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Broken Pieces

Chapter Twenty-One

By Roofles

How many years ago was it now? Reese was forty, so... thirty years? Thirty-five years ago? It had been so long that Reese had nearly forgotten about it. What life had been like in his old pack, underneath the ever-watchful eye of his father.

"To survive, Reese, you need something more." His father had taught him. Standing above him, never crouching down to his height. Looking down on his child. His favored child, and still refusing to treat Reese like anything more than his successor because of the blood flowing in his veins.

After what Reese had done, been forced to do his siblings. His brothers and sisters... There had been eight pups in the litter. The mother was forced to leave after they had been weaned off her. Being used for her milk and little else after the birth. A tool to be used for the Alpha's seed. To breed the next batch, the future, of the pack. Unable to see her own children after that. Forced aside so that Mauler could pit them against each other.

Reese had heard his mother had tried to see them. To see her pups. Claiming they were rightfully hers as well. That wasn't the case in a wolf pack. Biology played little part in it. Wolf packs raised their pups together. It was a mother father unit but a pack unit. She was just another member and held no more claim than the others did.

It might've been for the best. So, she didn't have to watch what Mauler did to them. To Reese.

Forcing them to fight, to show who would be on top and who'd be on bottom. Locking them in a room and telling them that only those left standing would be eating that night.

"It's a game," he claimed. Playing off their childlike sensibilities. "The winner gets a reward. The others, a punishment." As if a reward wouldn't be enough. The losers needed to be punished. It was claimed to make them stronger, to encourage them to want to eat at the table with the rest.

It was just another means to weed out the weak amongst them.

Mauler hadn't even known Reese's name until after that fateful night. Blood soaked his fur as he stood there, the door opening and illuminating the room they had been locked within. There had been eight pups in the litter. Only two had survived that night.

Reese, standing there dripping blood from his claws and fangs. And Bale, the smallest of the group hunkered in the corner behind Reese. Mauler had been disappointed to see Bale left alive, yet even he was stunned by Reese's ruthlessness.

It had been a game that had cost the lives of six of his pups and Mauler didn't even bat an ear at that. He did, however, fold them back when Reese looked at him.

"The others aren't waking up." Reese had said. Standing there, perfectly still, he stared at his father with cold, empty eyes. Mauler thought about leaving him there, letting him soak in his victory but then Reese spoke. "I don't like this game anymore. Can we leave?"

"We?" Mauler asked before spying the wolf cowering behind his brother. "I thought I said only one can be left standing..." He growled low, the rumble of his chest making his lips vibrate.

"I don't like this game anymore." Reese repeated himself and his cold mannerisms and lifeless stare made Mauler flinch. He chuckled. He laughed as he looked at his pup, standing there over the bodies of his siblings without a thought for what he'd done.

"Of course... come. Let us discuss your reward." Mauler stepped aside for him.

Reese turned and grabbed hold of his brothers hand, pulling him along as he took Bale from that room. Bale had cried so hard that not a sound escaped from him. Going overlooked by his father as Reese pulled him along. Forever with his brother, standing before him and casting Bale in Reese's long shadow. The expectations were too heavy for the smaller wolf to carry, and Reese would be forced to carry that burden into their future.

As Mauler's perfect offspring. Cold, ruthless, emotionless as he "played" with his siblings.

Mauler looked so much like Reese did these days, back then. Healthy, large, and strong. His fur was deep and dark like a black void, consuming all light. His eyes weren't the blue that Reese had inherited from his mother; no. Mauler's eyes were a bronze that burned with the seeded hate that had been planted into him by his father.

The pack's previous Alpha.

"Food keeps the body strong, Reese, never forget that... but! But where do you get this food from? We once had great expansive territories stretching across the lands. Places where our people could hunt freely within. Our territory. Back then, herbivores weren't seen as people, like us, no. They were like wild animals. Cowering together in herds, afraid to sleep at night. Game for us to hunt. Stalking them through the woods and underbrush before pouncing and just... sinking our fangs into their neck and feel the rush of blood fill our mouths. Ah, I wish we had grown up during those times, my son. We would've ruled as kings. Conquerors! Emperors! All the others would've lived in fear of us... as they once did... now?

"Now? Things are different. So very different. Not like our golden age. They've changed things... The playing field has change. Become more... leveled, even. Equal." Mauler snarled the last part out, spittle flying from his vibrating lips from the deep sound filling the room the two had been in thirty years ago.

Mauler had dragged Reese here by the scruff of his neck, tossing the young pup into the dark room and slamming the door shut behind them. Just as he had done that day, three years ago, forcing his children to fight amongst themselves. Reese was used to it by now as he rubbed the back of his neck, feeling where Mauler's nails had dug into his hide.

Mauler would do this every couple of months. Dragging Reese off to have a private word with the future Alpha of the pack. Trying to keep him on the "correct path" and not to be "led astray" by the liberals in congress or the fake news.

His father had drunk too much, again, and would go on these endless ranting spiels that Reese thought would never end. Reese could smell the alcohol on his father's breath even from across the room where he stood, looking out the window. The curtains had been drawn but Reese could see outside, through the sliver of light between them.

"First it was something small. Tools they crafted to protect themselves. Sticks and stones. Picking up whatever they could to fight us off!" Mauler laughed, a harsh aggressive sound as he snapped his fangs together at the end. "Then they began beating rocks into sharp points and tying them around these sticks... Not as sharp as our fangs, no. Not as sharp... Not yet. Soon came the iron swords and axes. They eventually followed more refined metals as spears... Now? Now it isn't even the same god damn fucking field we once lived on!

"These weak, pathetic creatures cheated us. Cheated! The cowards, the lot of them!" Mauler knocked over something in the room, throwing something else against the wall. Venting his rage with words and actions. Reese was just lucky his father liked him, or he'd have been hit by now during one of his alcohol fueled rants. "They hide behind others willing to get their hands dirty for them. Paying them off for protection. Sheep. Sheep the lot of them! Sometimes, literally, sheep," he laughed cruelly. "The swords of old have long been cast aside, Reese, my boy, my offspring... Do you know what they've been replaced them with?"

Mauler suddenly turned-on Reese. He didn't even flinch as he stood there, looking at his father. Mauler always hated when Reese did that. Staring at him without words, his face an expressionless mask that even Mauler couldn't read past. But it was those eyes. Those damn eyes he hated most.

The one part of Reese that didn't resemble his father.

Icy blue eyes that shone through his obsidian fur. The fur he had inherited from his, Mauler's, strong genes! But those eyes... those weren't his eyes. They belonged to his weak mother and Mauler hated seeing them. His one regret about forcibly bedding that bitch.

Mauler was the first to turn away and Reese would follow suit, looking out the side window once more and wishing he could go back to the party being held.

It was supposed to be a party held in his honor and yet his father had dragged him inside this day. Into this stuffy, dark room to talk about... what? Reese wasn't even sure what Mauler wanted to talk about. It wasn't so much of a conversation but a means for Mauler to talk at him.

Mauler didn't treat Bale, his brother, like this and Reese was still trying to grasp the social norms within a pack, let alone his fucked-up family.

Reese looked longingly out the window. Wishing he could go back out there. Even if everyone treated him differently, most keeping their distance from him... it was better than being stuck in here with this man.

"Do you know what they replaced them with?" Mauler repeated again and Reese knew when he did that, he expected an answer. Refusal to say anything, or to get the answer wrong, would get him hit. It hurt but Reese was used to the pain.

"Guns." Reese said but Mauler cut him off as if he didn't hear him. They both knew Mauler had. The Alpha just pretended as if he hadn't. Reese hated when he did that.

"Replaced with firearms. Firearms! What is a wolf to do against that? Small ones? Large ones? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, Reese! They cheated, those cowards. Cheaters. Cowardice... cheaters. Leveling the playing field like that. All those firearms just as deadly as the next. Perfect tools to kill with... even to us. Us! The superior... breed. Where carnivores once ruled? Feasting on the weaker species? Now, now we must hide ourselves away, slinking in the shadows and lurking from afar... where we once ruled? We're now endangered. Endangered! Us!" Mauler choked on the word, grabbing at his throat, and facing towards Reese.

Reese hadn't even batted an ear, staring at his father. Mauler was so charismatic and vocal, loud, and proud of who they once were. Trying to lift them back up. Despite his cruel nature, Mauler was a leader and others were willing to follow him. To where? To what? Reese didn't know. The pits of hell from the looks of things. He only knew that such times were long gone and that things were changing. For the better? It was impossible to say for a wolf. His father was one of the pitiful fools living in days long since gone...

Trying to relive the glory days they hadn't even been born into. Guns had changed that. The advancement of weaponry had changed the playing field they all once had been on. Now, the predators had been benched while the others were allowed to live their lives.

Leaving Reese cast out from a life he had never even had a chance to know. Condemning him even before he had taken his first life.

"Guns. Everywhere! The only reason why not every person has one is because of the strict laws they put into place. Laws that they put into place to keep guns out of our hands! Why? Because they know. They know what we're capable of without guns. But with them?" Mauler had laughed. "Your grandfather, the Alpha before me, was a great man. A thinker. Smart. Cunning and just as cruel. He started our pack after succeeding the previous one. Hoarding their guns, the prey species had and arming us with them instead. He was a great man. Seeing the bigger picture of things..."

"What happened to him?" Reese asked and Mauler paused at that, glancing back at the wolf pup. Reese was only a young pup at the time, but his fur was so dark and sleek he blended into the very shadows of the dimly lit room they stood in.

For a split second, Mauler didn't even see his boy standing there. Just those damn bright blue eyes, tinted yellow as they seemed to glow in the dark room.

"Heh," Mauler felt a shiver run down his back from seeing those eyes stare at him. The same eyes that looked at him when he had opened that room he'd tossed Reese and his siblings into. The same blank, emotionless eyes of a killer... "He grew old, Reese... Slow minded and weak. A weak Alpha is no good to a pack. He would only bring them, the pack, down with him. He had to be replaced." Mauler shrugged, not about to recount the story of how he tricked and took down his father as he, one day, expected Reese to do to him.

To replace him and take his rightful place as Alpha within the pack. Not that Mauler wouldn't fight him, no. He was looking forward to that. Through blood and death and Mauler planned to be smiling the entire time as Reese murdered him and usurped the pack from his cold, lifeless dead fingers. It was the only way that Mauler would give up this pack that he had poured his very heart and soul into.

Making it as black and twisted as his heart had become.

"Oh." Reese said and his ear flicked, eyes looking to the side. As if growing bored of this. This conversation. The idea of being replaced and forgotten so easily. Spoken about only as a myth or a legend to inspire future generations instead of someone that was... what?

Reese blanked on that thought, unsure what it was he was looking for.

Like his father? He chewed the thought. A mannerism he had picked up from his Uncle Gristle who was known for the habit. As if the older dark gray furred wolf was chewing on a piece of gristle.

Reese didn't know what that word was he was looking for was. Looking down at his sharpened clawed hands, trying to figure it out as his father continued to rant and rave about their situation. What was expected of Reese and his pack, what Reese needed to do to not be taken advantage of by the system and everything else that kept predators down. Reese ignored him. Just nodding when he knew he was supposed to as he got lost in his thoughts, thinking of something else. Letting his mind wander as he looked back down. Staring at his empty palm, wondering what it was that he was missing. What word that could fill that empty space there.

His father had chosen violence. Seeing it as the only way to gain respect from others. Attacking the nearby Ursa gang and taking their territory as the spoils of war from their conquest. Just like the wolves of old. Just like in the dark ages. Attacking other groups and expanding their territory. To relive the glory days.

It had cost them dozens of wolves and Mauler was in the process of trying to breed the next batch for his next war to be had.

A silly fantasy, his father had. It wasn't what Reese was looking for... No. It was something else. Something he had never known or shown within this pack.

Love within the pack wasn't as others knew or seen or experienced before. Successes and achievements were hailed and praised, of course. Holding them above others to try and encourage the "Weak to become strong" as his father said. While failures were severely punished and mocked. The weak were humiliated to encourage the strong to stay above them. The strong were forever afraid of falling from their place, replaced by the weak, and while the weak fought and bled to crawl towards the top creating an endless cycle. A vicious cycle of blood and hate amongst each other.

There was no place for love in this pack. It was an unnecessary complication to the perfect war machine that Mauler wanted to create.

And yet, as Reese was finally allowed to return to the party, he was stopped outside the entrance to their mansion still searching for this missing piece. The answer to these thoughts within this place, this mansion overlooking the city below. The place he was raised at and yet had never felt as if it were his home.

He stepped out into the bright daylight, needing to shield his eyes as the wind began to blow through his fur. Standing there, looking upwards as he didn't find the answers here. Not in this place, or so he had thought.

"Reese," a female wolf had once spoken to him off to the side, hiding around the corner. Reese glanced towards her without moving. She waved him closer. Waiting for this moment, this moment after his weekly conversation with his father.

Reese wiped the blood from his cheek, walking over to see what she wanted. He hadn't been fast enough to dodge his father's swipe, lost in his thoughts. Not answering his father's question fast enough. The cut on his cheek stung but it wasn't anything knew. It would heal and be lost underneath his fur just as all the other cuts and scars had been.

"What do you want?" Reese glared at her. The wolf flinched at his harsh words, venom seeping into them from his disgruntlement his father had stirred up inside him. The female bowed her head.

"I just... I wanted to see you." She said and Reese tilted his head to the side in confusion, unsure who she was. "My... You've grown," she smiled, bending down before him. Crouching down to his level so the two could look into each other's eyes.

She had dark gray fur and soft features. Her coat of fur had been so lush and full back then, looking beautiful and stunning in the afternoon sunlight. Once, long ago, she had been beautiful and a jewel amongst the pack that many males had sought after.

On even footing, on equal ground, she crouched before Reese. Not standing over him or threatening him with her size. Reese's tail straightened out, unsure what that meant. What it was that lurked behind her eyes. It was something unfamiliar and he didn't know how to handle that.

"You are so handsome." She smiled softly and reached a hand out. Reese tensed, waiting for the slap. The scratch. Waiting for her to grab him and shake him as his father would. She didn't.

Reese noted how even she kept her distance from him. Reaching out an arm but not daring to step any closer. He didn't need to speak. His blank stare was unnerving enough even when he didn't growl at someone. Something he was still trying to work on. Unsure how to make his voice softer and tender, like veal. The veal he was served for dinner every night when he did something his father could be proud of. To boast about to the others. To brag about...

Holding his son up like some kind of trophy to show off before them during the midnight howl they held every month during the full moon.

Veal was delicious and yet... even as the juiciest piece of the reddest of meats that practically melted in his mouth like warm butter. And, yes, it was so flavorful and tender... but it was something more. Some more he wished for. Wishing his voice could be like that. Warm and tender, soft and succulent... then maybe the others wouldn't look at him with those eyes full of fear.

Looking at him as if he were some kind of monster.

Not like this wolf did now. Her touch wasn't cruel like his father. It was such a gentle, loving touch that Reese's ears folded back as he stared into those eyes looking into his own. Reflecting his own. Like a mirror, he could see himself in them.

"Here," she said, pulling a package from beside her. Waiting her, for this moment, to give him his present. Reese took the package she had offered him. It wasn't that strange. Most people knew Reese would one day inherit the pack and were already trying to groom his favor. Giving him gifts and trying to bribe him over to their side in their political feuds within the pack.

He didn't like those people, though.

Reese could see past their fake smiles and pleasantries. Just staring at them until they left him alone. Until they showed their true colors. It was better to be alone than surrounded by all those liars... But she, this female wolf with darker gray fur seemed different but he didn't know why. Reese's nose twitched and he could smell something familiar, yet distance about her.

As if he should've known who she was but didn't. That he couldn't. Mauler had made sure of that.

"What... is it?" Reese growled the words out, still learning the common tongue that most species spoke. It was far less snarls and growls than what wolves and other canines used. It was more... tender, that language. Like veal.

He liked the way it tasted in his mouth, saying those words.

"It's a present." She smiled then and Reese wished he could look like that. No matter how often he practiced in front of the mirror, his face didn't seem capable of looking like that. He was unsure if it was because of how threatening he appeared or if it was because he didn't even know how to feign happiness. Unable to show happiness on ones face.

As she did now.

"For?" Reese looked down at it, confused. Waiting for her to ask him something from him, of him... or want to talk to his father after like the others did. Always asking for a favor after the kindness they pretended to show.

"You," she laughed, and her voice was so warm it made Reese's fur stand up. Briefly. If only for a second before he forced his body to calm down. He wasn't sure what that was about and was unsure if he liked that feeling. That laughter. The way it made him feel inside. "Don't tell anyone, alright? I'm, uh, not supposed to be here. I just wanted to see you, is all... It'll be our little secret. Promise? It's the only way for me to see you again."

Reese nodded as he sniffed the package. It didn't smell like something metal and expensive with shiny gems and metals that others gifted him. Worthless trinkets the others would buy him. Why would he need a diamond studded watch? Reese didn't get that. It was so... pointless. This present wasn't like that. It smelled cheap. Like fabric. It smelled like clothing, but he didn't know why he'd be given it as he opened it up.

It was a scarf. A poorly hand knitted scarf. A scarf the size a pup might use. It was tattered and frayed, it was poorly constructed and looked as if it would fall apart if he dared to try and wear it. Reese wouldn't get cold with his thick fur even during winter and was confused even further by this gift.

"I made it for you." She continued to smile, and he looked back down at the present he'd been given.

Why would she go out of her way to make this gift? He didn't need this. It wasn't something valuable, and yet... Reese held onto it as if afraid she was about to rip it from his hands if he let his guard down. He'd learned, long ago, never to let his guard down around the things he cared about.

It was how the things he loved; his beloved things were taken from him. Reese didn't like when others touched his things. They would break them or "borrow them" without ever returning them. Yet, somehow, he was the bad guy for asking them to be returned or to be repaid for the value lost.

He looked up at her when she spoke again. She had that smile on her face. Her ears were relaxed and, if for a second, he thought she might be crying.

"Reese?" She said and he looked into her eyes. She had the same blue eyes he did. "Happy birthday..." And she stepped closer, wrapping him up in a warm hug that melted all his worries and concerns away...

For how little it lasted, Reese hadn't forgotten the warmth behind that hug. That someone would willingly enter his personal space, wanting nothing more than to give him that kind of affection... it had been the best birthday gift he'd ever received...

"Sir?" One of the other wolves asked next to him in the elevator. Reese had touched his cheek as if expecting to feel something there. His fur was dry, and he blinked his eyes as if expecting to stop the tears that weren't flowing.

He lowered his arm down.

"Everything alright?" The female guard asked to his side. Reese lip twitched, showing the tip of his fangs.

"Nothing. Elevator is just taking too damn long." Reese growled as he kept up the appearance. He had forgotten that moment. The day his father had brought him in, giving him the same old speech he always gave.

Reese hadn't understood why that day had been special. Why people were showering him with praise and what he, at the time, thought was affection. There had been a large party held and even Bale had been given gifts, though not as many as Reese had been.

His Uncle Gristle had been there. One of the few times the wolf wasn't working. Staying to the side, watching over things, and keeping the peace. That female wolf from before lurked nearby, next to Gristle. Out of the way but close enough to watch. Even if she didn't participate, she seemed happy.

Happy to be there, for them.

The other presents were lavish and exaggerated gifts that showed the wealth the pack could splurge on the two. Bale's gifts were smaller than Reese's but were just as shiny. Coated in gold that glittered in the sunlight. Bale seemed to be happy about that while Reese's thoughts drifted elsewhere.

To the pitiful scarf he had tucked away into his shirt to be hidden, out of view.

It was strange, then, that someone would give him something like that. That poorly made gift. It felt different. Genuine. Unlike the others trying to kiss up to him. He was too young, so why did people keep trying to give him cars or vehicles? It was just a way to brown nose the Alpha, trying to suck up to him by using his son... This gift was different. It felt as if that gift, though small and cheap, had been given from the heart and was worth so much more than everything else combined...

He had stopped experience such things shortly after that. Shortly after Mauler found him wearing the ugly brightly colored scarf that female wolf had gifted him. It had been a secret but Mauler's spies within the pack had reported what had happened days later.

He had forced Reese to tear up the present as punishment. Standing above him as he watched Reese tear the fabric to shreds. He could still, almost, taste it in his mouth.

Reese hadn't been strong enough then to stand up to his father. He wish he had been. If it had been later, when he was older, then, maybe... maybe then Reese could've saved that female wolf with blue eyes the same color as his own. Before what Mauler did to her. The punishment she had undergone for going behind his back.

Reese wished he could've saved her from that fate and what it would do to her.

How it broke her.

Reese felt nothing at the news of his father's death, many years later. Poisoned by his smaller brother Bale. If anything, he felt envious that Bale had been the one to do the dirty deed. Only hating the fact he couldn't be there to see his father's eyes flicker out like dying flames as he, Reese, stood above Mauler and watched him choke to death.

It had left him hoping that Bale could fix the pack. All the problems within it. All the issues. Bale hadn't. Bale had been a product of their father, as Reese had been. The two had inherited his anger and pettiness. Bale had tried, Reese was sure of it, at first. Tried in the beginning to change the pack. To make things better. As the two had known what it felt like to be on both sides of the playing field.

Life wasn't so fair, and it could be so cruel.

Liars, cheats, betrayal within the pack, Diamond conniving behind Bale's back the entire time... one thing after another had broken Bale, just as Reese knew that female wolf had been broken before. Just like he had been broken. Everything stemming from the same tainted fruit that had borne them, breaking everything, it touched. All from the same rotting family tree.

Reese felt his hand grip tightly at his coat, gripping it painfully hard as he tried to calm down. The thought of it. The thought of everyone Mauler had hurt. That Reese hadn't been able to save. How his weakness had let that monster hurt those he cared for and possibly loved... It left a bad taste in his mouth, like the fabric of that scarf he'd been forced to rip apart.

It wasn't tasty like veal. Tender and almost sweet, melting in his mouth, making him drool. He wanted more of that, not this. Not this bile creeping up from the back of his throat as Reese stood there, in that elevator, wanting to fix what his father had broken...

It was the very reason why he agreed to any of this.

Hoping for a better tomorrow for them all as he swallowed his pride away, not about to let it dictate his life as his father had. The doors to the elevator opened and Reese stepped out, head held high, as he walked towards his, the pack, and his families future...