Chapter 17
I waited for Ezekiel to begin his story. Carlos never told me exactly what I was in for with this pack, just that it would not be easy and that he had faith in me.
“First thing first, my father was not the greatest Alpha. We have always had our differences and so far, he has not enjoyed the way that I have run this pack. He tells me that I am weak for accepting my Luna because of the circumstances in which she has come from. He told me that I was going to ruin this pack with my ideals and philosophy. He told me I needed to grow a back bone and stop being a fucking push over. Most of the warriors that I have are sexist pigs, as you saw earlier, that I have been trying to weed out. Many think that a female's job is to cook and clean for the pack and to take care of the home, while the men support them. Omegas are not allowed to train and neither are the children, which I have felt is a huge disservice to the pack. Our children and Omegas deserve the right to learn how to protect themselves and hone in their abilities. I am not going to lie when Carlos told me about you. I was excited. Carlos told me about some of the ways that you improved your pack and he also explained about how your warriors trained. It intrigued me. And I knew that my warriors might have had some issues with you. You were, after all, the first female Alpha of our time. 1 was hoping that you were exactly what this pack and I need in order to improve it.”
“It does seem like your pack needs some work. Where exactly are you expecting me to start?”
"First and foremost, I need help with the training. My Gamma was never trained by his father, so he is unsure of how to lead training sessions and he is not innovated. I was hoping tomorrow you would lead the training session for my warriors. No cap. I will allow you do what is necessary to get them where they need to be. I am sure that I will have several of my warriors that push back against you. After all, women currently do not attend training, so it is going to be new to see you there. I would go ahead and expect them to push back against you. You will be leading training with the help of my lead warrior, Carlisle, and my Gamma Damarcus. My Beta and I will be there as well.”
I nodded my head in agreement. That does not sound too hard. I looked at the Luna before speaking again, “And what about your Luna? You told me there were things that I needed to know about your Luna and her circumstances that will help me succeed in helping you and your pack.” He rubbed the back of his neck before looking me in the eyes. I saw his eyes glazing over and he looked at his Luna before she nodded her head and exited the room. I looked at him questioningly and raised my eyebrows at him. “Was there a reason to dismiss your Luna? If we are talking about her, don't you think she has a right to hear, Alpha?”
“You misunderstand, Alpha Kataleya. I was not dismissing her. She gets upset when people talk about her past. It brings everything to the forefront and she generally has breakdowns from it. I always give her the option. We can either talk about it with her or she can leave the room if it becomes too much for her...she was not raised in a pack...she was raised with a group of rogues. She has not been in a pack since she was five years old. Her family was the Beta family in her old pack, so she had Beta blood running in her veins. Her pack was slaughtered by a group of rogues when she was five and instead of killing her, they took her with them. She was sexually assaulted, tortured, and every other form of abuse known to man. She was not in good shape when I found her. The group of rogues had attacked us and her scent led me straight to her. She was terrified of me. She thought I was going to treat her as she had been treated by those rogues. Not only did they abuse her, but they used her special gifts from the Moon Goddess. My mate is one of the rarest forms of wolf. She is a red wolf. She has the ability of extra speed, she is an empath, heals, and reads the minds of others. They used to exploit her gifts for their own good. It took me two months to convince her that I could be trusted. While my pack has not abused her, some of the members have not welcomed their Luna. Due to her past, some view her as weak and think that I should take a chosen mate, which I have refused. I have waited all my life for my fated mate and I refused to give her up because she does not meet their standards of what their Luna should be like. With that being said, Katherine was terrified of going outside of our suite. She is very timid and docile. Due to the events of her past, she hates large crowds and, honestly, dealing with people in general. She deals with my mother, my Beta's mate, and myself. Those are the only people that she is comfortable being alone with. I am hoping that with you here, you can help her with that and help her realize her potential and her destiny. I hope you don’t mind them telling me this, but Carlos shared a little bit of your backstory with me...and I know what happened before you found your fated mate...I think that it might be good for Katherine to see that you have bounced back from your trauma and pain...” he finished quietly.
Goddess, why did Carlos have to tell them about me being sexually assaulted?
“While I am not too happy that he told you that much about my past, I can understand why you might have been excited to have me enter your pack lands. I will help her to the best of my ability. Now, don't get me wrong, I will try my hardest with her, but remember that I am not a therapist and in order for her to get the real help that she needs, it might be beneficial if she were to see a real therapist for her problems...now, Carlos told me that your mate had some people that were after her. What can you tell me about that?”
"Well, that is the thing. We don't know much about them. There were a few of the rogue pack that were holding her captive that escaped and we think they are involved. They have been repeatedly sending her threats or leaving her messages about the “promise” of what they are willing to do for her when they get her back. It breaks my heart to see how she cowers in fear at just the mention of them. I think those threats are part of the reason that she has refused to leave this room and interact with pack members. She is dead set that one of my pack members is helping the rogues because they don't like her. I have tried to assure her that will never happen, my pack is not stupid enough to go against their Alpha like that, but she does not believe me. She refused to train as well. I have tried to tell her that if she trained and learned to defend herself then no one could harm her again, but she is scared of fighting. It is like where her fight or flight instinct is, she only registers the flight instinct. Like the fighting instinct doesn't exist for her.”
He is not about to like what I am going to tell him; I can feel it. He has absolute faith in his pack, but I know from experience that just because you have faith in your pack, does not mean that you do not have at least one traitor in your pack. Someone can still betray your trust.
“I would never rule out that they have inside help from your pack. I know from experience that no matter how much faith you have in the members of your pack, there is always one person that is willing to break that trust and betray you if the price is right. A few years ago, I had two pack members that betrayed my trust. One was a jealous ex-girlfriend and the other was a pack elder because he wanted revenge for something that happened when my father was Alpha that he did not understand. As for training, she may just feel overwhelmed being in big groups, as you have told me. I will try and get her to do some one-on-one training with me and see how well that goes. While I am in your pack, I will continue getting her train with me, but the moment that I leave the pack, you will have to have someone that will take over for me. While I am hoping that by that point, she is confident and ready to train with your entire pack, that may be reaching too far, so I will take what I can get. If she is willing to train with at least someone on the side, then we can work with that.”
He nodded his head, “I hope that we can get her to at least start talking to other pack members,” he whispered.
“I hope so too. I assure you; I will do my best, though. I give you my word. I will try to help your mate the best way that I can. Is there anything else that you think I should know?”
He shakes his head no before responding, “I don't think there is anything else that will benefit you knowing about my pack or my mate. I just want to say thank you for coming out here and trying to help me get my pack where it needs to be.”
“No promises, but I will do my best.”
“Katherine!” Ezekiel sang out to his mate.
I heard the small click of the door opening before I saw her figure walking towards us.
“Hi, Luna. If it is alright with you, I am going to help you train a few days a week, so that you can learn to hopefully better protect yourself. I know that you are weary of being in the pack and that some of Alpha Ezekiel's pack members have been less than welcoming to you, but I promise that at this time, I will not subject you to dealing with them.”
She nodded her head with tears in her eyes.
“I promise you training will be fun and eventually you will be such a pro that you will be able to kick your mate's ass too.”
Ezekiel glared at me for telling her that, but Luna Katherine had the biggest smile on her face. “Loosen up, Alpha. At least I made your mate smile. Now, if you excuse me, can someone show me to my room? I am tired and training comes early. I am assuming your warriors train at 4 am?”
“No, actually, my pack starts their training at 5am, so you can have a little extra sleep if you like. As for room arrangements, I have had a few of my men prepare one of the high-ranking official houses for you for your stay.”
I shook my head no. “Definitely not. It is not necessary to give me a house reserved for your high- ranking guests. I can definitely just take a room in the pack house and it allows me to be closer, just in case I am needed.”
Ezekiel agreed to me staying at the pack house. He asked an Omega to quickly prepare one of the rooms for me and then once it was finished, he showed me where the room was.
I quickly prepared for bed and opened up my suitcase, pulling out one of Justin's old t-shirts and slipping it on. I breathed in the orange blossom and sandalwood scent floating from this shirt and breathed in deeply. This should help me sleep just nicely.
With final thoughts about my mate and wondering what was going to be my fate tomorrow, I quickly fell asleep, my soft sores ringing through the room.