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1912Alpha Calum Hood had once again gone on an unnecessary patrol of the packs land to avoid his mother's nagging.
Yes, he's nearing thirty years old. No, he isn't mated or married. No, he doesn't have children. And no, it's not any of his mother's business. But she would never understand that, and he knows she only wants what's best for him. His mother had him at a young age, only now nearing on fifty herself. It's probably a large part of why she's so worried about her son in that aspect. Calum knows that she also believes the pressure of running their pack is pushing him down. But he'd been doing this for almost half his life now, he's fine. Really. He knows what he's doing, and he's the fucking boss. He can vacation whenever he wants. (He just doesn't want, okay.) He rolls his eyes when his ears pick up the bark of a young pack member. The alpha doesn't bother to shift forms as he nears the sound. Amos is probably fifteen years old - Calum's not great with remembering that stuff - and on his second week of patrol duties. He's sounded the alarm for a rabbit within that time. Calum figures it's a similar call now. When he arrives, he's quick to notice that they're half a mile into pack territories. There's a group of five warriors and Amos in a defensive semi-circle shape. The alpha is the only one standing on two legs. His hands move on their own, one to his dark hair, one to the tree on his left. Brown eyes quickly connecting with dull green. "This is pack land." He announces to the stranger. "Passing by," His voice is pretty, really pretty. Of course Calum's knows better to believe it, because the owner of said voice reeks of death and blood. The prettiest are always the most deadly. "We don't allow the dead in our territory." "Like I said, just passing through. We mean no harm."
Calum watches as the vampire stands stock still in front of him. His pack members never move their eyes from the vampire. "We?" The alpha questions the plural word. "Do not mean to harm any of your people." The man opposite him continues for him. "Who does 'we' refer to?" The undead creature closes his eyes and mumbles a bit to himself. The wolves in front of him ready to strike. Calum prepares himself to shift forms and put his own body between this man and his pack. "My traveling companion is approaching due west." The vampire informs the group.There is a disrespecting glint in his eye like he knows he could - maybe should - kill every man opposing himself. He doesn't move. Amos whimpers when the sound of quick feet becomes audible to the warriors. Calum almost rolls his eyes, except- they're too quick. Far away, like each step is only getting a small distance. Like child, but there's no way. Even as a wolf, Calum knows the danger of immortal children. They never age, never grow, never learn. Stuck in and endless phase of temper tantrums with added strength. Immortal children go against every treaty between the species of all nations. His men growl as light curls pop into view to the intruders right. Against his own wishes, Calum gasps. He'd never truly seen one. The newest vampire is small, too small. Standing at a height comparing easily to Calum's knees. He's absolutely the slightest child the alpha had seen. The boys skin seems to shine with the sunlight, lightly tanned and seemingly warm. Golden curls are a mess on top of his head. Calum doesn't quite get a glance at his eyes, he'd bet money they're red. A blood feeder. Unlike his guardian, who likely feed on wild animals, the child would need human blood to sedate his hunger. Calum's hands itch for him to turn, and he wonders if the elder vamp can sense it because he beckons the child to himself. "Ashton, come here please, my love." The boy doesn't stop his movements, only slows to a human pace. Wobbly. Shaky. He can't be more than three or four. Suddenly, the wolves silence is broken by a nervous growl from somewhere in the back of young Amos' throat. Everyone is tense. "Ashton, now." The vampire snaps, voice thick with an accent Calum couldn't describe. But the boy doesn't obey his guardian. Why would he, Calum thinks, immortal children have no sense of danger. Calum will admit the child is beautiful. He understands why the man caring for him is suddenly shaking in his need to protect the smaller vampire from the small army across from them. He understands also, that this beauty and unexplainable need to shelter the small boy, is likely the most dangerous thing he'd experienced to date. The toddling boy just smiles, a mouth full of sharp teeth, at the elder of his species and giggles at the animals in front of him. "M, doggy!" The letter coming out with more vowel sounds than needed. Sounding something close to 'muha'. Before anyone knew what was happening, the boy changed. The small pup now behind a snarling vampire. No one knew what to do, then. The elder vampire had quickly moved into a defensive stance, as had the warriors. But Calum couldn't move. He'd been so sure the boy was a vampire. An immortal child. He couldn't simply be a wolf, could he? A wolf pup raised by vampires. The alpha had never seen it. His men were thoroughly confused when he raised his hand in a 'not yet' signal. "What is he?" "We're only passing through," The vampire repeated. Green eyes nearly begging the alpha to leave his question alone. "We-He won't hurt anyone." The alpha raised his chin, a sign the other man seemed to take as an okay. He moves towards the pup on the leaf covered ground. "I'm going to pick him up now, we'll be out of your hair." Calum agreed with a swift nod of his head. "Look, Ash, wolf people." They all hear the whispered words to entertain the small boy, once again in human form. Clothes ripped to shreds in the mud, but the vampires arms cover most of the exposed boy. "Woff," the boy - Ash - mumbles into his guardians neck. "Can we leave now, or do we need an escort off of your lands?" The words are a mix between soft and sarcastic. Calum jerks his head left as if to say 'leave'. "We don't tolerate trespassing. You'd do well to make note of scents, vampire. I won't be so lenient next time." The vampire starts to step back, but the boy had different ideas. He slapped his small hand on the mans chest three quick times before turning his head to the 'doggies'. "No, Ashton.
Say bye," The alpha meets eyes with dangerous red ones. Freezing when receiving only a tiny dimpled smile complete with razor sharp k-nines. "Bye-bye mista woff," the boy says on a sad sigh, waving with only his fingers. But Calum was already on his knees on the hard ground.
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1934Wolves are pack animals.
Ashton learned that from his books.
Actually, Ashton learned most things from his books.
He had a difficult time distinguishing fact from fiction because of that - or at least that's what he'd been told.
From first-hand experience, he'd taught himself simple things such as colors and words, things concerning the forest directly, well, everywhere.
He had a remarkable memory, or so he'd been told.
He remembered traveling through woodlands faintly before he had settled in the clearing he'd grow up in.
He'd expressed an interest in the idea of towns and marketplaces.
Always asked for the latest news.
He had a fascination with things he was not allowed.
Each new book or article that he'd read would bring new curiosities.
He always wondered of women.
He'd never seen one. Of course, he'd met females of other species.
Squirrel, Rabit, Doe, the occasional wolf that recognized them as similar.
He thought that would have to do, after all, he would never ask to meet a human version.
He understood, more or less, that it wasn't something that could be done.
Attempted, of course, nearly everything he asked of them was attempted.
Something of that nature, however, would undoubtedly end in disaster.
His men were fiercely protective.
There were two homes within the valley-type setting he resided in.
For show mostly, just in case someone was to find the area.
Ashton almost wished it would happen.
It would cause the other so much trouble, though.
He would never wish that for them.
He had no problem with being surrounded by his men all day, every day.
What he did have a problem with was when Calum would spend his days in the town, working in some small town job that did no justice to his abilities. What he did have a problem with were Micheal's late night runs and week-long trips.
He'd told Michael as much, a random, quiet day.
His men had fought for hours that day.
"ítalska eða gríska?" Micheal's voice was directly behind him. Ashton had been reading a new story, Calum had stolen it from the publishing office. The half-blood answered with Italian not out of personal preference, but because he knew Micheal himself preferred Greek, which had a longer travel distance. Micheal would never gather Greek blood for himself. When the younger man looked up from his book he found his lover eye level with him. Michael's eyes were the same red color as his own and Ashton wondered what had gone wrong. He wouldn't ask, because if Michael wanted him to know he'd tell him. "I went through town before I came to you." the Vampire tells him. Ashton nods for him to continue, folding the page on his book. "Calum is held at the shop, I couldn't speak with him. Marian Marshall still believes we have a homosexual relationship behind closed doors." "That's alright, he had said he may be late home. " Ashton shifted to allow the other man a spot on the small sofa chair. The brunette shifted on the floor to stay at level. He put his elbows on Ashton's knees, keeping his spot on the ground. Ashton always had a hard time accepting that the human world didn't accept his men.
That even if he was allowed to roam he would never really be free. "There were hunters seven miles out." Ashton bit his lip.
There went his morning runs then.
"Seven miles, Ashton." "Yes, Micheal, I heard." "Did you, because you seem unconcerned.
This is not just you, Ashton.
You put all of us at risk when you make stupid decisions.
You know that.""I just wanted to see them.
I wasn't even that close!
They're building a house there soon anyway.
You can't keep me hidden away forever.
I'm nearly twenty-five, Goddamnit!" Ashton flailed his arms as he spoke, never shouted.
His right arm hit an abandoned glass of likely stale blood on the glass table beside him.
The force shattered both, and his book fell with the bright colored liquid, staining the pages.
"ástin mín, því miður." Micheal defaulted to his first language in any situation laced with emotion. He'd done it since Ashton was young. He used pretty words in a language Ashton found beautiful, and hoped to sway his lovers mind.
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1934It was times like these that made Calum miss his home. The human population was never one he liked to be a part of. His physicality screamed foreigner to these people. He's too dark. Too tall. His eyes are too small. His nose is too big. Humans really were awful beings. He knew what he was walking into when he left his secluded pack with one and a half vampires. He left his place of employment. Cutting across the dirt path and around the made made pond at the back of the building. He was heading straight into the forest, an action that Thomas Fieldly was quick to question. Calum assured him that he was aware of his whereabouts and the direction of his home without visibly rolling his eyes back to his brain. Obviously, Calum was aware. He wanted to morph, 'shift' as his young mate called it. It would be much quicker to run home in an animalistic form. It was also an easy unwinding tactic. However, he knew that there was a family preparing a structure in the same direction as his own home. So he went in favor of not exposing himself or Ashton, who passed the new building every morning on his own runs. Calum was the Alpha of his pack. His old pact, as he had been forced - by his own mind, not his pack members - to leave to territory when the trespassing Vampire had taken the toddler.It had been a struggle to calm his Alpha male instincts when a scrawny twelve year old shifted into the position. As puberty hit, Ashton was quick to take over as Alpha of their little 'pack' of three. He stops a mile and a half into his walk, speaking with the owner of the new home in his path. The man asks about the area, making small talk until his wife exists the half finished building. He gave a polite smile and a nod as she giggled out her name to him. She was the type of woman he would've been interested in twenty-two years ago. She had dark hair and lighter eyes, thin despite the numerous children, not short enough for most men. She wasn't a helpless type, she knew what she wanted. "So, you have someone hidden back in those woods with ya?" She hit his arm in a joking manor, opposite to the side of Calum her husband could see. Normally, Calum would shake his head with a laugh, but the man was glaring daggers every time his wife giggled. "Yes ma'am. Suppose you could say I do." For the first time he hadn't lied. Not completely. He did have someone. In fact the had two someones, hidden miles into the woods. "Well," The woman didn't drop her flirtations too much."Well, don't go shootin' if you catch our boys 'round." The man cuts his wife off. "They've gone out huntin' tonight."
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1934Ashton remembers the very first time he had seen a human in their territory. Ashton remembers most things, actually, but this sticks out to him in the moment. The situation was similar to the current events. Calum is still not home, but Michael is curled up beside the half breed. He's got his head on Ashton's thigh and hot tears down his face. It's happened nearly a dozen times before in his too-long life, that doesn't make it any better. Ashton had scooped his book up from the floor, not bothering to clean the mess he'd made. He opted instead for continuing his reading with running a hand through his man's hair. The half vampire didn't quite understand what Michael's issue was. He assumed, of course, that his lover had killed the hunters he'd found on their land. Still, why that would send the man into a fit of tears was beyond Ashton. Ashton had never experienced death. Never lost a loved one, never heard of someone he knew leaving the earth, he'd never witnessed or caused a death in his life. But it is the natural way of life, so it must not be something to worry about. Still, his man cried, eyes red with more than just tears. Ashton knew from experience to tug a little harder on the light brown strands of hair whenever the noises would get too loud for his ears. He knew when to move his hand from the man's hair to his cheeks, and he knew when to trade his book for his lover in both of his hands. What must've been a hour later Ashton sat with the vampire across his lap. Michael's face in the younger man's neck to muffle the sound Ashton couldn't quite bare. Ashton's hands around the vampires waist, book bringing his hands together. Occasionally the halfbreed would need to bring one hand from his book to soothe his man's cries. In the rare event that he wished to turn a page at the same time that Michael longed for extra comfort Ashton rolled golden eyes and momentarily abandoned the novel. The former Alpha of the group came through the front door in the middle of a particularly harsh burst of random tears, moments after Ashton had thought them gone. Ashton didn't look up from his book. He could hear and smell the wolf from a mile and a half away, felt him even sooner. The tanned man cocked one eyebrow higher than the other at the scene of his mate and his mates parabatai. "There were hunters a ways out." The now-Alpha male's voice hold no emotion, a direct contrast to the cries that seem to never end. Calum growls low, he knew that much. "By God, Michael." Ashton flips the page of his book and jerks to pull Michael up closer to his own body. Hooking his chin over Michael's shoulder he glances at his mate before returning to the pages. "I take it you met the new neighbors. You reek of perfume." The full blooded wolf sighs and sits delicately beside the duo. He reaches out for Michael's head but doesn't quite make contact. "I did. Nice family, it seems. Far enough away but the sons are hunters. I do reckon they'll be out lookin' for the boys any time now." Ashton flips to another page as the elder man speaks. He nods as best he can to the words before he turns his eyes and nods for the other man to take his job of petting Michael's hair down. As his mate moves to help calm the vampire as well Ashton asks,"Do they like you, you think?" "I believe so. Wife kept talking and touching on me," "Lovely," Ashton deadpans at his book. "All the better I suppose, don't want the towns men snooping around here for a killer." "There is a killer here," Michael mumbles the words in Calum's direction instead of Ashton's. Even though the statement before was not towards or meant for him. It's the first words he'd spoken since he'd broken down nearly thirty minutes after he'd returned home. "More than one." The half blood nods to his own words like there's no issue with that. To him there isn't. "Exactly why we don't want the towns men here snooping for them, ay?" Michael cuts the wolf's next words of with a strangled laugh, "You're much to casual, ástin mín." "Has been talking like this all day?" Calum does what they all know Ashton would be quick to and ignores that last statement. "On and off," Ashton smiles small, kissing his parabatai's temple. "I like the language." "That's why he does it," the wolf moves to angle his body toward the pair now. "Why else would either of us do anything, if not for you?" Ashton folds the page his novel, laying it carefully beside him, despite the blood still tacky on its pages. He leans back and nudges Michael's head away from his body with his own face. The half blood let's his forehead meet with the vampire before using their position to tip the both of them over, heads landing at the wolf's chest. Calum takes the chance to pull both of them into his arms, Ashton still wrapped up with Michael on his lap. His small squeezes along with Ashton's now constant nudges cause the vampire to giggle softly through barely-there tears. Ashton waits until Calum stops rocking and Michael's face has dried up before he leans in to brush his nose against Michael's until the oldest man is all smiles. Then he leans back awkwardly to do the same to Calum.
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"I don't think this is your best idea. I don't know what your mate thinks of it, but I don't like it." Michael was swinging his legs from his seat on the counter top. The wolf was cutting up vegetables from his mates garden. Truly, Calum was the only one who needed the food, but Ashton enjoyed the flavors as well as gardening. The were in the kitchen of the smaller home on their property. Usually this space would be uninhabited, but today it would reach a new high in visitors. "It's not my best, but it'll keep the family off of our backs. I hope, at least." "And Ash?" "Doesn't know. He'd want to meet them, Michael, it just can't happen." Michael's heels hit against the cabinets below him as his feet swing with his legs. "He's your mate," he mutters in a condescending tone of voice. "And he's your counterpart." "Do not tell me you'd risk his life for his wants." Calum continues before the vampire can. Ashton had left for his first run since his lover had killed the hunters in their wood. It wasn't coincidental that they'd chosen to let him run free again at this point in time. Calum wanted to invite the adults of the new family in for dinner. Obviously a dinner with only himself, as Michael could not eat and Ashton's reaction to live humans was unknown at best. "No, of course not." "But he would, Michael." "And whose to say they could hurt him if they tried?""That is not a risk I'm willing to take. Besides, it's not Ashton I'm worried about right now." The Wolf raises a dark eyebrow to the vampire."Then why are you inviting them here?" Michael doesn't really raise his voice often, so the slight pitch he puts on his words is a bit of a shock. "Because they've seen me. They watched me come to this section of the woods and if I don't invite them over they'll do that human thing of greeting the neighbors unexpectedly with odd foods." Calum drops the knife he was chopping the vegetables with. He turns his body to face the vampire before continuing on. "I'd rather invite them over while I know Ash is out of the picture - and you're well fed, for that matter! - before I let them show up unknowingly into the lions den." "Wolfs den? Are you forgetting that myself and your mate aren't the only dangerous creatures around? Honestly, Calum, get you head of your ass for a minute and listen to yourself." "It's already done, too late. Shut up about it."
Ashton had known the second that his men had both agreed to let him out of the safety of their home that something was going on. To be completely honest, he didn't quite care. He got some well needed exercise after being indoors for so long. He could've disobeyed, left in the middle of the night or broad daylight. Easy done, actually. But after Michael's breakdown the hybrid didn't really think it was worth upsetting his men. He knew, of course, that Calum and Michael had met the new neighbors and killer their children - respectively, and not necessarily in that order. He'd gone out to watch them as soon as he'd been let out of the house. It wasn't the smartest decision he'd ever made, but it sure as hell was the most fun. Well, it was until the male that seemed to be the Alpha of the family called him out. Ashton raised an eyebrow at the angry human when as he yelled across the open yard at him."Robert!" A lighter voice carried after him. They seemed quite well for people who - according to Ashton's books - should be drowning in grief right about now. Ashton couldn't even imaging losing one of his men; Ashton couldn't imagine losing anything at all.
Although, maybe that's just human nature. You live, you die. The end. Yes that seemed about true to the half-wolf. "Oh, hunny." The woman cooed at him, handing a small girl the tray of food she'd been carrying. She not so subtly pulled an elder girl along with her. "Are you lost dear? Oh, poor boy!" Ashton froze, in his mind for a moment, this is a human. This is a female. This is human woman speaking to him. (And he was about to blow this opportunity.) Perhaps he shouldn't speak to them. Turn tail and run home, inform his men that he'd been spotted so that they could uproot everything he'd ever know and take them halfway across the world. But could he really ruin his first time around bob humans and women. Human women, what a thing, dainty, odd. "No ma'am." Ashton doesn't realize how odd he seems to the group, but he smiles widely anyways. She invited him in anyways. Offering to help with any injuries. She couldn't see there were none? "No ma'am." He declines her near every word with that phrase. "I am going to go home now." He could see the veins in their necks pumping the blood from the brain to the heart and back. Human bodies fascinated him, truly, but his counterpart didn't feel comfortable with the half-blood being overly informed on the subject. Like always, he bent to him man's wishes. "You know the area aye? Could you point us towards Mr. Hood's place, he'd supposta show us about a little, guess he got held up some." The man asks before Ashton could hide in the bushes enough to shift forms and sprint.So, this was the secret? Calum had wanted to spend time with the humans, invite them over maybe? No way. As much as he'd lie, neither man trusted Ashton to not kill on impulse. Now, listening to he steady bump of each humans heart beat, he believed his men more than ever. Were they going to lie about it? Act as if Ashton was to young or naive to know. Like he crash the diner party uninvited. Why was he not invited? "That would be where I'm going. Follow if you'd wish, I suppose."