Page 22 of Forbidden Wolf

***

Levi

– Ten Years After Conscription

“Radar, grab those blasters. They can’t use them since they’re dead,” I shouted.

Whatever the fuck was out there wasn’t like any enemy we’d fought before. Vamps were fast and intelligent, but whatever was decimating our troops was pure evil. The problem was that no one who’d seen them had lived to tell us what the hell we were facing.

I’d pushed my way through the ranks in the military, forging a path for myself from the moment I arrived. None of us wanted to be here, however, life was damned more comfortable in my own room instead of a dormitory filled with dozens of other snoring lycans.

We’d been airlifted in close to a current battlefront. A few years ago, this place had been a forest, now it contained skeletal remains of trees that stuck up through this swamp. There was nothing for miles but a disgusting wasteland of slime and muck. Black ooze surrounded us to waist height, making moving forward difficult. Every step felt like we were pushing through jelly. The dead lycans who arrived before us sunk slowly into whatever this thick gloopy substance was that smelt like decomposing corpses. Considering that was exactly what was sinking into it, maybe we were trudging through festering slime.

My ability to be sickened by the sight of death and devastation disappeared long ago in this hell on earth. Now we took the weapons from the dead and scavenged their communication devices.

Helicopters flew overhead, the tips of my ears twitching at the loud noise. From down here, I couldn’t determine if they belonged to us or the vamps.

I’d tried to forget Tasha for ten years. Hell, I’d thrown myself into military life hoping that someone else would make me experience half of what she did. It didn’t work and made me feel worse since I’d become the man-whore I’d accused my brother Caleb of being. After countless affairs, I gave up because no one was like the woman I had left in that forest.

“Should we try moving forward as our wolves?” Radar, my second-in-command, asked from somewhere to my left. My wolf was big enough to make it through, but some of the others would be fully submerged.

“This slime is too deep. Better to stay on two feet, because there is no way I want this stuff in my mouth.” I flicked my fingers to remove the residue and make my point, wrinkling my nose at the stench.

Step after step took us closer to the screams of the dying that were slain in battle. A flare lightened the sky in the distance before cascading back toward the ground. Every instinct in me screamed that we should go back because whatever was out there needed to be studied first before my team were slaughtered. Those bodies hadn’t been killed by vamps unless they’d changed their techniques. I doubted that since they’d been successfully killing lycans for centuries.

We had reached higher ground and more bodies came into view, every one of them savaged, internal organs hanging out. I rolled a corpse onto its back: female wolf in mid transformation. A few meters away was a male vampire. Terror rippled down my spine. I could no longer pretend that there were only two fractions in this war. Something was slaughtering both lycans and vampires since they’d been eviscerated the same way.

“Fuck it all!” I slowly released the breath I was holding to stall my transformation. My skin felt too tight and my wolf paced inside me, snarling at the death around us.

Another helicopter flew to my right. A huge black plume of smoke emerged from the ground and surrounded it, dragging it to the ground.

“What the fuck?” Radar muttered. “Did the smoke just ground that helicopter?”

I studied the area, my sensitive ears picking up distant screams. Whatever was happening out there, those screams said lycans or vamps were being murdered.

“We shouldn’t be here,” I said to my second in command.

“No shit!” Radar retaliated. “What the fuck is going on?”

The rest of our unit surrounded us. We’d been instructed to engage the enemy. For ten years, I’d trusted my gut instinct and it had kept my unit alive. We were a pack and to lycans that was everything.

“I don’t care what anyone in command says, those aren’t vamp kills. Keep your eyes open, mouths shut, and away from the fighting. We’re losing and need information more than we need more bodies to mourn. I’ve just changed our mission. We’re here for intel alone. Only engage the enemy if necessary. Record everything, and head for base after forty-eight hours. Understand?”

My unit nodded around me, their eyes still fixed on the broken helicopter. If my wolf was spooked, then so was theirs. We were apex predators and just discovered that there was something higher than us on the food chain.

“Everyone put your comms on emergency channel. We are no longer responding to any other unit but our own and base.” There was nothing I could do for the lost souls on the front line. We’d thrown bodies at it for too long. As leader of our pack, I would do everything in my power to ensure every man and woman under my command was safe.

Five years ago, we’d started taking huge losses without explanation. High command had begun to recruit more lycans into the military, even taking first born sons like my brother Caleb who’d previously been exempt. We were haemorrhaging soldiers out there like an arterial bleed with a band-aid on it.

“You’ll get demoted for this,” Radar said, grabbing my shoulder.

My eyes met his in defiance. “My job is to keep this unit safe. Throwing them into that quagmire won’t do anything but increase the body count. We need intel and fast.”

He nodded, his shoulders slumping.

“Remain in twos and watch each other’s backs,” I continued. “Stay safe out there. If the fighting gets too hot, get the fuck out of it, and return to base. Understand?”

They paired up and started to move out.

---