Abandoned Treasure

Mykayla Pierce’s POV

Arrowhead Pack Pool

Wednesday, April 17, 2019

I sensed when my mate entered the pool area because my wolf got restless.

I tried to ignore her, but she wanted to see him. I missed my shot from the corner. The basketball took a hard bounce off the back of the rim and went to the other team. Distracted, I glanced towards the entrance to see my male looking around for me.

He looked more like a bear than a wolf. He stood on thick legs, his waist expanding to a barrel chest. His hairy chest, arms, and beard made him look like he was caught early in his shift. His face lit up when he saw me looking back at him.

The slightest of smiles crossed my face before I returned to the game.

“I have an hour until my next training,” Timur sent me. “Pizza by the pool, or do you want to eat in the dining area? It’s steak sandwich day.”

I looked at the clock on the wall to see it was just past noon. My stomach picked that moment to growl. “Pizza and a shake,” I replied. He put in the order while I finished the game. I rinsed off in the poolside shower, then wrapped myself in a towel.

Timur was at one of the round tables with two vanilla shakes, a towel across his lap and another under him. I put a towel down on the plastic chair, then sat across from him nervously. Nudity was commonplace in the Pack, but I became nervous if a naked man got too close to me. The Pack understood my background and gave me my space. Timur could sit across from me now, but I’d start shaking if he was close enough to touch my body. He could only do that in wolf form. “How was school,” he asked.

“Boring. I finished my reading for English and studied for my math quiz tomorrow.”

“Are you ready for it?”

“I guess. It’s not my best subject.”

“I never liked math when I was in school. Mom made me study hard so I could get through.”

“My Moms help me out. I like them teaching me more than the computer.” As the only kid my age, I was doing online classes only. The Alphas planned to send me to public school for seventh grade, but I wasn’t ready for people I didn’t know. “What class do you have?”

“I’m learning how to install and repair the video surveillance cameras. I’m not good at electronics, so it’s hard for me. I guess we both have to study today.”

He left to pick up our pizza from the snack bar. He set it in the middle of the table and handed me a paper plate. My fingers grazed his, and a tingle went up my arm. “Thank you.” He waited until I took two slices before pulling the rest to his side. “Is that enough for you?”

“I’ve got another one coming in five minutes,” he chuckled. I shook my head. “Don’t look at me! You’ve been eating a lot more since you got your wolf.”

He was right about that. “They have me running around every afternoon! It’s hard work!” There was lots to learn about being in wolf form, so after lunch, I’d train with one of the adult females. We’d go into the woods while I learned to run, track, and fight in my fur. We had to stay out of sight of the humans. They drilled me every day on recognizing human scent and how to hide.

I was getting better. My wolf was half the size of the adult females, so I had to work hard to keep up. My wolf could walk under Timur without ruffling the fur on my back! I’d been out once after dark to run the perimeter with the border guard, and I barely made it into my bed that night. Any run over five miles was hard for me.

I finished my slices and got up to get the next one. I could feel Timur’s gaze on me as I walked off. It wasn’t creepy, it was protective, and my wolf felt safe around him. Mom said I had plenty of time to get used to him before I was of mating age. “You can be his friend first,” she told me.

I nearly dropped the hot pizza when Alpha Rori’s Pack broadcast stopped me cold. “CONDITION YELLOW. We have information that the Council is using Packs to attempt to arrest your Alphas and Doctor Olson. There is no immediate threat, but prepare all defensive measures and observe.”

“Let’s get you to the safe room,” Timur said as he got up.

He growled as I kept walking for the table instead of the exit. I grabbed my shake and joined the exodus from the pool area. “What? I’m still hungry.”

He rolled his eyes. “Stay with Joanne. I’ve got to report to my position.” He touched my shoulder before heading to the men’s locker room. My mate’s soft touch didn’t bother me because he was worried about my safety. I grabbed my clothes bag on the way out the door.

I checked in with Possum at the entrance to the safe room. She and Roadkill were in charge there, and there weren’t nearly as many people inside as before. Mom and Mommy had assignments defending the Pack now that they’d completed rifle training. I mentally checked in with both of them, promising I’d behave and asking them to be careful.

I finished eating pizza, sharing a few slices along the way. While the Pack was at Condition Yellow, the safe room door was open, but we couldn’t go farther than the gym. I was shooting hoops with a few others when the attack alarm sounded. “TO THE SAFE ROOM,” Roadkill yelled.

My wolf took over, shifting to a form I felt safer in. I shook off my shirt and shorts, then ran for the room. Possum verified everyone was present before Roadkill closed and locked the door.

I was shivering, and Possum noticed me in the corner. She sat by me on the floor, and I crawled into her lap. I listened to the voices in my head as the Pack fought them off. Finally, it was over. “Nobody goes outside, leave the weapons where they are. Unload and safe your weapon. If you fired a shot, remain at your post. If you didn’t fire it, return your rifle to the Armory before gathering in the dining hall. Everyone not in the safe room will speak to our lawyer before giving any statement to the Sheriff’s Department or other investigators. We defended our Pack with skill and honor; we gave them every chance to walk away.”

Both Moms checked in on me mentally, but Timur waited outside the safe room door opened. He rushed in, his wolf needing to see that I was all right. I let him pick me up and carry me back to the gym to get my clothes. “Are you all right,” I asked.

“No one came close to the Pack House,” he said. “I didn’t have to fight.”

“Good.” I shifted and dressed before he walked me up the stairs to the dining hall. The Pack’s defenders would stay there all afternoon, critiquing their response and speaking with lawyers and law enforcement. Since many of the Omegas were involved in shootings, I pitched in with dinner preparation.

Things didn’t get back to normal in the days after that.The Pack was bringing in dozens of new people, which made me nervous. Even worse for me was the Pack hosting every unmated female werewolf and a bunch of males to find Deputy Mark Brighton’s mate. Beta Vic had just returned, but Betas Ron and Teri were headed to West Virginia to take over the Monongahela Pack.

Timur told me the Council was a mess after failing to kill our Alphas. A councilman got shot resisting arrest, and ex-Chairman Coffey was in hiding.

Everyone was busy, especially our Alphas. Classes got canceled, Timur worked day and night, and I stayed out of the way.

The only good news for me was that we finally got someone in the Pack who was close to my age four days after the attack. My Moms knew the wolf who brought her here from decades earlier at Bitterroot. Mabel was nice to me, and so was the girl she saved from freezing to death by the roadside. Shelly Laurilla was almost four years older and had grown up as a human in St. Cloud. The next youngest person in the Pack was Alpha Rori! I brought her meals to the clinic and talked to her as she ate. I was excited to have someone I could play with, at least after her injuries from a car accident healed.

I stayed after bringing our lunch on Tuesday. Shelly still had a cast on her leg, and her chest was wrapped with a bandage to keep the broken ribs in place. When I helped her to the bathroom, I could see the bruises along her side. “What do you want to do?”

“Movie?” The Pack had a cable system plus streaming, so it didn’t take long to get “A Princess Bride” started on the TV in the corner. I got the rolling table set up with our food and drinks. Once she settled, I slid into the big bed, sitting on her good side. Lunch was Buffalo Chicken tenders, fries, and Texas toast. We’d almost finished when the security alarm went off. “What’s that?”

The send from the Security Center informed everyone that former Chairman Coffey was on his way to the front gate with a hostage, and we were to implement defense plans. I got out of bed, wondering how Shelly would get to the Pack Safe Room. “Stay here,” Beta Possum said as she opened our door. She had a shotgun slung over her shoulder and carried a radio in her hand. “When we have a patient who can’t move, the whole back of the clinic becomes a safe room. Timur and his team are on their way.”

It made me nervous, but Timur arrived seconds later and promised no one would EVER hurt me. Possum told me to get in the bed while she took the chair facing the door. She changed the channel to the local news so we could watch what was happening outside. Coffey demanded the entire Pack come out to the road to meet him.

I watched as Alpha Rori and dozens of others came out to meet a madman who demanded they shift in front of the cameras. “No,” Possum said. “Don’t do this! You’ll lose the baby!”

Even I could see that she had no choice. “ARROWHEAD! STRIP AND SHIFT!”

In front of multiple cameras, they took off their clothes and shifted into their wolves. A shot rang out, and the cameras showed a closeup of Coffey lying dead while the Deputies cut the hostage free.

“There’s no hiding us now,” Possum said. “TIMUR!”

That’s when the cameras showed a naked Chase picking up a red wolf with her legs soaked in blood. The big Russian opened the door. “Guard her while I help the Alphas.”

Our clinic room stayed isolated from the chaos around us. We’d hear the Pack communications and watch the news, wondering what would happen next. Even I knew that nothing would ever be the same.

Timur told us the plan was to sneak the wolves from other Packs out while bringing the Steel Brotherhood in to help secure our land. Alpha Chase told us shifting was not allowed. He also restricted us to buildings and tunnels except for armed patrols. Even the television people didn’t know what would happen; some were speaking in our favor, while others wanted us hunted down and killed. We watched our Alphas on a news interview that night, trying to defuse the situation.

I knew many visiting bikers from previous Arrowhead parties, so I wasn’t as nervous with them as the strange wolves earlier. Now that we were ‘out’ as werewolves, they had a lot of questions for us. Things slowly returned to normal as Chairman Colletta opened our Pack lives to human inspection. We weren’t going outside much, but there weren’t crowds of angry humans outside the gate either. The sniper who tried to shoot Alpha Chase was dead, and the armed Brotherhood patrols discouraged others from showing up.

A month later, the Brotherhood had fewer than a dozen people still here, and the Pack returned mostly to normal. We could leave Pack lands in small groups, provided at least two people were armed. Some people recognized us from the news coverage. We might get a dirty look or a request for a selfie, and there was no telling how people would react.

The North American Packs had it easy compared to the European ones. Timur was worried after reports that Russian troops had surrounded the Beloretsk Pack lands. When the Alphas called him to the office, I went with him. I was afraid of the news they might have. Timur had done so much to support me, so I had to be by his side if his family was gone. My moms were already sitting on a couch by the window. We sat on the chair in front of their desk, and I took his big hand and placed my tiny one over it. The touch helped him calm down. “I just got off the phone. Your Pack made it out of Russia, Timur. Your family is safe in Vancouver for now. Alpha Boronsky is requesting asylum from the Canadian government.”

“Canada?”

Alpha Chase nodded while scratching Rori’s neck. “It was not easy leaving. He’s already spoken to my mother, who promised the Werewolf Council’s full support for relocation. The Murmansk Pack made it to the States. We are working with the President to get them asylum as well.”

Timur relaxed at the news. “Can I see them?”

“Your Alpha needs as many English speakers as possible as the Pack makes the change. He’s asked if you would agree to return to his Pack to help.”

He looked at me, shaking his head. “That could take years.”

“At least, especially if they start from scratch.”

“I’m not sure I can leave my mate.”

I started shaking now; I wasn’t ready for a mate, but my wolf did NOT like the idea of him being a thousand miles away. “Could I go with him?”

“That’s why your guardians are here. Alpha Ivan agrees you shouldn’t be separated. You could refuse his request and stay here.” He looked back to Timur. “Alpha Coral has agreed to put up the Beloretsk Pack at Blue River until they are ready to move into their new home. You would continue your schooling at Blue River and join Coral’s Pack.”

I'd be like Shelly, who was placed under the guardianship of the Denali Pack in Alaska and moved there to be with her future mate. I looked at my Moms. “Could we?”

Taylor nodded. “Blue River is a good Pack, and it would mean a new pool to play in once it’s finished.”

I started bouncing in my chair. “I’ve seen pictures of their new pool house design. The waterslides look totally AWESOME.”

“You’re killing me, Smalls,” Chase teased. “You’d change Packs over a pool?”

“How many new members of Arrowhead did just that?” Tammy laughed as she saw her Alpha’s face. “Can we visit every summer?”

“Of course,” I told them. “Take some time to talk it over. Timur, this is the phone number you can reach your parents at.”

“Thank you, Alphas. I will let you know as soon as we’ve decided.”

It would mean leaving my friends behind, but I could see how much it meant to Timur. We packed up and drove to Blue River just after the Fourth of July party.