Chapter 15

Getting up off the ground, Natalie took a step over to Kali and stroked her head a few times. "Thanks for the save there, the closer that thing got to me, the more disgusted I felt." The look in its eyes was bad, but Nat was much more disturbed by the creature. It was not in how it looked or in what way it acted, but more of the mere presence of it felt disgusting and wrong. Taking a look at the three corpses, she noted that they were already starting to smoke out the black mist. The colour draining from them slowly.

Together with Kali, the slowly made their way over to the body of the elk that was on the ground. If the wolves were able to hunt rabbits after she brought a dead one into her Soulscape, then the same should be true of an elk as well. Sadly, Kali acting on her own would have difficulties with an elk. They are big, and can be mean as shown by the hoof prints it left in those goblins. As Kali returned into her, she brought the elk with. True enough, the female elk was able to be summoned, running around like nothing was wrong. Kali did claim to have no designs on the elk, as it was far better to keep spawning hares and give her pups more experience hunting themselves.

Moving on from where the elk lay, she started moving towards town. While she could have gotten the goblins in her realm for the wolves to hunt as well, she did not want anything to do with them. Not touching, not seeing, and most certainly not inside her. The mere thought of having goblins inside her creeped her the hell out. With the way they made her feel, she could not imagine anyone would want anything to do with those disgusting things.

Moving down the path after what she saw seemed like a poor choice. Especially now that she was wounded. While it would take a lot longer, Natalie took her time moving through the brush on the side of the trail, so she would be less likely to be ambushed. Her goal was to get back to town and make sure everyone was okay. Well, maybe not everyone. It would be a nice change of pace if Troy had an 'unfortunate accident.' The mere thought of the creepy neighbour being beaten, killed, and eaten by ravenous goblins caused her mood to improve and made her feel happy.

'Nat happy. Why you happy?' Kali questioned her. The increase in mood positivity while sneaking through the brush caught her by surprise.

'You remember how I told you about my boss Bryden, and how he is the person that I am closest to in town?' Nat asked. After getting an affirmation from Kali, she continued, 'Well, there is also someone that I do not get along with whatsoever. His name is Troy, and describing how he acts is difficult to explain to you. The best way I can think of is that he acts like the oldest, disgusting, rotting corpse that you could find in the forest. So bad that you lead your pups the long way around as you do not even want them to catch the slightest whiff of that as you think that the decay could spread should they get to close. He is the most stubborn, obnoxious, pompous full of himself piece of crap that I have ever seen. And I was just imagining him dead. Imagining how wonderful it would make my life going forward to never have to deal with that asshole ever again.'

Kali took a second, doing her best to wrap her head around and understand everything she was just told. After thinking for a solid five minutes, she responded to Nat, 'So if still alive, can I kill? Could make painful for harassing Alpha.'

Natalie stopped sneaking through the brush. 'Alpha? As in pack Alpha?'

'Yes. You decide where pack go. What pack do. Therefore you pack Alpha.' Kali responded, as if that was the most natural decision. Nat could even hear the pups chanting in the background, 'Alpha! Alpha!'

Shaking her head, she could not help but agree with Kali in this situation. They were bonded to her, and she was the one moving throughout the world right now. She was just realizing how her decisions no longer just affected her, but this small family of wolves as well. She resumed moving towards town, 'While I accept that I am the Alpha, I do respect your opinion as a friend and as a companion. I would also still prefer for you to call me by my name rather than Alpha. As for killing that sleaze bag, sadly that is a bit more difficult. If he tries anything again, be my guest. However, I do not want to start just killing people just because I disagree with them. I want to give people a chance, and should they throw it away, then we will move to the more, violent options.' Feeling an agreement from not only Kali, but the pups as well, Nat felt relief. Relief that no one would try to arrest her for setting her wolves on people.

As she reached the end of the path, the town looked far worse than she imagined. The wide wooden bridge in front of her had a giant hole in it. The buildings she could see had doors ripped off their hinges, windows shattered, and siding ripped off. The cars in the streets had broken windows and some broken tires, and all of this was still not bad. The bad part, as the fact that there were corpses strewn about the street, some in cars or draped out of houses. Crows circling overhead, preparing to descend upon the bodies of the town folk that lay about. It took all Natalie could do to hold in her bile as she looked upon the scene. She started moving down the street to her work, as her worry for her boss's well being skyrocketed.

Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Jake, Viktor, and Kevin for supporting me and my writing! Remember that I keep Patreon ten chapters ahead at all times.