Anguished howls of pain filled the night air as the Dire Wolves charged, seizing upon the guards before they could alert those inside. Only the commotion outside the walls could give away their presence now and it would, very quickly. Grant charged toward the front doors, eager to get into the fray, despite reservations he had held only moments ago. The windows were boarded up and the only way to get in was to charge the door or shift and attempt to open it. He flung his weight full force against the door, expecting resistance. Instead, he found himself flailing to right himself as it opened and he went sailing inside, quickly joined by a flood of other wolves.
Catching his footing, he looked around. It was empty. Completely deserted. They were here somewhere, but it was too hard to follow their scent with it all around him in their own lair. A series of short howls sent them into groups scattering into different directions to explore. Then, the voice of a shifter was heard as he shifted to open doors and yelled at everyone to head to the back door.
“They’ve gone out the back!” he told them.
Everyone headed for the door, running out into the woods behind the building. They began tracking the footprints in the snow, noses down to follow the scent along with the trail. Grant followed along, for a while. Then something occurred to him. This was wrong. There should be more footprints. There should be human footprints. Instead, there were only the large paw prints of the Silver Wolves. He turned back, alone, not bothering to signal anyone to join him.
Nearing the edge of the woods, he watched as a girl crawled around the edge of the building, trying to push fresh snow over the trail behind her. It was only when she stood, that he could see the shredded arm of her jacket and the blood flowing from her arm. One of the Dire Wolves must have clipped her, but how did she manage to survive against them and end up here all alone? He continued to watch as she slipped inside, holding her arm to staunch the blood flow and rushing across the room toward the hallway out of sight.
Grant debated what to do. He had no desire to harm her further. It was one thing that all of the pack had agreed upon before launching their attack. All of the women here were either barren Silver Wolves or human, so letting them live had no bearing on whether the pack line survived. There was no need to hurt any of the women in the pack unless it was a matter of being under attack and not being able to avoid it. Watching the young woman until she disappeared, he had a hard time imagining that such a frail, delicate looking creature could have been a threat to anyone. Perhaps she just got nicked being too close to the fray.
A few of the other members of his pack joined him as he stood watching the clubhouse. They began to shift back into human form, hidden by the tree line. He looked around at them. All were younger members, so he waited for one of the club officers to turn up.
“Should we go in and clear the clubhouse?” one of them asked.
“No. There is no one in there,” he said, wondering to himself why he was lying.
“What about the women? You think they are hiding in there?”
“No. Everyone pushed out the back when the commotion started in the front from the looks of it. Any signs of them back there where you came from?” he asked, though he knew the answer already.
He wasn’t sure why he was covering up for the women. Sure, they wouldn’t hurt them, but they would take them, use them as leverage. It was pretty obvious that they were hiding inside somewhere in a hidden area. If they had already been sent away, the one woman wouldn’t have been left behind. There was still evidence of the party that had been going on when they arrived, so it had been a hasty exit by all, but the human women would have been too slow to have gotten away so quickly from wolves. Most likely, all shifters fled and all the rest hid in a pre-established location.
“Any signs of them back here?” Saul asked, arriving behind Grant and shifting back into human form.
“Nope. Clubhouse is clear,” Grant told him.
“Fuck. What a wasted trip. We managed to get a half-dozen guards out front and one of the guys clipped a girl. She didn’t shift, so obviously human. No threat to us. Did you see her anywhere?”
“Nope. She must have gone the other direction. Probably cowering in the woods somewhere.”
“Alright. Let’s call it a night. They got their warning. We’ll scour the woods for her on our way home. She might be worth taking with us to see if she means anything to anyone.”
“You don’t want any of us to stay here and wait to see if they come back?” one of the young ones asked.
“Nah. They won’t be back. At least not tonight. Let them come back in the morning and bury their dead. Let’s get home and get some rest,” Saul replied, immediately shifting and bounding around the clubhouse toward the woods that began again in the front.
The cubs joined him, followed by a number of other wolves. Grant shifted, as well, and ran with the pack. All the way back to their clubhouse, he thought about the girl. There was something about her that had caught his attention. Perhaps it was just sympathy, but he felt like it was something more. She had seemed delicate, dainty and he found himself intrigued by how she had somehow ended up out in the yard when all of the other women seemed to be safely tucked away.
He couldn’t help but wonder what sort of wolf pack let six of their own be slaughtered while they hid inside. It made him glad that he hadn’t been accepted into the club. Outnumbered or not, it was just pure cowardice on their part. They’d even left a woman out there to die. Luckily, she hadn’t.
Back at the compound with the others, the guys all settled in for beers and to wind down after the battle, if it could really even be called that. Saul called him into his office alone and had a long talk with him. When he was done, Grant had packed his things and left.