The Alpha Female

SEVEN: CAGES

CHAPTER SEVEN: CAGES

            I don’t think you could fully comprehend the seriousness of this situation.

            I threw myself at the bars of my cage, batting against them with everything I had.  I had to get away, I had to get back to my family, I had to warn the others about the metal mouths, they were real.  I had to. 

            The cage shook with the force of my weight, but nothing more.  Only one man was left, for the other had left long before I had woken up, I could tell that by the fact that I couldn’t smell him, but there was something else I could smell.  On the other side of the glass wall I could smell animals.  The faint smell of small game, raccoons and squirrels, as well as something larger, much larger.  The smell was awfully familiar, but since wolves only remembered scents for up to three years, it was just as foreign to my nose.

            The man who had jabbed me with the small cylinder weapon came into the room, running a hand over his face.  I stopped my tossing and turning and faced him, growling and bearing my teeth.  He had a wrap on his arm from where I had bitten him.  Take that.

            “Oh shut up would you,” he hissed.  “We’re just here to help, now cool your jets.”  My jets?  What on earth did that even mean?   I snapped at him from behind the bars.

            After I had been knocked unconscious by some unknown force I had woken up in this cage.  Dizzy and disoriented I had gone into a rage.  Somehow they had sewn the holes in my leg.  Like, with actual thread.  It was a strange concept but I guess it made sense.  It would keep the wound closed and help it to heal better, also the scar would be much smaller and I wouldn’t have to worry about an annoying bald spot.  Still, I wasn’t happy about it.  They had sewn on me in my sleep and I hadn’t even awoken.  We shifters trained our bodies to be like that of the wolves, when we slept it was for fifteen or twenty minute spells before we were awake again.  Usually we would look around before going right back to sleep, but still, it taught us to be light sleepers and we rarely missed a beat.  I had missed several.

            I had missed when they had sewn up my leg, and I had missed when they threw me in a cage as if I was some kind of pet.  What sick monsters humans were.  I wouldn’t have it, they couldn’t keep a beta, soon to be alpha, caged for long.  I would get out, and when I did the fury of my entire pack would be breathing down those humans’ pale little necks.  Except for this man of course, his neck was fairly meaty.  All the more to eat then.

            The human had tried to feed me, but I refused to eat it.  It was probably drugged or something, so the raw piece of exotic meat sat before me in my cage.  It had been there when I woke up, and I could guarantee that it would still be there when I escaped.

            “Just relax girl, you’re safe now, they can’t get you in here.” I threw my body at the side of the cage in response resulting in an exasperated sigh from the man.  My small dog cage was sitting on top of a large rectangular table that spanned the length of the room, resting dead center.  There were other cages on the far end of the table, ones smaller than mine, as well as some bags of what appeared to be some kind of food, but the smell made it seem rather inedible. 

            “If you keep doing that you’ll rip your stitches out.” He told me. 

            “Who’ll rip their stitches out?” A new voice asked and my ears folded down.  There was another one.  How many humans were in a pack? 

            A young human, appearing to be not much older than myself, entered the room.  He was wearing a faded red sweatshirt, his black hair sticking to his face with a mixture of sweat and rain.  He threw down a bag on the end of the table and it clanked as if there was something metal in it.  Probably another mouth to eat the rest of my feet with.