Called by the Goddess

Chapter 14: This is the day...

~Kate~

Today is the day. The day that they will hold the ritual in honor of me, anointing me officially as the chosen one and future Luna. Crazy idea.

I shrugged it off for now. “Time to get your day started, Kate, otherwise nobody is going to be anointed”. I got out of bed and quickly changed in my morning workout gear. I looked in the mirror and just saw plain old me.

“Has it really been a year already, me being here?” I asked my reflection in the mirror. Well, yes, autumn had set in again, a few weeks ago she had celebrated her seventeenth birthday. It had been a day to remember. I had felt so blessed with all my new friends, that felt like the extended family I never had. I remember getting all teary eyed when I got my gift from Maya. A beautiful athame, or ritual knife, which I would use tonight in the ritual.

Granny had instructed me to choose my beta, so we could train and work together, for when the time came that I had to take over the pack.

“I still find it a crazy idea, a teenage girl that is supposed to overthrow the line of alphas that have terrorized the pack for over a hundred years” she had commented, rolling her eyes at Granny.

She smiled thinking back at Granny’s reaction. ‘We’ve been over this Katie, my dear girl. You are not just any teenage girl and I know you know this”.

“Yes, but still. There is so much to do, so much to learn!” I objected.

“All the more reason to pick your second in command, so you can divide the workload!”

Yeah, well, Granny did have a point there. “And no, it cannot be me, choose somebody closer to your own age! I will stay on in my role as elder and high priestess”.

I rolled my eyes at her again, although in a loving way, it had become kind of a joke between us. I had grown to love Granny, she lived up to her title as the grandmother she never had known, and was her mentor with whom I could share almost everything.

Some of my deepest doubts I still kept to myself though. Not being able to speak my mind freely about the way things are run has been so deeply ingrained in my upbringing, that I just could not bring myself to question the way the order was being led.

Where in the pack it was all male macho stuff, in the order the opposite was true. It was a true matriarchy. Sure, the roles were different. Female wolves in the pack were not allowed to train as warriors, that was a man’s job. Male wolves in the order were not allowed any leadership positions, but were there to serve and protect.

“You of all people, growing up as an omega in the pack, should see the wisdom of this Kate”, Granny had pointed out to her during one of their sessions together. That had been her cue to drop the subject. But still, it was the one big thing that just felt off about the order to her.

“Ah well, nobody’s perfect”, I sighed. “Stop reminiscing Kate, you will be late if you don’t get your ass outside!”

I ran downstairs, opened the back door and saw Maya standing there, with a wicked grin on her face. I groaned, that meant that I was late after all.

“I am not your number two yet, missy, I am still in charge of you! You are late, drop down and give me 50 and after that, you can do 50 jumping jacks as well, should be a good warm up for the morning training I planned out for you on this special day!”

I quickly dropped down doing push ups and started to count, I knew Maya well enough to know that she had sadistic tendencies in training. Talking back would earn her another gruesome task. That is probably why she is the chief warrior. Or will be until tonight. “Focus Kate, don’t lose count, you know Maya doesn’t and you don’t want to have to start over again”. One time I had lost my count and thought to compensate that by adding at least 10 extra push ups. But that didn’t fly with Maya. “Being able to keep count is just as important for a warrior!”

“..., 47, 48,49, 50!” I quickly jumped to my feet, without saying anything and started my jumping jacks, counting silently in my head “1, 2, 3, …, 49, 50!”

I looked up at Maya, who smiled at me. “Now, did that clear your head of all the worrying about tonight and everything that will come when you fulfil the next part of the prophecy?”

She knows me so well. I smiled back. “Yes, thank you! You know that is why I chose you right, you are the only one who really knows how to get me out of that head of mine!”

“Ok, my future Luna, before that beautiful little head of yours gets filled with worry again, let’s do our rounds! I have asked Henry to step up and put together a team that will try to ambush us, so better stay focused!” Maya grinned evilly at me.

I groaned. Not Henry… The only downside to choosing Maya as her beta, is that Henry seemed to dislike me even more than he did before. He did not really show it though, he was very careful.

But I sensed a big resentment to the way the order was run from him, and somehow he seemed to blame me for that lately. Or he just resented me for beating him at everything he has worked so hard for the last year and a half.

He had joined the order a few months before me. I remembered him from the kitchen staff. He had hated working in the kitchen and therefore was never really paying attention to what he was doing. It had driven my mother crazy. And me to, if I had to work with him.

He had been cast out of the order by the alpha, after spilling hot soup over his lap. Even though I never really liked Henry, this really was not his mistake, because that brat Brian did not look where he was going and knocked him over. I wasn’t there, but my mum had told me all about it. And despite the fact that I would not really miss him, it still made me angry, how dare they play with our lives like that! Mum had put me on dish washing duty for weeks, so I would not be able to show my resentment to the alphas and betas. Not that I was stupid enough to confront them head on, but somehow, my big mouth always got me into trouble and I often just could not help myself making a not entirely appropriate comment.

Anyway, the spell that kept pack members away from the forbidden forest was designed in such a way that at the same time, it attracts the omegas that are cast out from the pack. This way the order can receive them with open arms and gain in strength. And so Henry had come into the bosom of the order, where after the usual assessments of his condition, strengths and weaknesses, he was selected as one of the warriors in training.

Henry had loved the fact that he was finally able to train as a warrior and develop his fighting, hunting and tracking skills. He excelled at them and soon worked his way up to Maya’s second in command. Maya had been the only one who could beat him in a fight, she is wicked fast and has loads of technical skill, being at it from the early age of 7, when she had finally recovered enough from her injuries to be cleared for training. She had a lot of motivation going in, she had told me.

I had been shocked when she told me her story. I knew she was presumed dead, but never had heard the precise circumstances, I had been but a little baby at the time of course.

But back to Henry. First time I felt some resentment coming from Henry towards me, was the first time that I beat him in a fight as well. His excuse for Maya being able to beat him had been that she had trained much longer than he had. That excuse didn’t fly with me.

And now that Maya will get other duties, he still remained second in command, because per the orders rules, only females could be in the essential lead positions. And that stung for Henry, being imprinted in the pack that women should not be trusted making important decisions, except in the kitchen, where they belong!!

I sighed again. Being an empath and working on your telepathic abilities as well sometimes did not necessarily make your life easier. I felt Boris, the cat, rub his head against my leg. I had also discovered in the last year that I could communicate with animals. “Can I have some of that delicious chicken that I know is in the fridge please?” was the message that Boris was sending me.

I smiled at him. “Yes, but you have to wait for it. If I get back, you will get a little bit of the leftover chicken from last night, you thug!”