Abandoned Treasure
Bad Options

Werewolf Council Chairman Eric Gruber’s POV

Bitterroot Pack Alpha Conference Room

Thursday, January 6, 2015

The Council sat around the table just after midnight. We were tired after the travel, not to mention the stress of the trials and punishments.

Bitterroot was shrinking towards nothing. Among the mates of those executed, almost half had already committed suicide. Experience told us a quarter more would follow in the next 72 hours. The discovery of the slave quarters only added to the stress. We found nineteen kidnap victims plus a bunch of captive female rogues in there. Pack records identified dozens of children and adults in the Pack that Alpha Todd took from their biological mothers.

The interviews expanded to include lower-ranking wolves, male and female, who were not part of the raid on Arrowhead. We went well into the night with the interrogations. Twenty-two more members of the Bitterroot Pack, including seven women, resided in the cells as the sun rose.

“Is there going to be anyone left by the time we finish,” Craig asked. “It’s scary how many of them didn’t consider what their Pack was doing to be wrong. They taught young men this is normal and good, taking another man’s mate and using her to breed. It’s a mess, and it could take generations to turn it around.”

“It took two generations to screw it up. Luna knows how long it will take to fix this Pack,” Royce said. “The real problem is we have completely decapitated the Pack. They have no leaders left with any experience, and the remaining members are young, old, or widowed. Frankly, the very existence of this Pack offends me now. I think we need to liquidate it. They should join the Arrowhead Pack as a sad chapter in our history.”

I’d been considering this option all night. “I need to bring the European Councilmen into the decision, but we don’t have to make it now. We’re tired, and so is the Pack. We will take this up tonight.”

Alpha Charles brought in the last piece of business. He didn’t want to delay the punishment of Alpha Todd and his men for killing Luna Joanna, and that punishment needed to be on his lands. No one had any objections; the summons here was on short notice, and no one expected the mess we found.

The kidnapped females needed to go home without delay, and the Alphas should go with them.

We put off the trials of the remaining Pack members for five days. The Council would remain here to do the hard work of liquidation.

Tuesday, January 11th, 2015

All of the world Alphas joined the European Council for the next round of trials. Five males were convicted of kidnapping and executed for stealing Pack members. The others who supported the raids met the silver whips. Those wolves were back in their cells getting medical treatment. Most were facing significant prison time once they healed.

The two Councils, plus the Alphas and their seconds, met after lunch in the dining room. “Gentlemen, we have a problem,” I said as I opened the meeting. “One week ago, the Bitterroot Pack numbered two hundred and eighty-seven on the Council roster. That did not include the nineteen kidnapped Pack wolves and twenty-eight rogue females he kept as sexual servants in his dungeons.” I let that sink in for a moment. “One hundred and ninety Pack members remain, plus thirty-five slaves.”

One of the European Alphas looked up, confused at the number. “The kidnapped slaves haven’t all been returned to their original Packs?”

I nodded. “Some women do not wish to return to their original Packs. I will not force a Pack bond on them.” I’d had a few conversations about this, but the Alphas involved wouldn’t relent. It wasn’t a coincidence that they were the same ‘honored guests’ of Alpha Todd who had participated in wild sex orgies in that basement. Under interrogation, they were cleared of crimes because ‘I didn’t know they were slaves, and there’s no law against fucking bitches.’ Alpha Todd would send away the ones from their Pack during these visits, but the women knew who participated. They preferred staying together over joining a man like that.

“Two hundred and twenty-five people to divide up among the Packs,” Councilman Waterman said. “Nineteen remaining Packs now that Arrowhead and Bitterroot are no more. Simple math tells me each Pack must take a dozen people.”

That caused an uproar. I banged on the gavel and recognized Alpha Pyotr Karamazov. “You ask too much of us. If one of the females mates with a male in my Pack, I will take the female as is customary. I’d consider accepting a male mate of a Pack female, provided the male is worthy to join us. I cannot and will not take just anyone, and the Council cannot make me. The Chairman just said he would not force a bond. If we do some form of lottery or draft, is that not what we are doing?” Others nodded in agreement.

“I do not want any of their males in my Pack, regardless of age,” Alpha Charles Martin said as he stood. “Females in my Pack suffered at the hands of these men. How can I promise them safety at home while I bring their rapist to live with them?” Almost everyone nodded at that. “The young ones learned that females not of the Pack have no standing or value, so there is no shame in using them. The females knew of it but said nothing, even when they moved to other Packs. Generations of teaching had to be unlearned. There were young men here who thought such abuse was acceptable. Moving them into a new Pack would not be wise."

There would be enough problems absorbing the widows, the women, and the children into the fold. Of the two hundred and eighty-seven werewolves who made up the Pack just a week ago, about one hundred and ninety remained after the executions, imprisonments, freeing of the slaves, and the suicides of the widows. That meant each Pack had to take around a dozen people to make things even.

But ‘even’ had nothing to do with it.

We encouraged those with strong family claims to apply for transfer to that Pack. Most Alphas wouldn’t fight these reunification claims. That got the number down to just over a hundred to disperse.

The best thing for the remaining wolves was to make them all ‘free agents.’ They were allowed to meet with leaders of Packs they were interested in. In turn, the Alphas could interview them. If both agreed, they would go to their new Pack.

Few wanted to relocate to Europe or Russia. Of the remaining, they had a good idea of who the ‘good’ Alphas were. They asked for placement in those Packs, which threatened the numbers in the ‘bad’ Alpha packs.

Having everyone go to four Packs wasn’t acceptable to the Council. The Alphas had controlled Pack movements tightly, rarely letting anyone change except for females going to their mate’s Pack. Making Bitterroot members ‘free agents’ would raise uncomfortable questions. Why was it good enough for these people but not for everyone else? The Alphas voted to nix that plan, afraid of the anarchy resulting from open movement.

What other problems did we have? Well, few would take single females, especially if they had suffered abuse here for years. Everyone had heard the Council Doctor’s reports on their condition. They would require years of counseling and support, and none of the Packs could provide it. “Leave them here until they get cured,” Councilman Baronsky said. “They can support each other, and our best doctors will have them in one place.”

“These women don’t have the flu,” I replied. “You don’t just ‘get over it’ when you’ve lived through this.”

In the end, the fate of the Omegas rested on their sex. Packs measured their strength by their fighting males. Most of the females would go elsewhere when they found their mate. The ones who lost their mates were mentally unstable and might never replace a second chance mate. Since they would eventually leave, unmated females weren’t considered worth expending valuable resources for education, medical care, or travel.

The Council didn’t have the votes to force people to take them, so they didn’t.

Then there were younger men. The older ones were dead or in prison, and those decisions could wait until they’d served their prison time. No Alpha wanted the thirty-two men aged ten to twenty-five who hadn’t been of age for the Arrowhead attack. Alpha Charles summed the problem up. “They’d grown up believing those women existed to service them, and many had taken part in the basement orgies. How could you ‘reprogram’ them? And how could you bring a young man into a Pack where kidnapped girls were now free?”

“You can’t,” Councilman Forrest said. “The families would kill them, just like they would the men released from prison. Memories are long, and we didn’t kill them all.”

“Maybe we should have,” Councilman Nemmers said softly. “It would have made things simpler.”

Alpha Charles came up with the best of a bad set of options. Bitterroot would no longer be a Pack but would function as a Council facility. The young men would undergo an intensive training and rehabilitation program of Council design. The goal was to make them acceptable to an Alpha in the next year. If it worked, the program would be the pilot for those released from Council prisons. “We already have the infrastructure here,” Charles told us. “Use it. Bring the best trainers, leaders, and doctors here and put them to work.”

“What if it doesn’t work,” I asked.

“What is our choice? We have to hold out the hope they will gain a Pack if they behave, or we may as well make them rogues now.”

“That isn’t an option,” I replied. “These men are too dangerous to be outside a Pack structure.”

After much discussion, that motion carried. We also voted to relocate all Pack prisoners to expanded cells here since most of our prison population was former Bitterroot. The Omegas would remain here, getting counseling while they supported operations. Councilman Forrest was appointed ‘Alpha’ of the Training Center, while Packs were assigned to supply instructors and staff. “I want this up and running by summer,” I told everyone. “Councilman Forrest will gather our best minds to design a program that can work, and I expect you all to support it.”

Would it work? Probably not, but we had to try.