Unwilling Ch. 05

"He challenged me."

Greta spoke up first, back on her feet, chin held high.

"I walked in here, and he challenged me because of a god damned seat!"

Dennis took an angry step forward, but Rayne gave a sharp whistle to bring his eyes back to himself and away from Greta.

"She stomped in here like the Queen of England, tried to snarl me out of my spot and then she grabbed me. Like a teenager, she just grabbed me and tried to pull me out of her way!", he hissed, knuckles white under the pressure of his balled fists. Rayne could see an artery throb on the top of his bald patch.

"Greta, this is not the time or the place to be led by anger over something else. Get yourself a damn chair out of the kitchen and sit down before you lose control and change."

Rayne could feel Dennis smirk without needing to look over.

"And Dennis, do I look like a parent to you? I'm half your age, at the most! How come you're standing there and looking all proud of yourself when I just had to yell at you like an unruly teenager? Sit your ass back down and try to keep it together, then you can grin like that." For a moment Rayne felt the anger take over again, so he balled his fists until his fingernails bit into his hands. The pain kept him at least a bit more anchored.

"Am I the only sane person here?!"

Greta was a nice woman, ash-blond hair, just turned thirty, and she was used to command hunky guys around when at work in the gym, so no big mystery there as to why she hadn't been afraid of a fight. But Dennis was a tax accountant with a wiry body in his mid-forties, shorter than Rayne and usually very calm and soft-spoken.

This should not have happened, and it wouldn't have happened with submissives present. But there weren't any, and Rayne had waited on the social outskirts long enough to feel entitled to find out why nobody did anything against that.

"You know this isn't you, people, so stop this madness. Let's use all that pent up anger in a productive way and find out where we can recruit some submissives, before you kill each other for good." It wasn't much, but the thought of having submissive pack members to calm the waves would at least lower the level of aggression, Rayne hoped.

This time the angry murmurs stopped completely. Everybody was back to watching Rayne intently, but it was the young girl Greta had fallen onto before that took the initiative this time.

"We aren't supposed to", she said. Her pretty grey eyes had the serious expression of a teenager reciting house rules to a grown-up guest.

"Shh. You'll get yelled at again, Carmen." This from Greta.

Carmen turned her gaze to Greta, frowning. "I'm just explaining what the rules are, how's that a reason to get yelled at?" Again that serious expression.

"Well", another male voice chimed in from next to the windows, "because Rayne is new and we don't know if Carl trusts him yet." Rayne's eyes followed the voice and found Grahams face. He was a car mechanic, twenty-something, but Rayne had never had any direct contact with him before. It was unusual to even see him here.

'If Carl trusts him yet', Graham had said. It was such a peculiar way to word it that Rayne frowned instantly. He hadn't said "we", he had explicitly talked about Carl's level of trust. It wasn't much, but at least Rayne could start to puzzle together a picture.

Carmen didn't seem fazed by the reprimand. She brushed back her ink-black hair with one of those hand flips that somehow only teenage girls could manage, then put up a bored facade. "Well, he's here, isn't he? And he brought two of the guys Carl wants, so I'd say he's got his trust alright."

That broke the dam, and suddenly everyone was talking at the same time, a cacophony of voices that grew louder and louder until Rayne feared his head would explode.

"Shut up!"

Even yelling at the top of his lungs wasn't enough to silence them instantly, but at least they stopped arguing one after another and looked his way once more.

"What aren't you telling me? Why won't we go look for submissives?" Rayne asked more bluntly. His hair started to stand on end with an inchoate feeling of dread.

Suddenly all the eyes focused on a point behind Rayne.

"That's because I told them not to, Rayne."

Carl stepped into the room, smiling charmingly.

~*~

Rayne stumbled back with a surprised expression on his face. The rest of the dominants fell silent and all the calm Rayne had tried to re-establish suddenly came all by itself. It was the presence Carl exuded, he simply commanded respect.

It wouldn't hold forever though.

"So, what's all that ruckus about?" Carl said casually strolling over to the couch, but not sitting down. He stared at the cushions for a few seconds, then he turned around and looked at Rayne.

"Just a little disagreement, it's all good", he answered, lips automatically forming a small smile.

A small nod from Carl, then he sat down next to Dennis and looked around as if to check if anything had been broken.

"Seems you've got it under control now. Just as I said you would." Carl smiled at the pack members like a proud father.

There were a few nods and affirmative grunts from the crowd, and suddenly everyone looked very relieved and pleased, except for Rayne.

"I don't get it."

Carl's eyes snapped back to Rayne, who still stood next to the entrance and didn't really know what to do next, or what to make of this strange situation.

"Well, I brought you into this and here tonight so I can explain 'it' to you. I want you to join our cause after all." Again this hello-well-met-smile was shot into Rayne's direction.

There was a slight shuffle coming from the other dominants. Rayne took a short moment to watch their faces, and most of them were looking at Carl or at Rayne, but two or three were looking somewhere else, their faces guarded and unhappy. Whatever this 'cause' was, not everyone was as convinced as Carl. And not the whole pack was even present.

The Alpha scooted back and forth a bit, finding a comfortable sitting position, and leaned back in what should have looked like a relaxed pose. Then he began to explain, his voice calm but forceful, demanding attention.

"The year my wife died I found out a few hard truths about us and about myself. One of those truths is the fact that our pack is stained by submissives, who weaken and sully us until we'd rather fight against our own ranks than against them or outside forces. We'd kill for the safety of a submissive, but we are the ones who bleed and fight and lose family and friends, while they do nothing at all in the best of times.

-- Don't say anything yet!" Carl interrupted by putting up a hand just as Rayne wanted to object, and he closed his lips again.

After a short pause Carl went on. "We would do anything for them. We give them our hearts on a silver platter, and they just... take it. The only thing they give is calmness and peace, but it's not real. They are like a Venus Flytrap, lulling us into believing we need them so they can slowly digest our souls and bodies. They make us believe that we could never ever exist without them, that we would rather kill each other without them than control ourselves, that we would ultimately cease to exist, like raving beasts without any sense of self."

The mask of calmness had started to slip with every sentence, and by now Carl's fists were balled tightly and his voice was dripping acid and anger.

To Rayne's surprise it was Graham who interrupted the rant.

"I know your wife was like that and I'm sorry, Carl. But she was an exception to the rule, not a standard. I still think we'd self-destruct without submissives, and today was the best example. Had Rayne not intervened, Greta and Dennis would have really hurt or even killed each other, and we were this close from joining in." He held up a hand to show a very small gap between his thumb and forefinger to visualize his words. "A pack can't exist without submissives, it's a fact. We just have to be more careful which ones to let in."

"This is where you're wrong." Carl sounded very smug, which was astonishing. Rayne had expected an explosion, but there the Alpha sat, smiling triumphantly.

"I know for a fact that there's a pack in Canada consisting only of dominant werewolves, and it has existed that way for many, many decades."

There was a sequence of short gasps and sounds of disbelief, but now even Graham shifted and sat more upright.

"Not only have they existed like that for decades, but they're thriving. Do you remember the Chinkope Hills Pack? Their Alpha, the one who killed those hunters and saved the pack from extinction, he's from that pack. Can you imagine the power that Canadian pack must have accumulated if they send away such powerful Alphas? And they did it without the submissives. WE can get there without submissives."

The excitement was now thick in the air, like a cloud of tension pushing against Rayne. It made his skin tingle once more, but it wasn't excitement on his part, it was fear.

He knew the pack Carl had talked about. He also knew why it wouldn't work anywhere else.

And he knew he'd be killed rather than listened to if he said anything, because they were too intent on believing the story Carl had just concocted, and what he knew was even more unbelievable than a pack without submissives.

Rayne tried to clear his face of emotions as the voices around him got louder once more. This was another one of those hair-thin paths he would have to navigate, but not to stay in the Banes pack rather than to survive leaving it.

"I've heard of that pack too. I'm in", he said, trying for grim and earnest because he just couldn't fake the excitement everyone else seemed to feel. He needed to buy time and think up a plan, and lying seemed to be the easiest way.

Carl nodded approvingly, smiled at him and clapped a hand onto his thigh. His ability to sense lies didn't seem to cover moments where he wanted to hear one thing, and one thing only-- Rayne counted on it.

"Perfect. Now we just have to get rid of the last submissives. Giselle and her husband have already decided to move as soon as she's out of the hospital, but Darwin won't ever leave his father behind, even though he's hurting him with his mere existence. It doesn't matter if he's dominant or submissive anymore, he's got to go. I wish George had listened to me when I told him to put the kid down, but be it as it may, we've got the chance to finish it now."

Letting out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, Rayne settled against the wall next to the door, crossing his arms and trying for 'attentive but quiet', a facade he had gone with for the last months.

"Somehow Darwin has found a new Alpha that's now intruding on our grounds. I'm pretty sure we'll get that one to leave if we show him what's what, and we've got his pack members to make our point. If he agrees to leave we don't have to kill them, and that'll make it easier to avoid calling attention to ourselves. I don't think Darwin will leave though, and he's broken the rules when he switched sides to the intruder, so we'll probably have to exercise pack rights on him."

Rayne could sense the unease some of the listening dominants felt. Especially Greta and Graham looked unhappy when they realized they'd actually have to kill someone, but Carl had made a good point. An untrue one, but the way he had explained it everyone could see the reasoning behind it.

For a moment Rayne bared his teeth in anxiety. Carl was a dangerous man, even more so now that he could see his brilliance.

Carl seemed to sense the uncertainty in the crowd too, so he sat up and leaned forward, his voice getting more insistent and sympathetic.

"We will all try to make this whole thing as easy and peaceful as possible, there has been enough unfortunate violence and loss in this pack. All the accidents and the robberies are a sign though-- we need to get stronger, and soon! We need to catch Darwin, bring him here or get rid of him on the spot and then find the Alpha. He'll get to choose if he wants to keep his heap of crap pack and leave instantly, or if he wants to fight and ultimately die after we kill his people. Those are the two ways, and I'm praying with you that he'll choose the first one."

This time Rayne had the uncanny impression that Carl was lying his ass off, instead of the other way around. Noone would survive if they caught Darwin, and Carl would make sure that it looked like their choice, not his.

"I need you to find Darwin, and I need to know where his Alpha is. Head out, people, we've got a lot of work to do!"

With those words Carl stood up, and with him the other dominants. They headed out in a single, chattering file, picking up their jackets and boots and rifles, ready for a hunt that didn't look like the prey had any chance to survive.

Rayne didn't follow them, and nobody seemed to notice. As the door closed behind the last one, he pushed off the wall and slowly went to the cellar door.

He had to warn Jared, and this would be the only moment available.