No Caging Me

I loved the esthetic of this pack (That is sarcasm, by the way. It's boring to look at.). All function, no fuss. There were chairs for comfort and chairs that were torture for your back to sit in to keep you awake for lectures. Even the walls had more to do then just stand. Chalk drawings to keep the pups engaged in learning and out of adult hair, reminders for drills to be practiced for the teens and rules and regulations of non-training spars... but hey, we had a TV that never got used, somewhere. The pack house wasn't grand or intimidating. Just a place to house a large pack and feed them. No flowers or shrubs surrounding it. Training areas for each age group were set up along the sides of the pack house. The windows reinforced and tinted so you could see out but no one could see in. Easier to protect when you had a clear view of everything without all the greenery getting in the way. All of it in a large clearing in the middle of acres of woods. Our neighbors knew the Trinity pack was here but if they left us alone, they never heard from us... Hell, they literally had to come find us if they needed something. We didn't do phones here. Too much of a distraction when you could just reach out through the pack bond or go to the border and howl at your neighbors until they got annoyed enough to show. There were cabins scattered throughout the woods but those were typically for the elderly to get away from all the noise of a large pack crammed into a single building. I did food deliveries every morning to the twenty-four cabins in the woods... so I could make sure they survived another night, really. Some of them were so old I didn't want to think about how they got out of bed. Sure... wolves typically lived longer but for some ungodly reason some of us lived to be over two hundred before the goddess granted us enough mercy to allow us into her arms. I so did not want that curse. To be hunched over a cane and barely able to see or hear, would be torture. I don't know what the Trinity pack did but they did something that made the goddess say 'Yeah... Just stay there longer. I need a long moment to prepare to receive you.' Maybe it's our sparkling personalities now that I think of it. I scrubbed the heavy iron pots in silence, my movements fluid and efficient. Across the room my stepmother, Lily, paused. I didn't have to look up to know Lily’s wolf was pacing. I could feel the woman's discomfort like a physical weight. Ever since my thirteenth birthday I had noticed most wolves wanted to tuck tail and recoil from me as if I was a danger. I'd tried my best to stay invisible mostly. (When that bastard Aiden didn't need a knock down in the ring... Nope, not going there right now. Just breathe. If you keep thinking about him he'll show up like the devil.) "You don't have to do those, Hexi," Lily said, her voice tight, her eyes darting to the door as if looking for an exit. "Go find your brothers. Maximus and Titus are probably tearing up the training floor again." (Sounds like a nice way of saying, 'Please, go away. I can't take my wolf pacing anymore.' I love her, wholeheartedly.) "I like the quiet, Lily," I replied softly. It was a lie. The quiet was where the "otherness" lived, the part of me that felt like it was vibrating just under my skin. I was the Runt. The half-breed. The girl who shouldn't have been, but was. My father, Helix, loved me with a fierce, confused devotion, but even he didn't understand why his daughter’s scent was "too sweet," or why she could dodge a blow from an alpha before he’d even decided to throw it. "Hex!" A voice boomed from the hallway. Aiden f*****g Stone, the future Alpha, leaned against the doorframe, sweating from training. (See, speak of the devil. He is both my best friend and the greatest enemy to my peace of mind.) "Stop playing maid. I need a sparring partner who doesn't fall over the moment I growl. Your brothers are useless today." I dried my hands. "Did you just call my brothers useless? I train them myself, dickhead." I growl. (Can't let my future alpha down, now can I? well... technically I could since his alpha command didn't work on me but he gets annoyingly clingy and whiney when he doesn't get his way.) I didn't bow. I didn't submit. I just grabbed my gear and waved to a very relieved Lily. "Try not to bruise your ego when a runt pins you, Aiden," I chirped, walking past him. (Of course I had to shoulder check him on the way out. Bad b***h vibes and all that.) He laughed and saluted Lily. I could feel the way Lily shivered as I passed. If only I knew this was going to be one hell of a messed up day. I would have just told Aiden to bite my ass and stayed at the sink and did the never ending pile of dishes while my head did it's colorful commentary.