Healer's Mate

Chapter Five: Michaela

I woke to another knock on my door, this one light, a mere tapping instead of the pounding that woke me in the early hours. I jerked awake, pulling the blanket tighter over my naked body, adrenaline singing through my veins.

“Michaela?” A feminine voice called out from the other side of the door. “Are you awake? Can I come in?” I let out a silent sigh of relief and my hands loosened their white knuckled hold on the blankets. I recognized that voice, one of the few in the Pack House that was kind to me.

“Desi?” I climbed out of my bed, a blanket wrapped around myself and unlocked the door, stepping aside as she opened it and stepped in, shutting the door behind her. Desiree McKayne, my one friend, walked through my small room as though she owned it and had every right to be there. In her hands, she carried a picnic basket and what looked like a thermos. “What are you doing here?”

She dropped the basket and thermos on the small table I used as a writing desk and turned to look at me, hands moving to her hips. “It’s Saturday. And when you didn't show up for our breakfast, I decided to come see if you were okay. Gram sent along some food, and some of your favorite tea.”

I could feel the gloom and horror from the earlier events evaporate under Desi’s bright smile and watched as she began pulling all sorts of pastries and fruits out of the basket. Desiree was one of the most beautiful people, inside and out, that I had ever known. She was tiny, barely 5 feet in her socks, with long, free-flowing blonde hair and large brown eyes. When you looked at her slight figure, you didn't think of a predator like a wolf, you thought of prey, of a doe, or a fawn, just frolicking in the glade. Desi was a wolf, though. She was found by one of Justin's men not long before his death, and was brought into the pack for her own well being. Her wolf wasn’t a fighter, wasn't interested in dominating the room or fighting to show it's strength. No, her wolf was as submissive as they came and was a shy, quiet presence in the woman’s life. This didn't mean the wolf was weak willed or that she was shunted to the side of the pack; in all packs, even one as dysfunctional as Caleb was turning this one into, the submissive wolves were valued and cared for.

"Gram says she misses you." Desi loaded up a plate with my favorite pastries - a cranberry orange scone and a chocolate chip muffin. I gladly took it out of her hands and watched as she poured two mugs of the strong herbal tea that Gram made for us. "She says that you haven't been by for a while, which is why she sent me with her tea, so that you 'don't forget to visit.'"

I smiled brightly at that and picked up the scone, taking a bite and savoring the sweet and tangy flavors of the orange and cranberries, admiring the texture of the crumbly treat. "I really should go visit soon. The Alpha has been... well... grumpy lately, so I haven't had a chance to duck out like I normally do." Gram was the oldest of the wolves in our pack. Like most old wolves, she doesn't speak of her past, saying that after a few hundred years, it melds into a mess of things that she doesn't want to remember. Like most of the older wolves I've heard of, she tends to keep to herself, spending her time with her herbs and flowers. When my mother died, she was the one who was tasked with keeping an eye on me and keeping me out of trouble. She was really good at the first, not so much at the second. Desi and I always seemed to be in some sort of trouble or another.

"Yeah, I don't know what's going on, but all of the soldiers seem to be a bit... jumpy the last few days." Desi shrugged her shoulders as she munched her way through a blueberry muffin and a half dozen of those little tea cake cookies with the powdered sugar on them. "The only rumors that I've come across had to do with the new pack that's trying to cut out territory in the north." I raised a brow, waiting, knowing that Desi had more that she wanted to say. It was not like her to come up with only a vague rumor. As a Submissive wolf, she was able to go places that most lower ranking dominant wolves didn't dare to go. The dominant wolves didn't see her as a threat, so they weren't as on guard with her as they would be with another. Granted, most submissive wolves wouldn't be willing to go anywhere that had even the barest hint of trouble or danger, but Desi... Desi was different. She was a submissive wolf, with the curiosity of a half dozen cats. "Althooooughhh..."

I hid my grin, ducking my head and chuckling to myself, taking the time to wipe my mouth with one of the napkins that Gram had supplied along with the pastries. That was the Desi that I knew, "Although?"

"Well, when I was waiting for Gram's tea to seep, I just so happened to overhear two of the soldiers talking..." She let the words fade off, the twinkle in her eyes proving that she knows that I'm more than a little curious, and proving that she was enjoying teasing me.

"Uh huh. You just 'happened' to be where you could overhear.. Just like the time you spider climbed up between two buildings so that you could get a peek at Delilah's mating gown before everyone else got to see it." Desi's ears reddened, even as her eyes widened with fake innocence. "And the time that you spent two hours hiding in a sewage drain, so that you could find out exactly who it was that showing up when we had the visit from the High Prince."

We laughed at the memories, and it was enough to shatter Desi's coy play, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyways, apparently, the Alpha of the Windrunners; that new pack that's trying to gain hunting grounds in the north, has been sending his soldiers out as ambassadors, to try to talk to the surrounding packs. There's supposedly one here, guesting at the Pack House. I didn't know we had a guest! Isn't there usually a fest or something to welcome ambassadors? I know when the High Prince came, we had a feast."

“Hmm.” I said noncommittally, thinking back to the events from earlier. Could Caleb really have tortured the ambassador from the WindRunner pack? Would he even be stupid enough to do something so out of line? As much as I didn't want to believe it, I wouldn't put it past our Alpha to do just that.

Breakfast went well. Desi and I spent the rest of her visit gossiping about various pack business. Since she was deemed ‘harmless,’ Desi was overlooked as much as I was, if not more. Unlike most of the other pack members, she didn't have a job outside of the pack. She did take courses from the local community college and was set on getting a degree in culinary arts, but that was mainly a hobby. Her main focus was taking on any and all tasks that required a wolf, but one that didn't set off any of the dominance issues that normally plagued werewolf interactions.

She tended to the few guests that Alpha Caleb hosts, seeing to it that their rooms were tidy and that they were comfortable. She also was in charge of nursing the injured wolves who weren't important enough to pull me out of bed for. It was Desi, along with the Beta or one of the other high-ranking soldiers, who would sit with a newly turned wolf, and who would be there after their first shift.