07

Carrie

I knew what it was like to be discarded.

I woke the morning after Dane’s proposal with sunlight shining on me through the open curtains of the hotel room. The deep feeling of satisfaction and the glint of the ring on my finger reminded me of just what had happened the previous night, sending another surge of pure joy through me.

We would be married, and more importantly, once we were marked, we would have all the things that other wolves had.

The shower was running beyond the half closed door of the bathroom. I pulled myself out of bed and wandered in after him.

“Good morning,” I said, affection in my voice.

“Morning, Care.” I would be able to see this man every morning for the rest of my life. I pushed past the shower curtain and leaned in to give him a peck on the lips. I didn’t miss my opportunity to quickly admire the taut muscles of his form.

And he didn’t fail to notice my leer. “So naughty. You know we don’t have time.”

It was a shame that he was right. We both had to get back to our duties that kept the pack running smoothly.

While waiting for my turn in the shower, I brushed my teeth and then leaned against the counter. He got out, wrapping a towel around his waist. It hid some of the essential bits, but there was nothing to complain about while looking at the still exposed flesh with droplets of water clinging to it.

“Waiting for a show?”

I smiled innocently. “No, I’m waiting for the shower.”

He grinned. It only took me a moment to strip off the scanty clothes I was wearing, and I enjoyed the way he ogled me as I got in to take my turn, wasting a minute even though he definitely had alpha duties to get back to.

Water streamed down over me and I gave myself one minute to enjoy it before I started to get ready for my day. A half hour later, we were on our way back to the pack. He left me with a kiss, and I made my way into the main dining hall, greeting pack members as I went by. Dane had gone to take care of his own duties and would likely eat breakfast at his desk, but that wasn’t unusual so I made my way over to sit with a couple of other pack members.

“Good morning, Carrie,” said the older woman who was already seated. Her eyes landed on the ring on my finger. “Did you two have a good night?”

I could not help but grin at her words. “A very good night.”

The other females around me oohed and awed as they inspected my ring. Not all wolves got married to their mates as it was something of an adopted human custom, but weddings were more common for chosen mates, and it was still romantic nonetheless. My head whirled with thoughts of flowers and white dresses.

“It’s about time he made it official,” Samantha, my best friend since childhood opined, before shoving a forkful of egg into her mouth. “You already do all the luna duties.”

The older woman was thoughtful. “Well, you can understand his reluctance. It’s rare for an alpha to have a chosen luna, but at his age, it makes sense. The pack needs its luna, and you are fulfilling that role beautifully.”

“Well, I try,” I responded modestly. It was nice to hear the pack was satisfied since I worked hard to meet expectations. There were always people who were against any non-mate relationship, but she was right, at a certain point the alpha simply had to choose.

It would have been nice if both Dane and I had found our destined mates, but as the years dragged on, all the wolves our age got paired off, and it became increasingly obvious neither of us were going to find ours easily.

I didn’t know where my mate was, probably on the other side of the planet. Every time a male had come searching our pack I had gone out to see if he was the one, but he never was, at least not for me. Dane had tried even harder to find his than I had, checking every pack he visited for years with no luck.

That was all in the past though. What we were doing was not settling, because Dane and I did work really well together, better than most human relationships if what I had seen in media was true. We were compatible, we enjoyed each other’s company, and we both were attracted to each other. We were happy.

I ate while Samantha talked about some border incident that had happened the previous day with the neighboring pack. Her mate, John, had been on patrol duty, so she had a direct line to what had happened. Dane and I had been too preoccupied the previous night for him to have more than mentioned it, I thought with a secretive smile.

“So, the whole thing was a complete misunderstanding. Alpha Dane is going to meet with Alpha Tom and they’re going to ensure that the borders are properly recorded.”

“Strange that this trouble didn’t come up sooner,” I commented before bringing a piece of bacon to my mouth.

Samantha shrugged. “Well, pack borders do shift over time, and it’s unusual for two packs to be so close together that this becomes an issue. If that young wolf had simply paid attention to his nose rather than his head like the rest of us, it would never have been an issue.”

The poor kid who had been caught off pack territory because he was following the official borders must have been so scared. Luckily Blackcreek was as civil as our pack so they merely called Dane and sent the boy home.

Still, she was not wrong about pack borders. They did tend to naturally slightly shift over time as one wolf followed the previous wolf’s scent trail. Pack sizes were roughly based on the size of a territory a pack could defend over time. People called the Blackcreek pack and our own Greenwoods pack the twin packs, because of our unusually close proximity and interactions. It could never have worked if either had been hostile, but Dane and Alpha Tom had good lines of communication. Having a close ally was actually safer, because everyone knew that challenging one pack was akin to challenging two. It had ensured a long period of peace in a dangerous world of rogues and other supernatural threats.

I pushed my nearly cleared plate away. “Well, I’d better get to work.”

Samantha laughed. “You were never this diligent when we were kids.”

“I never had a reason to be,” I told her with a wink, before heading off to my office.

I spent the morning going over paperwork involving the luna side of running a pack. After wading through the expenditures for various necessities, I turned my attention to another pack issue. One of our elementary teachers had found her mate and gone to his pack, and I somehow needed to find a proper replacement. Samantha was temporarily covering her classes to help out, but she typically worked with the pack doctor, and I needed to find a way to free her up again. She herself said that she had “no gift with pups without broken bones” and wanted to be returned to her regular duties as soon as possible.

I was trying my best, but there weren’t a lot of wolves that were willing to even temporarily transfer packs for lower level tasks. I had sent out letters to our allies a week ago in the hope that they might have some young and hopeful mateless wolf who wanted an excuse to meet new wolves, but so far even that had come up empty.

It was a shame we couldn’t simply hire a human to teach, but there were too many secrets on pack lands to allow any in. The hunters were just another headache if we inadvertently revealed the supernatural world to an unaffiliated human.

I sighed and leaned back in my chair. I needed to manage the situation, since people were always more critical of my performance than they would be of a destined luna. If they believed I had been chosen by a higher power, they would have assumed that I was the best choice automatically.

On the other hand, since Dane had chosen me, everything I did had been constantly scrutinized to see if I really was worthy to be the acting luna. It had been terribly intimidating when I had first begun, but I now felt like I handled it well and the pack had come to trust me.

I couldn’t afford to lose that trust, so I simply had to find a new teacher to take over at least until we found one of the younger wolves with a gift for the task.

My nose twitched just as there was a sharp knock on the door.

I smiled. “Come in.”

The door opened to reveal a smiling Dane. “Busy?” he asked.

“Just trying to sort out the teacher situation,” I said, returning his expression with my own.

“Still no luck?”

“Afraid not.”

He crossed the room and rounded my desk. “I’ll beg for one while I’m over at Blackcreek.”

“Aw, thanks, Alpha.”

He leaned down so that he was level with me in my chair and brought his mouth to my own. I enthusiastically responded to his touch and shifted my body to meet his. He groaned and after a long moment, pulled back. “Afraid I don’t have time right now to have my way with you here and now.”

“You sure?” I teased.

“Alpha’s always right. He doesn’t want to be right now, though.”

I laughed as he stood up again. “Well, you can always come back here later.”

I saw the interest in his eyes as his mind wandered through the possibilities. It wouldn’t be the first time. “We’ll have to do that.”

“Have a safe journey, Alpha.”

He grinned and with another kiss, turned to leave me smiling in my office. The door shut behind him and my smile faltered. I turned my attention back to my work.

The rest of the day was busy but uneventful. Dane made it to Blackcreek without any issues, and I turned my mind to what needed to be done.

Around supper, I received a call that Dane would not be heading back that night. Unease brushed me, but I told myself that I was being silly, and I had Samantha try to convince me of the same as we sat around finishing our supper with her mate.

It was strange that Dane was not returning. Blackcreek was so close there was no point in not coming home. I worried that there was danger on the horizon, but I did my duty and pretended that his behaviour was perfectly normal to keep the rest of the pack calm. There was no reason to worry them over what was almost certainly nothing.

I slept fitfully in bed alone that night.

The next morning, Dane returned. I didn’t see him, which was strange, but I heard through other pack members that he was back. Normally after a trip, he always came and greeted me right away upon his return, and my worries doubled at that change in behaviour. Had something serious happened? Things had been peaceful with our pack for so long. I could feel a strange tension beginning to run through the pack, as if everyone else knew something bad was on the horizon.

By the afternoon, I could no longer bear waiting. I mind linked Dane.

“Dane? I’ve heard you’re back.”

It was a long moment before he responded.

“I am. I need to talk to you later.”

A lump formed in my throat. Was he really just going to say that and then make me wait? “You’re scaring me.”

There was another long pause before he said more and it only served to increase my tension.

“Dane?”

“Sorry. Actually, I’ll come talk to you, now.”

His words should have made me feel better, but they did not. A minute later there was a knock on my office door.

“Come in,” I said, nervous rather than excited to see him unlike the previous day.

Dane walked in, but instead of coming straight to me, he sat in the chair on the opposite side of the room. He was strangely silent.

“What is it?” I asked, unable to bear waiting any longer.

His expression was dour. He inhaled deeply. “I found my mate.”