Chapter 278 - Outsiders 2

"It's a good thing I came to this harvest," Zagan hissed as the alyko he was after disappeared into thin air right in front of him.

She was the one Andreas had called him about, but the old lycan neglected to tell him not only that she was mated, which was unique in and of itself for an alyko, but also that she was a Luna. He had caught on to both of those facts very quickly after arriving.

A Luna alyko. How positively mouth-watering. That position had to come with considerable power.

Why had Andreas not told him of this? He sunk his fangs into his lip in frustration, stalking away from the tree before leaping onto a high limb to see if he could spot where she had gone.

If Zagan had been informed about the potential challenges they would face tonight trying to capture a Luna, his crew could have prepared better. Typically, he wouldn't even come to a harvest like this anymore. The lycans in his crew were so well adept now at disguising their scents and stalking unsuspecting alyko with absolute stealth, it was quite a simple job.

Had he not come, tonight would have been very unlikely to go their way. Thankfully he was curious about the abnormalities that had been occurring on the map in this part of the world. Zoe's team had explained it away to everyone as some kind of glitch that was occurring, but nothing like what they were all seeing had ever happened before. The entire area of this pack's land had been dotted with lights. And the lights did not immediately go out.

To learn now that there was a Luna alyko here had to explain the unusual map phenomena, but it was still unclear what would have caused that many alyko markers to go off.

He was no fool when it came to genetics. He knew it wasn't as simple as two distinct groups of lycans and alyko when it came down to the building blocks that made them up. Lycans obviously shared much of their genetics with alyko.

Genetics themselves were even more complicated than most people realized, with multiple genes often working in tandem to create one visible characteristic. Something like height, for example, was determined by far more than two simple alleles on a gene. And that was before taking environmental factors into consideration like nutrition. Good nutritional intake along with other environmental factors would help bring out different potentials in genes that may have otherwise laid dormant.

But he had never seen a large group of lycans who were capable of shifting into wolves light up on their map like alyko. It just was not possible. At least, it had been previously considered theoretically as well as practically impossible. That would be a massive change in some external factor within their environment to bring about such an unexpected alteration in phenotype.

However, add a Luna alyko into this mind boggling scenario, and it suddenly began to make sense. Now it was just a matter of catching the intriguing little mouse.

He scanned the area for her movements. Eyesight greater than even an eagle meant he would be able to spot her if she was within a five mile radius of where she disappeared.

As he searched, he took note of how his lycans were doing. A heavy discontent weighed in his chest. As good as they were when it came to hunting most alyko, they were so much slower than him. When he came to harvests, it meant he was always having to backtrack to bring them up to speed on what he had found. He brought the unconscious Zosime to the third in command under him, a male named Rico who was likely still taking her back to their truck. It would have been faster to do it himself.

If only there were more of his kind here within this realm. But no others like him cared about what he was after.

While one eye continued searching for the missing alyko Luna, his other focused in on the new Alpha who was in wolf form getting dangerously close to his crew. His lycans already realized it and were falling back. Under no circumstances were they to harm other pack members unless absolutely necessary. It would disrupt the power system here, and as powerful and impressive a species as lycans were, they were quite delicate creatures when it came to pack and familial ties. The pack here was still nursing the loss of their Alpha and Luna a decade ago. Of course, part of that was because Andreas was not nearly the leader he should have been, and the two other elders around him were just as hopeless.

Another reason they were to harm no one was to keep their presence as invisible as possible. Tonight was obviously going to be another matter. Taking a Luna was much different than taking a pup. All members in a pack had value—indeed, this was one curious thing about lycans that he both admired and hated—but a Luna was a top dog, so-to-speak.

He hadn't calculated the fallout from tonight in his mind just yet, but it was possible it would be substantial. He may need to employ one of his alyko for damage control… unless he could make it look like the Luna had caused all of this. The distrust of alyko was such that it might work. Still, killing the Alpha was not something he wanted to resort to. This pack needed a leader else it would fall. And it produced too many alyko for him to let that happen.

Again, he could have figured all of this out beforehand if Andreas would have informed him it was a Luna they were after. His lips curled into a smile when he imagined the elder burning. He was stupid enough to deserve it. Tonight could have been so much worse. Somehow it was only the Alpha and one other lycan who was searching for the Luna at the moment.. He was lucky the whole pack hadn't descended on her location in an attempt to protect her.