𝐓𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐅𝐚𝐭𝐞 ⸙

2.13༊*·˚

"How far away are the rogues?" Zayn asked. His affection crumpled away. The softness to his eyes hardened to sharp shards of glass.

"A few miles" Solana said, watching Liam smile through his worry when Zayn faced him.

"They might just be passing through," Liam suggested.

"Maybe, but we should defend the gate and the perimeters just in case." Zayn would never care so much about a bunch of rogue wolves, but his trust had been sliced from all directions. He couldn't afford not to care.

Niall remained in his human form, so he could talk with the wolves when or if they neared the gate.

Ten omega wolves formed an arch around him. Omega guards were placed on every corner of the institute, watching, and waiting.

Zayn, Baela, Solana, Liam and a few other Omegas stood patiently by the gate too, but on the other side. They watched through the fence as Zayn tracked the rogues on his phone.

"They're a mile away" he said with a scowl that hadn't left his face since his mother interrupted him in the attic.

He glanced to Liam who anxiously fiddled with the ends of his sleeves. Zayn had argued for him to stay inside, but Liam refused.

Liam stared longingly at the path through the gate, the path that lead to Ethdellin Town. He hoped that one day, when they had been successful at dispersing rumours about him and wolves, and a few of the old residents passed on, he could return to the town he grew up in.

Birds chirped above them until suddenly flocking away. The wolves around Liam tensed and listened to something Liam couldn't yet here; the sound of wolves tearing through the woods.

"Brace yourselves," Zayn said, wishing he was on the other side of the fence with Niall, but he was working on not being so careless with his life. The Alpha role gave him a purpose, and he had to embrace his life for Liam to have a good life too.

Soon, Liam heard the wolves. They thundered against the woodland floor, trampling on anything that snapped, and panted heavily. Liam saw a deer before he saw the wolves, then he realised they had been chasing lunch, not tracing the Packhouse.

The wolves skidded to a halt before they all crashed into Niall and the shifted Omegas huddling around him.

The Omega wolves growled, and Niall didn't move an inch.

"Shift," he demanded, staring down his pointed nose that them.

Liam wanted to step closer to the fence, but Baela stopped him, reminded Liam that electricity surged through it. He stared at the Rogues with a heavy heart. They were all very underweight and their fur was dirty and matted. Most had bits of fur missing from obvious fights. One even had a missing ear.

The rogues looked around at each other. Some lowered their heads to the ground and pinned their ears back, so the biggest wolf shifted. They were so dirty, Liam wasn't sure if the fur was a mixture of brown and white, or just dirty.

The wolf shifted into a young woman. She looked roughly in her early twenties. Her dark long hair was as matted as her fur, and her dark skin was covered in scars. Her cheeks looked even more sunken against the sun. Her dark eyes were weary and exhausted. She was uncomfortably thin. Her clothes hung from her starving body.

"I beg your pardon," she said to Niall, but her eyes wandered until she found the true Alpha cowering behind the gate. She stepped back, muttering, "This is the Ethdellin Pack. We have trespassed on Zayn Malik's land."

"What are you doing here?" Niall asked, standing with more pride.

"We were chasing the deer. Some of us haven't eaten in so long, they can't shift because their human bodies would whither. We were so desperate to catch it" The young woman lowered her eyes when Zayn stepped closer to the gate.