Teen Wolf: Dragon Among Wolves

Chapter 48: Chapter 48: Jacob and Allison’s First Blood pt1

Jacob, with Allison on his back, ran toward the sound of the gunfire. He was moving with a predator’s silence through the forest. As they got closer, the gunfire grew louder, punctuated by screams of terror and a deep, enraged roar that was anything but animal. It was a sound of pure, primal fury.

They reached a ridge overlooking a small clearing. A campfire cast a flickering, hellish light on a scene of carnage. Tents were shredded. The earth was dyed red with blood. The scene was nightmare fuel.

A black bear, massive and unnatural, stood on its hind legs. Its eyes burned with a malevolent crimson light. It swiped a paw the size of a dinner plate at a man who raised his rifle as a shield. The blow didn’t just knock him down; it tore him in half. His torso landed yards from his legs, his intestines unfurling in a slick, dark coil onto the forest floor.

Allison’s hand flew to her mouth, a choked gasp escaping her lips.

Another foolish man emptied his assault rifle into the bear’s side. Blood and fur flew, and the bear roared in pain but didn’t stop or run away. Instead it turned and lunged at the man, its jaws closing around the man’s head. The man screamed, and the bear shook its head violently and tore the man’s head off, throwing it aside to the ground.

Another man was on the ground near the angry bear, trying to crawl away, one hand clutching his stomach, the other dragging him through the dirt. A glistening rope of his own viscera trailed behind him like a grotesque leash. He made it ten feet before the bear caught up with him and with its giant paw crushed the man’s head, making his brain scatter around.

The rest of the men rained bullets on the bear. Its dark fur was blood-soaked from a dozen wounds, but even so, the bullets didn’t do too much damage to it, and its wounds were healing with an unnatural, visible speed.

”Jay.” Allison was covering her mouth with her hand, her voice weak. ”Put me down. I feel like I’m about to vomit.”

Jacob gently lowered her. She turned, stumbled a few steps away, and retched violently into the bushes, her body convulsing. She wiped her mouth with a trembling hand, her face pale as moonlight. She turned back to him, her eyes wide with horror and a desperate need for justice.

”Go help them!” She pleaded, grabbing his arm.

”Help who?” Jacob’s voice was low, his gaze still fixed on the clearing, analytical and cold.

”The men, of course!” Allison said, gesturing at the slaughter. ”Before that thing kills them all!”

Jacob slowly shook his head. ”Allison. Use your fairy eyes. Look behind those tents. Tell me what you see.”

Confused, Allison blinked. A soft, ethereal green light emanated from her eyes, cutting through the darkness and the deceptive shadows cast by the fire. She scanned past the bloodshed, past the roaring bear and the scared men, to the edge of the clearing. There, hitched to a large truck, was a heavy iron cage. And inside, huddled together in terror, were two small children.

Her blood ran cold. ”What’s going on?” She whispered, the horror in her voice shifting from revulsion to a deeper, more righteous anger.

”I think the men are the bad guys.” Jacob murmured. ”That bear is a shapeshifter. A woman. And those kids in the cage are her kids. I can tell by their scent. I think the men took her children.”

Allison stared, piecing things together. The cage. The armed men. The mother’s berserker rage. ”So the men are hunters? Is this what hunters do?”

”I don’t know if they’re hunters or not.” Jacob said, his voice taking on a dangerous edge. ”But let’s find out. There’s one of them hiding over there.” He pointed to the far side of the clearing. ”Behind that huge tree. He’s the smart one. He’s using a high-caliber rifle, waiting for a clean shot. Let’s catch him and... read his memories.”

He turned and offered his back. ”Get on.”

Allison shook her head. ”It’s okay. I can’t make another giant wind arrow yet, but my strength is back. I can use my physical strength and some weak wind attacks.”

Jacob gave a sharp nod, his golden eyes glinting in the dark. ”Okay. Stay close to me.”

They sneaked toward the man.

The man was a silhouette against a thick tree, his body tensed, his eye pressed firmly against the scope of his high-powered rifle. He was muttering to himself. ”C’mon, turn your head, you bitch... just a little more...”

He never saw them coming.

Jacob’s hand shot out and clamped around the back of the man’s neck, lifting him off the ground like a kitten. The man let out a strangled yelp of surprise and terror, but the sound was swallowed by the gunfire and the bear’s enraged roars from the clearing.

Allison watched, her heart hammering against her chest.

”How are you going to read his memories?” She whispered.

”I have never read anyone’s memories before.” Jacob admitted. ”I don’t even know if I can. But werewolves and other shifters can do it by inserting their claws into the base of the skull. I’m going to try.” He shook the man slightly. ”I’m not sure what will happen to you after this, but I don’t feel sorry about it. You don’t look like a good person.”

Before the man could scream again, Jacob’s free hand shifted. His fingernails elongated into wicked, obsidian-black claws. With a swift, brutal motion, he drove the tips into the back of the man’s neck.

The man stiffened, a silent, gaping scream on his face. His eyes rolled back into his head, showing the whites. Jacob closed his own eyes, his brow furrowed in concentration, and he managed to read the man’s memories.

---

Jacob saw in the man’s memories that the group was a hunter group that called themselves The Harvesters. They traveled the country, tracking supernatural creatures. Jacob saw a werewolf begging them for his life before they opened his throat and began butchering him for parts on a bloody plastic sheet. A young dryad, her connection to her tree severed, sold weeping to a shadowy buyer. A beautiful selkie—a mermaid-like shifter—that was repeatedly raped by the very men in this clearing before she was finally killed and processed. Jacob saw hidden auctions that sell anything supernatural, from organs to live creatures. He saw the clinical discussion of the man and his group about which organs fetched the highest price. He saw them raping beautiful shapeshifters before killing them or selling them alive. And he saw how they hunted kids and even babies for customers who ordered them. Finally, Jacob saw this mission, he saw them staking out the werebear’s house, waiting until she left her home. Then they murdered her human husband, shot him in the head while he was trying to protect his children. Then they captured her two crying children, threw them into the iron cage like luggage, and drove to Beacon Hills, thinking they were far enough and decided to rest in the Beacon Hills preserve.

---

Jacob ripped his claws out and dropped the man.

The man collapsed to the ground, twitching and convulsing, drool leaking from his open mouth. Anger and pure rage twisted Jacob’s features.

Allison saw the absolute fury in his eyes. ”Jay...”

Before she could finish, Jacob lifted his foot and brought it down on the convulsing man’s head. There was a sickening, wet CRUNCH, and the man’s head exploded like a watermelon.

Allison spun around and vomited again. She wiped her mouth with a trembling hand, shock in her eyes. She turned back to him, her voice a shaky whisper. ”Why... why did you kill him?!”

Jacob turned to look at her, his face still a mask of primordial rage. ”I’m sorry you saw that. But that man and his friends... they are real beasts. What I saw in his memories, Allison... terrible stuff. Unspeakable. I can show you through our telepathic link, but you have to brace yourself. It’s... it’s very bad. But you need to see it. You need to know the reality of our world.”

Scared but resolved, Allison nodded. ”Show me.”

Jacob stepped closer, the fury in his eyes softening into a grim sorrow. He placed his forehead against hers, and the memories flooded into her mind.

She saw it all. The slaughterhouse. The victims’ despair. The heinous, unspeakable crimes committed by the group that calls themselves The Harvesters. First came the shock, cold and numbing. Then a disgust so profound it made her stomach clench again. And finally, rising like a tidal wave, a rage so pure unlike anything she felt before. Her body started shaking. She understood why Jacob was angry and why he killed the man.

Jacob broke the connection, looking into her now-hardened eyes. ”Do you understand why I killed him?”

Allison’s voice was cold, laced with a fury that mirrored his own. ”I understand. Scum like him and his group don’t deserve to live. So what are we going to do with the rest of them?”

Jacob’s glowing eyes turned toward the clearing, where the werebear mother was still fighting, though she was slowing, her healing factor struggling to keep up with the barrage of bullets.

”I’ll kill them all, of course.” He said, his voice flat and final.

Just then, one of the surviving men, seeing his comrades falling, made a desperate dash for the cage. He leveled his pistol point-blank at the two terrified children inside.

”HEY, BITCH!” He screamed, his voice cracking with panic. ”STOP!”

The forest air, thick with the smell of blood and gunpowder, seemed to freeze. The werebear’s massive form shuddered, and she stopped. She looked at the man pointing his gun at her children, rage and anger in her eyes, but she didn’t dare to move.

The leader of the group was a fat man. He was standing a little far from the battlefield, scared of the werebear and ready to ditch his group and run away at any time. But seeing the werebear stopped and didn’t dare to move, he laughed and said. ”Now, if you don’t want your children to die, shift back to human form.”

The rage in her red eyes warring with a mother’s primal fear, she sighed and shifted. Her huge bear form shrank, her fur receding, her body reshaping until a naked, tall, beautiful brunette woman stood in the clearing. She was covered in blood and dirt, her body heaving with ragged breaths, her red eyes fixed on the gun pointed at her children.

The fat leader laughed with a disgusting sound. ”See, boys? Even animals know what’s good for them.” He didn’t even care about his dead men, or even glance at their torn remains.

His surviving lackeys, emboldened now that the immediate threat was gone, let out crude whistles and jeers.

The man near the cage, still aiming at the children, licked his lips. ”Boss, let me enjoy her after you.”

”Sure thing.” The fat man chuckled, his piggish eyes roaming over the woman’s naked body. ”But looking at that, you’ll be waiting a few hours.” He started walking toward her, a swagger in his step. ”I’m not even gonna poison you or tie you up, sweetheart. I want you to serve me willingly while your kids watch. Makes it more fun.”

To be continued... 😊