Abandoned Treasure
Doubts and Morals

Warrior Trainee Nathan Storm’s POV

Bitterroot Pack House, Montana

“Damn, she was sweet,” Darryl said as we left the room, his hand on my shoulder as we headed to our dorm room.

“Yeah,” I replied, but my heart wasn’t into it.

“That’s the best thing about being a single warrior,” he continued. “All the pussy you can want and none of the nagging.”

“Is it always like this?”

“Pretty much,” he said. “As long as you aren’t under punishment, the slave quarters are open to anyone after eight at night.”

“Not earlier?”

“They have work to do first,” he replied as we reached our room. “You can’t bring them back to the barracks, but you can reserve a private room in the slave area and keep one overnight. There are only six rooms, and it goes by Pack rank, so don’t expect one on the weekend. You can fuck the others in the common room until ten unless the Alpha has a party organized like tonight.”

I’d never heard of this before. I’d seen the girls working in the kitchen or around the Pack House, but I’d never known about the after-hours availability. “Why didn’t I know about this earlier?”

“Alpha order,” he replied. “Alpha Todd uses access to the slave women to reward his warriors, and you aren’t a warrior until you’ve proven yourself in battle. Thanks to Arrowhead, you’re in the club now. As long as you’re not on restrictions, you have access. Of course, the senior wolves get the hotter women and best times, but you’ll get your chances.” Kill a pregnant Luna, and your reward is sex? It didn’t sit well with me. I sat on my bunk, closing my eyes. My stomach was rolling, and I forced myself to keep it down until the nausea passed. “You all right, Nathan?”

“Just a little tired,” I said. “I’m going to take a shower and go to bed early. I’ve got morning patrol anyway.”

“I go out in an hour, so I’ll catch you later,” he said.

“Have a good run.” He took off while I tossed my clothes in the hamper and headed to the shower room. Junior wolves got the worst of everything, including assignments. If not for rules requiring a mix of ranks in each patrol, we’d be on nights forever.

Sleep didn’t come easy for me. When I first shifted, my parents stressed the importance of my mate; no one else would compare to replaceing that woman the Goddess made just for me. The scent was locked into my mind, and my wolf sniffed every female, looking for a match. So far, nothing.

I couldn’t escape the thought I’d cheated on her. I’d fucked another with no regard for her, and that didn’t sit well with me.

What was worse was that this was no wayward romance. It wasn’t consensual, and the vacant look in the captive woman’s eyes as I took her? It haunted my thoughts as I tried to sleep.

When I finally dropped off, the real nightmare began.

I was up at five and heading out the door by six. Our territory is large, bounded by National Forest and wilderness areas, and we get hunters and hikers despite the signs. On night patrols, we go in wolf form and run the border looking for humans and other Packs making incursions. Day patrols are on roads and ATV trails to avoid the risk of aircraft or satellites seeing a bunch of wolves running around the size of miniature horses. It’s not unheard of to replace trespassers deep inside our territory.

The patrol was quiet, and we returned to the Pack House in time for dinner. Alpha Todd made one announcement other than the usual Pack business. “A delegation of unmated males from the Monongahela Pack will be here on Friday afternoon, departing early Sunday for the Banff Pack in Canada,” he told us. “Normal protocols will be in place. Your Betas will make the assignments.”

“What does that mean for us,” I asked the guys at the table. We had a half-dozen delegations visiting each year, but underage males were never a part of it.

“Lots of booze with guys you don’t know,” one guy said.

“It’s not that big a deal,” Darryl said. “It’s something all the Packs do to replace mates. When the delegation arrives, all our females of age line up outside. The Monongahela males will go down the line looking for their mates. Those that don’t replace them will want to party.”

“Yeah, and it means a weekend without relief,” one of the other guys said.

“The guests get to use the slaves?”

The table erupted in laughter. “Boy, nobody outside the Bitterroot Pack is allowed to know about those women unless the Alpha trusts them with the secret,” the Gamma said.

“What do we do with them? Their scent will be everywhere.”

“That’s the bad part, boy,” he replied. “We’ll have to move them to a secondary camp deep in our territory on Wednesday, then clean the Pack House and common areas to eliminate their scents. It’s a pain in the ass.”

“And the best case for us is that they replace no one,” another added. “If they replace a mate among our females, she goes with them.”

“We get to go to their Pack later, right?”

The Gamma nodded. “When the Alpha sends a delegation, yes. We went on an East Coast swing two years ago, so it will be five or six years before we return.” I looked shocked at this. “You’re our only new unmated male since our last visit, and Packs don’t have females coming of age often. With the travel and expense involved, we only send delegations every three to five years to three or so Packs. You’ll hit them all over twenty years.”

The mated males had guard duty for the slave females, taking them away Wednesday morning. The remaining Omegas worked hard to clean and remove their scents before the delegation arrived. The Alpha laid out his expectations for the visit, along with Alpha orders of what we could not reveal. We put on a good show for our West Virginia brothers. I was assigned to ‘buddy’ with a 20-year-old Omega who couldn’t hold his liquor.

They left Sunday, hoping for better luck in Canada.

The Alpha held a ‘welcome back’ orgy that night after the slaves had returned and finished the cleanup. I switched with another warrior to go on patrol instead.

It didn’t change a thing about their treatment, but I slept well when we returned.

Swapping patrol nights became my out over the next six months. I focused on my training and duties, not signing up for rooms or participating in the nightly debauchery. I couldn’t avoid all of the orgies; the Alpha made them mandatory, and the Beta was catching on to my pattern of switching patrol assignments. He denied my request to patrol during tonight’s party.

The Alpha called me into his office. “What is your problem, Nathan?”

“Sir?”

The Beta set a copy of my patrol schedule in front of me. “You’ve traded nights off for patrol the last ten parties,” he said.

The Alpha shook his head. “Are you fucking gay, or what?”

“No, sir. I am waiting for my mate.”

The two of them laughed. “So naïve,” the Beta teased.

“I don’t trust a man who represses normal desires,” the Alpha replied. “You’ll be at tonight’s party and participate like everyone else. Once you replace your mate, if you want to beg off, that’s your business.”

“Yes, sir.” I didn’t like it, but what choice did I have? Conformity, not independent thought, was valued within the Pack structure. The nail that stands above the others is the first to get pounded by the hammer.

I did manage to perform as the senior wolves watched. I’d figured out by now that other Packs didn’t keep slaves or encourage fornication. Saving oneself for your mate was considered honorable and virtuous.

That was not the Bitterroot Pack way of life.