you in transition murdering a hunter, and you didn’t think it necessary? Have you lost your mind? Kill her now,” Gordon ordered.

Darrell looked back at the terrified look on Katelyn’s face. Darrell faced Gordon once more. “No,” he might be the pack leader, but Darrell was also an Alpha, and he would not be bullied by an old wolf.

“No?” Gordon’s eyes began to glow, and he snarled, revealing his fangs in an attempt to intimidate.

It took very little effort for Gordon to appear intimidating. He was about the same size as Darrell, and for a man in his mid-forties, his body was solid and strong like Darrell. He was an old biker. His ebony hair was collar length and shaggy. His jaw covered in a few days’ growths. He dressed in torn jeans and leather. He was the kind of man that women did not know whether to run from or fall into bed with.

Of cures, he was a married man, and as far as Darrell knew, Gordon never strayed. Wolves mated for life, and so did Lycanthropes.

Gordon’s mouth curved in an evil sneer. “Then I’ll kill her. Get out of my way.”

Darrell’s eyes lit up like Gordons, and he bared his fangs in a show of strength. “You will have to go through me, old man.”

“I am the pack leader.”

“Right, but not the only alpha in the room,” Darrell stood his ground. Darrell typically respected Gordon’s command. He respected the man, but he would not allow Gordon to kill Katelyn. He would go toe to toe with the Alpha if he must, but he hoped it would not come to that.

Gordon’s eyes stopped glowing as he calmed himself, and Darrell followed his lead. “Like you, I don’t like killing people. If that woman gets away and goes to the police, we will all suffer. I have more than you to think about. I have a pack to protect: men, women, cubs. Every one of them dead if she gets away.”

“I won’t let her get away,” Gordon looked past him at Katelyn, who was bound but not gagged. She had not said a word since Gordon arrived. She was clearly frightened and paying close attention to the argument about where to execute her or not. “Gordon,” he looked up at Darrell. “All I’m asking is that you trust me. If I can’t handle her, I’ll kill her myself.”

Gordon looked Darrell over as he thought about Darrell’s request for trust. “If she becomes a problem, I will kill you to get to her.”

“Understood.”

Gordon looked at Katelyn. “You hear that? I will tear you to ribbons if I think for a second, he can’t handle you. If you want to stay in one piece, I suggest you listen to this man,” he then looked back at Darrell. “As for you, don’t fuck it up.”

“Daddy, you can’t seriously be allowing this,” Aster snapped. “She poses a very serious threat.”

“I have spoken. Darrell is responsible for this woman and anything that results from showing her mercy,” Aster glared at Darrell. She stormed out of the house, and slowly one by one, the rest of those gathered exited until Darrell was alone with Katelyn once more.

As the door closed behind the last person, Darrell breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment, he feared he was going to have to fight Gordon. It was not a fight; he would look forward to. Sure, he was half Gordon’s age, but old wolves were old wolves for a good reason, and frankly, Darrell was not absolutely sure he could take Gordon down.

Darrell sat down next to Katelyn, who was eyeing him fearfully. “Look at the trouble you got me in. You should have just taken the money and gone home. Now we are both screwed.”

At that moment, her cellphone began to ring again. Darrell reached over, searching her pockets for her cellphone. Finding it, he looked at the picture of her fiancé. “Look’s like the hubby-want-to-be is calling again. He checked to see if she had sent the picture of the two of them kissing. She had not. Good, then it meant there was nothing to tie her to him if she went missing.

He sent her boyfriend a quick text as Katelyn telling him he was a cheating bastard, and she was leaving him because she was sick of his bullshit. That should hold off authorities for a little while. With the message sent, Darrell snapped her iPhone in half, destroying it before tossing it on the wooden coffee table next to him.

“Hey, that was my phone,” Katelyn protested.

“Well, now it is an expensive paperweight,” he said, standing up. “Besides, you don’t need it. You just broke up with your boyfriend.”

“You broke up with him,” she snarled.

“And, you are welcome,” he said, pushing her back so she was lying on the couch still tied up so she could not move. He took a throw blanket off the armchair and draped it over Katelyn for comfort. “Now go to sleep. Things will look better in the morning when we are both sober.”

“Kiss my ass!” She hissed as he started to walk away.

“Not on the first date.”