After breakfast, we pile into our vehicles, and I take in the snowy banks lining the roads as we head for the Dead City. Verando's car is low to the ground, a curvy sports car that was no longer being manufactured, which Marcello felt it fit to inform me. I had to admit, I found the vehicle attractive. The sounds it makes as it hums to life, the way it drives smoothly compared to modern war vehicles —it was built for speed. 

I'd admired it since I'd first seen it, but now that we were spending more time in it, I couldn't help but appreciate the engineering that went into creating it. Of course, Verando would choose a car no longer in production as his daily driver; the stick shift, centered between us, was reason enough for his purchase. Few people in today's era could drive it, and this pleased him. 

 But for now, my warlord seethes quietly, trapped behind Helen and Tyler's vehicle. He leans his elbow on the window, resting his cheek against his knuckles with an expression of distaste for our lack of freedom on the road. Perhaps it was the constant need to shift gears in the mounting traffic as more people had traveled this year for the holidays than ever before. 

Our city had become a hub of tourism; everyone wanted to see the miracles performed to make it rain where there had once been smog.

"Are you upset with me?"

"Yes." But he sounds frustrated, more than angry. I huddle into my jacket, not wanting to adjust the heater for risk of effectively baking him. Verando glances at me out of the corner of his eye before he sighs as he offers me his hand, which I greedily accept. 

His fingers tangle in mine as he exhales, "But not for the reasons you're thinking; how long have you been cold like this? And you look uncomfortable... I was too hard on you yesterday, I shouldn't have-"

"Since I stayed in the Dead City the first time." I retort, cutting him off. "Randy, I'm just sore. You gave me a thorough education on my limits last night, and I wouldn't change a thing about it. It was incredible, I'd actually entertain a refresher as my mind is having a hard time coming to terms with that orgasm."

My honesty effectively embarrasses him enough to silence him, though his cheek dimples, for he can't hide his satisfaction in my pleasure. 

I like to link the chill to an overcharge of my abilities —my body adjusting to a new level of power —but it seemed to worsen. "Anyways, I'm not entirely concerned about it yet; my color is good; whenever I'm around you, I warm up. Maybe I'm just pent up; I'm not using nearly as often as I used to, and when I do, there has been a great deal of theatrics."

His jaw set, chewing on my response, wanting to argue.

I admired the stubble and overgrowth, wishing for an actual beard and yet enjoying the in-between. "Another reason I think we need to approach the government for your sovereignty is to create a place where you can use and do so safely. I'm feeling it, too, honestly." Verando rolls his shoulders as if they're sore. 

"Everything aches; Alpha is pacing a hole in my skull. I feel like I'm going to crawl out of my skin." With a pause, he frowns as he spares me another glance, kissing the back of my hand. "I'm sorry, darling; much as you lack any self-preservation, I shouldn't have taken it out on you yesterday. You might be armed and dangerous, but you're still a human under it all."

With a chuckle, I accept the peace offering, gathering his hand back in my lap for the warmth it brought. "Oh, please, I've never wanted you to be gentle with me. As you're now well aware, I used to fornicate with demi-dragons, so I think I can handle a rogue lycan." I challenge, flinching as he squeezes my fingers in a quiet threat. 

"Last night was the best sex I've ever had. I am sore, but it felt so good." Hesitating when he doesn't respond, I know I've hit a nerve by bringing up past lovers. "I wondered how you were faring with the lack of running space. I keep offering my body, but you manage to find other ways to occupy yourself."

Verando's teeth grind; I'd pay for my offense later. "It's quite difficult." He allows, "You need to use, and so does Tyler, if he's ever going to get stronger. Though it appears he will be more difficult to bring along than anticipated, you're not doing a whole lot of guiding on that one, hmm?"

Leaning back in my seat, I sigh heavily. "Guiding? You told me to leave him alone, and I think he's a bastard; that's the problem. I can't shake it, I like him.. but then I think of what he's said to Helen and I'd rather not deal with him."

"Fickle thing, are we?" Verando allows, the corner of his mouth tugging up. "People don't much care how I speak to you either, you know."

The intention behind my warlord's suggestions, commands, and assessments rarely came from a place of harm. He was brutally honest, but I could hardly think of a time when he'd spoken to me with the intention of belittling me. 

"People don't understand you the way I do, but the way Tyler acts is-- It's not just a man taking claim over a woman. She is beneath him, and I think that's just--" Stopping myself, I shake my head, opting to fiddle with the watch around his wrist. "We will figure it out. Once this is over, we can put together a proposal. I'd wager there's more of us to find in the depths of those holding facilities, but I can't say I feel as confident about the government being involved as I used to."

I gaze out the window, not allowing myself to dwell too much on the possibility of ruling yet another kingdom. I want to get through today; I want this to go smoothly so I can feel comfortable going to France. 

I shut my eyes, listening to him speak in the low, deep tone that I find so soothing with his accent. Verando gives me the rundown of his current thoughts about the members we had recruited. More than anything, I just wanted to hear him. 

With the long drive, the warmth of his hand, and the car's heater, I drift off as I feel we're in for a long night.

_____________________________________________________________________

I run my fingers through the plush scruff as we walk along at a steady pace; the fresh snowfall crunches under the massive paws, and I take in the strangely vacant landscape of bare trees and rocks covered in white powder. 

The wind chill nips at my face as I pull my hat down a little more snugly around my ears and retreat into the giant hood of my coat. While I'm not appreciating the way it blocks out my senses, I'm happy for the warmth. 

"Smell anything?" I ask, stroking the thick coat. 

The wolf shrugs heavily with a sigh; the interference of city life makes tracking difficult in the snow, and we haven't even reached the woods yet. 

Legardo hangs back, sitting on one of the more docile of the fledglings. Tyler walks along beside me, tense on the back of the white wolf that embodied Helen. I'm just happy to see her with some weight on; she finally didn't look so emaciated.

 "Pet her." I exhale to him, demonstrating how I run my hands through Alpha's scruff. I try not to focus on the fact that the limp is back; whatever had happened had damaged his shoulder once more, and we hadn't given him nearly enough time to rest it.

Tyler's hand trembles as it drags through her coat, and she snaps her teeth in frustration. The gray wolf snarls at her, barking at the space between us, and I thump him with my heel. "Stop," I murmur to him. "You're not helping." My primary focus was on keeping the peace; out here was not the time to cause a brawl. "How's everyone doing?" I call over my shoulder.

I'm answered by groans and grumbles, apparently, riding wolves was a pastime only I enjoyed. I could liken it to riding a horse with more personality. I felt the wolves were more comfortable than horses for the most part. With their ambling gait and what I would refer to as a gallop, it was pretty relaxing—not jarring in the least, which helped my sore backside.

 Just as horses had superior breeding, lycan breeding contributed to the comfort and athleticism of the animal. I vaguely recall Tonic not being nearly as comfortable riding as 'Alpha'.

 "How does she feel?" I ask Tyler, trying to stir up conversation. 

Tyler exhales, tightening his scarf around his neck. "Like she wants to explode; like I'm on a buckin' bronco fit to be tied. Are you sure we're supposed to be ridin' these things?" 

Helen lays her ears back, and I respond to him with a stern look. 

"Remember, she can hear you." I eye the wolf, pushing Verando closer to her with my thigh. "Maybe we should tie her off? I'd hate for her to get loose out here." 

I don't know how they would hunt tethered. Verando was the only hunter; the rest were still in training. But losing Malka to the woods would mean never seeing her again. While I was sure Verando could track her down eventually, could we find her before something else did?

Adjusting my seat on the large vest Marcello had made for our lycan companions, I snag a rope out of one of the packs attached to it and toss one end to Tyler. "Tie it to her harness with a slip knot. We'll untie her when we turn them loose to hunt and make camp."

Grayson pushes his wolf to come up behind us; the black creature dares not get too close to the bickering Alphas. "Excuse me? Make camp? Nobody said anything about staying the night outside." 

Of course, why wouldn't we? 

"The best hunting happens at night, and we need to practice our skills. Don't tell me you're afraid of the dark, Grayson? Honestly, we're lucky; there aren't any infected lycans hunting us in these woods. We are quite safe when compared to what could be out here." 

Grayson has no response for me, torn between his desire to impress me and his will to live. I felt confident that Verando would alert me if he found anything about our predicament out of the norm. The wind picks up the closer we get to the edge of the woods, and it seems almost as if a barrier had formed, separating the two districts so starkly with a massive tree line. 

Without the snowfall, it would not be easy to enter at all. The fresh pack weighs the dead limbs down, carving a thin trail into the depths of the darkness. 

Tyler whistled in appreciation, "They weren't kidding when they said it was hard to get into these things."

"I imagine one can get lost in here quite easily." Checking my watch that I'd taken from my lover, the face shows only fuzz and static. "No Artifice out here. Good. That means no one can track us." I touch Verando's neck as I peer through the erect ears. "Do you think you can get us back out of here?"

"Yes, if we don't stray too far." His voice sounds confident, and yet I can sense the mounting concern. He was doing math, and we'd lost men to blind panic before. If they split off from us, we'd never find them again, not before our deadline at least.

With a slight nod, we press forward, forced into a single-file line. I hunker down close to his coat, relishing in the warmth of his plush fur. Another difference between him and the fledglings. Their coats were shorter, rougher, more like that of a coyote than the thick mane of a wolf designed to live in the tundra. 

"Caleb doesn't want to go!" Sef calls from behind; we had paired her with one of the gentler wolves, a timid younger male who was often quite clumsy. 

It doesn't surprise me that he hesitated. "Is there anyone behind you?" I call back.

"Hank?" She almost sounds saddened by that fact. 

The coveted fire mage wasn't known for his patience. 

"Well, I suspect you'll be following us promptly." It's more to myself than out loud, not wishing to alert them to the incoming encouragement of an angry fire mage. The resounding yelp answers that question, and I almost pity the timid male. But we have no time for reluctance. The space begins to open up, and Verando instructs the group to fan out but stay behind him.

 The tension building in his shoulders catches me off guard; his coat hackles the further we get into the woods. His steps become lighter, more calculated, his body rigid as those large ears swivel to capture noises I could dream of hearing. "What do you think?" 

"I'm not sure. Something feels off." 

His ears scan our surroundings, and a sudden, abrupt barking startles us all. Birds erupt from the dead trees, covering us in heavy, fallen snow. I try not to shiver too intensely as Verando shakes his coat, sending the snow in all directions. 

A low, vicious rumble rises in his throat, and Helen whines, backing away from him, pulling on her tether. My hands instinctively reach for the rope, fumbling in my pockets as I hesitate to cut her free. 

Could the two stand to get along? 

What if Alpha acted on his own accord?

"Whoever did that, you're dead when we stop to rest. Control yourselves!"Verando snaps in frustration, glancing at me over his shoulder to check on me. "Are you ok? Are you still dry?"

I nod, dusting myself off, knife still in hand. "I'm fine, just a little damp on the top layer but dry underneath. f you're going to lose it, let me know and I'll cut her free. Malka can't risk being attacked; she needs to trust us."

Once more, it's Caleb who's struggling. "I heard something. It sounded like a whisper," The young male manages, almost pouting, his voice low.

Verando shakes out his back paw as he steps out of the deep snow. "Like hell," The beast grumbles. "Stay alert, move forward, no more noise. If there is anything out here, it sure as hell knows where we are now." 

Pressing onward at a slightly quicker pace, we weaved through the trees in an attempt to create a wall of wolves to maximize the available noses to gather scents. I took the opportunity to practice with Tyler; we controlled the snow as best we could, conjuring it from the branches and carving a space for our passage. 

Sulema, our nature-wielding elf, guides the branches up into an archway. I note the grumbling from my lycan as a snowball flies overhead, Pascal hums innocently. While my inner child wants to participate gleefully, I capture the return fire in the air and disintegrate the ball. 

"This is no time to be fooling around." I can feel the disdain, the seething temper of a warlord forced to babysit children who had never run for their lives. They were too loud, too distracted; he was already writing them off as something to leave behind should he have to. 

The longer we walked, the more I could sense how he regretted this, the anger boiling to the surface. We were battle-torn, the traumatic events of being hunted through the woods, and how many friends we lost along the way, followed us like ghosts. "Reminds me of trying to find that Elf outpost." I allow, reaching up to dust some snow off one of his ears. 

"It's worse than that; we don't know what's out here." Verando permits, causing Helen to flinch as she edges that much closer. 

"You think there's something out here, don't you?" She whispers, her voice hardly audible. My warlord responds with silence, enough of an answer to make her end her questioning. 

Snow plummets from the sky, and Verando scoots out of the way, narrowly avoiding it, tripping over an embankment as he tries to stabilize me on his back. The wolf jerks his paw upward, landing wrong on the sore shoulder. 

"For the love, I can't do this, Nic." He finally manages as he limps back onto the beaten ground, coat bristling. "I'm losing my bloody mind. These amateurs are going to get us killed, I can't-" 

 I sigh heavily, tempted to get off and walk if it weren't for the fear of falling behind. I turn to see the group looks just as uncertain as we do. "Do none of you understand that we need silence even to consider hunting out here?" I demand roughly, earning nothing but wide eyes and stunned expressions. 

 Branches begin to crackle and pop, and a low groan from trees bearing the weight of unnatural beings echoes through the proximity of the trees. It's a hushed, clicking rumble as if something were trying to croak out a sentence. 

We hunker down into the snow, a gentle murmur coaxes through my ears, but it's not a language I understand.

 Verando lays his ears back against his skull, "That's the language of the dead. We need to get out of these trees; our best bet is to get to that clearing." 

"Language of what?" Tyler demands. "Why not just turn around?"

The black cloud descends on us with a mighty squeal as the shadows turn into figures.

 "Wraiths." Verando growls, "They've already blocked the path; there is no turning around. Don't let them touch you; run towards the light. Nic, Tyler, clear the snow."