Treasure

Alpha Daniel sat next to his father, Craig Forrest, as they considered their plight. “We need time and resources, and we need to take back our Pack if we’re going to have any chance,” Craig said over the link.

“The money we need to get away and stay safe is in the Pack accounts,” Daniel responded. “I did it that way for tax reasons. If I’m Alpha again, I can get access to the funds. We’re going to need millions if we have to retire somewhere.”

“Someplace far from any Pack,” he said.

“But how do I get out of the challenge? We’ve got two and a half days.”

“I’m not willing to risk it all on a fight; as much confidence as I have in you, anything can happen. We need more time,” Craig said.

“A delay won’t help. The new Council won’t give it to us anyway. We don’t have a Pack without the challenge win, and with that, the access to the accounts. What we need to do is get Sawyer to forfeit the challenge when we enter the ring. If he does that, I become Alpha.”

“And it will be at least ten days before any other challenge can occur,” he said. “Normally I’d say to go after his mate, but all of the Alphas are staying here. I’d love to hurt that bitch Rori, but right now? Going after her would be suicidal,” Craig sent.

Daniel closed his eyes and thought for a while. “What we need is leverage. Something Sawyer wants more than being Alpha, and more than revenge.”

“Or something he can’t afford to lose. I think I know what that is,” Craig said as he stood up. “It’s time to get out of here. We’re not under arrest, so they can’t stop us. The only thing they can offer is protection while we are on Oxbow territory.”

“Then we need to get the fuck out of here and far away,” Daniel agreed. Staying where hundreds of wolves want you dead wasn’t a good idea, and a holding cell is a crappy hotel room. The two walked out of the unlocked cell and to the Enforcer standing nearby. “We want an escort to our rooms to retrieve our luggage, the key to one of our rental cars, and an escort to the Pack Border,” Daniel told him.

“Just a moment, sir,” he said as he linked his boss before calling another guard over. “We can escort you now, but your car rental used Pack funds, and you are no longer members of the Donner Pack.”

“That’s bullshit! How can I rent a car here?”

Craig put his hand on his son’s arm. “Can we be driven to the Twin Cities? We need to prepare for the challenge. I’m not having him train here with hostile werewolves around.”

They were almost to the Pack House when he got the reply. “The Chairman has asked us to take you wherever you wish to go. He reminds you that if you fail to show for the challenge, you forfeit, and Sawyer becomes Alpha. He will not allow you another challenge.”

“I understand,” Daniel said. “Thank the Chairman for his help.” They quickly packed their bags and were taken back downstairs. Two Enforcers had a vehicle waiting for them. The werewolves who saw them glared at them or turned their backs. The Packs were under Alpha orders to leave them alone, and they did.

The drive to Minneapolis took about four hours. Nobody said anything out loud that wasn’t necessary. Craig gave them directions to a hotel across from the Mall of America, and the two got dropped off at the lobby. The Enforcers didn’t shake their hands or wish them luck; they couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there.

The two checked in to the hotel and changed, taking long showers. Along the way, Craig had made all the arrangements they would need, and after a couple of big steaks in the hotel bar, they took a hotel shuttle to the airport. Their tickets were waiting, and the flight would arrive early the next morning. By the time any of the Packs found out they were gone, it would be too late.

The redeye flight to Orlando departed twenty minutes late.

--

The three Ford Expeditions carrying the warriors from the Oxbow Lake Pack slowed down as they saw the lights and traffic backing up from the blocked road ahead. The police radio they had in the car let them follow the chase and told them of the crash and fire. “Pull in there,” Scott said. As the Oxbow Lake Gamma, he had taken charge of the mixed group of people heading out after Erich Gruber. They stopped at the scenic overlook, pulling into empty spaces as people used the lot to turn around.

“I need Kayla and two others to shift and put on collars and leashes,” he told his Pack members, who passed it to the Council and other Pack enforcers and warriors. “We’re going to have to go in like tourists walking dogs, so no two-hundred-pounders, please.” It was difficult to pass a werewolf off as a dog if it was four feet high at the shoulders. “Joe, you and two others put on Kayla’s search and rescue vest, grab our jackets, put the flasher on the top, and drive up there. If anyone asks, you are there to assist.” The Oxbow Lake pack sometimes passed off smaller wolves as dogs for search and rescue operations near or on their Pack lands. It was a good cover story for wolf sightings.

“On it, boss,” he sent back. Scott got out, joined by the other senior people. “Mark, you take one other person and a dog. Work your way down the hillside towards the crash. Spread out and stay out of sight best you can; the idea is to keep him from coming back this way and escaping. Tina, you come with me in your workout gear along with Lauri in canine form. We’ll run the trail down by the lake and come up on the other side. The rest of you head down towards the lake and spread out. We can’t let him escape.”

“If we find him?”

Scott hesitated, but with all the people around, they had little choice. “If he’s in wolf form, take him down with sedatives if possible, kill him if not. In human form, stay back and report. We’ll get the cops to take care of him.” The warriors, a mixed group of males and females, started to move to their spots. Scott waved at Kayla, who looked like a big German Shepherd in her vest, as her vehicle pulled back onto the road and drove the oncoming traffic lane with its yellow flasher spinning.

Scott was glad he was still in his training gear, as was Tina, a warrior from the Monongahela Pack in West Virginia. She didn’t look like much at five and a half feet tall and a hundred and twenty pounds, but she was deadly with knives and a dangerous fighter. The pair would look like a couple out for a run.

Lauri came out in wolf form, her chestnut fur making her look like a chocolate lab mix. Scott took her leash as the driver stuck her clothes and shoes into the small backpack he was carrying, in case she needed to shift back. They started to run down the trail to the lakeshore as fast as they could. They ran at a fast speed for humans once they got to the bottom, too exposed to use their wolf speed.

“We’re at the crash scene. The police didn’t see anyone leave, and they need fire and rescue to reach the vehicle,” Joe sent to everyone. “We haven’t smelled him yet. Kayla and I are standing by out of the way. I’ve got Juan heading north along the road to set up a picket a few hundred yards away.”

“Nothing from our team so far,” Mark said. “We’ve taken positions in cover, spread down the hillside. No scents this way.”

”I didn’t expect he’d head back towards us,” Scott sent back. “We’re passing below the crash site now. A few rescue personnel are down here, trying to approach from below. It’s bad terrain, no scent yet.” They kept running for another half mile, then turned onto a trail that headed back up the hillside. The couple and their dog met some rescue personnel, right as they passed Erich’s scent trail. The three werewolves stopped as the fresh scent hit them. “He’s alive and running north, in wolf form,” he told everyone. “We’re going in pursuit. Teams, if you can get to the other side, do so.”

“I’m calling back to the Alpha, boss,” Joe said.

“He’s injured, I’ve got a blood trail,” Lauri relayed through her driver to Scott. She was moving a lot faster through the rocks and trees of the hillside than her partners. They reached an area where rocks surrounded them, and he told Tina to shift so Lauri would have some backup. He rolled her clothes up and put them in the backpack he was carrying, then he put a collar around her neck so she would appear to be a domestic dog. She took off after Lauri, and he followed over the boulders as fast as he could.

Ten minutes later, Tina sent back to him. “We cornered him in wolf form, boss. What do you want to do?”

“If no humans are around, kill him,” Scott sent as he worked his way to them. By the time he arrived, the fight was almost over. Erich dropped his backpack and tried to fight his way past them, but the crash left him injured. He was bleeding from multiple gashes as the two warriors darted in and out, working together as a team to rip him apart. Scott knew they had him and didn’t want to take their kill. Instead, he pulled out his phone from his backpack and started to record. The females knew what this man had done, the women and children that had suffered, and the innocent killed.

They made his death a long and painful one.

When Erich was finally dead, the two warriors shifted and embraced each other. “Here,” Scott said, tossing the backpack to them while he turned around to call his Alpha. “It’s over,” Scott told Alpha Michael. When he got off the phone, he told everyone else to return to the vehicles and wait.

Scott walked towards Tina and Laurie. “Alpha Michael congratulates you on the kill, warriors,” he said. “Let’s find a place to bury him.”

They found a crevasse about eight feet deep between two massive boulders and tossed the huge wolf to the bottom. The three of them worked for about fifteen minutes, dumping rocks on top until they buried Gruber completely. They cleaned up the best they could, then Lauri shifted back so they could walk back to the car.

Scott stopped and grabbed Erich’s backpack. Inside were a change of clothes, a Swiss passport, a wallet full of cash and cards, and a pistol. He popped the magazine out. “Silver,” he said. They put everything back in, and Teri put it on her back for the return trip. They would dispose of it when they got back home.

“That was a lot of cash,” Teri said as they walked back to the lower trail. “What will the Alphas do with it?”

“I don’t know,” Scott said. “It will take a while to trace it back and see how he got it. Cash is untraceable, and I know what I want to ask the Alpha to do with it.” Teri and her ‘dog’ looked up at him curiously. “An epic party before everyone goes home,” he said. “We celebrate after Sawyer takes out Daniel.”

“Oh, hell yeah,” Teri said as she fist-bumped him. “Wolf it all night long.”

The girls were in a good mood; their Pack members were congratulating them for the kill. The most powerful wolf in the world had crashed and burned before dying at the hands of two small females.

And Scott had it on video.

Three down, two to go.