The Kitsune and The Werewolf

A Meal with Wolves

The three boys reclaimed their seats and Claire nodded to them. “Nate, Alex, Isaac, this is my niece.” Introducing me as her niece wasn’t exactly a lie I guess. I mean we were family and saying my cousin’s daughter just didn’t carry the weight of niece.

Nate was the scruffy boy from last night in much calmer spirits today. Alex, was a younger boy with bright red hair that I assumed matched his wolf form. Those two looked at me nodding, Isaac however clenched his fists as he sat down.

“Do we get a name?” His voice was the same as I remembered, but now he seemed annoyed.

“Oh sorry.” Wiping her face with a napkip Caire extended her hand to me, “Amalia, this is Isaac, he’s the alpha.”

I widened my eyes and nodded but continued to look down as I picked at the pancakes on my plate before taking a small bite.

I could hear him smiling, he was amused by something, but I just couldn't understand what was so funny, “I’m glad to see other people can see you know.” Turning back to his food he took a large spoon full of gravy and munched half a biscuit into his mouth, “But your willingness to talk hasn’t changed.”

“Wait,” Claire stopped short of shoveling more pancakes into her mouth, “You two met last night?”

Isaac reached over and patted my shoulder, “Of course, this girl was hiding out in one of your booths waiting for us to leave. Don’t think she’s too keen on pack stuff.”

“I’d say not.” Alex gruffed through a mouthful of bacon, “girl stinks.”

“Excuse me?” Claire dropped her fork placing her hand on her hip as she turned to the boy sitting next to her, “You were raised better than that Alexander Montgomery Jaeger!”

“I certainly hope you would have been.” Isaac narrowed his eyes growling under his breath, “Tread carefully Alex.”

Wait, was he defending me? There was something going on here and while four of the five people at the table were refusing to touch their food the fifth was all too eager to take advantage of the intense staring and started to grab food off Alex’s plate.

“Really Nate?” turning his attention to the other wolf Isaac leaned back crossing his arms, “Alex, apologize to her.”

Claire seemed proud of her alpha’s attitude. He must have seen how much I meant to Claire, maybe that’s why he was acting so strange.

“Sorry,” Alex snapped then pushed Nate off his plate as he grabbed food to ease the tension of the table.

“So,” Isaac began again relaxing and digging into his food, “What brought you here?”

Claire turned to me expecting and hoping I would answer so she could also relax.

“I came to see Claire,”

“Obviously.” taking a pause to swallow another mouth full he continued, “Why haven’t you been by sooner? Where do you live? What do you do?”

“So many questions.” I shoved a fork full of pancakes into my mouth to avoid answering.

Claire sighed and answered instead, “Her father died, she’s here to visit.”

Turning to Claire Isaac looked concerned, “We didn’t have a member of the pack die recently.”

“Her father wasn’t part of the pack. He left back when Jackson was alpha.”

“Why?” Alex leaned forward tossing a warning look to Nate gritting his teeth, “You better think twice!”

“Well,” Claire tiptoed around the answer but eventually got there, “See, Amalia’s mother wasn’t a werewolf. So Jackson wouldn’t allow them to be together while still being in the pack. So they got married and left the same day.”

“What was his name?” Isaac continued to toss his questions to me but Claire continued to answer instead.

“Derrik, he was in the running for gamma before he left.”

Isaac nodded and then turned to me, “So what about you Amalia?”

I turned to look up at him, his eyes casting their glow toward me as he refused to back down. The skulk was right, they do like to dominate. Clearing my throat I gave him what he wanted, “I’m a secretary in Greenwell two cities over.” A lie, but he didn’t need to know where I worked, hopefully Claire would back me up even if it was her alpha, “My father raised us far from the pack’s territory, he didn’t want to get messed up in the politics anymore. So he kept in touch with his family by mail, but didn’t want us to visit.”

Claire nodded then reached into her back pocket taking out a photograph, “See, he used to send me pictures of Amalia growing up.”

I leaned over the photograph was me in pigtails with a beaming smile missing three teeth. I was holding up a rabbit I had just killed, happier than ever. I recalled that day well, it was my first kill, I just wished she would have warned me before showing this old photo. I hid my face from Isaac who took the picture inspecting it closely smiling. “Very cute.”

“So don’t give her the third degree.” Claire snatched the picture back, putting it back in her pocket. I would be sure to ask her later why she had it in the first place.

“When were you going to mention she was a fox?” Isaac took another bite of his food waiting for us to respond like he hadn’t just asked an important question.

The other two boys at the table turned to me and I ducked instinctively snapping my fingers to hide myself. Upon my disappearance the three across from me started to look around confused.

“Amalia?” Claire looked under the table getting a bit more frantic.

Isaac turned to me as if nothing happened, “So it’s just me that can see you then?”

I snapped my fingers again returning to everyone’s view and allowed Claire to finally take a breath as she relaxed. “I swear kiddo you do that again I’ll ring your neck!”

Isaac leaned over to me placing his arm on the back of my chair so he could whisper in my ear sending shivers down my spine, “Interesting trick Luna, but it’s not going to get you out of answering the question. The only thing you managed to do was get a large group of werewolves more curious about our conversation.”

I turned to look at the rest of the bar. Every table had stopped eating and were now watching us. Everyone was waiting for their apha to decide if they were going to fight or be allowed to continue to eat.