Father Wolf

Chapter 2: Packmates

My room is huge. The room I had back at home was a closet compared to this behemoth. The room itself takes on a pentagon shape with a loft across from the door in the shape of a triangle. Below that is an en-suite and a staircase along the wall leading up to the loft.

Most of the room is relatively empty except for the loft, which has a double bed, a dresser, and a cushioned velvet bench under the triangular windowsill. But aside from that, the room is a blank slate.

The abrupt opening of my door startles me. “So what do you think?” Loire asks.

She chuckles when I can’t find words to answer. “I heard you grew up in a dump. Must be a great improvement, yeah? Anyway, Alpha Ivan wants me to introduce you to the rest of the pack! C’mon,” she says.

She doesn’t wait for me to follow; instead, she again grabs my hand and pulls me with her.

Aside from Loire, Lake, and Alpha Ivan, there are eight other pack mates. Loire takes me into the dining room and introduces me to the Beta’s first. I recognize the man who waited for us as Ivan and I pulled up to the mansion. Sitting next to him is a dark haired woman who looks like she’s been through a medieval war.

“This is Vlad, and that’s Mira, his mate,” Loire says.

Vlad nods at me before taking a bite of his breakfast. “Pleased to meet you, new blood.”

According to Loire, Vlad knew Ivan before he was even a werewolf. They were best friends in high school, and Vlad had asked Ivan to turn him once he found out, this starting the pack.

“We’re called the Stray pack. Ivan thought it was appropriate, seeing as how most of the pack members lack a proper family,” Vlad says.

Loire grabs my arm again. “Let’s go! You still have to meet the Gammas and Deltas.”

The last six pack mates are outside in an area that Loire tells me is the training ground. Everything from the weights, to weapons, and even an army inspired obstacle course make it feel like a boot camp.

Loire says that the Gammas are brothers who’s parents were murdered by a pack of werewolves before Ivan found them. One of the men is on the bench press while the other stands by to watch. They look to be in their early twenties.

“I could lift twice that and be fine, Gus! A human could lift that,” the man next to the bench press says.

The man on the bench press sits up and wipes sweat from his brow. “Shove it, Jules. Oh, hey. New blood,” he says.

Loire pushes me forward. “He’s a little on the skinny side, but I think he’ll be fine,” She says.

Gus laughs. “We’ll train those muscles up soon enough. Gotta have them for hunting season,” he says.

Jules hands Gus a bottle of water and offers me one, which I decline. He shrugs and sips from it. “When are they doing the turning again? Next month, was it?”

My jaw clenches. “Next month?”

Gus nods. “Gotta turn you before the next full moon. If we don’t, we have to get you out of here. It’s dangerous.”

I swallow hard. “Does it hurt?”

I feel Loire’s gentle hand on my shoulder.

“The bite, or the transformation?” Gus asks.

“Uh... both, I guess.”

He wipes his face with a wet rag. “They both aren’t very pleasant. The transformation can hurt at first, but that all just depends. It gets easier the more you do it.”

Jules chuckles. “Being a werewolf has its ups and downs- You’ll be fine, Maddox.”

The final four members Loire introduces me to are the Deltas, who look to be around one or two years older than me. The three boys glance at me, but they’re too busy in the archery range notice me. One of them has a bow, while the others watch. They laugh when he misses the shot.

“My turn!” I hear one of the other boys say.

“The one with the bow is Ross. The ones behind him are Levi and Kade. They ran away from their foster homes when they were ten,” Loire says.

“Brothers?” I ask.

“No, friends. I heard they planned their escape together while they were still in the system.”

“Where’s the fourth? Weren’t there four Deltas?”

“Miriam doesn’t like... people. She keeps to herself. I’ve tried talking to her, but she only really talks to the pack mates who rank above her,” Loire says. She points to the other end of the archery range at a girl who sits by herself.

“I wish I could tell you more about her, but she keeps it a secret. Be careful- she’ll attack you,” Loire says.

Her words hardly register to my ears as I find myself almost entranced at this girl’s exquisite beauty. Miriam’s brilliant red hair seems colored by the sun itself, and brings out the delicate blue of her eyes. Before Loire can stop me, I’m walking to the other side of the range.

“Wait, Maddox- What are you doing? Come back!”

Miriam completely ignores my presence and instead focuses on the archery target, but I see no bow in sight, or even arrows.

I’m no closer than six feet from Miriam before she spins around and glares at me. Normally my instincts would tell me to run from someone who looks like they want to murder me, but for some reason my instincts aren’t sensible today.

“Yes, new blood?” Miriam asks.

My brain thinks of a million different things to say to her, but my mouth moves before it can fully decide which one to say. “I- Um... Hi, you-“

She doesn’t wait for me to finish my sentence before pulling something from her pocket. I don’t see what it is before she flings it at me with the sharp motion of her arm.

The object- no- three objects fly at me and catch my clothing before stopping at the wall behind me, firmly holding me in place. It’s at this time that I get a good look at her weapons of choice- three throwing knives. Across from me, she flips another knife in her hand before flinging it at me. It hits a centimeter from the top of my head. I sweat as she grabs another knife.

“I’ll teach you this lesson gently. I am not a dating option, and I will never be. Keep your damn pants on, and stay the hell away from me. Got it?” Miriam says.

I gulp and struggle to find words.

Miriam spins the knife in her hand. “I’m so sick and tired of you boys looking at me as nothing more than a s*x object. I bet that’s all you see, yeah? Get lost.”

“B-But, I- I don’t... Why would I-“

Instead of throwing the knife, she marches over to pull the other knives from the wall, releasing me. “Not another word. You men are all the same.” At that, she takes her knives and walks back toward the target.

Half of me wants to try to talk to her again, but that’d be suicide, so I instead walk back to Loire. She rolls her eyes at me. “Told ya so. She’s a recluse. I heard her backstory is really messed up or something.”

“I just wanted to say Hi to her,” I say.

Loire shrugs. “She doesn’t like men. Dunno why. She’s like that with Lake, too. Even though he’s not interested in girls.”

“What do you mean he’s not- ...”

Loire giggles. “He’s gay, Maddox.”

“Oh.” I’m not sure how else to respond to that, but Loire punches me on the shoulder when I blush.

“Interested?” She gives a mischievous smirk.

My hands fly up in protest. “What? No, no!”

Loire holds holds her chest in laughter and wipes a tear. “Relax, I’m messing with you! That was priceless.” She grabs my arm once again. “C’mon, there’s one last person who wants to meet you.”

Loire leads me to the top floor of the mansion. Her hyper footsteps shift to barely audible tiptoed as we step off the stairs.

We stop at a pair of large double doors, and Loire carefully pulls them open.

The scene before us tells the tale of a kind of romance only found in fairytales. Overlooked by the sunlight coming in through the window are a couple so lost in their love that they appear frozen in time, almost as if in a painting. The woman’s gentle hands are almost engulfed by the man’s beastly right hand, and his other arm is snaked around her torso, pulling him into her. His chin rests atop her head.

Ivan and his wife hardly notice us until Loire steps inside to break their moment. Once they do, the woman pulls away and turns toward me with a warm smile. “You must be Maddox.” Her voice is about as comforting as a bowl of warm oatmeal on a winter morning, and it eases the tension in the room in a way only a mother’s voice could.

The Luna’s movements as she starts toward me are serene and graceful, like the flight of an angel. She reaches her hand toward my face, and I flinch back once before she gently takes the side of my jaw into her fingers.

She sighs with a sad smile. “You poor thing.” The tone of her voice alone brings out the built up agony within me. My chest aches angrily at the thought of my mother who couldn’t be bothered to hold me like this.

Ivan joins her. “This is my wife, Luna Diana. She’s my mate.”

Diana gives him a smile and glances back at me. “I’ve heard everything about you, Maddox. It’s a shame.” She takes back her hand. “But don’t think that you have to become a werewolf. If, by next month you don’t want to be turned, we will simply send you back home.”

Loire stamps her foot. “Luna, you can’t be serious! Send him back to that hellhole?”

Diana raises her gaze toward Loire. “It’s unfortunate that we can’t do much else. A human can’t stay in werewolf territory. We already made a big stretch keeping you and Lake here. He’d be in such danger. If another pack catches a whiff of his scent-“

Ivan places his arms around her. “It’ll be alright.”

Diana pushes her fingers through the gaps of Ivan’s. “Hopefully so.”

••••••••••••••••••

The rest of the day is spent unpacking my stuff, exploring the place, and thinking about the unsettling idea of becoming a werewolf. Still, there is the other half of me that yearns for this- the part of me that wants more than anything to finally have a place to belong.

The bed that waits for me at the day’s end is softer and far more comforting than the bed back at home. For once, crawling into a bed isn’t accompanied with the terrifying unease of what’s to come tomorrow.

For once, I can just close my eyes and... dream.