Pack of One

Chapter 2: The Pack

The Winterfold pack of lycans dwelt in a military-style compound on the edges of the National Park. It was a good location for both the state and the pack; the pack got prime hunting grounds away from all human populations and the state got free guards for the three species living in the state park on the endangered list. Back when Sky ran the Winterfold Pack, I had a lot of respect for the way he had laid out the whole thing. It was ingenious to find a way to work with the humans for once.

But now that Marcus’ father, Rain, was Alpha of Winterfold, I hated everything about this place. The dirt path lanes between the identical pack houses up the main stretch now looked less like a pleasant lane filled with friends and more like a ghost town; being a non-Alpha family member being caught out in the open was usually an excuse for punishment.

I walked down the middle of the road, unwilling to cower. It brought me trouble more often than not, but there was no way I was going to let Marcus force me to cower in a corner.

The sundress my Aunt had procured me billowed in the wintery breeze. My bare feet were silent on the dirt path to the kitchens. I pulled my waist-length hair up into a braid, keeping the ebony length of it out of my face.

“Dinner’s started; get a move on,” a voice said as soon as I had stepped inside of the oppressive heat of the kitchens. It took about a minute for my weak human eyes to adjust to the gloom of the inside, but once they did, I made my way to my station without a word.

I was on bread-making duty. Claudia, the wolf who ran the kitchens, found I excelled at kneading bread. It probably had something to do with the fact that I was able to channel a little of my ever-present anger into the process.

There were three other Red Mark pack women at the massive bread station with me. They hung their heads and didn’t look up at me. There were dark circles of bruises on all of them.

I took a loaf’s worth of dough out of the bowl and started kneading, imagining that it was Marcus’ face that I was rearranging.

When the Red Mark pack moved in under the protection of the Winterfold pack, this was not what my former pack leader had been hoping for. But now that Rain was in charge, we were slaves to the whims of the new Winterfold Alpha family. 

I wanted to kill all of them.

After my shift kneading, when the thirty bread loaves were resting before hitting the oven for supper, I had an immediate shift in the clothing mending rooms, then a third shift covering the laundry. It was nearly midnight by the time I got to trudge exhausted back to the beta hall.

The world was silent, cold, and stark. Everything was quietly waiting for the grays of false dawn to slip into the soft purples that signaled the coming of a new day. I stopped for a few moments, closing my eyes and delighting in the feel of a slight breeze sliding through the sweat that soaked my hair.

It took everything I had not to howl at the night; I could feel the Wolf deep inside my body, pressing to get out.

But beginning a howl was for the Alpha family, and not for the likes of me. If I thought Marcus’ little tortures were painful, it would be nothing to whatever Rain would do to me for starting a howl in the middle of his pack at midnight.

I took in another deep breath before turning on my heel to head toward the bathing rooms. As I turned, however, my progress was quickly halted as I slammed, nose-first into something warm and immovable.

“What do we have here?” a sharp voice asked, filled to the brim with disdain. I looked up, my eyes locking with the cold, gray steel of a lycan male’s gaze. My blood turned to ice in my veins as I realized who it was.

Marcus.