It was very impressive that anyone of the humans were alive. Even if these strange wolves were horrible at fighting, they were stronger than humans. It earned a certain amount of respect from Trevor.

He didn't know about Dmitri though. His mate had been very adamant about not trusting more human organizations. The Coalition was doing great things, but Dmitri claimed that he could see corruption seeping in now that Brennan was retired and Rommel had disappeared.

It was a while ago. The old coot, despite being younger than Dmitri by a wide margin, had taken over many of the responsibilities that Brennan had. He was trusted as being fair and reliable by everyone and there was no one better to run the organization that bridged the packs and mankind. 

Even though Rommel did his best, it hardly seemed enough. With the common threat gone, the packs that had been united, were at each other's throats again. Age old territory disputes sprung up everywhere. Russian and Finnish wolves were ready to go at it again. Polish wolves still blamed Germans for not doing enough and letting the Inquisition gain too much power with the Nazis. There had to be conflict for wolves. Without it, they seemingly had no purpose.

Years of dealing and mediating issues drained Rommel. He became distant, barely talking to anyone. One of his aides had said that something was always on his mind. He could barely concentrate on his work. The one day Rommel stopped coming to the Coalition office in Berlin. He wasn't home when someone was sent to check on him and no one knew where he went. Simply gone from the face of the earth.

The situation between the various packs only got worse with the only universally trusted wolf between them all gone. No one had drawn blood out of respect for the Desert Fox. He was gone. No need for respect.

The Finnish pack demanded land that was lost in the Winter War since territories offer mirrored the border of the country they resided in. Of course, Dmitri couldn't do that if he wanted to. Which he didn't. After Dmitri's father died, a large portion of the older and more traditional members of the pack began to speak out against Dmitri. They believed that his mating with Trevor wasn't healthy for the pack. Either he needed to step down or banish Trevor. Neither of which he did and that only drove a deeper wedge in the pack with the younger generation backing up Dmitri while the rest threatened to leave.

Dmitri only retained absolute control of the pack through deadly force.

The Finnish tribe tried to take the land by force. They spread into Russia and marked it as their own. 

The wolf in charge of the area, an older wolf who had spoken out against Dmitri, called for help.

Dmitri answered the call personally and drove out the Fins with their tails tucked between their legs in a single day. Dmitri didn't stop there. He pushed farther into Finland and carved out a large piece of land. The Finns couldn't stop him and ended up losing their own heir to the pack in the fighting and were forced to concede.

Dmitri had made an example of the Finns, but he still had the disobedient old wolf to deal with.

Rules allowed wolves to speak their minds. It was meant as a way to help the pack adapt by taking in critique and changing to fix the issue. This, in part, kept the packs from becoming too isolated from human society. 

The older wolves had used this as an excuse to be openly defiant against Dmitri. Now one of them had failed in his duty to protect the pack's territory from another pack. He had shown himself incapable and no longer useful. Not worth the food to keep alive.

In a very public display, Dmitri killed the wolf. He tore him apart so much that it was impossible to tell what each individual part was. It got the message across that Dmitri is the Alpha and he's willing to go to extremes to ensure everyone knows it.

Trevor knew it was important that Dmitri did what he could to keep the pack together, but just like with Rommel, there was a toll.

He became distant. He came back to the den tired and uninterested in everything. He spent less time with his mate. He spent less time with Kolya who resented his father and spent as much time as possible with Otto, Sergei's son.

The two had grown close and were like brothers. They did everything together. Kolya had even managed to get himself invited to Otto's first date with a girl from the school he went to. When in Berlin, it was the three of them. Here in Siberia, they would go out and hunt for weeks on end.

The two were back at the den site now. They were still young, only appearing as teenagers when human which was very often.

Dmitri wanted Kolya to take on more of his wolf side. He was the heir to the pack and he needed to understand that. Kolya was defiant and preferred to go around on two legs since Otto rarely ever went around as a wolf, a courtesy of spending most of his young life in Berlin where the opportunity to stretch all four legs were few and far in between.

Trevor knew that much of the blame fell on him. Despite having embraced much about being a werewolf, he was till very much human.

Where Dmitri was hard and strict, Trevor was careful and protective when it came to raising their child. 

Trevor and Dmitri had arguments often about what was best and their relationship was strained currently. No matter what the other tried to do, the matter of their son always came up.

Dmitri could see it on Trevor's face. A concerned look that had appeared more often recently. He was thinking about Kolya as he often did.

Dmitri dispatched the strange two legged wolf that he had been fighting with a quick swipe of his paw. It's torso became a must of red and black before it slumped to the ground in two bits. It was much weaker than any of the dozen wolves he brought with him to track the so called Knights Templar.

The two legged wolves had come as a surprise to Dmitri and everyone else. Their existence wasn't known, but it was obvious where they came from.

The mining town was deserted. Nearly seven  hundred people, mostly seasonal with lives elsewhere, had vanished overnight. By looking at the two legged wolves' eyes, which were almost purely red, he could tell that these wolves were very recently changed. 

Another one of the wolves dashed at Dmitri. It ran upright with its arms out, claws extended. It was drooling profusely, bits of meat clung to its teeth from the body of one of its own it had been eating from just moments ago. They were all starving, their bodies craving meat for the mass that it needed to put on.

Dmitri caught one of its arms in his jaws. He bit down and felt a satisfying crunch.

The bipedal reared back violently. It's arm tore at the elbow. The skin didn't' hold, but the tendons did, leaving it with a gimp arm dangling down at its side.

The beast contemplated it grievous injuries and then attacked again. 

It swung left with its one good arm and missed as Dmitri ducked under the swipe. It tried to bite Dmitri's face off next and the two met with the most horrifying kiss ever.

Dmitri was the stronger of the two and his snout rammed through the other's. He got his mouth around the other's head and bit down. His mouth was filled with a gush of blood and brains. It was warm and sweet.

There weren't that many left after that and they were quickly cut down by the pack. Dmitri stood in the middle of the carnage. Hundreds upon hundreds of bodies surrounded him and the snow for hundreds of feet in all directions was stained red with werewolf blood.

He scanned the area and counted his own wolves. He didn't lose a single on. Good. Their enemy had been pitiful in strength and if anyone of his pack was killed by such measly opponents, it would be a humiliation.

Dmitri looked over to the train station where the humans had managed to fend off the attack. There was less than half of them left, but they had put up a fight worthy of respect. It reminded him slightly of Stalingrad where he and several of his pack mates had taken up a position inside of a bombed out apartment in the middle of German held territory. The Germans came in waves of hundreds only to be mowed down and any that did get inside were quick to succumb to the wolves just lurking within the shadow.

The humans were exiting the building. They stayed close together, their weapons trained on all of the pack. While their faces were stony and firm, their hands trembled and their shields quaked. Dmitri could get the slightest whiff of fear above the overpowering smell of blood and guts. He really wanted to jump into a lake, frozen or not, and was himself. Normally he didn't mind be covered in blood, but this felt tainted in some way. It didn't even smell right to him, like slightly off cheese.

The leader of the humans, the one who called himself Reiss, broke away from the group and held his gun up high with the barrel parallel to the ground.

Reiss hopes that the Lycans knew what it meant. With very little ammo and barely enough strength to stand, he didn't have what it took to fight again.

The Lycans regarded Reiss curiously and then the second largest with dark fur stepped forward.

It's body started to change. It's shoulders raised and joints began to reform. The scene was disturbing to watch as the body rearranged itself from that of a wolf into a large naked man.

"Now we can talk," He, very obviously a he, said.

Another, the largest of the Lycans, with autumn red fur, changed as well until he was a surprisingly smaller man who looked like he should have weighed close to 170 pounds. 

Reiss ignored their nakedness and stepped down from the train platform. His body hurt from the fighting. Each step was an it of a struggle.

He left his men behind who began to care for the wounded. It was imperative to get them to a stable condition and boost their immune system to fight off the Lycanthrope mutagen. Quick treatment was almost guaranteed to work with few exceptions.

"I'm glad you changed your mind," Reiss had to take a moment to catch his breath. Now that his adrenaline was coming down, he felt even more. He would need a good long week of rest to recuperate and be ready for duty again. 

"I still don't trust you." He got the reply in Russian and the Autumn Lycan was about to translate when Reiss responded in the same language.

"Yet, we find each other facing the same foe," Reiss said in the best Russian he could muster. It had been some time since he had spoken the language, but just like riding a bike, it came back quickly. "Is that how alliances are first forged, fighting a common threat."

"These things are hardly a threat to my pack," The Lycan pushed one of the bodies aside with his foot. Both of its arms were gone along with a good chunk of its neck.

"You know that these things were only recently changed. They were weakened by this. Whoever did this most likely has more which are stronger." Reiss did his best to work with what he got, holding back his trump card. The Church knew a lot more than Reiss had at first guessed. The Grandmaster himself had presented Reiss with the knowledge needed to convince the pack, but had given him clear instructions not to use it unless absolutely necessary. Before, Reiss was just going to leave and then come back again later to negotiate more until he had no their options. With everything that had happened now, he felt that now was good.

"We can handle any threat," The Lycan puffed out his chest and wrapped his arm around the other smaller Lycan, who blushed.

"Are you so sure?"Reiss asked. "Can you survive Ragnarok alone?"

The Lycan fell silent and the growled, "How do you know about that!" He stepped forward and hair sprouted from his body. Only the hand of the other Lycan stayed him. 

"I am of the Knights Templar. We know many things that would be beneficial to you if you agree to help." Reiss could see the gears ticking behind those amber eyes. He had him right where he needed the Lycan.

The Lycan crossed his arms and looked away. "It's only a rumor. A fairy tail."

"Don't lie to yourself," Reiss said. "The Order made the mistake of dismissing it for so long and we suffered for it. Now we are gathering strength to fight something that has been festering in its hate for so long. Only together can we stop it."

Several hours later Dmitri was soaking in a lake as a human. His lower half was in the icy water which was now a light pink. His upper half was sticking out and still bloody. He was thinking too much to finish cleaning himself off.

"I've never known you to get so spooked." A familiar voice rolled into Dmitri's ears. "If you put off more scent, the Templar would have smelled you." 

Trevor sat himself down next to his mate and splashed the water into Dmitri's back. He rubbed away the blood.

"My father used to tell me of Ragnarok," Dmitri spoke and turned to Trevor. Despite the fights that they had been having recently, he still loved Trevor more than anything else. Him and Kolya both.

"The legend of the Norse apocalypse." Trevor shivered a little from the cold. As only a half werewolf, he didn't get all of the perks. The cold wasn't a danger though, just make him get goosebumps.

"That's where it gets its name from," Dmitri confirmed. "The Ragnarok that was spoken off comes from the time when the Knights Templar were disbanded and betrayed. There was a wolf by the name Fenrir. He was one of the strongest and most passionate fighters. He fought in every Crusade from the very beginning. He want fighting for that human God though. He was in love with battle, killing more than anyone else. Tens of thousands."

Trevor listened closely. He had never heard this story before. He lazily washed more of the blood away from his mate while listening.

"Then the Templars, both human and wolf, were betrayed by the Catholic Church. Fenrir called on all the packs to fight, claiming that he was the true Alpha to which all packs owed allegiance. No one came to his aid and as he and his few followers were hunted down, he swore revenge on both the packs and humans. He swore that Ragnarok would come for us all." Dmitri rubbed his legs under the water, picking off stubborn bits of blood. Feeling Trevor's hands over him helped him relax. The thought that the promise made by the deadliest wolf that ever lived was potentially coming to fruition was troubling.

"What about these strange wolves that walk on two legs?" Trevor asked. He had seen other wolves stop their transformation midway, the most notable being the Director, but it seemed like it was forced and painful for them. These new wolves seemed to be naturally bipedal.

"Makings of Fenrir." Dmitri leaned to the side and up against Trevor. Soft hands went up his neck and into his hair, combing it and bringing up fresh water to clean it out. "Rumor had it that he could manipulate the part of his fluid that caused transformation, to cause it to only go so far. It was only rumor before. I guess it's true."

"So are you going to take up this Templar's offer?" Trevor asked.

"This is something that I need to bring up to the entire pack and even the Coalition." The fingers massaged his head, then nails scraped along his scalp. It made him close his eyes and his legs kicked under the water. Trevor knew exactly how to touch him.

"They're setting up a camp in the old town." Trevor reminded Dmitri since he had given permission to stay until they got an answer. They were bringing in more of their people and Dmitri allowed that as well to a certain extent. They wanted their security. "Should we bring Reiss with us when we go talk to the Coalition?"

"Hmm?" Dmitri didn't hear him. He had nearly fallen asleep with Trevor's fingers massaging. 

"Bring the Templar to talk to the Coalition." Trevor stopped finger finger molesting.

"After I talk to them first," Dmitri said and rested his head on Trevor's lap. The water was up to his ears which made it easier for Trevor to wash his hair completely. "Then... mrrr... Then we'll have him talk to them."

"Whatever you say, Alpha." Trevor scratched Dmitri behind the ear to get the crusted blood back there, but ended up getting the melting mess that was Dmitri.

"Call me that again," Dmitri said quietly. Trevor only called him that when he was in the mood. It was a little 'go' word that he had  that no one else noticed.

"Yes, Alpha." Trevor smiled and leaned forward and kissed Dmitri on the forehead.

"Again," Dmitri howled, making the water around him vibrate.

Trevor leaned down close to Dmitri's ear and whispered ever so silently, "Alpha."

That was it. Dmitri needed him now.