The CEOs Second Choice

RYKER

Tonight’s meeting was more solemn than any other meeting I’ve had with the Elders and wolves of rank of the pack. The last time a meeting was this calm, was the time my father had died. We were mourning.

We were seated in the large conference hall in my manor. The spacious room had a large mahogany rectangular shaped table that was about three hundred metres long. Thirty six elders and wolves of rank sat at the opposing sides of the table. I took my place at the top of it, by my right, Caden, my first beta, and best friend sat, and by my left, Mason, my second beta sat.

Tonight, some people were fuming. They had every right to be angry. Others were scared. Again, it was okay to be scared. I could detect the conflicting emotions, fear, anger and sadness thick in the dining hall. They could barely eat. I could not eat either. We were a few weeks away from celebrating the biggest ball in our pack’s history, and some Pack decided that it would be fun to murder few of our sentinels.

“I think at this rate, it is quite obvious. The Greenwood pack did this” Elder Aiden was the first to speak. The table swung at him, several eyes shooting death glares his way. Garret scoffed “what?” his voice rose defensively, his busy brows knitting in one straight rough line.

“You said ‘obvious’, but mentioned the wrong pack”  Garrett chided.

“Have you forgotten that Alpha Edgar left this manor in a feat, three months ago? He promised to declare war. This is war!” Aiden objected.

“Alpha Edgar might have the temper of a wild boar, and the IQ of a sloth, but one thing every Alpha knows is that the Crescent moon is one pack that shouldn’t be messed with. He wouldn’t dare. Not when the dispute we had was over a trivial matter” Aaron disagreed calmly.

“Yes” Lucas concurred gingerly. “Whoever did this, must have been planning to war with us. And I would bet my money on the fact that a good number of us know who is responsible “ At his statement, murmurings filled the hall.

Give it to Lucas to stir up the people. I had easily picked the strange smell from the murder scene, and from the dread that filled some of the elders, they definitely knew who it was.

“You’re making assumptions.” Mason countered.

“Am I? “ Lucas charged. “The last thing we want is any sort of boycotting. The message was clear”

“There was barely a message, just death,” Mason countered again.

“Brutal death” Aaron contradicted solemnly, his expression was dark and drawn._

—and contagious. His words had easily provoked images, painful images of a torturous death.

I was going over a few papers in my study, when my beta had come looking disturbed. Caden was barely rattled, his expression was always stoic. We were raised that way. However, whatever it was had gotten to him so bad his worry was visible. 

He had come with really bad news. Few days ago, five members of our pack went missing, five sentinels all gone without a single trace. There was no scent, no guide, no clue, nothing at all. We had sent search parties after them, combed several packs, but it was all futile. It was as though they had vanished into thin air.

We had continued looking, and even if we had a big celebration coming, we had restricted movements. The pack’s safety was my responsibility, and I was accountable for each of them. We searched and waited three weeks, and no sign of any of them until yesterday. 

Caden had come with news yesterday’s evening. I couldn’t really believe a word he said until I saw the dismembered body of one of the missing pack members. His upper body was haphazardly separated from the upper body, and his head was severed and partly burnt in a way that was unfathomable. It wasn’t just fire. It was something else.

His mother had collapsed upon seeing him. She recognised him from his scent.  But I caught on something quickly, before it dissipated. Asides the scent, there was another scent that rested heavily around the areas his parts were slightly scattered. It was eerie and dark. It simply hung around us, and went no further. No trace of where it came from or where it went. Just at a spot. Few minutes upon the discovery of the body parts, the scent was gone.

“This might be war, but we can not go to war in our current state” Mason, my second beta, spoke after a long observation.

 "Why?" Amar questioned, “what is wrong with 'our current state’?” His bushy brows were knitted in a rough line, his large nose snorted gases, and his thin lips hid grimly underneath his dishevelled moustache. He was clearly as pissed as he appeared, or even more. His sister’s son was amongst the five missing Sentinel wolves.

“A lot is at stake,” Raymond Sanders considered calmly.

“Is that it?” he questioned incredulously “There’s more to lose if we sit on our hands and let these people poke at us for fun. Did you see the body? Did you see what they did to one of us? And there are others, more to come!” This caused the others to shudder. I couldn't imagine seeing five more bodies like the one of yesterday. 

“We barely know who did this,” Elder Aiden reasoned.

“Oh, come off it!” Amar rose to his feet, anger emanating from his pores. “I can smell the fear ten miles away from you! No Greenwood wolf would rattle you this way.”