The Delta's Daughter Chapter 92

OLIVER

For the better part of almost three years, I had been serving my new king, Orion Artos.

When Jack told me I hadn’t seen anything yet, the day we left MacTire, the day we left Silas and his torn limbs on the battle field. The day we lost to the Dire Wolf. I didn’t give his words much thought. I came to find out he was not joking.

I had been naive. I never questioned what Silas was doing, or why or who he sold the humans and young shifters to. Now I knew.

And now they would have wished their only problem was Silas. Silas was evil, but he had nothing on the man who was pulling the strings from the beginning.

That day we headed towards a new destination. We travelled for days, heading south to the unclaimed territory of Lewe. Only stopping to gather resources, resources meaning rogue wolves, bear and cats to join our ranks. Resources also meant capturing and detaining humans, moving them south with us.

I wasn’t a hundred percent sure why we were taking all these humans. It didn’t matter their age, creed or color. My new king wanted them all. I wouldn’t find out what they were for until we finally arrived in Lewe.

Lewe was a territory that had been abandoned centuries ago, an urban city that I assumed once thrived with humans centuries ago. A concrete jungle of rundown buildings and cities scattered across the territory. Our destination was the city of Bazah.

Not sure what to expect once we arrived, the humans were carted off somewhere and the rogue shifters taken to a complex where they would be sorted, fed and told what units they would be in. It was well organized, very militant.

“You look lost in thought,” Jack's voice broke through my wandering mind.

“No, not lost, just thinking.” I replied, not wanting him to know where my head was at. The last thing I needed to show was weakness. That had already been made loud and clear. Weakness was not to be tolerated.

It wouldn’t be so bad if you were just killed, executed for being weak, like Silas would have done. But no, not here... here, a fate worse than death was waiting for you. I have seen it firsthand. The monsters humans became; the monsters weak, and disobedient rogues would be turned into and experimented on.

“Well, don’t think too hard. We have a meeting with the King and Finn shortly. Seems they got some new Intel. There was a hint of excitement in Jack’s voice and I looked over to the chair he was sitting in. His dark blue eyes were misleading. To most he looked like a happy go lucky sort of guy. In reality, he was a sadistic, egotistical maniac.

“Are you thinking about your little Dire Wolf we saw up north?” His mouth slinked into an evil smirk, the corners turning upwards into a wicked grin. I was, but not in the way he was thinking.

He was one of the bears that frequented Lamia’s cell when Silas and I had held her captive. I was privy to watching him work. I thought I was the devil in disguise, but he enjoyed what he did. No remorse, no morals, no second guessing. Over the past few years I had gotten to know Jack well, or as well as I wanted to. I learnt that you didn’t tell him no. Especially if you were a female he decided he wanted. Or if you had something he wanted, he just took it. And there weren’t too many people who would oppose or challenge the large bear shifter.

There was only one person Jack feared, and rightly so: Orion.

It had been a couple of days since we had left the Bear Kingdom. The sight of Lamia fighting side by side with the Bear King puzzled me. I had first scented her as soon as she came through the treeline, wielding her swords like a goddess. We pulled back our rogue warriors and sent in the Monsters. It had been a snowy day, the blizzard whipping around creating a magnificent cover for the things.

They blended into the white and grey background, hiding themselves as they slunk towards the clan. They had no scent and they were almost silent.

‘The perfect soldier’ is what Orion called them. Unnatural is what I call them.

I watched from the ridge of the hill, as she and the bear king disposed of our monsters one by one, easily and effectively. I heard her call out my name, spitting her words out with a disgust unlike any other. And rightly so, she should hate me. And I should fear her. I turned once to see the Bear King holding her back as she tried to break free of him. Thankfully, she had not come after me. Still, I waited with my bow and arrow ready in case her form came hurdling over the ridge, until Jack told me they weren’t coming and it was time for us to move.

The river systems were how we were able to move up and down the continent. Interconnected channels and basins that led to the ocean made moving, not only our fighters, but the unholy monsters, easily and undetected. That and Orion had warehouses and an underground system set up for hiding them and keeping them hidden until it was time to use them.

Orion had been setting this up for decades.

Later that evening, Jack and I made our way across the compound, to the main building. A structure that stood twenty floors high, with a basement and an underground parking garage that had been converted into holding cells and laboratories.

We walked in through the main doors, across the chipped tiled floor and to the elevators. Upon entering, Jack pressed the button: U5, taking us 5 stories below the ground. The corridor was cold and grey, the smell damp, old and pungent, worse than the cells at MacTire. The dim lighting cast shadows at every corner and the flicker of the dying florescent lights made my eyes blink rapidly.

I hate it down here. I was more intimidated by these walls than the dungeons at MacTire.

I could hear screams from somewhere, whether it was this floor or the one below and above. I wasn’t sure. We walked past a series of doors that held humans and disgraced shifters. Their muffled sobs reached my ears with each step.

Finally, we reached the end of the corridor and a guard, stationed outside a large metal door opened it for us. Orion sat there in a large leatherback chair, placed on a raised platform, looking every bit like the King he was, in his pristine khaki suit and tailored white shirt. Finn sat to his left in another high-back leather chair, just not as grand as Orion’s and not seated on the platform.

“Boys!” Orion greeted us with an eerily cheerful smile, one that did not match his personality. With Silas I always knew what I was getting. With Orion, you couldn’t tell from one minute to the next which personality we would be met with.

Orion was tall and bulky, almost as tall as the Bear King, but not as broad. He looked young for his age. I was sure that had something to do with the herbal potions I had seen him take on more than one occasion.

“King.” Both Jack and I said, bowing our heads as we neared the platform.

Orion got up from his chair, stepped off the platform and took Jack's hand in a firm embrace, then clapped him on the shoulder. Turning to me, he did the same. He then held me at arm’s length.

“Ollie, my favorite wolf, glad to see you here. Jack said you could have ended up torn apart if my son hadn’t held back that little she-wolf.” He laughed, a deep amused laugh rumbled through him. “Not to worry, I met the little minx myself when I paid Mathias a visit. Quite a strong little wolf. I know you had warned me about her, but I have to say I was surprised to see her with my son. And just a Dire Wolf too, she has Lycan blood running through those pretty veins of hers. ”

“She was with the bear king?” My eyebrows pulled together and lips pinched in annoyance. I knew they had fought together, but she was with him in Lonely City too. What really got me was the revelation that she was also part Lycan, this I did not know, and neither had Silas.

As my brain ticked over, things that I had wondered about began to make sense.

“My sources tell me they are mates.” He shook his head, “Who would have thought? My son and the chosen one; mates! Not to worry.” He said again “This might prove to be in our best interests. We need her blood to undo the curse. It would be easier if we could use a vile of it or if we didn’t need her alive, but Mathias will either come around or he will die. Either way,” He looks at Finn “I have a spare” and winks at me before stepping up to the platform and sitting in his chair again.

I was still stuck on his words ‘the chosen’, when he spoke again.

“How many crawlers did they kill?” He asks, looking between Jack and me.

“All of them you had us deploy, your highness” Jack stated.

Orion ran his index finger over his lips, pursing them as he did so. “Hmm, so that’s 50 they killed and then another 30, something we lost at Cambiador.”

“The word is your highness that King Armand has fallen and died early this morning.” Jack relayed, his voice even toned and eyes forward, his hands crossed behind his back and stood up straight when he addressed the King.

“That is true, Jack, my boy. And from what I know, the city has been left in ruins. Their numbers are weak from the previous attacks and without their king or a successor, they will bow to me, let’s give it a week. .” He shifted in his seat and opened a large wooden box, full of syringes that held a purplish colored liquid in them.

A young woman in her early thirties, a werewolf, dressed in a white coat and white blonde hair stepped into the room from a door behind Orion. “Are you ready for them my king?” her voice was timid as she asked.

“Yes, start bringing them in Shayna,” Orion held no emotion and refused to look the woman’s way.

A few minutes later, several guards began bringing in chained up humans, gagged so they couldn’t scream. I was hoping he would dismiss Jack and I, but no such luck.

We watched as one by one he stuck each of them with a needle. And one by one they dropped to the ground, muffled screams sounded from behind the gag, as the injection burned through them. They were still screaming when the guards dragged them out back to their holes.

I looked towards Finnegan, his eyes low, looking at the ground as his father injected each human with the concoction that would turn them into the unholy monsters he commanded. I had no idea what was in those needles and I never wanted to find out.

“Are the soldiers in place?” Orion asked Jack, not even bothering to look up as he injected yet another poor unfortunate soul.

“Yes your highness. We have rogue warriors ready to attack on your command and the Crawlers are locked up waiting to be set upon the Wolf Kingdom.”

“Good, good. Well Ollie, it looks like you will be getting your wish soon. By this time in a week or so, the New moon pack will fall and their palace will become mine.” A slight smile graced his face. “I want to send in two waves, the second two days after, while they are still trying to figure what hit them. Finn will accompany you both to make sure the job is done. Once we have a hold over the wolves, everything else should fall into place. Then, we start our march to Riocht.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. I was eager to take down the Wolf king and his prince but, I was not eager to find the lost city of Riocht. It meant going through the forests of Morngord, where they say the dead rise to feast on the living. A forest so haunted if you get lost, you may never come out of there.

The thought sent a shiver down my spine; I didn’t even like passing the eerie forest when traveling up the river Nuzah, which took us straight into the wolf kingdoms territory.

As Jack and I walked back through the compound to our barracks, I couldn’t help but think how quiet Finn was. He was his fathers lackey, but any fool could sense the power in his aura. It made me wonder how King Orion kept his hold over Finn, or why the white-haired violet-eyed man let Orion hold power over him. Again, my thoughts trailed back to the Dire Wolf and how much strength she possessed.

I was unsure if Lamia would be able to defeat this enemy, like she had done Silas.

Some part of me hoped she would tear him apart like she did Silas, but that is nothing I would ever voice out loud.

I also hoped I never ran into her again but with what Orion said about needing her blood, I was sure it was unavoidable.