The Secret Pack

A New Dawn

I straightened up again, took a deep breath and projected my voice as if to declare myself to the heavens above.

"AURORA! I AM QUEEN AURORA"

>Aurora’s POV

My mother; the Beta; and the gamma escorted me from the field. We were heading towards Moonflower Hall, our packhouse if you will. I suspect they are carting me off to the elders to make sure they can banish me for being so different

Great, just great. The one time in my life where I am supposed to fit in and be just like everyone else, I just had to go and be the different yet again!

We make it to the elders’ chambers inside of Moonflower Hall, and I notice that Eir; Mya; Sophia; Iselda have followed us. I get that they are curious but why are they following us?

No time to dwell on this, let’s just talk to the elders and get this over with. I am desperate to start my wolf training so that I can go on my first hunt

“Elder Ilma, we need your help. My daughter’s rite of passage ceremony has had unheard of results.” A short, pixie like elder lifts her eyebrows and looks between my mother and myself. “What do you mean by ‘unheard of’. Either she went through her shift, or she didn’t. Which is it?” We all look at each other and then back to Elder Ilma. “Well,” she says “is someone going to say something or are you all going to sit there with a mouthful of teeth. Speak up already!”

Mother looks almost nervous. This can’t be good, nothing phases her. Even when we were almost discovered 3 years ago, she wasn’t this worried. Now I’m getting worried.

Mother calms her face and clear her throat, “Well, when my daughter shif-“ I cut her off and say “Aurora, Mother, I go by Aurora now” My mother then looks at me with admiration “My apologies, when Aurora got her Wolf Mark it was of a sun, and the colouring was unique. Instead of black, it was red. When she shifted her wolf was much larger than any wolf I have ever seen. And to top it all off the colouring, it was… almost magical. Pink, orange, and a deep red in the most striking ombre effect. The result was almost that of an African sunset, it was breath-taking.” Elder Ilma’s eyes grew wider and more stunned with every word that my mother said.

This can’t be good, Elder Ilma was our most knowledgeable elder. If she was speechless, what does this mean for me?

After a few minutes, Elder Ilma speaks “This is highly unusual, and in all my years I have never heard of this happening anywhere n the world. I will have to have a meeting with the other elders to discuss this unique situation. We will come together in 3 days to discuss what we have discovered if anything.”

Fan-f*****g-tastic. Can this day get any worse? Oh well, I guess I better get to bed. I am going to have a very busy morning. I will need to choose my Gamma, since the Gamma’s daughter has been ousted from our pack. I should make a mental note to add getting her back into the pack onto my agenda of talking points. I’m sure the pack might allow her back but being the Gamma will be off the cards for sure. My word, being the queen is going to be harder than I thought. I just want things to be as normal as possible. When I was younger, I would listen the pack teacher talk of the packs in the outside world. I would fantasize about living as they did. How wonderful would that be?

We all leave Moonflower Hall together; I say goodnight to Beta Verlee as she walks off to her house. I look over at my fellow initiates and ask them to wait for me so we can all walk together to the apartments we will be living in until we have our first pups. I look at Gamma Leonora and am consumed by guilt for what happened. “Gamma Leonora, I am so sorry for what happened with your daughter tonight. I should have handled it better and not announced the situation to the entire pack the way I did.” tears were starting the form in my eyes “She is, I mean was, one of my best friends. I don’t know what to do right now. We always talked about being Alpha and Gamma together. About how we were going to lead this pack as a united front, of unity, and lead this pack into the future. I plan on finding her and bringing her home. Please, can you ever forgive me?”

Gamma Leonora holds her arms out and envelops me in a bone crushing hug. “My dear, sweet child. I can never be upset with you. What you did was hard one of the hardest decisions you have had to make so far, but it was also the right one. My daughter knew what she was doing was wrong, but she still went ahead and attempted treason. I have loved you as if you were born of my womb, and I stand in front of you now and pledge my loyalty to you.”

That did it, now the tears were flowing free and hard. Now I see what my mother saw in her as a Gamma, she truly was a compassionate she-wolf. ”Thank you Gamma Leonora, I hope when I choose my Gamma that she is half the she-wolf you are. I would be incredibly lucky to have someone like that in my life.” We hug and she bids mother and I goodnight.

The silence that falls between my mother and I is deafening. Neither of us knows what to say. Whilst my mother has always been my biggest cheerleader, she has never been affectionate. Something else I never had growing up, I always watched the other pups around me getting plenty of love and affection from their mother. But not me, the most I ever got was a hug every now and then. I know my mother loves me fiercely, I don’t doubt that, she just shows it differently. Mother’s love language was “words of affirmation”. She loved me and was so proud of me, and she let me know it consistently.

“Mother, I am sorry for tonight’s events. I should have handled things better and dealt with it in a more diplomatic manner. I will make things right with Gamma Leonora. I don’t –“ before I could finish my next sentence my mother grabbed me and was holding me close to her. “My beautiful Aurora” she sobbed “I was so scared for you. You went through such an ordeal, and I couldn’t be prouder of the way you handled yourself! I don’t know what I would have done if my little girl had been hurt!” I could feel the wetness of her tears dripping down onto my shoulder now. “Mother it is not anyone’s fault. No one could have seen this coming; it was an unfortunate turn of events. I am okay now and am ready to finish my queen training with you. Let’s move past this, what is done is done” I say to her. “Aurora, look at you. Already showing the grace of the queen and maturity well beyond your years. You are going to do great things.”

We hug once more and head our separate ways. I walk on over to my friends and look at them with excitement, Eir pipes up first and says “So ladies, who’s looking forward to the hunt? I don’t know about you, but I cannot wait to go hunting.” We all laugh and make our way to Moonflower’s apartments; the apartment block is for pack members who have gone through their change but have not yet had a pup. Once a pack member falls pregnant, we all work together to build her a house to raise her pups in. Since the apartments are solely for she-wolves who are of age and pupless, we all affectionately call it The Wild House. With no mates to tie us down and no pups to care for, things can get a little wild in there.

We all laugh together and discuss what our first hunt might be like. Since we are a pack blessed with only she-wolves, we must go hunting (as we like to call it) for a male wolf to mate with so we can produce a pup of our own. We jokingly like to call the male wolves our prey. I am not sure what my type is or what I should even be looking for. I suppose our Moon Goddess will know and will guide me in the right direction. I obviously spaced out and fell behind, because Eir starts waving her hand in front of my face. “Earth to Aurora, what’s on your mind doll?”

How can I tell her, or anyone for that matter, of my plan? I am tired of living the same way we have for all the centuries. It was time to bring Moonflower into the 21st Century. I want our pack members to find love, real love, not just have to go hunting once every few years to produce the next generation.

“I’m just nervous is all, it’s such a huge step for us all.” she nods at my words “I mean, I know we might not get pregnant on our first hunt. But, what if I’m not ready? I have spent my entire life training for becoming queen and producing the next queen. All I really want to do is just have fun for a few years first.” She looks at me and smiles “I get you Aurora, I have something that might be of interest to you and the others who aren’t ready yet. It’ll allow us to mate with our prey, but stop us falling pregnant.”

I like the way she thinks, all the fun and none of the commitment. I can tell we are going to be great friends.

We get to the apartments and unpack our bags into our respective rooms. Eir; Mya and I decide to share an apartment together, I feel a strong connection to them for some reason. I think the Moon Goddess for giving me people I can trust.

I fall asleep before my head touches my pillow. Tomorrow is a new dawn in the future of Moonflower Pack.