Chapter 3

As Kal prepared breakfast he directed the wolf girl towards a small alcove next to the entrance that offered a restroom and shower. She arrived back at the fire pit as he plated their meals, feeling refreshed and relaxed now that she was clean again for the first time in months. Looking her naked body up and down, Kal admitted to selfishly anticipating getting enough food into the girl so her ribs no longer showed. Just getting her hydrated had made most of them fade and done wonders for her breasts.

He handed her a plate laden with barely cooked meat and they both sat down on the lush green carpet outside the marble circle, enjoying both the food and the moment of peace.

“You acted surprised that you were pregnant,” said Kal breaking the silence once they had finished their meals, “isn’t that the whole point of going into heat?”

“It would,” she replied, “but I’m not an alpha.”

“What do you mean you’re not an alpha?” the look on Kal’s face clearly showed his astonishment. Wolf, dog, and cat girl behaviors were some of the best documented because of their smaller cousin’s close relationships with humans. Her declaration flew in the face of everything he had read, not to mention what he had already seen.

“Exactly that,” replied Daxas, looking annoyed, “I’m nowhere close to being a pack alpha, or beta even. That’s why I was so excited when my heat went away, I never thought I would get the chance to have a pup of my own.”

“How can you be denied the chance to have children?” asked Kal, confused.

“The alpha decides who gets to breed. If a wolf doesn’t get permission, and that’s usually only given to the beta on rare occasions, sex will lessen the effects their heat, but they won’t ever take. It’s not a conscious choice; their bodies simply will not let them. I can only guess that the reason I’m pregnant now is that I’ve been away from the pack for so long,” she said, sadness creeping into her voice.

The mage was deep in thought for a long time, the awkward silence deepening to the point that Daxas started to fidget.

“I don’t believe it,” said Kal, finally.

“What?” the wolf girl was incredulous. Had this human just called her a liar?

“I don’t believe it ... how can you even expect me to? I saw the defiance in your eyes back in the cage,” he said waving towards the tent’s entrance. “I saw how you fought against the collar the entire time, and I saw how you endured the pain until it was absolutely unbearable. That would take an amazing amount of strength and willpower after everything you had suffered through for months. You may not have been an alpha when first captured but, near as I can tell, you certainly act like one. Maybe the reason your heat is gone is that you’re an alpha now.”

Daxas stood stone-faced as the mage talked, knowing in her head there might be something to his words. However, it wasn’t enough to hold back the rage welling up inside her. “No,” she growled, her lips curling back as her canines grew dangerously long. “Take that back you bastard!” she yelled, slurring slightly from her lengthened teeth.

Kal quickly got to his feet, taking a step back from the angry wolf girl. He had obviously misjudged something about how wolf packs work, horribly. Hadn’t he just complimented her?

He watched as her arms and legs shifted to their canine forms while she dropped to all fours, growling much like her non-magical counterparts. The mage threw up his hands in front of him, “Wait! Woah! Hold up! At least tell me what I said wrong before you try to rip my throat out!”

“Who says I’m going to ‘try’,” Daxas snarled, the extra emphasis making Kal think she had little doubt of success. She wouldn’t kill him, but he sure as hell would fear for his life as she pinned him down, her teeth bared and snapping so close to his neck her lips would brush his skin. She wanted to see the whites of his eyes as he frantically looked about for help that wouldn’t come, or if it did, would never interfere. “How dare you call me an alpha!” she barked, stalking towards the hapless human and seemingly unaware that he wasn’t nearly as terrified as he should be in this situation. “I am the jester, the peacekeeper of the pack, the last to eat, and the last to mate. Why do you think I was the one captured? Because I’m disposable, I’m an omega. How dare you cheapen what I have suffered through! I knew that I was giving up my life so the rest of my pack could escape! I expected to die in that cage! How dare you piss on my sacrifice by trying to elevate me to an alpha!” Her body lowered as she prepared to attack.

Kal held a hand out to his side. One of his leather vambraces jumped from its place next to the bed and streaked across the tent onto his arm, the laces tying as he brought it up in front of him. The mage’s face was hard as steel as the magical shield snapped into existence between him and the wolf girl. She hesitated at the sudden appearance of the protective barrier, giving him the chance to cross the other arm over behind the shield. A fraction of a second later the second vambrace slapped into his hand.

Daxas did well to hide her surprise, this ‘hapless human’ went from defenseless to battle-ready in the span of mere seconds. If only she knew that it was taking a monumental act of willpower on Kal’s part to keep the smile off his face at how well that had gone, he must have practiced hundreds of times since that drunkard stumbled into his room at the inn.

Saving the mental pat on the back for later, Kal lowered the shield slightly and glared at the woman in front of him. “Jester? Peacekeeper? If that’s the case, you aren’t acting much like an omega.”

The wolf froze. He was right. She rose from her crouch as the realization ran through her like a lightning bolt. She thought back to the last few moments and how she had wanted to attack him, dominate him, remind him that she was the one in charge. Before her capture she would have groveled and whined at his feet, trying to make him happy. Since he was male she would have offered up her sex to diffuse the situation, even if it meant she would get him all riled up then let the alpha or beta come over and take care of his desires.

There was no alpha or beta here, Daxas reminded herself, only her.

The shock stole the strength from her legs and she crumpled to the floor, her teeth retracting as her anger vanished. When she cried into the human’s chest last night over her lost pack, she still saw herself as a part of them. No matter how far away they might be, she still held onto the belief she would eventually find and rejoin her family. That belief crumbled as she began to weep, there could only be one alpha. The wolf girl could find them and visit for a time but could never stay or be a part of that pack again. The slavers had taken away the very thing that kept her going throughout her captivity. Last night she had cried, now she screamed.

Gentle hands lifted her and held her tight, her paws shifting back to arms before throwing them around his neck and sobbing into his shoulder. With only a few words this man had broken her in a way the slavers could never have hoped to. She was pack-less, directionless, pregnant and her life was in shambles because of him, yet she clung this human as though her sanity depended on it.

“No, no, no, no, no!” she cried, a fist pounding on his chest in defiance, “I don’t want this!” She looked up at him, hope filling her tear-streaked face, “You’re strong! You can be my alpha!”

Kal shook his head, “No, not like this.” Her face fell, and the tears started again at his rejection. He adjusted her in his arms, so he could easily look her in the eye, “This very moment, I could take you and make you mine in a way that you can’t fully comprehend right now. But not like this, not out of desperation to go back to how your life was. I need you Daxas, not as an omega but as you are now. I chose you because I saw an alpha, a leader, someone who could help me rescue the rest of the girls we left back there, not just the one the old man is giving me lessons for. You’re an alpha now. I need an alpha ... and now that you understand what you are, you need a pack.”

The wolf blinked repeatedly as she stared up at him, “You want me to make those bitches into my pack?”

Kal started at the word, reminding himself that, to her, it was no different than saying ‘women,’ “Yes, after so long in captivity and so much abuse, freedom won’t be easy on some of them. They will need leadership and guidance, especially during the rescue.”

A much calmer Daxas pulled away from Kal’s embrace, her eyes shifting back and forth as her thoughts raced. “It won’t work,” she said finally, “even though a group of dogs will create a pack, they aren’t as rigid as those formed by wolves. If one of them wants to rip a slaver’s throat out or is so far gone they want to stay, I can’t compel them one way or the other.” She looked back at the mage, he could tell something had changed within her when he spoke of the girls as her pack. “You will have to become their master and take control of them until we can get everyone to safety.”

Kal groaned, his time as a slave owner had been blissfully short-lived, he didn’t relish the thought of taking on twelve to fifteen dog girls, even for a rescue. “Are you sure? Ria can get those collars off them pretty quickly.”

The wolf cocked her head to the side, giving him a look reserved for those who had just said something very foolish. “How do you plan on accomplishing that? Your little friend said that there were no problems removing mine because you owned me, either way, you will have to take ownership of them.”

Kal cursed under his breath while his plan of getting Ria store to the collars and getting out with the wolf leading the dogs died a quick and painless death. “So, I need to become their master,” he sighed, “I can’t just go walking in and say, ‘Hi! I’m your new Master.’ Kogen may run the operation but they didn’t need him when I bought you. Sooo ... Sylus?”

Daxas grinned, “Close, the other one, Jakis, the money-changer. He’s the actual owner of the collars. None of the girls leave there without it going through him first.”

“Damn, I figured I could intimidate Sylus into giving over ownership, but I don’t know anything about this Jakis.”

“We may have stumbled upon a bit of luck there. Kogen roughed up Jakis pretty badly for allowing me to bite him, he was told to stay away or use a different bitch but wanted to try his luck with me. It was bad enough that Sylus needed to take him to the temple healers just to keep him alive once Kogen was done with him, but with specific instructions to not heal the hand where I’d bitten him.” She ran a finger along the edge of one of her ears, inadvertently making her nipples harden. “I have pretty good ears and I heard him mumbling about a job change more than once after he returned.”

“Why hasn’t he left yet?” asked Kal.

“Money is my guess. Kogen pays him separately from the other slavers, even Sylus. A few times Kogen paid him out at his desk when no one else was around. It was hard to tell from my cage, but I think he gets quite a bit more than the other men.”

He cocked an eyebrow, “How would you know that?”

“Because Kogen doesn’t care about any of the others, a couple of them received their wages as they were filling or emptying my buckets.”

Kal thought for a moment before speaking, “We get inside and get ahold of Jakis, then take control of the girls and get out. Do you know if the wagons customers arrive in are kept there during the night?”

“I never saw that wagon until we climbed into it, sorry.”

“What about the door on the other side of the room you were in? Any chance you overheard where that leads?”

Daxas shook her head, “No, but I can tell you it’s where new bitches come in and there is some very dirty water behind it.”

“Wait ... what was that again?”

“Dirty water?” The wolf failed to see why Kal was now sporting a huge grin on his face.

“It’s going to be very unpleasant, but I think I might have an idea of how we are going to get everyone out.”

Carriston was an enigma when Kal first came here, there were no lakes or rivers nearby to supply fresh water to the city’s residents, something that was a staple for every town, village, and city he had seen or heard of. There were signs of a river running next to the city many years ago, however, there didn’t appear to be any expectation that the waterway would return. The bridges had been torn down and the road coming into town simply dropped into the old riverbed, before climbing back out just before the gate.

The story told by the locals is that up until around fifty years ago there had been a good-sized river flowing past the western side of town when one morning everyone woke up to the small harbor and all its boats sitting in knee-deep mud and the river was nowhere to be seen. As expected, this caused a panic within the city, there was no drinking reservoir and people’s meager supplies were disappearing fast, even after the first day. Carriston’s Lord at the time immediately dispatched a large party to go find out what had happened to their water.

Two day’s travel by horseback brought the investigators to a gigantic sinkhole, which the entire river now poured into. The news sparked an exodus from the city, many people just packing up their houses and setting off for other opportunities. Those that stayed resigned themselves to making the trek to the big hole for their water, the distance often made this untenable for those lacking a horse and left a large group of people paying exorbitant prices for barely enough water to stay alive.

To his credit the Lord immediately began construction of large barrel wagons as soon as the first messengers arrived with information on the river’s fate, the first ones were on the road north within a week. These had their own pitfalls, the carts carrying these first huge barrels were never meant to handle that much weight and many of them collapsed during the ride back in those first few months. After several rounds of improvements, the wagons became nothing more than the large barrels with steel spoked wheels attached to the sides while replacing the teams of horses with newly purchased oxen.

One of the master craftsmen had the brilliant idea to make all four of the wheel assemblies exactly the same. All four wheels could pivot but the two rear wheels held straight by locking pins. If one failed, repair workers quickly replaced it from a large reserve of spares before sending the wagon back out. For a little more than a year, these wheeled barrels made their trips north to fetch water, only stopping to load or unload their contents, or for the harshest of weather. If it weren’t for the damage the loss of the river caused the city’s coffers the Lord would have been extremely proud of their achievements

This went on until a little-known gem collector picked a spot in the middle of town and started digging a hole. Nobody stopped him because by this point there was hardly anyone left. Since losing the river, the population had continued to bleed away over the last year, leaving large areas of Carriston abandoned. Even today some of those sections remained empty, if you didn’t count the homeless and the rats.

Locals tell the story that this gem collector, whose name appears to have been lost with time, had discovered a new set of caves far below the city and felt a strange rumbling coming through the rock beneath his feet when exploring them. After a few weeks of investigative mining, he discovered that the sound was coming from water flowing somewhere further below. He returned to his house and told everyone he knew about his discovery, but no one believed him without proof. That was when he decided to start digging his hole.

For just over two months the man worked every spare hour on his well. His few extra coppers went towards hiring local children to lift out the buckets of dirt and rock as well as work a large bellows attached to a hose for drawing out bad air that collected at the bottom of the hole. It all came to an end when the children ran up to the man’s house one day, telling his wife they’d heard a loud crack and a scream come from the bottom of the well. Further inspection showed the man had been correct about the water flowing beneath them. Unfortunately, the gem collector had broken through the roof of the underground river and fallen in, never to be seen again.

They dug wells, installed mule-driven pumps, and the train of wheeled barrels making trips to the north petered out. The flow of people leaving the city slowed to a trickle and eventually halted altogether, it would be a few more years before the populace would see any significant gains. Edicts were swiftly handed out when a tannery on the north side of town drilled its own drainage hole and began pouring the foul water left over from softening of leather into the river. The decree remanded the tannery and any other businesses that dumped their waste to the southern part of Carriston, far from any drinking wells and closer to where the river exited the city.

If Daxas knew there was dirty water on the other side of the door it gave Kal a clue where the door might be. If his assumption was correct then their escape would be in the form of a long, dull, meandering float down the underground river to the place it exited from a large cave just south of the Carris forest. Thankfully there were many stories of people making the same journey safely, albeit in a boat of some sort. Sickness caused by the pollution seemed to be the biggest hazard, luckily Kal had a remedy for that on his shoulder blade. It really didn’t sound too bad if it weren’t for the foul water and hours of floating along in darkness, at least he could take care of that with a little magic.

Kal closed his eyes and held up a hand. “We get inside, get ownership from Jakis, go out the back door and float to safety, it won’t be pleasant but it’s the best option we have,” he said, holding up a finger with each item on his list. “When we get out, I heal everyone of any sickness they might have picked up as well as any injuries. We then come into the tent and everyone takes a shower.” Looking at his hands he continued, “All that leaves is moving the tent, figuring out where the entrance is located,” he added two more fingers before slowly raising the last one, “And finally figuring out what the hell I’m going to do with a bunch of dog girls who were ex-slaves.”

“You are probably going to experience an excruciating three-day orgy,” said the wolf.

“Um ... what?”

“Some of those girls are in heat and will need it badly, this may sound gross with how you have described the southern river but don’t be surprised if some of them try something during our escape, it actually gets that bad for some of them. However, dogs rely heavily on their noses, if the smell is bad it might put them off until you’re clean again. Once we get back in here, I suggest you take a shower first and begin servicing the ones who need you the most. Getting filled will give them some clarity and a little time before they need it again.”

Kal frowned, “This sounds like it’s going to be a chore.”

“It gets worse.”

“What? How?”

Daxas chuckled at the look on the mage’s face, “The smell of sex from fucking those in heat might set more of them off. Also, they laced our water with gondas extract to keep us from getting pregnant. Yesterday was my third day without food or water and my guess is that you won’t be able to impregnate those in heat until the third day as well. Finally, I believe that the relief of being rescued coupled with your scent is what started mine, so there’s that to consider.”

“I was going to ask you about that, it seemed like a very odd time to suddenly get in the mood.”

Daxas smiled, “I had a good feeling about you,” she said stepping forward and pushing him back towards the bed.

Noting her destination, he looked at her in confusion as he backpedaled across the tent. His legs hit the side of the bed, toppling him over onto it, at the same time she grabbed his trousers and yanked them to his knees. He was suddenly very happy he hadn’t put on his belt yet.

“I thought you weren’t in heat anymore,” he said looking up at her.

“I’m not, this just feels good,” she said quickly stroking him to hardness before throwing a leg over his hips and sinking down onto his cock. “You fit so well inside me,” she moaned, “besides, I’m an alpha now, and alphas get first pick of food and men. I’m going to enjoy you as much as I can before having to share you with the rest of the bitches.”

The exquisite feeling as she began sliding up and down his length made it hard to argue with her logic.

The forest had reclaimed most of the old riverbed over the last fifty years but had left a path just wide enough for a carriage down the very center bordered by saplings, the trees getting progressively older as they approached where the river’s banks used to be. The wolf girl and human stood in front of the natural corridor as Kal finished preparing for yet another high-speed trip. His haste rune shone above his bracer, spinning lazily and waiting for the mage to feed more fed power into it.

“Are you sure I can’t come with you?” Daxas asked, her stern gaze showing her annoyance at being left behind.

“Sorry, no,” Kal responded, his voice apologetic. “I’ll be going too fast for you to keep up. If I slow down I risk not being able to set up the tent and get back in time to start the rescue. If I carry you on my back and run into something it might kill both of us.”

The wolf girl was skeptical, “You think you can outpace me by that much?”

“Absolutely,” his tone left little room for argument.

“Why are you doing this?” the asked, feeling slightly put off by his superior attitude. “The tent is in your bag you can just set it up when we get to the outflow.”

“In a word: water,” he replied, “I’m not sure how the magic works but I have to wait a few hours after the tent is set up before using the water inside. I would venture a guess that it replenishes its supply from its surroundings but without knowing how to read elvish, guessing is the best I can do. Regardless, we will all need to get clean as quickly as possible once we get out of the river, this gives the tent a chance to fill its reservoir, or whatever it has.”

Daxas frowned, “After waiting that long I’m sure we could hold out a while longer. At the very least it would allow you to save your power.”

Kal shook his head, “Admittedly, I’m just going by stories the city folk have told me, but nearly all of the people who have fallen into the river and done exactly what we are about to do are dead.” Seeing the shocked look on her face he held up a hand to forestall any comments, “All of them made the trip safely, it wasn’t until afterward that they would die of some pollution related sickness. There is one story of an elderly man that fell in whose friends raced him down to the outflow, he perished on the riverbank, retching until he finally passed away. We will be dealing with a bunch of women who are thirsty, underfed, and abused. A couple of hours extra may be too long, and I don’t want to take that chance.

“The other reason is magic. Curing diseases is hard on my magic stores, I should be able to treat each of them once before I run out. That needs to happen just after they clean up or we risk the girls getting re-infected. That old man died in hours, if we don’t do it right the first time it will take me nearly a day to build up enough magic cast the spell again.”

The wolf reluctantly accepted his explanation, “How long will you be gone?”

“I should be back by dark, I’ll be using this route to return Rose to her home so I’m going to make certain it’s clear of any obstacles on the way, but that shouldn’t slow me down much.” Kal stepped up to the wolf girl and kissed her on the cheek. She was carrying his child and yet he didn’t feel like he knew her well enough for anything as intimate as a kiss on the lips. “Stay hidden and stay close. I’ll be coming back the same way.” He waited for her slight nod before pushing power into his haste rune as he jogged towards the break in the trees. He only made it a few steps while the rune spun up then took off like a horse at a flat-out gallop as it activated.

Seeing how quickly he was receding into the distance she had to admit, his cockiness about being faster than her looked to be warranted.

As she made her way towards the forest to wait for Kal’s return, she ran a hand over her belly. With all this talk of the river’s pollution making the bitches they were rescuing sick, what of her? More importantly, what of her child?

The old riverbed meandered some but stayed true to running southward. Kal occasionally jumped high into the air with the help of the strength rune, checking the terrain ahead then flaring out his cloak to steer himself into a safe landing. Only a couple of times did the trail veer far enough to the side after these jumps that he ended up crashing through the forest canopy to the ground below. Between the feather fall rune for slowing his descent and his various protections, it was a small matter of dusting himself off and making the short trek back to the riverbed before spinning up the haste rune again.

Despite those couple of incidents, he made good time. Wild game and the occasional traveler had kept the path free of obstructions and there were only a few sharp turns, at his speed at least, that he needed to slow down for. It still took almost two hours to reach where the river came out from its underground channels. Kal left Carris forest behind only moments before coming to a stop at the edge of what used to be a waterfall. Below him, the subterranean river lazily flowed out of an enormous cave just beneath his feet. Kal had expected an odor along the lines of sewage or the bite of urine from the city’s tanneries, instead, the smell had a sharp metallic tang.

He looked out over the small plain just beyond the plateau he stood on, what he saw turned his stomach. On either side of the river were large swaths of barren ground, the grasses along the edges either dead or dying. Bones littered the dry, cracked ground ranging from herd beasts to predators, he could even make out the remains of smaller animals like rabbits from his vantage point. The ones that hurt him the most were the bones that resembled humans.

Kal groaned in disappointment before making his way east to where he had been told of a rockslide that would allow him to get down safely. Not that he needed it for himself, but he wanted to know where it was for after the rescue and getting the girls back up into the forest.

Kal shook his head as he left the river behind. Carriston had recovered from the incident with the river largely on its advanced metal crafting industry, seen as second only to the dwarves in quality. A fact he rarely noticed because his wanderings about the city were typically on the western and northern sides, near the inn he stayed at, the markets, and Lord’s castle, whereas the metalworkers were located on the southern edge of town.

As the rockslide came into view an errant breeze brought the strong smell from the river wafting by. Kal stopped as the scent triggered the memory of a conversation he had with Ikuno many months ago.

“No,” he said to himself, “I can’t do this, I’ll kill them all.” He now understood why all those others had died and why the local temple wasn’t able to help them, they were treating the wrong thing. Dejected he turned around and headed back to where Daxas was waiting for him, thinking.

“So, you’ve decided on Cure Poison?” asked the oni. The large blue woman was leaning over his shoulder inspecting the rune Kal had been working on over the last few hours, using his ability to see magic to make slight changes that increased its strength and efficiency. The young mage was using a form of telekinesis to keep the ink for the rune floating in front of him

“Yes,” Kal responded, trying with little success to ignore the stiff, bare nipple brushing across the back of his arm. If there was one thing the oni loved, it was getting her young lover so riled up he had to put down whatever he was working on and spend the next hour or so inside whichever of her holes he was in the mood for; or all three, she certainly didn’t mind.

“Good choice,” Ikuno said, smiling down at him, “Poison traps are frightfully common and, if I’m not mistaken, should you come across a monster girl who you aren’t interested in getting your cock into, Cure Poison should cancel out any aphrodisiacs they might use on you.”

Kal nodded, if he was going to have sex with women, specifically monster girls in this case, his compatibility enchantment offered him certain immunities to effects such as extreme heat or freezing, digestive juices or other acids, and aphrodisiacs or toxins. Having an extra layer of protection from the most common weapon in a monster girl’s arsenal couldn’t hurt. However, that did beg the question...

“You seem pretty confident that I’m going to be sleeping with every monster girl I see once I get out on the road.”

You know me,” said the oni, smiling, “The more the merrier. Even so, I imagine there will be women out there even you won’t be interested in like Sir Michael’s pitcher plant girl or,” a shiver seemed to run through her, “a slug girl.”