Gifts of the Moon Goddess

Ch. 12

Alice woke me the next morning and dragged me down for breakfast. To my surprise, it was quite lively. Pack members of all ages were finding spots at the large dining tables and grabbing food.

"Hope it's okay that I told my people they could utilize the packhouse normally, now." Alistair said, coming up beside us. He looked tired, with dark bags forming under his eyes, and his complexion was paler than normal.

"It's not a problem." I shook my head. "I had just gotten used to nobody being here, so it was a slight surprise. I'm glad they're using the packhouse again."

Upon seeing us, Christian waved us down to where he saved each of us seats. Dominic and Giselle were also seated near us.

"Good morning, Kyssemi." Christian grinned this goofy little grin and pulled my chair out for me when we got over there.

"Please, you can call me Kissi." I felt a bit embarrassed and took my seat.

A hoot came from the other side of the table somewhere, though there were so many people I didn't know who.

"Chris! You can flirt better than that, come on!" The voice shouted, followed by many more hoots and hollers from others.

I'm pretty sure my own face resembled a tomato at their teasing and I was too embarrassed to look over at Christian.

"Maybe I should've kept them kicked out." Alistair laughed.

"Don't pay those stupid boys any mind." Giselle rolled her eyes.

Breakfast was pretty rowdy and loud, but I managed to get through it. According to Dominic, most of them are men and women who live in the packhouse instead of their family homes. Turns out, for the most part, they're warriors, warriors in training, or the omegas who work at the pack house. Giselle chalked all of the 'loud and rowdy' that was going on to the, in her words, annoying and childish warriors. Though, once I got up the courage to take a good look around the dining room, I recognized several warriors from the hospital when I first woke up there.

I wanted to apologize to them about everything, but it just didn't seem like the right moment, so I simply kept to our little group. Though, others kept coming up to me to introduce themselves and question if I'd be joining the pack.

The one person I didn't see all breakfast was Stephanie, who Alice claimed had to plan and put together her own Luna ceremony, including organizing the invites to other packs' leadership herself. Apparently, Alistair refused to help in any capacity, even though it was usually the Alpha or the Alpha's parents who organized the event.

After breakfast, Alice dragged me to the training field. Training was done in shifts, with the strong warriors and pack's leadership training at first light, then a fraction of them coming to the after-breakfast training to mentor the newbies. Aunt insisted I join the group for my own training because it was composed of shifters who hadn't gotten their wolves yet, and only just barely started. She said I'd learn best here, even if I was older than these pups.

Aunt Alice was paired up with me and we worked on my form for defense first. I could tell she was going easy on me, but I was already sore when we were all given a water break.

"You're doing great so far, you know." A familiar voice called behind me.

I turned to see Christian standing there offering me a face towel and a cold bottle of water, both of which I accepted gratefully.

"For the second half, why don't I run you through some maneuvers?" He smiled. "It's good to train with different people to gain more experience. You won't always be fighting only one person."

"Sure, let's do that." I nodded, dreading how hard this was going to be.

When training resumed, Alice let Christian take over and left to train somebody else. We went through a couple of defensive maneuvers, like getting out of a choke hold, but half of the time was spent correcting my movements. Honestly, it was agonizing. By the time training was completed for the day, I was bruised and sore and dripping sweat.

"You did great, Kyssemi." Christian praised. "You'll be a fearsome fighter before you know it."

"Thanks." I blushed. "I hope so." I added after, thinking about how, with everything that I went through, I'd need to become able to defend myself in a real battle.

"Hey, one of these days, why don't I take you out to the neutral zone? I can show you some cool spots other shifters hang out."

"Oh." That sounded like a date to me. "Christian, you're a great guy and really sweet, but I really don't want to lead you on or anything." I said awkwardly.

"No, no!" He blushed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I mean, yeah, I like you. Of course, I like you. But, I'm pretty sure most of that is just because of how you helped me. I'm not even ready to move on from my mate, honestly. I don't think you're feeling ready for anything either. I just maybe want to be friends and help show you some of our world. I want you to be able to smile and have fun after everything you've had to go through." He explains.

I felt a bit embarrassed about the misunderstanding, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who thought he was going for something more. I was really glad he didn't have any weird expectations.

"Okay, I'd love to hang out sometime soon, then."

A huge grin spread across his face.

"Great! Go get a shower, princess, you stink." He teased me.

I gasped and moved to try to hit his arm, but I missed by a mile and my whole arm ached. He just laughed and jogged away. A ghost of a smile spread across my lips and I promptly returned to my room, eager to get out of these clothes that were sticking to my body from sweat and get a shower. Leggings and a tunic top were my outfit of choice after.

A knock came to my door only moments after I sat down. When I answered, I was met by a sympathetic looking Aunt Alice.

"It's time to go to Bryce's." She said gently.

There was an instant pain in my chest. I had nearly forgotten. Alistair had promised to take me back so I could show him my room. We both needed answers. We both needed to know why they never found me there. But the day we'd planned to go we were summoned to go to the council, instead.

Suddenly, I felt exhausted from more than just training, and even my wolves - who had both been dormant since taking on the pain from the rejection and breaking of the mate bond between Christian and Layre - were stirring a little bit in my head.

We got ready and headed out on foot: myself, Alistair, Alice, Christian, Dominic, and two warriors I hadn't met yet. The only conversation that took place was Dominic asking how my wolves were and me giving a half-hearted answer of 'recovering'.

The more we walked, the more anxious I got. Aunt Alice took my hand and gave it a squeeze.

"Bryce can't hurt you anymore." She reminded me. "You're safe."

I gave her a thankful smile, but that faded rather quickly when I saw the house come into view.

For some reason, I half expected it to look scarier or more run down. Perhaps with twisted, thorny vines creeping up the outside of the house, rotted planks of wood, a shadow looking overhead threatening to swallow us whole, and overgrown vegetation.

Instead, we were greeted with a rather nice, two-story family home with a light blue and white exterior, a hooded porch with a swing-seat, and a garden around the side growing blue hydrangea - my mother's favorite flower. Somehow, I was a bit disappointed that the house I endured so much abuse in just looked like a normal home. I so badly wanted it to look just as rotten on the outside as it felt on the inside.

"You said it was on the second floor?" My uncle asked, dragging me out of my thoughts.

All I could do was nod.

The two warriors stayed outside the house, but the rest of us went in. Bits of blood made a trail over the porch and into the house, leading up the stairs. It didn't take wolf shifter senses to realize it was my own blood.

But I was more distracted by the rest of the house. The foyer was large and led into an open living room. Picture frames decorated the walls and the fireplace. Pictures of my mom. Pictures of my dad. Bryce was in most of them, along with some other people I didn't recognize. I even saw the younger versions of Alice and Alistair. Some of these photos were probably taken back when they were teenagers, even, as I also saw pictures of a young Bryce and young Alistair celebrating graduation from high school. Normal photos, in a normal house. Normal furniture, with normal wallpaper. The kitchen had normal plates and cups and silverware, normal food stocked in the cupboards and fridge. The dining room had a normal table, with normal chairs.