The Lost Son.

Chapter 8

The drive home was awkwardly silent. Every once in a while, Grant would whimper in the back seat, but Emera wasn't budging on keeping him in wolf form. It was almost eleven o'clock in the afternoon when they reached the pack house. Ryan was standing around waiting for them when they got there. He could already tell something had happened in town by the thick fog of power that rolled out of the door when the alpha jumped out. Leanna jumped out of the other door and he got the feeling she was excited about something. When she pulled open the back door and a large brown wolf jumped out, he almost laughed. He watched as the wolf sulked away and lay under a nearby tree. Something big had happened. He looked over at Emera who was still watching the young wolf.

"So," he started but immediately stopped when her gaze was cast on him, instead he walked straight to the truck and began helping Leanna un load the items that filled the bed and back seat.

She had more important things to do then deal with Grant and his obvious disrespect to her as the Alpha. However, it was her job and so she took off at a steady jog down the trial the ran into the west woods, and signaled for the young wolf to follow her.

Grant quietly padded behind her for a few hundred feet when he finally felt her power release him and he was able to change back. The alpha kept running and Grant continued to follow close behind her. After about a mile or so she finally stopped and turned to face him. He knew he had messed up, big time, and was ready for whatever she decided to dish out. Nothing however quite had him ready for what came next. She took a deep breath, then reached out and grabbed the young wolf pulling him into a tight hug. Grant let out his breath after what seemed like a minute, finally the alpha let him go. He just stood there in shock and starred at her waiting for her to say something.

"Today Grant, you really disappointed me. You showed not once, not twice but three separate times how much control you do not have over your wolf," he grimaced, "I know you want to be part of the Elites one day and I commend you for that, but if today was a test you would have failed 100 times over. As an Elite you are responsible for the wellbeing of both the alpha and the pack. One of the most important rules as an Elite and a werewolf is to keep the secret of the pack. No one is to know who or what we are," he nodded, that had been installed in them from the time they could talk. She sighed, " When out in public with humans our number one rule is to blend in. Do you think I truly would have lost my balance that easy? Another part of human behavior is the 'hand shake', I recommend that you learn it and embrace it. You also seem to forget that though I am a female, I am also your alpha and stronger than most of them. All females of my pack and any other for that matter are as safe or safer with me then any male." He nodded again and quietly waited for her to continue. "With all of that being said, I am unlike any other alpha, not only in the part of being a female, but also in the part that I will not require you to stay as a part of this pack if you do not think your capable of controlling yourself or your wolf as I require." He stood there in shock, not quite able to believe what he was hearing, 'Was she kicking him out of the pack?'

"Grant, I am not kicking you out of the pack,” He took a breath of relief, "But I am giving you the choose of whether you want to stay or go. It is up to you. Take a day to think about it, then come find me and let me know what your decision is." She turned and without saying anything else she started running back to the pack house. She needed to go talk to the Keeper and see if he had found any new information on how to get out of the counsels ruling.

She ran straight to the 'Keeper’s' cabin and knocked. She knew he would be there; he was always there. His cabin was the farthest one away from the pack house. He used to live in the pack house basement, her father had had this cabin built for him about two months before he was tragically killed by hunters along with her mother and a few other pack members on a full moon. She had only been eight when it all happened, she didn't remember much of the next few months that followed their passing. The Beta 'Vandalen' had taken over the pack, kicked her out of the house and would have kicked her out of the pack if it hadn't of been for the 'Keeper'. He wouldn't stand for it and almost got banished from the pack for standing up to the new alpha. Instead he managed to escape the wrath of 'Vandalen' with just a few scratches. He had retreated to his cabin after that and took Emera with him. About that time was when she first vowed to take the pack back from him. At first he had thought she was crazy but entertained her dream. Then after about a year or so he decided that she really did have the power to be and alpha and put more time into training her. She trained day and night, whenever she wasn't in pack school she was learning pack history or law. She also had spent a large amount of time with physical training in both wolf and human form. Ryan had been the only one who paid any attention to her. He decided to also take up training with her. For ten years they trained with each other and finally she decided she was ready to take back the pack from 'Vandalen'.

She remembered that day like it was yesterday. She shivered and opened the door. It was stuffy in the house and smelled of musty old paper. Books and scrolls were scattered around the usually tidy floor and desk. Walking past a door on the left of the living room that had once been hers. She walked into the small kitchen and saw him setting at the table studying an old scroll. There was already a pot of coffee boiling on the stove that he seems to have forgotten about. She smiled to herself and walked to the stove, turned it off, then pulled out two coffee mugs. She filled them and walked back to the table and sat one in front of the old wolf.

"I just can't find any way around it Emera," he looked up as her. There were large dark circles under his eyes and they were moist. She sat down at the table across from him.

"I figured as much, don't worry about it, it’s probably about time I started looking for a mate anyway,” she grinned at him and sipped the hot coffee.

"I guess you'll have too!" he snarled.

"So what did you find about rules for visiting alphas and other wolfs?" she asked, trying to change the subject.

He huffed and handed her a list of rules he had compiled from all of the studying that he had done. She looked them over.

- All visiting wolfs must adhere to the packs alpha

- Discipline is first done by the visiting wolfs alpha, if they are unable to

discipline effectively then the pack alpha had the right to then also discipline

"There are only two rules here," she said slowly.

"Yep, that is all I could find, there really isn't any set of rules because this has never happened before. Having a large group of male werewolves from different packs gather together never happens," She held her breath for a few minutes, when she finally released it she chuckled quietly. He looked at her in disbelief, usually she would be stomping around and growling, not laughing. She could barely contain her laughter, all of the stress and excitement of the last day came out in a series of snorty laughs that caused coffee to squirt out of her nose, which in turn made her laugh even harder.

The old wolf didn't know whether to laugh along or to call for help. Ten minutes later the alpha's laughter finally subsided to a low giggle.

"They really don't want me to be an alpha do they?"

He nodded, “They are just scared I think. No one has ever had to even think about changing until you proved yourself a capable and very powerful alpha. They are throwing obstacles in your way hoping that you slip and fall of your face."

"Well," she huffed, "Let’s just prove them wrong then. I bet they send more than one trouble maker to stir things up. If I can't keep control, then they will have their proof that I am not a suitable alpha."

"Your more than likely right," he nodded.

"Oh one more thing," she sighed, "We have a new neighbor." The Keeper raised an eyebrow and waited for her to elaborate. "Leanna and I met him in town today. The weirdest thing happens though, when I shook his hand I got all tingly and then he shocked me. It had never happened before." She had gotten his attention when she mentioned the tingling and shock.

"Did anything else happen?" he questioned.

"Nothing," she snapped, "Grant tried to rip his head off and I was a little wierded out so I hightailed it out of there."

"Well if anything else weird or unexplainable does happen then let me know," she nodded. She loved being able to trust someone with the weird things that happened in her life.

"Let’s go get some lunch, neither of us have eaten much since breakfast yesterday." The old wolf nodded in agreement and they walked through to the front door and down toward the pack house.

As she walked alongside the Keeper she noticed how busy everyone was. She knew that they would all be busy and everyone had a job that needed to be done. The pack property was always spotless and well groomed. A couple of pack members stopped and waved as the alpha then kept walking. She waved back and noticed various members of the pack drifting in and out of the pack house.

Cookie was very strict with meal times. He had breakfast ready at six a.m. and stopped cooking by eight a.m. Lunch was the same 11-1pm and dinner was from 6-8pm. He didn't budge much on meal times unless it was planned in advance. If you wanted something after designated times, there was always fruit to eat. He also had a very healthy menu set up. They had spent a few hours a day for weeks going over and working out a menu plan that would make everyone happy and healthy.

Her and the Keeper took a short cut across the yard and to the back doors of the pack house. They grabbed plates and filed into line behind a group of female wolfs and where excitingly chatting about having all the male wolfs around. She chuckled and shook her head remembering how excited Leanna was to get a chance to look for a new dress. 'Man I promised her a chance to go back to the dress store,' she thought, 'that gives me another idea.' She decided to file away that idea for after lunch.

They quickly ate and parted ways leaving Emera to go do the rounds and check on the wolfs progress. She found Amy and Anne setting up extra sleeping areas in the east wing rooms, were all of the females would be staying for the next month or so. They had created a team of six young wolfs to help get cabins ready.

"We will have the girls in the house and boys moved to west barracks by tonight," Amy reported.

"Good work ladies," She told them and headed to her office.

Tomorrow they would strip and clean the other three barracks and get them set up with fresh and new items. Each barracks had an attached bath house with a hand full of shower stalls and toilets.

The West barracks was the biggest with 24 double beds in it. Each bed had its own dresser and shelve, and were divided from the rest by two walls and a curtain system. The barracks had been constructed when her father was alpha, they had needed more sleeping area and he hadn't really been that worried about comfort.

When she had become alpha she had decided to change them, at least a little and now at least in the west barracks were more like mini apartment rooms. Each area had since been decorated to match the personality of the wolf living in it. The South and North barracks were set up in a similar fashion but instead of double beds they had bunk beds and one wall rather than two. However, they also had curtain separators for any needed extra privacy.

The East barrack was a whole different set up, being the farthest from the pack it was mostly used for extra storage. Her pack was far from being large enough to need it as a sleeping area, but for the visiting packs it would be perfect.

She headed to the office to take care of whatever pack business was needed. When she got there she could hear Jenna, her office assistant, and Ryan chatting away. Ryan must have said something funny because Jenna was giggling when she walked into the office.

"Hey Boss!" she exclaimed and stood up from the chair behind the desk faster than a fox caught in a chicken coop. Jenna looked at Emera and blushed.

"There were a couple calls from some alphas earlier. I left the messages on the desk, also all bills for the next month have been filled out, just waiting on your signature,” Jenna rattled off, "Oh and the comment box has been stuffed to the brink all day." She huffed and sat down at her desk.

"Thanks Jenna you can go for the day." The girl nodded and walked out of the office glancing back at Ryan offering a shy smile. She let out laugh when the girl closed the door. Ryan blushed and shook his head.

"You’re in a decent mood giving todays predicament," he grinned. She glared at him and then smiled.

"I am actually!" She laughed, "I can't quite explain it. I took Grant out to rip him a new one earlier and ended up hugging him instead." Ryan’s eyes grew so wide she thought they would pop out of his head. "Yea, I know it kind of shocked me a little bit too. I think that it scared him more than anything though. He thought I was going to kill him or something, and to be honest I wanted too. Instead I just told him he needed to make up his own mind as to if he could control his wolf and wanted to be a part of the pack, or leave."

Ryan winced, " that's almost worse than being skinned,” he let out a breath, " How long did you give him?"

"A day, then I wanted him to come find me and tell me what he had decided."

"A day? That’s all? Maybe I should find him later and talk to him?"

"Probably wouldn't hurt,” she nodded, “Let’s see what the other pack alpha's have to say," she glanced down at the list of messages. "Let’s see, the California pack is sending 10 willing males. The Eastern packs are bringing 8 each and the alphas are coming. The Texan alpha is coming along with 15 pack members. Alaskan pack is only sending 5 down. And the Romanian pack is bringing 25 males. Holy geeze!" She looked up, "They are also requesting someone to pick them up from the airport." All she could do was bury her head in her hands and laugh. " That is 71 male werewolves’ and 5 alphas, not including all of the other ones that will more than likely be showing up without notice." She grabbed a pen and made a few notes of a piece of paper for Jenna tomorrow, grabbed the stack of bills and looked them over. Ryan just sat quietly as she signed each check and slipped them into the envelopes. Finally, she looked up at him, "Would you please grab the comment box?" He nodded and went into the hall returning a few seconds later with a plain white shoe box filled with pieces of paper.

The two of them had come up with the idea of the comment box when she first became alpha. She had wanted a way to get the packs opinions of various things and it was the less terrifying way they could think of. Since then it had proven handy in many ways. He carried it to the desk and pulled of the lid, then poured the papers out on top of it.

"Geeze!" She whined, "People must be really worried about what is going on."

"Yea it seems like it,” he chuckled, "How about we split up the work and check them over tonight after dinner? From the looks of it we could both do with a good training session before dinner." She couldn't agree more. With everything that was going on the last two days, she hadn't had a lot of time for training. She needed to train, if she didn't then she had the tendency to become just as violent as another alpha. She had figured out early on that she had to train harder and longer than most to keep her wolf in check. The alpha nodded agreement and stood up.

"I’ll go change and meet you on the training green." He nodded and they both headed out.

Ten minutes later Emera and Ryan were at the training area. It was large area that could hold up to 150 wolfs or so, with a well-manicured lawn and weight lifting area. She decided to take the advantage and leaped through the air landing on Ryan’s back. He grabbed the alpha and swung her around throwing her onto the ground, where she jumped back up and lunged at him again. He blocked her lunge and they threw a few punches and kicks, each blocking the others very effectively. She flipped his legs out from under him and he landed hard on his back. He laid there for a few seconds trying to catch his breath. When Emera was almost a foot from him, he swung his legs around and knocked her over simultaneously jumping on top of her and pinning her to the ground. She looked up at the wolf pinning her to the ground thinking about her next move. She held her breath and rocked her legs up behind her and looped them around his neck throwing him off balance. He fell backwards and she followed him up and over the top ending on top pinning him down. He grabbed her by the hands and tucked his feet in under her legs and pushed off sending her in a back flip to her feet. When she landed he did a flawless kick flip onto his own feet.

"Good match," she let out a deep breath, "I'm gunna go take a quick run before dinner. What to go?"

"No, I think I’m going to go see if I can find Grant," he grinned at her. She nodded and took off from the field at a quick pace. 'I’m going to take the trail along the east perimeter,' she thought, 'Maybe I will catch a glimpse of the gorgeous new neighbor.' The thought of him made her whole body blush and she picked up pace to get there.

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Alex followed the black truck down the highway toward his new property. He made sure not to follow to close and kept following until they pulled off the main road into a driveway probably five miles past his own. There was an old cast iron gate that went across the drive way, similar to his own, but this one had a wolf bent into the bars with a moon and trees. 'It’s very unique,' he thought to himself and turned around to head back to his property. 'Well now I know where they live,' he smiled at the thought. He was almost excited that the beautiful blond lived so close to him.

"Emera," he whispered, he loved how her name rolled off of his tongue. He day dreamed about her as he pulled up his driveway. 'Okay,' he thought to himself, 'Now to make this place a little bit more appealing.' He decided to park his truck over by the old cabin. It looked like it would fall over and any second. He still hadn't checked it out and figured he would see if it was still salvageable when he finished unloading the supplies he had picked up from town. He grabbed a pair of the leather gloves he picked up from the store and then slide them on. Lifting a piece of lumber out of the bed of the truck be began stacking it in the open field by the cabin. As he went he decided to set up a make shift table out of a few stumps and a piece of plywood. 'It would be perfect for holding supplies,' he decided and laid out all of the various supplies he had purchased. When he was done he grabbed a flashlight and headed over to the little dilapidated cabin.

He walked up to the stairs and took the first step, it creaked but held his weight. The second one he didn't get so lucky with and his foot went straight through the rotted wood. 'That’s going to leave a bruise,' he huffed, "New stairs." He slowly and carefully made his way across the porch to the door. It groaned and cracked under the unwanted weight but held. The door swung from broken hinges and what seem to be an invisible wind made it creak. He poked his head in the door and peered through the cobwebs. All of the surfaces were covered in white sheets and a thick layer of dust. Hesitantly he walked into the cabin to explore. The floor boards creaked under his weight and he shined his flashlight around the small room. What caught his eye the most was a picture that hung above the fireplace. It was a picture of a man standing on the front porch of what looked to be this exact cabin, with about a dozen or so dead wolfs all around him. The picture made him shudder, 'Who could kill such a beautiful majestic animal?' He had always been drawn to wolfs like they were his kindred spirit or something. He turned away from the picture and shinned is flashlight around the room again looking over the sea of white sheets. He headed to what he thought was a couch. Lifting the corner of the sheet he came face to face with the glistening white teeth of a wolf pelt. The shock of finding it made him jump backwards and crash into a table. The table rattled and smashed underneath his weight sending other pictures that seem to be of dead wolfs all over the floor. When he stood up he growled, it was a noise he had never made before and it startled him. He turned right around and walked from the cabin.

"The whole cabin has to go," he told himself and jumped the stairs walked away from the cabin. He couldn't explain it but he needed to get away from the evil of it. He was not exactly for or against hunting. The sportsman hunting of deer, elk and duck didn't bother him at all. But the mindless killing of any animal, especially a wolf, was something that really did bother him. 'There is nothing salvageable enough for me to go back in there,' he sighed, 'How about some brush clearing instead.' He quickly busied himself with a ferocity that was new to him.

Before he knew it the sun was high in the sky and he was getting hot. He stripped off his shirt and tossed it over the back of his truck then headed back to the tent for a bottle of water. He rummaged around in his tent for a few minutes and emerged with his stash of jerky. He took a seat on the stump by the fire pit and munched on a handful of jerky well he admired how much clearer everything was beginning to look. He had decided to pile all of the brush and dead bushes on the cabin porch, that way he could just burn everything at the same time and get read of it.

Well he was working he decided that he would find a place to build a new cabin. He figured that he had at least four months before it started snowing. His tent would allow him to make it through winter if he needed, 'but it would be a long and very cold winter,' he shuddered at the thought and pushed it out of his mind standing back up to go get to work. He picked up the rake he had gotten in town and began raking the dried leaves that were all over the gravel driveway. After a few hours and only getting a couple hundred feet he decided he would need a more effective way to do the driveway. At the rate he was going he would be doing it all summer.

He decided to take a break and spend the rest of the afternoon exploring. He figured that by the sun being on its way down he had about three or four hours of light left. He pulled his t-shirt back on over his head and hiked off behind the cabin, through the tall grass and trees.

"I need to make a trail system sometime," he chuckled to himself and rounded a big rock. He walked a few hundred feet further and then stopped on the edge of a field. Looking from side to side he listened for the sound he had just heard. It sounded like a fish jumping out of the water and splashing back in. However, he couldn't see any water, all he could see was an over grown grove of low standing trees and bushes. They were so tightly woven together that he couldn't see through them. He walked closer and the sound got louder, he pushed through the bushes intent on finding the water, when his foot caught a stray root he tripped. It sent him summersaulting forward through the trees landing with a loud splash into the chilly waist deep water of small lake.

"Found it!" he exclaimed as he stood up and shook out his hair, "I needed a good rinse anyway." He laughed to himself as he looked around. It was beautiful with crystal clear blue water and the fish were jumping around. It appeared that he had landed in a small cove of the lake, as he looked out he noticed that it seems to branch off into three different directions. The opposite bank was covered in trees and bushes just like the one he had fallen through. He hadn't known there was a lake on the property but it was a pleasant surprise. 'I think I just found the place I will build my cabin at,' he smiled to himself, ' This will be the perfect view from the dining area or maybe the bedroom. Or maybe both.' He looked around the area from his spot in the lake before climbing back out through the bushes. His expedition was going to be cut a little short, after all he needed to go back to the tent and change out of his sopping wet cloths.