Author's Note: Warning- blood and bodies in this chapter. Nothing too bad but just heads up.
Prompt: Bloody
The wolf was out again on his master's orders. This time, he was among his people. It would've been a comfort but his people didn't like him much. Was he even really one of them? He always felt like an outsider among them. But this time he was stamped with his master's mark.
Lord Transyl, his mind supplied. He wasn't his master. He was his own man, his own Loboan. Not the lackey of some long dead-
His mind buzzed, the corrupting device on his forehead banishing those thoughts from his head. His anger was quelled and his mind refocused on the task he was assigned: oversee the gathering. The Tranylians were gathering lightning from the sky, the Thep Kufans were dragging mummified bulges into the middle of the town, the Loboans were returning from their hunt… Everything was in order.
The wolf smelled the blood on the Loboans claws and his instincts cried out in sadness. His master could suppress his free will but the primal instinct embedded deep into his kind? Lord Transyl couldn't take that from him. And right now that instinct was telling him to join the pack. He was a leader, he should be standing in front of them as their Alpha.
But they already had an Alpha. And a Beta. Yenaldooshi was Zs'Skayr's old friend and Crüjo was held in high regard by the planet's people. An outsider such as himself wouldn't even make it to Omega, let alone Alpha.
It made him lonely to think about. But he didn't have to think. Not with his master in control.
The Thep Kufans began dragging the bags into the middle of the square. Civilians gathered, trying to peer around the Transylians to get a good view. A few Ectonurites phased through the lightning bending aliens. The wolf barked at them, telling them to get out of the way. The Ectonurites looked up at him on his perch above the square, debate in their eyes, before deciding it was in their best interest to obey. They backed up but the wolf felt no satisfaction.
"Crüjo!" Yenaldooshi barked. "Start tearing them open!"
Crüjo didn't say anything but the broad shouldered Loboan lumbered forward and scored his claws across the wrappings, sending red liquid spilling onto the stone floor. And then he slashed another. And another. Soon, crimson splatters were covering nearly the entire clearing.
"Thep Kufans, drag them across the city!" Yenaldooshi ordered. "The bosses want blood smeared on every street! Let the outsiders know what we will do if they set foot on our land!"
A warning, the wolf knew, but not one the intruders would understand. Blood, that was really only a signal to hunters and those with keen enough senses of smell to read the situation. The wolf hadn't seen the bodies of the intruders that the Thep Kufans had wrapped up but he was fairly certain they were humanoid. Bloody signals might only scare them. They wouldn't understand like a Loboan would.
Did anyone here really understand what these warnings meant?
Ectonurites and Tranylians were cheering. Maybe they understood? It could just be mob mentality. Anur System natives got so excited when warding off outsiders…
One Transylian stood out. It took the wolf a moment to notice something was off and only another moment longer to pinpoint him but the moment he did, he knew something wasn't right. The Transylian was well built, too well built for a noncombatant which was strange since Transylians were generally a peaceful people, and he looked sick to the stomach at the sight of the leaking sacks being dragged across the city.
A spy, perhaps. Or a traitor. Or a visitor from somewhere far off that didn't agree with his master's plans. Either way, he couldn't be here.
The wolf threw his head back and howled to Luna Lobo above. Dozens of heads turned, twice as many eyes falling on the Transylian. Angry cries erupted from the crowd and the wolf turned away. The intruder was going to be ripped apart.