Coldsnap: The Billionaire Alpha's Fated Pregnant Princess (GL)-Chapter 398 - Boundaries That Some Keep, Others Redraw

Chapter 398: Chapter 398 - Boundaries That Some Keep, Others Redraw

I bared my teeth in warning when Mateo dared a step closer to us. A voice rose to speak over top of me. Kyrie addressed the other Alpha directly.

"What are you doing inside the bounds of *my* markers? The council agreed that night, four to two, that all packs would secure their own lands during the crisis if it happened as I warned."

Watching him turn back into a human to speak was just as unpleasant as it was that night. When all of them showed up to my birthing den in their ’birthday suits’.

His lip curled in an almost sneer and I was certain. Certain that I hated him already.

> No one should be that haughty when they are nude but me! <

"And what are you doing outside your tower, Voss? With the rogue of the Duskpaws and her pup, no less? I thought she abandoned you to die at the conclave."

"Doesn’t really feel like I was the one in danger back then. I did what I needed to and things are working out for me. What about you? Did not receiving any new spirits for your pack rattle what was left of your brain?"

Having heard her make statements and demands to people plenty enough, but never particularly disparaging them... I find myself sitting down on my haunches and wagging my tail. She would have been a fun ally in court venues.

"Did gaining so many for yours manage to make you even more arrogant, you human loving-"

When I hear him cut off, I also realize that I’m the reason why. The nape of my neck has hairs standing and... I may not be growling, yet, but I did apparently lean down low and forward before I knew it after ascertaining that he was about to call her a ’bitch’ - or something equally as unpleasant.

His eyes have never stopped glowing brown, but they did dim for a slight moment. Was it fear? I hope so, because my actual fighting history is still... highly limited.

"So this is what being beloved is like, then. In the middle of a curse of cold for us all, the Lunar Goddess picks favorites and ignores everyone else. It must be nice."

"Yes, my mate is nice, stay on topic. Are you going to explain why you were in a death match with a council approved hunter?"

Rick spat out blood into the snow, apparently at least a bit hurt internally - and not just metaphorically as this conversation continued to act like he was completely sidelined for that Alpha ego measuring contest.

His gaze flickered to the pouch against the Rimecoat leader’s chest - and my tail stopped moving. Which is fine by me, wearing my heart on my tail when she compliments and claims me is mortifying.

"If he won’t tell you, I will. Council rules and approval didn’t stop him from killing my old team when they refused to hand over the people they were protecting. Four of ours dead because this monster decided humans are expendable livestock now."

I felt an internal chill, one that obviously had nothing to do with cold temperature. Werewolves culling humans was a line... that I hadn’t expected to see crossed so soon.

Eventually, maybe. If things got extra bad and competition for things became ’required’.

Because while harmony is a wonderful ideal, expecting it to be achieved without strife in a world where people already treat Dharma like something that only applies to orange clad monks in seclusion...

> I guess it meant more to the snake shifter priests in my world as well, to be honest. It’s telling, that only Karma which creates a sort of fear of punishment is what can motivate a layman at all. <

But only a week or so after the worst of the storm for people to not care about any kind of ’Golden Rule’? With so many of the fragile species already dead and dying in tundra conditions?

"Liar. Your four hunters attacked us first. We were simply defending our hunting grounds."

"Hunting grounds?"

To the snarled rebuttal from Mateo, the human repeated the phrase incredulously while tightly gripping the crossbow stock in his one good hand. So hard that it shook and rattled the uncocked mechanisms. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

"You were hunting a human *family*. I saw half eaten children when I got there, for God’s sake!"

"Is this true?"

I was on my feet again and interceding in her attempt to go around me. Such an accusation is dark... and I fully get her reaction. But I still wish she would remember that my son is in her protection.

> Should I just rip the harness off of her and let her be the one to handle things? <

"The world has changed, Voss. The old rules don’t apply anymore. We will do what we must to survive."

"By preying on those weaker than yourself when there are other options? This entire forest is full of dead animals, but you... that is not survival, Mateo. That is savagery and willful desecration of what our council has stood for."

"Hiding behind the shackles of the past’s tradition? Bold words from someone allied with that... anomaly. You were always quick to experiment with progressive ideas. So why should we not do the same?"

He jerked his chin toward me while backing away and I growled low in my throat. Anomaly is hardly the worst, definitely accurate insult that I’ve ever received. It was more the way he is still pretending to be a threat while retreating.

With blood still running down his bullet damaged arm. With the hole from the bolt in my shoulder already healed. Arrogance, hatred, his emotions paint him not just as a threat to humanity but to werewolf-kind.

And more importantly, to me and what I protect.

"The other councils of other regions aren’t going to survive. Territories will shift like tidal waves rippling from certain people. Chad Duskpaw and his kind will be on the rise. Or will you lie to me that you know nothing of this Chosen nonsense?"

So that cat is out of the bag and the werewolves have eaten it whole. That jerk probably told them intentionally. Maybe even... made this one part of his Pack?

"All the more reason to maintain order. Before we lose everything that makes us different from mindless beasts."

"Look around you, Voss. Order is now the world, ending. There is only the chaos of survival now. And that, I will do. No matter what new abominations are spawned into this world."

Like it was keyed by that word, that insult Jace had also used, I felt that same feeling of slow time again as I watched him leave. Like before, it seemed to be giving me the opportunity to act on my Intuition.

Only, unlike then, I see no direct threat.

He doesn’t lunge, he doesn’t even shift back into a less sensitive form. He just skulks away into the treeline while squeezing his arm, trying to work out the wolf spirit interfering metal. And I watch him until he is no longer visible.

Until Rick speaks up in a tired, bitter voice.

"I’d like to know what I’m supposed to do when this animal comes for more humans once you let him get away. Because it looks like that’s what you both are doing. Is that what the job is, now? Ignoring the murderers we used to be asked to hunt?"

"Richard Barnes. I have a mission for you."

> Redirecting anger into usefulness is something I’ve done, with less patience in my tone. Yet this sweet wolf... <

Commanding with courtesy. As if she is offering purpose and choice.