Fight and return

 After dawn, in a tiny cave, Ivan looked at Derek with anger in his eyes as he questioned him:

"What did you do? You abandoned one of our own to die!"

Derek ignored Ivan and began to completely block the entrance to the cave with rocks, branches and leaves. Ivan angrily went to him and grabbed his clothes:

"I'm talking to you! What kind of person abandons his companions like that!"

Derek finally looked at Ivan angrily after being touched by him and slapped Ivan's hands making him let go of his clothes and said in a threatening tone:

"You better not touch me again or I'll break your arm…"

"You…"

"That Old Man should have retired a long time ago, whose fault do you think it is that those monsters got so close? A worrying sign of a lycan getting too old is the loss of his senses. Don't you think it's strange that he's so strong when fighting bats, but doesn't hear beetles?"

"That's right… But you were fast, you could have saved him…" Ivan was speechless for a moment, then he remembered how Dmitri and the Alpha noticed the creatures' arrival much faster, giving everyone time to escape. Ivan then turned to Derek who was still talking.

"That pathetic old man was killed and devoured, causing his body and the resources the pack invested in him to be all lost, even if I had the strength to save you two, which I don't, I would still let him die for hiding his weakness and refusing to give up hunting."

"You treat his life as if it were worthless, I was right to fear for Natasha staying with someone like you…"

"What do you mean?" This time Derek's gaze was almost as if he was going to kill Ivan. But Ivan was not intimidated and continued his speech:

"You heard right, a psychopath like you shouldn't be with her, she would never be safe since you would always prioritize other things before her life…"

"You bastard, you dare call me a psychopath when I risked my own life to save you? Do you think that if it weren't for Natasha I wouldn't have let you die along with the old man?"

"What do you mean by that? What does she have to do with you saving me?" Ivan asked angrily.

Derek put his hand on his stomach, feeling a little pain, and said: "Yeah… I know you're childhood friends and I know how she would feel if you had died…"

Ivan decided to ignore Derek and stop the argument, but when he turned his back to him this time it was Derek who grabbed his shoulder and said in a threatening tone:

"Listen, Natasha is already my fiancée and she already belongs to me, you better stop meddling in the matters that involve me and her or this won't end well for you."

This last sentence raised Ivan's spirits as he shouted with his transformed teeth and punched Derek in the face while shouting:

"SHE IS NOT AN OBJECT TO BELONG TO YOU!"

"POW"

When the punch hit Derek's face, he only moved a little, taking a step back, then his teeth also changed and he punched Ivan in the face.

"POW"

Ivan was thrown 2 meters away with a broken nose, before he could get up, he suffered a kick in the abdomen, making him spit blood. More punches and kicks fell on him, while he tried to defend himself lying on the ground, or even tried to get up, but each time it was in vain and he failed, before he realized the blows were too much for his regeneration to bear and he lost consciousness while hearing several angry roars that repeated themselves about "staying away from her".

When Ivan woke up many hours later, it was already about to get dark, but Derek was still sleeping not far from him, ashamed of his defeat and for having been the first to attack the other side, he decided to leave the cave even though it was still daylight, to avoid the hateful man, the place where he went, was where the Old Lycan had died yesterday. He wanted to see if there was anything left of the man to take home to his family. When he arrived at the place, all he found were some pieces of torn clothes. It wasn't much, but he quickly saved them. When he was about to leave the place, he then noticed some thorns on the ground. Being careful, he picked some of them up using the rags of torn clothes. He saw small bristles on the thorn that seemed to release some kind of liquid when touched... Remembering his defeat last night and the proposal he received a few days ago from the prisoner, he decided to keep some of those poisonous thorns with him.

Not long after, when night fell, Dmitri found their trail, finding Ivan alone outside the cave, and then took him and the silent Derek back to the pack. With the exception of the Old Man who died, the pack suffered no more losses this time. Two days later, the pack returned riding huge, beautiful horses that had exotic colors like blue and green and that resembled war horses.

Among them, Alpha Borys was riding a horse that was larger than the others and had a horn on its head. At this point, all Borys could think about was how lucky they had been this time. Even during the day while they were getting the horses, they had not encountered the terrible Kralgor Eagle, and the weather had been the best as well with nights and days without the terrible fog and storms. As for the old man who had died, he just felt it was natural, although just like Derek thought it was a waste of resources, he would not let such a thing affect his mood since both hunting objectives had been accomplished and they had even brought some bats as extra supplies.

Soon they reached the new entrance that led back into the cave systems, this time by a different route because of the new larger animals, they were closer to the scrapyard area that was known to have a makeshift stable.

What was peculiar was that as soon as everyone entered the caves, with the exception of the men who had the pieces of the Night Deer tied to their horses and were supposed to feed the young lycans, and those with extra horses being pulled by a rope lassoed together. Each one went on to do their own thing, and among them, the most peculiar thing was that Derek was going to see Natasha first, while Ivan followed some instructions from his memory and went directly to the forbidden areas that had been contaminated 100 years ago...