Proloque
I was bored. The meeting dragged on forever, and I had to sit there and pretend to listen because that’s what my father expected.
I returned to Philadelphia a few days ago, and now I had to start participating in the family’s adult affairs. For several years, I had been in the UK, studying at the University of St Andrews, and then just having fun for a while, until my father ordered me to return. Not that I wanted to, but as the Alpha’s son, I didn’t have much choice.
I will never be the Alpha; that position will be taken by my older brother, Niklas, but it’s my duty to be his right hand. I have to learn everything that’s necessary, I have to know my responsibilities, I have to learn how to cooperate effectively with people who (with a few exceptions) have no idea who we really are.
My father is not only the Alpha of the pack but also the mayor of Philadelphia. He has influence among both wolves and humans, and he manages everything efficiently. I admire him, and I’m proud to be his son, even if we disagree a bit on our views: he wants me as Niklas’s advisor and ambassador, I would prefer to travel and explore. I would prefer to get to know other packs, forge alliances, seduce beautiful, unmated she-wolves, but a sense of duty forced me to abandon my dreams. You can’t be a kid forever, can you? Pack and family come first, and then there’s me.
“Kai, I’m talking to you.” Hearing my name, I snapped out of my thoughts. My father was looking at me with a frown.
“I’m listening, Alpha?” I finally said under his reprimanding gaze.
“Gather a few people, and you’ll visit Kensington. Things have been bad there lately. It’s now the most depraved district in Philadelphia, overrun by drug addicts. They lie on the sidewalks, sleep wherever they drop, and die of overdoses right where they sleep. We find more bodies every day, and more addicts arrive every day. Humans, of course.” My father twisted his lips in disgust.
“What am I supposed to do, Alpha? Collect bodies from the street?” I asked without thinking about my words.
“You’re supposed to find out how to solve the problem. The police will cooperate, obviously.” With a wave of his hand, he dismissed everyone except me and Niklas. “If it were up to me, I’d throw all those junkies onto truck beds and haul them to the landfill where they belong, but my hands are tied because of human stupidity and human rights organizations. I feel sick when every other idiot comes and demands that I subsidize care for these...” my father shuddered and spat on the floor with open disgust, then reached into his pocket and used a tissue to wipe the saliva off the parquet. “I have a quiet agreement with the police chief; he’s one of the trusted ones on the human side.”
“What kind of agreement, Dad?” I asked, lighting a cigarette.
“The police are trying to get to the dealers who supply these... zombies... with drugs. They arrest small fry almost every day, but another dealer appears in their place, and it goes on and on. The police chief gave me a free hand and allowed me to deal with it in a more extreme way.” My father waved away the cloud of smoke that hung between us. “In other words: the wolves have permission to eliminate dealers if they catch them dealing. No one will inquire where and why this or that small-time dealer disappeared overnight.”
I glanced at Niklas, who was writing something on his smartphone with a blissful expression: probably exchanging messages with his partner, whom he met less than a year earlier at the Red Moon festival, which brought together unmated wolves from all over the country.
I smiled with amusement: Niklas and his devotion to his partnership always amused me. Until he met his partner at the age of 28, he was like a teenage girl waiting for a prince charming. But well, he got his wish and now looked genuinely happy.
I, at 24, hadn’t had the chance to meet my mate yet, even though I participated in the Red Moon every year. I even started to think that either my mate lived so far away that I would never meet her, or she died before we had a chance to see each other.
I snapped out of my thoughts and stubbed out my cigarette, glancing at my father.
“So, I understand that if we guys notice someone selling drugs on the street...” I began, but my father cut me off.
“If that happens, that person is to disappear permanently, and I don’t want to know what you do with the body, as long as it’s not found. You are to leave no traces that could lead back to us in any way.”
I started nibbling my lower lip with my fingers, as I always did when I was nervous or thinking about something.
“And what about the addicts? Are we to ‘disappear’ them too?” I asked after a moment, trying to shake off the unpleasant feeling that my father was trying to turn me into some kind of executioner.
“Don’t bother with them, Kai. Most of them will finish themselves off. I want, the police chief wants, the city council wants to deter the dealers. Let anyone who even thinks about dealing in my city know exactly what the consequences are.” My father sat down at his desk and handed me a multi-page document. “Officially, you’re a group of volunteers, so no one will be surprised that you’re paying a lot of attention to the situation on Kensington Avenue.”
“I’ve never... anyone...” I waved my hand in an indefinite gesture.
“You’ve never had to be an adult, son. It’s high time you put aside your youthful amusements and started serving the pack. You have the blood of an Alpha in your veins, Kai. YOU ARE an Alpha, even though you will take the position of Beta when Niklas takes over. And before that happens, you must be ready to kill anyone who threatens the pack. You must become a man. If you prove yourself, a reward awaits you.”
I nodded in agreement. I knew I wouldn’t have a problem tearing out the throat of someone who deserved it. I was disgusted by pimps, drug dealers, perverts who abused minors. And also by addicts who, by their own choice, destroy themselves and their loved ones.
“Mmmm, what kind of reward, if I may ask?” I became curious.
“Well, son... if your mission is successful and doesn’t cause repercussions, you’ll get your own sub-pack and become an Alpha. The wolf council has agreed.” My father patted me on the back, smiling broadly.
“Holy...” I sighed in amazement. “My own pack?”
“The council decided that someone should settle the territories of the pack that was defeated and wiped out 14 years ago when their Alpha, Derrick, tried to overthrow the council and incite rebellion. Your name came up: you are young, promising, educated, and have the blood of an Alpha. You just have to show that you are a suitable candidate for the Alpha position of the new pack, and that you are loyal to the council and the wolves, and at the same time, you won’t get into any conflict with humans.”
I left my father’s office in a state close to euphoria, mentally replaying the map of the territories that once belonged to the now-defunct Moongrave pack. A very unfortunate name for a pack that its Alpha, Derrick da Silva, led to ruin.
I remember well the tense situation that took place during da Silva’s short rebellion: he disagreed with the council’s decision forbidding him from expanding the pack’s territory. Da Silva wanted to drive out a dozen human families from their farms and build his own farms in their place. When the council refused, da Silva flew into a rage and tore out the throat of one of its members in front of everyone, then fled. As a result, the Alpha King ordered all members of Moongrave to be killed, to the last one. Since then, the pack’s territories have been uninhabited, and now...
Now it looked like I was going to get them. I was going to be an Alpha. I was going to have my own pack. Holy crap. I never even dreamed of this, always knowing I would be at most my brother’s Beta.
For the rest of the day, I walked around with my head in the clouds, already managing my own pack in my mind: I imagined us putting up new buildings in place of the ruined ones, assigning functions to selected pack members, hell, I even saw the pack growing and expanding with pups.
The next day, with renewed energy, I took on the assigned task. I decided that before the summer was over, Kensington would be free of human filth again. I chose two wolves and two she-wolves from among the warriors to make our volunteer cover more believable: women always make people think a group is harmless. We discussed the plan, and at noon, beautiful and sunny, exceptionally warm for a spring day, we set off for Kensington on a reconnaissance mission.
*****
“Fuck...” I groaned as soon as we got out of the car and started walking the streets. “What is this?”
I didn’t expect the situation to be this tragic: everywhere, literally everywhere, was full of drugged-up people. They sat against the walls of buildings, lay on the sidewalks, wandered aimlessly with blank stares. Some stood bent in half, motionless, like broken mannequins dressed in dirty rags. My wolf’s sense of smell picked up the stench of feces and unwashed bodies. I almost puked at the sight of an older woman lying spread-eagled, her pants crotch occupied by swarms of flies.
Some people were so emaciated that they resembled skin-covered skeletons. Covered in scars, bruises, and scabs, with wounds swarming with fly larvae, they filled me with disgust.
I no longer wondered that my father would gladly get rid of them and haul them to the landfill: there were so many of them, dozens, hundreds... They turned Kensington into a sewer. A place I didn’t want to be. I wanted to turn back to the car, drive to my father, and tell him to find someone else to take my place. And I would have done it, if not for the vision of having my own pack.
The damn Council and the damn father knew how to force me to do something I would never have undertaken after seeing the infamous district. Even the warriors accompanying me, tough guys bigger than me, had trouble maintaining self-control. However, they were too loyal and, although reluctant, carried out the Alpha’s order and mine.
Walking along Kensington Avenue, I looked with disgust at all these people: of various ages, from teenagers to the elderly, in a whole palette of skin colors, all with the same blank stare. Some mumbled something incomprehensible, others shouted, still others stared ahead or simply slept with their eyes open. Their sight aroused my opposition, and I felt a slow-growing rage: my “self” did not agree that these wasted creatures were spoiling the beauty of my city with their presence. I heard my wolf, his growling and quiet barking: he was restless like me, angry, pacing in my mind, baring his fangs and tucking his tail. I felt his desire to kill, and also that even he would be disgusted to sink his teeth into the dirty, smelly bodies of the addicts. But he would gladly do it when we caught the first dealer.
As I walked, I covered my nose with my hand and breathed through my mouth, so that the stench of people wasn’t so overwhelming. The warriors did the same. I saw the contempt in their eyes, the same contempt I felt myself. Contempt for the human garbage lying on the sidewalks.
We weren’t the only group of volunteers, although ours was fake. On the other side of the street, two women were trying to lift someone who apparently didn’t have the strength to stand on their own. They weren’t doing very well, and seeing us, they started calling and waving to us for help. I recognized that they were human: my father said that only humans were stupid enough to try to save junkies from themselves.
“How can they want to touch them?” one of my companions whispered as we walked towards them. Not that we were eager to do it, but if we were to pretend to be volunteers, we had to get our hands dirty.
“Apparently, humans like to wallow in shit,” I stated in a low voice, eliciting a chuckle from the she-wolves.
At first, I didn’t see who the two human women were trying to support. I only noticed an incredibly thin figure, pale forearms covered in needle marks, equally pale legs, buckling at the knees, which seemed swollen compared to the emaciated calves and thighs sticking out of the pink shorts. The figure wasn’t so much standing as hanging, with its head down, and its dirty, matted hair falling down and covering its face.
“She needs to be taken to the hospital immediately,” one of the women said.
So, it’s a girl, huh. Hard to tell from her appearance, her body was too thin to have any curves.
“Did she overdose?” I asked, trying not to get too close to the stinking figure.
“No, I don’t think she’s under the kokaine or other drugs, but she’s so malnourished and weak that she needs medical care, otherwise she’ll die here.”
I had a strong urge to say, “let her croak,” but I gritted my teeth and kept quiet. My wolf recoiled from being so close to the figure smelling of dirt and sweat, who, despite her miserable condition, mumbled and whispered to leave her alone.
“Please hold her up, I’ll call an ambulance.” One of the human women pulled my companion’s arm and almost forced him to grab the addict and keep her from falling. The werewolf’s face twitched as if trying not to grimace in disgust when his skin touched the girl’s dirty shirt, stained with what looked like dried vomit. Not wanting the other woman to dump the responsibility of keeping the junkie upright on me, I took a step back and prudently shoved my hands into my pants pockets. Someone could accuse me of being comfortable, but let them try holding a stinking human who probably washed themselves last year.
I watched the figure, who kept mumbling incomprehensibly, swaying back and forth. I saw scars and scratches covering almost all the visible parts of her body, from ankles to the hems of her shorts, from shoulders to the tips of her fingers and dirty, broken fingernails. I also noticed a long scar on the side of her head on the right: it looked like the girl had taken a fall, perhaps high as a kite she smashed her head against some sharp edge. Not my problem, she could accidentally kill herself for all I cared... it would just be one less piece of trash on the streets of Philadelphia.
As I scanned her, I noticed traces of dried blood on the inside of her thighs, barely visible under the hems of her shorts.
“She might have been raped, she has dried blood on her thighs,” I said to the woman who called the ambulance.
“Possibly, or she just had her period. With such extreme malnutrition, it probably wouldn’t last more than a day and wouldn’t be heavy.” The woman carefully pulled up the girl’s left shorts leg, revealing several long, scab-covered cuts. The skin around them looked red and swollen. “Damn, that’s where the blood’s from. She was cutting herself and I think she has an infection. Maybe that’s why she’s so weak. Strange she doesn’t have a fever, she’s cold despite the warm weather. Where’s that ambulance?” She looked impatiently in both directions of the street.
As if on cue, a siren sounded in the distance, growing louder with each passing second. I stepped off the sidewalk and waved to the driver: the ambulance screeched to a halt at the curb, and two paramedics jumped out. One of them was carrying a medical bag. They started talking to the volunteers, checking the junkie’s vitals at the same time. One of the paramedics lifted her head and pushed the tangled blonde hair away from her face. The girl’s eyes were half-closed, her lips cracked, and her face... God, I felt like her cheekbones would break through the taut, almost transparent skin. I had never seen anyone so emaciated and thin, and so dirty...
The paramedic pulled a small syringe from the bag and filled it halfway with the contents of an unlabeled vial. When he stuck the needle into the addict’s thin arm, she opened her eyes wide, and her gaze fell on me. At the same moment, my wolf howled, filling my mind with a cacophony of sounds: howls, whines, and squeaks. Among them, one word kept popping up: mate.
What the fuck?
