Coldsnap: The Billionaire Alpha's Fated Pregnant Princess (GL)
Chapter 126 - Gunpowder And A Creeper

Chapter 126: Chapter 126 - Gunpowder And A Creeper

With a sigh, I put the sonic defensive gear back in the box. Looking the equipment up on the hunter’s forum should allow me to learn enough details to feel safe experimenting. I can wait until I’m settling down later to check my phone.

"A boring way to go about it, but the wiser one."

This cache also contained numerous silver-infused fiber restraints. Some sized for locking wrists together and hobbling legs. And two that seemed to be muzzles... lightweight but apparently strong enough to hold transformed werewolves.

And if they are being disoriented by the emitters - or some of these wolfsbane compounds, then they wouldn’t even be able to choose to change back into a human to escape the bonds. This might be relatively non-lethal, but it’s still kind of cruel.

The rest of the container held boxes of ammunition enough to kill many creatures for sure, should one be accurate and not wasteful with their aim. Silver-cored rifle ammo for the two guns he had at the hideout. Hundreds of them.

Crossbow bolts with a hollow vein making it seem like they are meant to be filled with something. Of course, tipped with some sort of silver alloy. To think all these dangerous objects for werewolf kind are so easy to stockpile.

"So that’s why this thing was so heavy and lopsided. How in the world did that old man even get it up there, a crane? Ladder? No wonder he had a heart attack, putting himself through something like that at his age."

I shifted and packed everything into the shipping container as it was - though I did put one cylinder of scent blocking tablets and the earbuds into my backpack. With the first cache secured, I consulted the map for my next target.

The distinctive rock formation that I could have gone to first had some supplies buried about five miles away now, closer back toward the hideout. If I moved quickly in hybrid form, I could reach it before night fully fell.

Vrika sent impressions of fatigue - not physical exhaustion, but the spiritual drain of repeated transformations and constant alertness. The sun had disappeared behind the canopy and I had to admit my wolf had a point... I should work on making a camp before too much longer.

I’d been running on determination and a bit of stubbornness today. But this pregnancy meant I needed to be more careful about overexertion. Near the next location, I found a small clearing sheltered by a cluster of pine trees and brought out the shipping container once more.

The interior was spacious enough, even filled with all this stuff... and I had that gray fleece throw from the thrift shop to sleep on. Once inside, the modified door had a sort of latch that could be used to keep them closed together.

All in all, it should be warmer and safer than sleeping exposed in the forest. So I spread out the blanket in the widest section and shift a final time... into the wolf form. Extra furred warmth on a decent nest.

> Any shed black fur will probably never come out of this, will it? <

I think there are things called ’lint rollers’ that would help but that seems like a lot of effort and expense when I could just buy a new blanket to use only for human form. Once I returned to the city and made my small incoming fortune into usable funds.

Curling and rolling, I try to quiet my mind. But sleep wouldn’t come. Why had the hunter prepared for what seemed like war? What did this countdown at the top of my vision really mean was coming?

And why did every practical step I took toward independence seem to draw me deeper into mysteries and connections I didn’t understand? What were the chances of even finding this dead hunter’s hideout?

Or of picking up the phone that had fallen where it had, getting to that particular city and running into the blind man that sent me just in the direction she happened to be out patrolling?

> We’re being manipulated, friend. In subtle ways. And the entity responsible isn’t being open with me like they would be in my old world. I don’t like it. <

My phone buzzed in the backpack, taking me from my restless thoughts. For a while I think about ignoring it - it was likely Kyrie and I’m not sure I wanted to let myself think of her when I’m mad at these clear twists of ’fate’.

But eventually, I sigh and change back into a human. So much for not transforming frequently. The message was not from who I thought, though I recognized the sender.

BK: [ Package delivery. Discrete location. Will send coordinates and details when you return to the city. ]

I stared at the message, turning it over in my mind. BoundaryKeeper, the mysterious contact who’d sold me the container, was now reaching out to try and... give me something I didn’t order? What’s more, they know I’m not in Vossden anymore.

Reading it made me want to move. To dig up that medical cache under cover of darkness rather than waiting for dawn - and change location even though I know that likely won’t help. This... creepy person is obviously tracking me.

"Did this body land a new Chad-like stalker already? What a nightmare. Sleep was not happening anyway, but it’s *really* not now."

From my belongings, I started to pull on all my outdoor clothes before packing up the tools I think I’ll need. Then I Stashed everything away once more and ’human hiked’ to the nearby rock formation.

It rose from the forest floor like a gray frozen wave. A wall of ’granite’ that the journal had described in a bit of detail and sketch. Approaching it, I could appreciate the accuracy of what was drawn... where before I thought it hadn’t even looked like rock.

The cache was supposedly buried a few feet down from the formation’s base, a number of paces in a certain direction away from an ’enormous piece of rough red chert’ with seemingly no business being where it is.

I can see pretty well in the dark, but I still turn on my phone’s flashlight to make sure I have the right one. There were a few large stones sitting off of the edge of the massive granite wall, but only one was obviously red.

"Oh, he called it ’chert’, but Helene knows this stone as ’jasper’. A really pretty rock once polished."

Staring at it for a few seconds after thinking that, I tilt my head to the side and shut off the flashlight function on my phone. Reaching out after touching the empty lilac square...

"Ah. It went in."

Vrika barks at me, wondering what I’m doing. But what do I tell it? That I saw a pretty rock and wanted it? I mean, it’s true, but...