Again I am sorry for the late update. This time the problem was me having doubts about this story. It took a little while, but I finally managed to get something into my head for some new chapters. And it took me even longer to get it on the computer. Unfortunately, you only get one chapter for now as I am still working on the chapter that comes after this. And I'm sorry for the gruesome things that happen in this chapter. Please don't hate me.

The Secret Army:

The Price of Freedom

PLACK. PLACK. PLACK. PLACK.

Wall. Bed. Wall. Bars.

PLACK. PLACK. PLACK. PLACK.

Wall. Bed. Wall. Bars.

Kayla's legs were numb from all the pacing, but she refused to stop. She couldn't remember when she had started and she definitely couldn't remember how long she'd been in the cell for. Heck, she couldn't even remember why she had been thrown into the cell in the first place. But what she did know was that she wasn't going to get out of there alive unless she was blessed by some unforseen miracle.

PLACK. PLACK. PLACK. PLACK.

Wall. Bed. Wall. Bars.

PLACK. PLACK. PLACK. PLACK.

She continued pacing the cell, waiting out the last days of her young and currently miserable life. She rarely slept; only closing her eyes when she tripped on something and landed on the floor. The same went for drinking; she only drank every now and then when she woke up from her short sleeps.

But there were two major things that she didn't do. The first was morph. She believed that if she showed her true self, all would be lost. So she remained in her wolf form where she felt safe with the beast's natural weapons at her disposal.

The other was eat. At first, she couldn't understand why she was doing it to herself. But as the hunger grew numb, she realised that she would rather die than become one of the Redcoats little toys. That was why there was a rotting pile of food around the edge of the cell door. Whatever was thrown into her remained uneaten. And because she wasn't eating, she was rapidly losing weight and fast.

No one came to get her nor did they care that she was wasting herself. The only thing was fill up her water bowl with a hose and throw food and insults at her. If the Elite was extremely nasty or bored, they'd throw rocks or other hard objects at her as well. But if anyone got too close to her cell, she would growl and snap her jaws.

Of course, all this fell back to the fact that her muzzle had been removed. Things would have been a lot safer for the Elite and the Redcoats if it weren't for that minor detail. And it wasn't like she could help the fact that she was basically a wild animal being hunted for some unknown reason. But the fact that the muzzle was off in the first place was an obvious sign that not all of Gaea's creeps were all bad.

Too bad Kayla was pissed off at the time to see it that way.

She remembered most of it clearly. It was the morning after she had been brought to the Grotto and they had dragged her from her cell - empty stomached – out to a pile of logs from the day before. They had kept the muzzle on her – Which irked her a lot – but had attached what seemed like reins to it. A harness had also been forced onto her making her feel like a miniature pack horse rather than a wolf.

When the brute of an Elite member attached her to one of the logs, her job became clear; move logs from the pile to wherever it was that she was forced to drag them. And she did it too… for the first couple of logs. By the time the third log was attached, her body was aching and she refused to move another inch. All she did was sit down while the brute behind her kept yanking on the reins while he flogged and yelled at her from where he sat on the log.

After a while she did move – It just wasn't to the Elite's liking. Kayla fell asleep, her body having fallen numb to the amount of pain that it was in. By this time, the brute was so annoyed with her that he began to get violent in trying to wake her up. He succeeded too thanks to a well-placed boot in her side that broke her rib and sent a fresh wave of pain streaking through her body. The problem there was that he made her angry.

To be completely honest, Kayla was seeing red… and it wasn't just from the blood in her eyes. She remembered leaping at him and literally digging at his chest and banging the guy's head with the muzzle (which just so happened to be made of metal). And she remembered someone saying something about an example of some sort that she didn't quite catch. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you saw it) she remembered nothing else until she was back in her cell.

Somewhere along the lines, another member of the Elite must have taken over her care because Mr Brute suddenly turned into a female. But despite all the blanks in Kayla's mind, she was pretty sure that the sight of the new Elite only made her angrier. Even now, as she paced in her cell, she clearly remembered snarling at the woman. And once that muzzle was off, she leapt.

The next thing she remembered was a massive spurt of water right in her face and the very strong scent of fresh blood. She knew it wasn't her blood because she – like all wolf morphers – had been trained to know all sorts of different scents, including whether or not someone had godly, wolf or eagle blood in them. That, and she could just make out the shadow of something being dragged out of her cell. It wasn't until much later that she realised what she had done.

Now, after thinking about it for a while (again), it was that which got her to start pacing in the first place.

It didn't take long before Kayla realised that she had tripped over her own paws once more and had had a nightmare of that hellish day. Slowly she looked around her cell. Dark stains still marked the floor and walls where the remaining blood had dried; haunting her as she paced in circles and reminding her of the deeds that she had done. Before she could stop it, a small whimper escaped her jaws as she closed her eyes and forced her tired body back onto her feet.

They deserved it. She told herself as she continued her habit of pacing in circles. I was doing the right thing. I was protecting myself and those around me. They were too loyal to Gaea and there was no way that they could be turned. I did what I had to do in order to survive, right?

Far off in the distance, she could just make out the sound of yelling and fighting. A few minutes later, the hum of the elevator shaft buzzed in her ears like an annoying fly. Before long, a growl erupted from her throat. Usually the sound of the elevator meant that the Grotto's inmates were being returned to their cells and the Elite were swapping watch rosters.

She never expected her alpha to be the one inside the elevator this time.

" Oh, Kayla. What have they done to you?" She heard a few minutes later coming from behind her.

With teeth bared and ears back against her head, the red and white wolf spun around and snarled at the human on the other side of the bars. The man was tall and was well built with piercing eyes, but she could not shake the feeling that she knew him. It was as the elevator hummed again that the human revealed his other form and the haze over Kayla's eyes lifted.

" Wolf 973-6448-0792-414! I will not tolerate that behaviour from you!" Alpha Shiro growled once in wolf form; his tail high and his ears as stiff as boards. She knew just by looking at him that she was in deep trouble. " Now release yourself from the wolf's grasp this instant! Remember that you are also human! Transform! That is an order!"

Very slowly, shaking as she did so, Kayla focussed on the image of her human self. To be honest, it was like looking at herself through a massive body of water; everything seemed out of proportion to what it should have been. And the prospect of becoming human again scared her after so long being a wolf. Good thing for her, she was more afraid of what Shiro and Kara would do if they discovered she was too far gone to be who she once was. Before long, her senses dulled, her body changed and she was human once more.

" Good." Shiro said with a nod of his head. He, too, had transformed. " Now let's get you out of here and get back to the rest of the pack. We've already wasted valuable time."

Kara paced back and forth, her eyes constantly glued to the building that was conveniently located in the middle of nowhere. Worry passed through her body like an electric current, forcing the occasional whimper out of her as her uneasiness on the situation grew. It had been too long since he left and the fact that she could sense another wolf outside the compound didn't make things any easier.

" Alpha, please stop worrying." One of the CSA escapees begged for what left like the thousandth time.

" I can't stop worrying! We are in enemy territory, my mate and my pack are risking their lives for the gods and their children, and I'm cavorting around the place like a lunatic hare trying to get my head together and my pack together and still manage to get back home before my pups are born. What was I thinking coming out here so close to birth? Why didn't anyone lock me up when they had the chance?"

That news seemed to shock the escapees almost as much as t had the rest of the wolf pack when she had told them last month. Even Coon was a little shocked at the fact that she had blurted out her pregnancy like she had. But Kara merely ignored the looks of shock she was receiving and continued with her pacing.

" Then at least stop pacing, pacing is going to do nothing except eventually for a ditch in the earth and get you even more worked up." The same CSA member, Laurel, suggested.

" And worry is bad for the pups." A voice said from behind the trees.

Almost immediately, a growl erupted from Kara's jaws as she turned her back on the escapees in an attempt to try and protect them. But the growl instantly ceased when Aron emerged from the shadows with a small band of inmates and wolves behind him. In fact, the majority of the group were wolves… including a female that Kara had never seen before.

This new wolf had blue fur as well as a cream undercoat, neck and tail tip. Her muzzle – except for the bridge of her nose – was also cream as well as the two massive patches of cream around each of her eyes that reached all the way up to the base of her ears. Her top fangs hung over her bottom jaw in a menacing way and that same menacing image was reinforced with her deep red eyes and massive claws. Even her size was menacing; more that of a grown polar bear than a grown wolf.

" Who is she and what is she doing with you?!" Kara demanded the rest of her pack.

" My name is Lacy Andrews, but most just call me Mutt. The reason for that is because of my father, but that doesn't matter." The blue wolf replied.

" What does is that I found her in the building after managing to get these six out." Aron continued. " Shiro is still in there. He was determined to find Shiba and get her out of there, but he has yet to return. And, to be honest, I don't trust this one."

" No one trusts me… thanks to my father."

" Will you shut up? Especially about your father?" Kara growled, clearly distressed about the beta's news. " I honestly don't care about who or what your father was! All I care about is getting my husband and daughter out of that monstrosity before something bad happens to them which leads me to never seeing them again!"

Not knowing what she had said had caused the darkness to press on her heart, Kara glared at the newcomer with tail and ears erect. And the look on Mutt's face sent a snarl emerging from the alpha female's throat.

Guilt was written clear on the large wolf's face as her ears seemed to move towards her head of their own accord. She didn't want to admit it, but ever since she had managed to find her way out of that building, Mutt had gotten a really bad feeling that she needed to be as far away from that place as she could possibly get.

" What have you done?" The alpha snarled, lower than ever Fisk had heard her.

" I-I-I don't know. I got lost and… and I found this place… and I thought they could help, but th-they attacked me… and… and I-I got trapped… in a b-big r-room… w-with lots of bleeping, grey and… and black things. I-I think I sat on something and… and everything started flashing." Mutt whimpered, cowering to the ground.

" That explains why the alarms were blaring." Ice muttered more to himself than anyone else. He earned a glare from Aron as Mutt continued with her fear-filled explanation.

" I panicked! I-I've been bullied before… b-but never with f-flashing lights, g-guns and whips! I-I-I think I went into a frenzy, E-everything went in a blur. I remember blood everywhere… and people lying everywhere… and staring. And a big grey wall that had numbers on it. And a voice."

" A voice?" Fisk echoed, fear coating her words as wolves and escapees alike turned to look at their neighbours.

" Do you remember what the voice said?" Aron asked, trying to keep his voice calm as tears sprang into Kara's eyes.

" I don't know." Mutt admitted. " Something about a detone at a place called Ion. And I think the voice said something about it happening in fifteen minutes or something like that."

" I don't think there is a place called Ion in America." Connor whispered thoughtfully.

" There's not. It's a warning." Will replied. " That voice, it said 'detonation'. The Grotto is going to blow up."

As if waiting for the son of Apollo to speak those very words, a loud thump rang though the surrounding area and within everyone's heads. There was more than one person who felt something trickle down the sides of their heads. All the wolves instantly transformed and covered their ears, somehow urging the escapees to do the same. Aron however, urged Kara back into her wolf form and forced her to run as far and as fast as she could with Fisk by her side.

Thankfully the alpha understood and started running – transforming as she did so. Not long afterwards, though, a hot blast of air reached the group. No one could do anything as every single member of the group was thrown into the air by the force and fell to the, dazed and confused, a few feet away from where they had first been.

Coon found himself praying that everyone from his pack and the escapees had made it through the experience alive. What he didn't realise what that the aftermath of the explosion had forced every single one of them to black out upon landing… that is, until he discovered he was the first of the group to wake up. Despite all the training he had done back at camp, he never expected to feel what he had just felt.

Looking around him, everything was flattened to the ground; the trees, the rocks, even the building that had once been the Grotto – flat. And every one of his pack and the escapees were lying around the place like the mess he usually left behind in the kitchen whenever he was allowed to make something. Not to mention with all the blood, muck and dirty that everyone seemed to be graced in, they all looked like something the cat dragged in.

It was as the tiger wolf was letting the world settle once more within him that he saw him. With his breath caught in his throat, Com shakily made his way over to where the Roman augur lay, hoping – no, praying – that what he was seeing was not true. Alas, his worst fears were discovered when he looked into Octavian's clouded eyes.

" No." He found himself whispering. " Why? Why did you have to… to die? We were saving you. You were…"

" The blast did it to him." Coon turned around to find Caro standing behind him having not long woken up himself. " By the looks of it, no one else suffered as badly as he did. At least the gods are able to spare him of any further torture… wherever they are."

" We have to tell the others."

" We will. But first we must prepare him as best we can, and wake the others. You go so that while I stay and tend to the Roman."

" Yes, beta."

Flame ran through the wreckage that had once been the Grotto; desperation clinging to him like a shroud as he searched for his alpha and pack member. His ears still rang with Kara's voice calling his name as he ran off. And his eyes still burned with the flames of the Roman augur's funeral pyre. But he knew – as did the others – that he would have the most luck at surviving the search than anyone else.

All around him the fire burned at clothes, bodies, electrical equipment and other flammable substances. Some of the bricks and concrete closer to the place of the explosion even looked like it had begun to melt, if that was at all possible. The ground shimmered all around him, proving that everything had suffered from the explosion, but he couldn't feel the heat. He did, however, feel it when he had accidentally stepped on a shard of glass.

" Alpha! Shiba!" He called again before letting a howl escape his throat. If they were alive and could hear him, they would know from the howls he had loosed that he was looking for him.

Only, no reply came… to either call. The place was practically dead.

A burning limb jutting out at an odd angle from under a pile of rubble made him rush forward, thinking it was one of his missing pack members. It was easy enough for him to absorb the flames from the leg and the surrounding pile of rubble, but getting the rubble off was another story. Flame was working up a sweat by the time he reached the body… and he didn't know what scared him more; the damage or the fact that he knew the man.

Chunks of flesh had been ripped off thanks to the explosion and still more had been burned. From what the wolf morpher could make of the rest of the body, deep scars and blistered wounds from before the explosion were also present. One of the guy's eyes was also missing, though Flame didn't want to think about what had caused that to happen.

But, aside from the gore, there were two things that gained Flames attention; the first was the pin on the inside of the burnt and torn clothes. It was an image of a fox with what looked like hieroglyphs coating its body while it walked on the wind – the sign of a Teumessian Fox keeper. The second was the chain around the guy's neck which housed the CSA communication pendant and the army dog tags.

However, Flame needed no identification tags to tell him that he was looking at the body of the captured Teumessian Fox keeper, Jake Logan. He could tell just by looking at him. Jake had been one of his mother's best friends and now he was gone, another casualty in a gruesome war that the majority of humanity would probably never realise happened.

With a quick prayer to the deceased, Flame did the only thing he could do; he set ablaze the body and continued on with his search.

Only, this time he now knew that the six escapees that the Whitewater wolf pack had managed to rescue were only a small handful. There had been many other inmates who were now lost to the explosion of war. But it was that thought alone which drove the nineteen year old to continue his search despite the darkness shrouding his now heavy heart.

" Kayla! Terrence! Can you hear me! Are you still here?" He called out again in desperation.

If he went back empty handed, he'd never hear the end of it from Kara.

That's when he heard it. Over near the centre of the crater he was searching came the distinct sound of whimpering. And he thought he heard the sound of claws scratching on metal. At first, he was a little confused as to why a pile of rocks would sound like metal. But then he remembered that the place had an elevator. Hopes high with that thought, Flame dashed to the whimpering pile of rubble and began moving the rocks and debris out of the way.

After finally managing to free the bashed and dented elevator and finally managing to pry open the doors, Flame was greeted by a clearly upset Kayla. Her body was in bad shape like she had been starved the entire time she had been captured, not to mention the amount of abuse that was clear through her fur. But what the tears to his eyes was seeing the blood – both fresh and dried – surrounding the sides of her head, her jaws and paws, and her wounds.

Just one look at all that blood told the older wolf that Shiba had changed.

" Shiba, where's Shiro?" He asked her.

His only reply was more whimpering from the red wolf. What he failed to notice was the ooze that separated the girl's ears from the fresh blood down either side of her head. If he had noticed that, he would have known that the explosion had not spared the young wolf. Instead, upon receiving no proper answer from Shiba, he looked further into the elevator where he found the limp form of his alpha. Horror strewn, he rushed into the now crowded space.

" Alpha!" The word was out of his mouth before his mind had even registered what he was saying.

This time his response was a forced barking cough that definitely looked painful. He could understand why, too. The top of the elevator had been ripped off, either by the explosion itself or the raining debris that followed afterwards, and – judging by the rather nasty looking cement slab behind his alpha's back – Shiro had been right under the falling debris.

" Aron?" Shiro wheezed, obviously unable to move.

" No. It's me, Flame." The younger wolf replied, moving into Shiro's field of vision.

" Flame? Who sent you? You shouldn't have -" Shiro was forced to stop as another, more painful coughing fit came over him. When finally he settled down, he stared into the delta's eyes long and hard as he was forced to read every sign the younger wolf was making. It was with the slight lift of his lips that he silenced the other male. " Never mind that. My time is ending, I can feel it. Soon Gaea will have her forces here if she even bothers. These are your final orders from me. Tell Kara and Fisk what happened… and that I love them. Protect Shiba and get her back home safely. Remember, she can no longer… hear you. Protect her… with your life. She needs… the pack more… than anything now. But she needs to… remember she is human. Swear you'll protect her. Now… go. Go before… they come. Go!"

Flame only turned to Shiba for a few seconds, locking eyes with her and noticing how badly she needed care and protection. He knew what Shiro was asking of him, but his heart already belonged to another… to Kaige. How was he going to be able to protect both of them? But it was an order. Steeling himself with a deep breath, he turned back to the brown wolf only to discover that the alpha male was gone.

" Yes, Alpha." He whispered before raising his head and farewelling his leader.

Kayla joined him shortly after, visibly shaking from the emotions and torture that her body and mind had been forced through. But it was after he had lit their Alpha aflame and sent him to the realm of Hades that she nuzzled into Flame's chest, whimpering.

" Don't worry, Kayla. I'm here for you. Big brother Flame is here to protect you." The male whispered to her despite now knowing that she couldn't hear him.