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Phil was in the habit of patrolling the pack's territory solo on a regular basis. It wasn't something many of his packmates preferred, as the strength of the pack lay in numbers, but he took his responsibility as alpha seriously.
Besides, he'd earned the title Angel of Death for a reason.
And with twin pups tumbling across the den floor at all hours these days, it was often the only way to get any time to himself.
The walk so far had, thankfully, offered that in spades. Cotton-soft moonlight threaded between the full-leafed branches overhead, rustled gently by a whispering breeze. He could feel the zenith's approach like humming ozone standing his fur on end, tingling down to the pads of his toes as he picked his way silently through the undergrowth. A dozen lingering scent trails crisscrossed the brush directly below his nose.
Good. His territory was healthy and alive with prey. The winter would treat them kindly, long as they properly preserved their kills in the next month.
Unbothered and unhurried by anything—he wasn't particularly inclined to hunt at the moment, nor did they strictly need the meat—Phil simply angled for a quick loop around the border. That didn't even need checking either, really; the patrols assigned out here were more than capable of handling any likely threats. Since Phil had taken over as alpha, he could count the number of encounters that had passed the boundary on one paw. And last he'd heard, no one was keen to add to that number.
Something or someone else appeared to have different ideas, however.
The calm night took a turn along with the shifting breeze. Phil paused suddenly at the sharp tang of blood wafting past his nose, wrinkling it to hold back a sneeze. That in itself wasn't odd, of course; if a patrol had passed recently, perhaps they'd taken a rabbit for a quick midnight snack. Hell, even a regular wolf pack could be out hunting, although they typically steered clear of their more supernatural cousins.
No. That wasn't the most concerning smell on the wind.
Death smelled like many things. There was the pungent taint of illness, the putrid stench of rot, the usual coppery edge of blood; further along there would come the the earthy notes of decay as the more unsavory parts abandoned bone and skin and keratin to vanish into the earth. Then the bones would lose all but the faintest hint of former life, only a faint touch of mildew and mineral left until eventually even that would crumble to dust.
And as familiar with it as Phil was, he was just as familiar with undeath. It stood in opposition to the natural order in every way, including scent. Anything touched by its cruel, horrifying hands hung suspended in time, as pungent and putrid as illness and rot but charged with the ozone pinpricks of magic. Living tissue held at the brink of mortal ken and the unknowable beyond stank like sulfur and saltpeter, but sliced through his senses like the blade of a new knife.
Vampiric undeath in particular had an acidic quality. Blood spilled from their leather-tough skin in hard-fought battle burned like hot coals, despite the permanent chill that clung to them. Blood spilled by them, however, left an astringent taint on their victims.
Phil could tell this was the latter.
What was truly alarming about that fact, however, was just how fresh the scent was. The local packs hadn't recently reported any vampire incursions on their various territories. The nearest coven had abided by a long-respected treaty and were more interested in the humans than their ancient rivals; if any of their members had dared make a move to change that, the news would have spread like a wildfire.
A fucking vampire attack on someone—close enough to either be in or retreat to Phil's turf—warranted immediate investigation.
Slowly, tail held low and his nose to the ground, Phil stalked along the trail. His ears swiveled to each minute sound, keyed in to even the smallest hints of potential threat as he moved. The stronger it grew, the sharper that acidic taint became in his nose, the higher his hackles rose. By the time he reached the source, every hair on his body felt as though it stood on end.
That source turned out to be near the base of a wide-branching elm.
Phil paused, listening and watching intently for any sign of what might await him; it would be foolish to approach blindly.
There.
Something shifted in the leaf-litter on the other side of the tree from him. A tiny whimper followed soon after. Phil's breath caught in his throat, and it took all his willpower not to immediately rush toward it.
That was unmistakeably a pup—a wounded pup.
Phil knew for a fact each and every pup in his pack was accounted for right now. Now that he sniffed the air again, he could even pick out the underlying stranger-foreign-warning partially hidden beneath the blood and vampire stench that he'd tracked here.
The implications of that painted his bones with hoarfrost.
Another series of low whines shook him out of his thoughts. As quickly and quietly as he dared, Phil padded around the side of the tree, and—
Oh.
Oh.
The pup was utterly tiny. Phil's own were young enough still that he could immediately guess this one had to be no more than a month or so old at most, the equivalent of four human years. They had squeezed into an old deadwood space at the base of the tree, just large enough for them but not large enough for Phil's adult build to shove into. In the faint fingers of moonlight stretching into the hollow, Phil could faintly pick out fresh blood staining their light coat in dark splotches.
Every nerve in his body sounded an alarm. His paternal instincts howled despite the pup not being part of his own pack. Visions of Wilbur and Techno that small, that hurt churned his stomach.
No way in hell was he leaving them here.
Phil let out a gentle boof to get their attention, the same sound he used to greet his own family.
(The pup did not react like his family.)
Their whimpers cut off sharply. Their head whipped around fast enough to stagger them, those too-big paws scrambling to lift them into a defensive stance. A sharp yip cut Phil to the bone, all motion aborted in the face of the pain caused by their startle.
Phil winced and instantly backed off a couple paces. He whined apologetically, laying down with one ear out for any potential threats while his focus remained on the pup.
That apology seemed to be less than satisfactory for them. They bared their teeth and crowded up against the back of their little hidey-hole, ears pinned.
Great.
If he'd been in his human skin, Phil would have sighed. Instead he wagged his tail and crawled a pace closer; even young as they were, surely they would recognize the gesture. (If Ian could only see him now… Phil vowed never to tell a soul.)
The pup didn't relax like he'd hoped, however. They only growled and snapped and snarled even more, throwing every sign of fear and aggression in the gods damned unwritten book of nonverbal communication in Phil's face.
Damn it, this was getting them nowhere.
Backing off again, Phil wracked his brain for how to convince them to calm down and accept him as safe—and quickly. The last thing he needed was to be out here all night worrying Kristin sick. Besides that, while he was pretty certain whoever had attacked the pup wasn't immediately nearby, he wouldn't put it past a vampire willing to attack an innocent pup to also track them onto his pack's turf.
If the pup would just let him close, he could scruff them and carry them back to the den where there was anything and everything available to fix them up. Kristin would no doubt love the little spitfire, and the twins would surely enjoy having another playmate to tease and wrestle with once the pup healed. But if Phil tried to just dart in there and grab them, they could either bite Phil or potentially hurt themself worse.
…Alright. Fine.
Shifting from fur and a tail to skin and two legs wasn't something that would ever feel natural, probably, but it was just life as normal for his kind. At least the process was rendered painless by the heavy magic responsible for it in the first place. Still, Phil rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck as the ligaments and tendons settled into place against warped and rearranged bones.
Donning his human form always felt a little like wearing sunglasses in the middle of a cloudy day. His senses were less sharp, but consequently less prone to overwhelm. In this case, it was worth the trade-off for opposable thumbs and spoken language.
Just as Phil opened his mouth to use his voice, however, the pup also shifted.
Oh fuck. Fuck, shit, bloody hell.
If they were old enough to shift they were not as young as he thought—but still so, so small. Too small for their age.
"Fuckin' bastard—just leave me alone!"
And wasn't that salt in the wound of watching this pup, this kid lean heavily against the edge of their hiding place, pretending not to be clutching their side and reeling from the pain. Phil was too stunned by the sheer ferocity in that little voice to answer immediately, mind spinning with what the hell happened to this kid to make them react like this.
"Mate—" he finally said, softly, "—I can't just—"
Their snarl was weak but no less vociferous for that fact. "Yes you can! I'm a big man, I can take care of myself. So fuck off already!"
Phil sat back on his heels. He'd never come across a pup this opinionated and foul-mouthed before. His own kids were no stranger to curses, of course—they were his kids—but that was the exception rather than the norm.
A few more moments' consideration had a thought rising to the back of his mind.
Maybe he needed to come at this from another angle.
"What's your name?"
Their lips pressed into a thin line; their bright blue eyes glinted warily in the moonlight. They studied him for long enough that Phil almost thought they weren't going to answer. Even when they did, the word was so quietly muttered that he would not have caught it were it not for his own heightened senses.
"Tommy."
"Tommy," Phil repeated. He rolled the name across his tongue a few times, savoring it.
The boy scowled and petulantly crossed his arms. "That's it, don't wear it out. Asshole."
A chuckle bubbled in his chest. Phil didn't suppress it, hoping the sound would wash over Tommy like a babbling brook. Judging by the worry furrowing his brow, though, it didn't quite have the intended effect.
"My name's Phil," he introduced.
"Good for you. Now politely fuck off."
Phil sighed again. "Why won't you let me help you?"
Silence. The boy refused to look at him, face twisted up like he'd bit whole-heartedly into an unpeeled lemon.
"I'm not gonna hurt you," Phil continued. "I just want to get that wound looked at. I promise."
Tommy regarded him with something akin to…well, he wasn't quite sure what to name it. He'd rarely seen it before, let alone from someone so young. "I'm fine. Go away."
The trembling fear shielded below bared canines and snarling insults had only become more apparent the longer they talked. Phil rubbed at his temple, praying to whatever god would listen for patience. "You're not, kid, and anyone with eyes can tell."
Tommy…
Tommy froze at that.
Before Phil could try to understand what precisely had changed, to come up with something to mitigate any emotional damage wrought, his entire demeanor shifted. He hunched over his side, glancing wildly up at Phil from between thick lashes and scooting just a little closer to the tree opening.
"I'm sorry—'m sorry I didn't—I'm not—I'll be good, promise—"
A thousand emotions descended on Phil's mind in a writhing tangle of conflicting thoughts and slowly-solidifying theories. Moving almost without his own conscious input, he crawled closer to the little hole. "Shh, shh, Tommy, Toms—can I call you Toms?—it's okay, you're alright. You're safe."
The boy whimpered and whined, still muttering apologies around the wounded sounds. They cut straight to the deepest part of Phil's heart, dragging his paternal instincts howling and snapping to the fore. Tommy's knees scraped the dirt as he, too, closed the distance between them, seeming either to not hear or simply not register what Phil was saying.
He…he was exhibiting submission behavior. In his human form.
Fuck this. Fuck whoever the hell had done this to an innocent pup.
As soon as they got back to the pack, Phil was ordering a full search for the perpetrator and personally calling on the local coven.
Unannounced.
Phil closed the distance to the tree in a heartbeat. Tommy yelped and shrieked when the older werewolf wrapped his hand in the back of the boy's ratty shirt, his other hand carefully supporting the boy's side as Phil extracted him out of the hole. His heart bled fury and despair when Tommy fell limp and stopped fighting, quiet sobs of terror only halfway suppressed.
(Phil began to wonder just how many times the phrase what had they done to him would cross his mind tonight.)
He would have much preferred to slip back into his wolf pelt to take Tommy home; it would not only be easier to carry him by the scruff, but then he could run full-tilt through the forest with all his supernatural speed and reflexes to hand. Alas, the boy was far too wound up to shift, himself, so Phil would have to make do.
But first, he'd have to try to calm him down.
Tommy's struggles renewed as Phil tried to set him on his hip and close his arms around him. They were halfhearted at best, merely weak shoving at his chest and kicking his feet to try to get out of Phil's firm grip.
"Tommy," he said. "Toms, hey, it's okay. I'm not gonna hurt you, I swear, you're alright."
He let go of the boy's shirt to instead cup the back of his neck. The result wasn't instantaneous, but Phil could still feel the immediate release of tension in Tommy's small body as he worked his fingers gently down the muscles there.
Tommy's whimpers melted into sniffles and then, finally, full-on sobs. His muscles drooped, letting him fall against Phil's chest, and Phil was yet again reminded of the entire reason for them being here when semi-warm stickiness stained his own shirt.
"That's it. It's gonna be okay."
Slowly, Phil lifted Tommy into a proper hold and rose. Tommy's little hands curled into fists against his chest, face completely hidden in the crook of Phil's shoulder. He trembled from head to toe with hiccuping cries and, if Phil had to guess, a not insignificant adrenaline crash.
He really hoped that wound wasn't as bad as the blood soaked into his shirt made it seem. The last thing Tommy needed was the consequences of blood loss on top of everything else.
Later, he would find that the claw marks raked across Tommy's too-thin ribs were thankfully shallow enough for only a few stitches covered in bandages. Kristin would stay glued to the boy's side while Phil tucked Wilbur and Techno back into bed, then headed straight to the pack community house for an emergency meeting of the council. Eventually, Tommy would ease into life with their pack, and the nightmare of this experience would fade to little more than that—a simple nightmare.
For now, however, Phil simply steeled his resolve and began the drawn-out trek back home with the newest member of his pack cradled like the full moon in his arms.