Plotting and Planning

Gerry
I watched as Annie walked down the street with Milton hovering close beside her. I narrowed my eyes on him as they chatted, barely being able to suppress the urge to leap from the tree I was standing in to rip her away from him. He had already stepped out of line by disobeying me when it came to Giselda, and now it looked like he had set his sights on my Annie. She was fucking mine. I was going to have her again. Giselda too, but that would come later.
A sharp whistle drew my attention to the ground where a man stood, looking up at me with a smirk on his face. I glanced around curiously, wondering why he was alone. If he was alone, then that meant he knew who I was. No one worth any standing in a sleuth would come alone to apprehend a stranger. Once I allowed myself to drop out of the tree, I leaned against it with my arms crossed over my chest.
“What do you want?” I hissed.
“To use you, of course,” he said pleasantly.
“Oh yeah? And why would you think that I would allow you to do that?” I retorted.
He looked down at his nails before raising his head again to meet my eyes. “Because you and I want the same thing kind of. You want Annie, and by my guess, Giselda. I want them gone. I want Logan to forfeit the alphaship. I can present them all to you on a silver–make that a platinum platter,” he said.
“How? And what do you want me to do?” I growled.
“You have to do all the work. None of this can be traced back to me. The sleuth won’t accept me if they know I was behind them losing the alpha and beta team.”
“And what exactly do you expect me to do? The asshole has the sleuth locked down. I can barely make it in without someone seeing me,” I spat.
“Lucky for you, I know what’s about to happen. I overheard Logan and Annie talking about making that boy the gamma. He will be starting to patrol. Eliminate him and Giselda weakens, which will decrease the level of protection around Annie. I also know that Annie and Logan have been playing in the woods at night with Giselda watching her back.” He stopped to shrug while a smirk lit his face up again. “Isn’t it interesting how one little rotten bitch destroys everything?”
I took a step forward, growling at him. I wasn’t about to let him disrespect my woman like that. His smirk grew wider.
“Oh, did I hit a nerve? Shame! I thought you were a stronger boar than to let a little whore control your emotions. She is a delectable little piece of ass. She’s already been through half of the sleuth. It’s only a matter of days before she goes through the other half.”
“You’re lying,” I hissed. “Annie isn’t like that. She’s a good girl. My good girl,” I emphasized.
“Yeah, sure. Tell that to my ears as I listen every night to her scream another man’s name. Sometimes two or three.”
I lunged at him, grabbing him around his throat to put him through a tree. “DON’T FUCKING TALK ABOUT HER THAT WAY!”
He shook his head, still laughing. “Guess you don’t know her like we know her.”
I bared my teeth at him, knowing he was trying to purposely piss me off, but already too furious to not let it add to what the anger already threatening to boil over.
“Now, that other one,” he growled as his arousal filled the air between us. “She’s a feisty one. I’d love to force her to submit to me. She’s a fucking bitch. I’d beat her to within an inch of her death just to let her heal so I could do it all over again. Actually, on second that, just take the little alpha whore away. Leave the beta for me.”
I tightened my hand around his throat. “If anyone is going to beat them, it’s going to be me. And when I come for them, if I see even one bruise on them, I will come for you. I will hunt you down and rip your throat out.”
He swallowed hard and I let him go. He instantly dropped to the ground while I looked down on him in disgust. “Don’t get it twisted, they are both mine! You want them gone, I can make that happen, but you will not harm them. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
I narrowed my eyes on him as I weighed my options. He could be lying, but I didn’t think he was. He was too afraid of me to be holding onto a lie this strongly. I crouched in front of him, letting Kraven push forward to look at him from my eyes as his aura came out to wrap around that idiot.
“What’s your name?” I asked pleasantly.
“Why does that matter?” He squeaked.
I bared my teeth at him in a sinister smile. “So I know who to come for if you’re lying to me,” I murmured. “Kraven has taken a liking to bear flesh. It’s succulent. Finger licking good.”
The man shivered, but still didn’t look like he was going to answer me. I let my aura out more, and he gasped as his eyes widened in fear.
“It-it’s Ryan.”
I tilted my head as I memorized his face. “See? That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” I sneered as I patted his cheek. I rolled my shoulders back as I stood up. “I accept your offer. But just know that if this backfires on me, it backfires on you.”
I gave him one last pointed look before jogging back to the part of the wall that I used to enter and exit the sleuth land. I quickly climbed back over and was racing down the street back to my hotel room. I needed to get a plan together. Having both Annie and Giselda dangled in front of my face was just too good to resist. I was almost back to my hotel room when an almost putrid smell started to linger in the air. I tilted my head back to sniff it curiously before Kraven growled lowly in my head.
“Perfect,” I mumbled. “Just fucking perfect.”
I switched my path to head down the street to the woods, following the scent deep into the trees. As I walked, I was aware of people falling into step with me out of my line of sight. I may not be able to see them, but their smell was unmistakable. It stank like decaying bodies that had been left in the sun for too long. They hadn’t even bothered to hide their feral scents. It would be overwhelming to any bear or wolf that belonged to a sleuth or a pack. There was a reason that the smell was so strong. It was a warning to sleuth and pack members to stay away, and normal shifters gave them a very wide berth. No one wanted to tangle with a rogue, much less a feral bear.
But then again, I wasn’t normal. I didn’t belong to any sleuth. I didn’t have a family to care about or a mate to protect. Not that I would be worried, even if I did, because I was more feral than all of them combined. I just knew how to cover my scent. Or at least I cared to. I would stop hiding it when I had Annie and Giselda under my control. There would be no need to continue hiding once I did. Besides, it would make them more afraid, and I loved the way they smelled when they were afraid. It made me hard and I would make them submit to me. I smiled coldly, even if they didn’t submit, I would still fuck them. I was going to breed them over and over again until we had enough children to become our little feral sleuth, running in the woods and tormenting the ‘wanted’ bears.
By the time we had the numbers to be a real threat, they would both be broken and I wouldn’t have to keep them tied up. I would, however, keep a collar around their throats just so they knew that they were my property. They would learn that if another male even looked at them, I would kill the bastard and them fuck them in his blood. They would never have any doubts of who owned them. I was going to brand my name into their skin so that everyone else knew too. I reached down to shift my erection around in my pants as I entered a clearing where two dozen people stood protectively around a couple in the middle. I stopped in front of them, smirking at the man.
“I have a job for you, feral. And the reward is a sleuth.”