Gypsy Moon

Chapter Thirty-seven: Sinah

. . . . . . (mid July)

Kyle blinked slowly as Bryce and Aiden left and he turned to look at Lilian and I in confusion.

"Okay, so they just left to go kill people, right?" Lilian shrugged and worked on trying to blot a spot of dried blood off the teen's shoulder.

"Do you blame them? I'd go with them if I had a wolf." Kyle blinked at her.

"Go with them. To kill people." Lilian chuckled and I smiled at him.

"Welcome to werewolf society, we get a little Dark Ages sometimes." He shook his head.

"No, not the killing part. Well, that TOO, but how? Shouldn't a bunch of corpses alert local authorities?" Lilian nodded.

"I get you; I wondered the same as a kid. Most packs have a wolf or two working for local law enforcement, and packs will burn enemy corpses somewhere deep in their territory. Really big packs have their own crematorium, White Moon did. Local humans almost never notice." She stood up and set her rags and the bowl in the sink. "I'm starving, what did you get us?" Kyle blinked and turned his incredulous gaze to me.

"This is normal?" I nodded with a wry smile.

"If I had gotten Selene three years ago, I might have killed someone myself by now." Kyle frowned at me, and I smiled. "I will be honest, it's highly unlikely, Selene is a special wolf, and we can heal, and I'm Aiden's mate and Luna. For the good of the pack, my safety is paramount. I probably would have been assigned a guard as soon as I got my wolf and would have had a full guard as soon as Aiden found me." I shrugged and he looked back at Lilian.

"And this has been normal for you your whole life?" She laughed and pulled several boxes of food out and passed them to us.

"Yeah, actually. I expected Sinah to get her wolf at sixteen like normal and I had planned on moving with her to whatever pack her mate belonged to." I laughed and gave her a hug.

"Probably would have been about now when they finally caught on too!" She and I began to laugh, and Kyle shook his head.

"Okay." He glanced at the teen on the couch. "And him? That sort of s**t normal around here too?" Lilian gasped in outrage.

"No that's not normal, why do you think Aiden and Bryce are probably murdering someone right now?" She pointed at the boy and tears welled up in her eyes. "This would have gotten a human offender a few years in a cell with three meals a day! I PREFER the wolf justice." Kyle's gaze softened at her tears, and I put my hand over his.

"It's insane, we know. Aiden's actions tonight could start a war, honestly." I chuckled at him when he choked on his food.

"How? How does this get normal?" Lilian giggled and smiled at her mate with a cheesy wolf-ish grin.

"Embrace it!" She picked up a fry and pointed at me with it. "Best part about all of this? We are considered abnormal to their normal." We both blinked at her. "We are so weird that literal myths and legends can't handle us. Or don't want to, really." He chuckled at that and scrubbed his hand through his hair.

"Okay, so then what? When the kid wakes up?" I smiled sadly at the boy.

"If he can remember anything about his real family, and wants us to find them, I'm sure we can borrow help from White Moon and River Talon, not to mention the dozens of packs Aiden and Bryce got to know while he was looking for me." My smile turned warm. "Anything that boy needs or wants to try to find his happy ending, we'll help or find someone who can." Kyle was still frowning.

"What if he just wants to leave? Go rogue?" Lilian shook her head.

"Rogues are actually rarer than you think. Wolves are social and slowly go mad if they are isolated. Most rogues are criminal offenders that a pack banished, they really do try to keep the medieval murder fights to a minimum." I laughed.

"Yes, in total truth, we think the worst punishment other than death is being forced to go rogue. A rogue wolf has the option of trying to find another pack willing to accept them with their criminal past, which is how horrible packs like the one Aiden is dealing with sometimes happen, or they have to try to live as a human, but very carefully outside of all wolf territories, which usually means major metropolitan cities, because most wolves can't stand the noise and smell of very large population centers." Kyle snorted.

"Your two capital punishments are death and trying to live like a human." Lilian laughed.

"Great, isn't it! I laughed my ass off when I figured it out. And that trying to live like a human is so horrible they would rather go mad or join a brutal pack, than try to live in Chicago or New York." We all laughed for a few minutes.

"Oh Goddess, that's true." I chuckled and waved my hands at them. "By the way, please never explain how insane our lives are to Aiden and Bryce. I'm not sure they could handle the human point of view." Kyle laughed again.

"So, you want me to keep my human point of view a secret from LITERAL WEREWOLVES, because it will mess up THEIR entire way of thinking." Lilian grinned.

"Yep, that's about it." She leaned over and kissed his cheek. "Please don't tell the werewolves our crazy human secrets because it would break their little doggy brains." We laughed for a long time. Kyle pushed his remaining fries away and shook his head.

"I just did it too... They are most likely killing someone, and I just sat here with you, ate a burger and laughed." He sat quietly for a few minutes, thinking to himself. Lilian took the opportunity to check on the teen. When he spoke again, his voice was determined.

"So, what do I do?" I blinked at him, not sure I understood what he meant, but Lilian did.

"What's your pack role? We'll have to figure it out still." She sat next to him and put her legs over his, pulling out her tablet and opening several apps. "Aiden and Bryce are Alpha and Beta, obviously. Sinah is Luna, and I think I've been able to get away with being amongst wolves for so long because I am supposed to be the pack Delta and handle the schedules and hosting and figures and that sort of stuff that a Luna normally helps her Alpha with." I nodded when she paused.

"That does make sense, with my abilities, Aiden and I will not have the time to handle all that as well." Kyle looked at us questioningly.

"What do you mean?" Lilian grinned at him.

"Deltas are uncommon, you usually only find them in really large packs. Our beloved Alpha has not yet had it occur to him that Sinah's abilities are going to attract wolves. A lot of wolves." He looked concerned but she waved her hand at him. "No, not like in a bad way... all the time. I mean wolves that will want to stay with us, to protect Sinah, to join the pack." I nodded.

"Yeah, but please don't pop those bubbles for him yet either, knowing that I am going to be in danger all the time, as well as the pack being bound to grow exponentially, are not the truth bombs that I feel like dropping on my mate two weeks after he was told he was also being forced to become the one thing he never wanted to be." Kyle coughed a laugh.

"s**t!"

"Exactly." He stared at the table and a thoughtful silence settled on us.

"So, what is the job system in a pack?" Lilian giggled.

"They call it ranks; wolves are literally born to do specific jobs within packs. Aiden is an Alpha; he was born to lead a pack. Sinah's father was a Gamma, he was born to be a pack warrior, a defender, a general, so to speak."

"The cook in the truck stop?" I smiled.

"Probably just a lesser wolf, packs usually have dozens." He frowned.

"Like slaves?" I shook my head.

"No, Goddess, no. They are full members of the pack, but they also have a rank for literally everything and it's painfully confusing." Lilian snickered.

"It's the group of ranks that keeps the normal going behind all the crazy, they don't bother much with their official rank names. Technically, you and I should be in that group by default, but we're the special pack." Kyle laughed.

"Alright, that makes better sense." He glanced at the sleeping teen. "So, what happened here?"

The camper rocked gently as Aiden opened the door and he and Bryce climbed in. They were wet, like they had washed with a garden hose. Bryce silently picked up a box of food and sat on the driver's seat. Aiden sat in the passenger seat.

"Here is what happens when a terrible pack goes on long enough that being cruel IS the job you were born into." Aiden's voice sounded hollow, and Bryce pulled the camper out of the parking lot in silence.

. . . . . .