*Rafe*
Reports come in from all over the forest. I keep my eyes closed and listen to the telepathic voices in my head, collecting all of the data, all of the numbers.
But the number of captured wolf shifters are not just random digits written down on a piece of paper. For every person that we round up, a family is torn apart.
“One of them got out before we even fucking released the guards,” Kris told me about two hours ago when the shifters’ time was up. “He ran straight east.”
I’d snickered. I knew that wolf shifters always said that was a bad strategy, but it had worked for this guy.
As the night wears on, more of the wolf shifters slip out of the forest than have ever done so before, but it’s still not enough. Many, many more are captured. I can hear their screams in the distance and know that they’re not injured; they are devastated. They’re picturing their mothers and fathers, maybe their mates. Some of these people are old enough to have children. None of the villages have rules in place that they have to only choose youths who are childless. While most shifters wait until they are past the age of twenty-five to have kids for that reason alone, it would stand to reason that some of those cries that fill the night are for the sake of missing babies at home.
They know as well as I do that they will never see their families again. Feeders are cut off from everything and everyone. While we’ve done much to improve the way they are treated recently, they are still prisoners with a very important job, and King Axel would never permit those rules to change. It’s just too important for the survival of our species.
I think about the way things are done in Tormentia, how it’s just a free-for-all, and no one regulates the creation of new vampires. It’s a fucking mess. Yet, they are a powerful kingdom because they’re people are ruthless.
And their borders are bursting at the seams.
King Axel had taken over much of these lands previously occupied by wolf shifters so that we’d have a buffer between our original holdings and our enemies. Now, the peoples we’d occupied are quickly becoming our enemies.
They are too weak to fight back, but the other wolf shifter kingdom on our western border is a different story. They’ve been working to attack us for many years.
Someday, they will.
So it’s up to me as the new king to reevaluate everything we’re doing to make sure it’s for the best. Just because something has always been done a certain way, that doesn’t mean it’s best if it stays that way.
The culling is under my control to a degree, as are the feeders. The rest of the kingdom Axel hasn’t relinquished yet, and he hasn’t named the exact date that he will be retiring. Only “soon.”
After that, it’ll be up to me.
“The sun is peeking over the horizon,” Zeke says in my head. “We’ve gathered up eighty-two wolf shifters so far. We have about ten more minutes before we can call this thing. What do you want me to do, sir?”
I take a deep breath and open my eyes. I see nothing.
Considering all of the thoughts that have been roaming through my mind for the last several hours, I’m torn. Now is not the time to make more changes. I can let them all go free. But if I do that, we’ll starve.
I take a deep breath and answer through my telepathy. “Start moving them back to the transport vehicles. Keep the ones that got out in a safe place until we can get them home. How many are there?”
“We have seven, sir,” Zeke tells me. “Six guys and a fiery young woman who reminds me a lot of your little friend.”
I smile for a second thinking about that. I like to think of her as my little friend, too, though I have a feeling that’s about to change.
“How many are at the church?” I ask him.
“I believe it’s eight, sir. Six in the crypt if I counted heartbeats correctly. One outside in the stone area, and the one under the altar.”
Taking a deep breath, I contemplate my choices again. It would be easy to just let them all go home. But I have to keep in mind what I know about the Blacks. I could remove them from power right away, but that would cause an uprising in Beotown that could spread to neighboring villages. No one else would understand my reasoning. The Blacks are powerful, and I’ll have to take my time to ease them out of power.
It would be easy to let her go, to decide she’s won, like her friends who are still hiding with her on the temple grounds. My understanding is that more wolf shifters get caught at the temple than anywhere else because of rumors that we are afraid of it or don’t know it exists. It’s all silly. Yet, this time around, I made a conscious decision to ensure anyone who hid there because of Ainslee would be going home. Beotown is going to be getting several of their chosen ones back, which may cause an uproar because these young people are angry.
“Sir?”
“I’m thinking.”
Zeke is impatient for a reason. People are asking him what to do.
“Come back to the church,” I tell him. “Get the others out first. Then, I need you to open the crawlspace.”
He’s quiet for a second. “And if I refuse?”
“Fuck me, Zeke. Just do it.” He genuinely likes Ainslee, just as I do, and he doesn’t want to be the one to tell her what’s about to happen. I can’t blame him. I don’t want to tell her either.
But I will.
“You open it up, and I’ll explain the situation,” I tell him as he’s already coming closer to me.
“Kris is going to be pissed that I ran him off, but that’s going to be nothing compared to what she’s going to say when you tell her the truth.” I can hear the apprehension in his voice, even though it’s just telepathy.
“I know.”
She’s going to go insane. The scene outside of the bakery will have nothing on this. I won’t be able to reason with her or explain jack shit.
Ainlsee Bleiz has a lot of enemies who would like for her to cease to exist. If she doesn’t calm the fuck down and listen to me, she’ll end up dead.
But at the moment, despite her known enemies, she is her own worst enemy.
I hear footsteps approaching and turn to the girl sleeping on my shoulder. “Ainslee? Times up.”