Ursanthropy
62. Reunion

Jack

“My father is close by as well.” Doreen linked me, and I grunted.

“Shit, how do you know? Because I haven’t seen him.” I replied to her, as I grunted again.

“Because I have one of his ‘men’, if you can call him that, right here.” She answered. I didn’t understand the intonation of that sentence, but I was in a rather unstable predicament myself to worry about what she meant by it. And I grunted again.

“Could you be quiet just for one second!” Maxwell whispered loudly to me. “I can’t focus when you keep growling like that!” He sneered, as he tried to unlock the door of the cell that we were thrown in.

He had found a small piece of iron and was picking the lock for the past twenty minutes already, with no luck of course, while I was trying to get out of the tight shackles. I hoped that one of the kitchen staff would finally be able to get down here, and help us out of the cells that I once used for rogues and trespassers in my time.

“Have you seen my Beta, by the way? I can’t seem to reach him, ever since I heard him scream.” Maxwell suddenly asked me, as he threw the piece of iron away, annoyed by the fact that he couldn’t pick a lock. “No sorry, I haven’t.” I replied, when Maxwell let himself drop on the floor.

“And apparently Damien is here as well.” I grunted again, as I tried to get the sturdy iron shackles off of me. Maxwell looked at me, with hatred in his eyes, hate for the hunter King.

“This turned out to be one, big, fucking mess!” He growled and I couldn’t object to that statement. “By the way, just push your thumbs out of their sockets and they will easily fall off.” He then said.

“What?”

“Push your thumbs… Oh, come here!” He growled again and before I knew it he had me cursing in a colourful range of words. But as he said, the shackles had fallen off, and afterwards I pushed my hands flat on the floor to get my thumbs pack in their sockets again.

Suddenly the door to the cellars opened, and some shuffling and squeaking from a trolly was heard. “Can you believe it? First he crowns himself King, then he orders for our former Alpha to be taken away instead of being killed on the spot, and now he feeds them? I truly can’t understand what he is up to next, but I’m staying on the good side of him!” The cowardly warrior said and his partner laughed at his statement.

“Here you go, dogs! You don’t deserve it, but here’s some food!” He shouted while leaving the trolley nearly out of reach, just to annoy us.

I pulled the trolley closer and checked everything that was on it, to see if the kitchen staff had left me something to help us with. “Yes!” I whispered when I found a bullet and a match, hidden underneath one of the cups. I knew exactly what to do with it, but it was going to cause a small explosion, so I needed a distraction, for those stupid warriors to not hear me.

Maxwell suddenly started to chuckle behind me, and I looked confused into his direction. “Your mate is coming in, in fifteen, fourteen, thirteen…” He stopped counting down as he was expecting a lot of noise in a few seconds, but when I waited for it, nothing happened. I raised my arms up, shaking my head in question to him.

“Oh wait, fifteen minutes, not fifteen seconds.” He replied to my confusion and I rolled my eyes.

Damien

Shit! Justin isn’t replying to my texts anymore and my hunters have informed me that a large group of people are getting ready to attack this house head on!

“Hello father.” It suddenly popped up on my screen, from Justin’s phone. But because it was a rule to never call our names over text, other than me being the King and everyone else as one of my men, I knew for a fact that this wasn’t Justin at all.

“Hello daughter. Finally we speak, after such a long time.”

“Well, it’s not on good terms, but yes indeed.” She replied and then it was quiet for a moment or two, before I saw her typing again. “Can we meet? Outside?” She asked me and I frowned.

“Where is he!?” I suddenly heard Dennis shout below me, and when I looked down into the room, as I was still lying behind one of the air vents, I saw him getting angry towards one of his guards. I almost chuckled as I could see the stupid warrior rub his head, as I knew that he had hit himself against a wall when I had injected him with some tranquilizer, when I had left Dennis’ office.

They would never replace me up here, so I focused on the text that I had received a minute ago. I was contemplating whether or not I should go outside. I mean, I had all the Alphas here in the room, but if I were to use the gas, then there would hardly be a shifter in the room left for me to experiment on. And if I should decide to get all these Alphas ‘humanized’, then another Alpha at their homes, would just step up and lead their respective packs instead.

So, for the moment I had nothing to gain, should the gas be used. And Dennis wasn’t planning on using the gas now either, as he was King now anyway. Besides, I was curious as to what my precious daughter wanted to tell me.

“I’ll be out soon.” I texted her back.

Somehow, even though Dennis had ordered for plenty of his warriors to go and replace me, I managed to get back into his office and left the house through the secret door that I had come in to. Another text was send, to let me know where she was located, and I had ordered for my men to come to that spot as well.

Doreen

I don’t know what I was thinking, when I had send him that text with the boy’s phone, but I had to somehow get him outside, so that Jack and Maxwell had a bigger shot of getting out of this situation. I hoped that with this, I could distract him long enough for Vic, the cats and our loyal warriors to get inside, free the men, and then lure all the Alphas outside.

Vic had of course not liked the fact that I was standing here, all alone. But I didn’t give her a choice.

I know that my father wasn’t going to think about experimenting on me, unless he would know that I was able to shift. So, I just had to keep my cool, don’t get angry, and certainly don’t try to use any other new powers of which I don’t know I might have.

My heart was racing, as I saw him approaching. I took a good smell and could sense that he wasn’t alone. At least I’m glad that I have his full attention, which is good for Vic and the others to be able to get inside the pack house easier.

“Dear, dear, Doreen.” He started with a warm smile, acting as if he never did anything wrong in his entire life!

For a moment it reminded me of the good life that I had, way before I knew about all of the things that he had done, while I was in the house with him. But quickly I shook my head, knowing that if I hadn’t run away, I would have never met Jack or the others and I would have never found out about my own powers.

It suddenly got me angry as well, knowing about all the horror that my father has caused upon others. But I couldn’t let it overtake my calm set of mind right now, I can’t let him see that I can turn into a murdering bear myself.

He walked towards me, while opening up his arms, ready to hug me. “Don’t you dare come any closer!” I yelled towards him, not even trying to be silent, while letting out a little bit of the anger that I want to keep inside of me. He instantly raised his arms in defeat and took two steps backwards.

“Why did you let me come here? Are you ready to come home again?” He asked me while looking towards the tree behind me.

I glanced backwards to the tree as well, but I was happy to notice that the boy was still firmly attached to it, tied up with ropes and cables. But when I looked back, towards my father, I was surprised to see that he was rubbing his face. Did he just frown? Why?

“No, I will never come home again. I was just wondering, what it would take you to stop this nonsense? Can’t you see that we hurt no one? That we want to live in peace?” I asked him.

“Is that what they have been showing you? Peace?” He started. “Last year, we counted that these animals contributed in taking two percent of the female population worldwide, only to breed with them and create more of these rabid creatures! If it weren’t for me, those numbers would have been higher, increasing the chance of creating a worldwide eradication of true humans! As we speak, they are overpopulating our planet with their mindless rage and-

“Mindless rage? Do you even know how we live? Did you even consider to take just one moment to ask the ones that you have experimented on, how everything works?” I interrupted him.

Of course I didn’t know about those numbers, but what I do know is that everywhere on the planet women are being forced to do things that they don’t want to do. It’s not only because of the shifters that the female population is being diminished, and ‘converted’ into that of the shifter world, but also because cruelty is increasing on the human side. And Dennis selling off women to the human world, is a rather obvious evidence to that subject!

As I come to think about it now, it is odd that all of the shifters used to listen to one single person, a female nonetheless! In the human world, something like that would never happen, as humans are too stubborn to follow, too selfish to let go of their ruling. All that the current leading humans ever think about, is power. Nothing more, nothing less.

I suppose that when the shifters still had their Queen, and laws were to be followed, a lot less crimes and cruelty occurred on our side. But like Vic had told me, ever since the shifters didn’t have their Queen anymore, the packs had gone out of line, chaos had been heightened, smaller packs had been overrun, and what not more. It was time for the shifters to have their Queen again!

“You are living with one of these creatures, please indulge me.” My father finally said.

“Father, I’m not only living with them, I am one of them, and you know it.” I replied and he nodded. He didn’t know much I was ‘one of them’ but I wasn’t going to enlighten him with that just yet. “A pack is like a machine. If well taken care of, by the right Alpha and Luna, every part of it works together, without a single weak link. Every person has their jobs to attend to, everyone can replace their love, everyone has the same rights to earn and receive what they work for, and so on.”