Just a Wolf

Corinne

This has been the strangest few days of my very strange life. Every morning I have awakened in the packhouse and stared around myself, completely befuddled, unable to figure out where on earth I am for a solid half minute. This is the fourth time that I have been baffled by the shapes of doors and windows, rather than trees or caves, when my eyes open.

Four nights inside, in a comfortable bed, access to a bathroom, nothing hurting, plenty of food, warm, safe, dry.

How bizarre.

I expect that this will be my third day working in the kitchen. After the first day that I spent together with Amelia, basically waiting and watching while she worked, I asked her if there was any way that I could be given some task to perform. When I convinced her that I was completely sincere, that I really want to be contributing to the pack, at least to earn the food I am eating, she took me to the kitchen.

I spent a lot of time in the kitchen as a child, scrubbing dishes late into the night, sleeping on a cot next to the pantry, sneaking bits of food that hadn’t been eaten, being abused and reviled but usually ignored. I was the lowest of the low, an omega, an orphan, no good for anything but work.

I expected the same sort of treatment here, and was perfectly willing to endure it, but I was wrong. Even in the kitchen, I experience an absolutely astonishing level of friendliness. Everyone I have met at the packhouse has been kind, and usually funny, and the people in the kitchen joke and chat as they work. I’m not really good at anything, I never learned how to actually cook, but I am perfectly able to scrub dishes, or chop vegetables, or stir spoons in pots. I can follow whatever directions are given to me, as long as the task is simple, and there are plenty of simple tasks to perform.

This upcoming event is a huge deal, it seems, so not only is the kitchen busy with more than the usual workload, since the Dark Woods pack still has about twenty-five people visiting, but they are also starting to prepare things for the party. So the cook and other workers have seemed not just to accept me, but to be grateful for my help.

My friends in the rogue gang, the ladies who I have come to view as my sisters, were not even this easy to be around. Of course, with the rogues we were constantly experiencing fear or pain, or at the very least discomfort, so that shadowed everything we ever did. Our friendships were based on mutual suffering.

Here, everyone is happy, and healthy, and cheerful, and it is like being caught up in the strangest dream. It’s like heaven.

And I am starting to feel guilty about it.

My sister rogues are still trapped, mistreated, afraid, unsafe. How can I just abandon them there? How can I leave them under Xavier’s rule? And how can I stay silent when I know that River Moon and Dark Woods are in the middle of making plans to attack them?

More and more, I realize that I can’t just settle in to this life. I can’t work happily in the kitchen with these friendly people, eat everything I want, sleep in a soft bed, watch movies and eat popcorn with friends in the evenings. Not while my sisters are still suffering.

I’m starting to feel like I have to go back. I have to find a way to help my sisters, at least warn them, try to find a way to get them away from Xavier before the packs launch the attack they are planning.

I know that tomorrow the leaders who have been exploring the caves will return, on the day of the big mating ceremony. By then, they will have explored every cave that I know about, except the one near Arcata. I believe the plan is to drive the rogues to that one cave, and that is where the attack will happen.

It won’t be for a couple of days at least, and in that time I have to figure out a way to get away from here. I’m locked up at night, and watched every day, and it might be the most pleasant prison I’ve ever heard of, but I still am not free.

I have to start watching for my opportunity to go.

“You should stay,” my inner wolf argues, as she has ever since I started thinking along these lines. The whole reason she won’t shift is to keep the baby safe, but even more she wants to keep me safe. And what I am thinking of doing is definitely not safe.

I sigh. “I can’t leave them,” I think to her, lying on my back on the bed in my room, listening to the rain pounding on my narrow window, fully dressed and waiting for Amelia to come and unlock the door and take me to breakfast. “You know that. I have to try to save my sisters.”

She doesn’t say anything else. We’ve gone over this a thousand times. I can feel her sulking at the back of my mind, even as I am walking up the stairs with Amelia to go to the cafeteria.

I have to find a way.

Amelia

Last day. Last night. Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, and Dom will be back.

I told myself at the beginning of these four days that I’d get through it somehow, without actually believing it.

But, I have, and it has been easier than I could have imagined. After that first day, when I was so miserable and lonely, I found a way to comfort myself after I had finally gone to bed. Imagining that he was with me, and was touching me, somehow brought us closer together. As I came, gasping, that night, I felt something new flare to life within me, and realized that our mate bond was stronger than ever. I wasn’t just imagining that he was with me, it felt like he really was. Not physically, but in a more important way, like our souls were touching.

We’re soulmates, right? I think that isn’t just a phrase. I think it is literally true. Ever since that night, I have continued to feel him, just at the edge of my mind, not any specific thoughts, but just the sense of him. I’ve experimented with it a little bit. I find that if I try to quiet my mind a little, stop letting a million thoughts swirl around, and just open myself up to the feeling of Dom, I can sense him even more strongly. It’s like how it feels when he wraps his arms around me, only without the actual arms part.

It is so comforting.

Last night, something happened that proved to me beyond doubt that he is really with me. I was asleep, late at night, and suddenly I was having the sexiest dream, of him, of his hands all over me, of his mouth on me, kissing, and biting, of his skin rubbing against me, and I was about to come. I woke up to find that my fingers were actually rubbing against myself just as I had been dreaming he was doing, and my hips were grinding against the bed, and I felt myself coming before I was even really awake. And the sense of him was overpoweringly strong. He was with me. I wonder if he was dreaming too, and we shared the dream.

I don’t understand how it is happening, but I know that the mate bond is almost complete. Tomorrow, after the Alpha and Luna’s mating ceremony, we will finalize it. I am completely ready, for it all. For sex, for true marking, for being linked together forever. The bond is already so strong, I can hardly believe that it will get even stronger. But I look forward to it.

After breakfast, Corinne joins the other kitchen workers. The cook has been updating the Lunas about her progress, and assures them that she is doing very well, is a hard worker, seems to be adapting to the work environment, and is willing to perform any task set to her as long as it is fairly simple. She doesn’t seem to have the type of experience needed for anything complicated, but the kitchen is full of straightforward chores, and as far as I can tell Corinne is happy there. She hasn’t really gotten more talkative over the last few days, but I suppose that is just her personality.

I meet Darlene in the conference room, which we have established as a sort of war room, full of all of our plans and papers and stacks of supplies. We are finished with the planning for the mating ceremony, and have moved on to actually completing the preparations. Today the deliveries will begin. We expect a steady flow of vans and trucks to pull up the front drive, bearing the floral arrangements, fancy decorated cakes, the cuts of meat specified by the cook, and the specially designed souvenir crystal snowglobes, handcrafted with the date and Kanen and Janine’s names etched along the sides. Every member of both packs has assigned tasks for the day, many of which will involve setting things up on the lawn despite how wet it is out there.

The past two days have been nothing but pounding rain, and I am hoping that the weather will settle down a bit before the ceremony which is scheduled for sundown tomorrow. It won’t actually matter, since sturdy tents and canopies are being set up on the lawn, and the event will take place underneath a central pavilion. Even if we are still having torrential rains and the wind is blowing the water sideways into the area, I’m sure that Kanen and Janine will be perfectly happy with the ceremony. We’re all wolves, after all. We aren’t afraid of the elements. And I suppose a mating ceremony in the middle of a gale will be something to talk about for years to come.

I bring a big cup of herbal tea in for Darlene, holding it in one hand while I have my hot chocolate in the other. I have been craving hot chocolate ever since Dom left, because it reminds me of his scent. She accepts her warm mug with a smile. “Last day,” she says. “Just one more day of working together on this event.”

I nod, and say quietly, “And just one more day before our mates return.” I have grown remarkably comfortable talking to her about this, as she is still the only person who knows my secret.

She whoofs out a bit of air. “I know. I can hardly wait to see that big beast of mine.” She sort of hums out a sigh, of longing, of happiness, of love. “He told me that they’re still planning to do the last two caves today. They’ve had to put chains on their tires, and they’re getting by all right even though they’ve been in snow since yesterday. I’m afraid they passed a cold night, they couldn’t go back into town to find a motel, it just would have taken too long to try to drive in the snow, and it would have made today’s trip longer getting back up into the backcountry. So they stayed in tents, in their wolf forms to stay warm.”

I wonder how that worked with the dream I had. Was he in his wolf form while we were dreaming? While he was…. Hm.

Then she looks sideways at me as she takes a sip of tea. “How are you doing? You look happy this morning.”

I tell her seriously, “The bond is stronger than ever. I dreamed of him again last night. It felt so real. I actually.…” Then I blush and look down. I might be comfortable talking to Darlene, but not about the nitty gritty details.

I’ve said enough though. I’m sure she knows exactly what I mean, for she gets a delighted smile on her face. “Your dreams have gotten that real? Like, physically tangible?”

I look down, give an embarrassed sort of giggle, and nod.

When I look up she is smiling, but her eyes are serious. “Amelia, it is remarkable how far you have gotten along in the bonding process, without even actually finalizing it. Tangible dreams are something that normally only full mates can achieve.”

“Pfsh,” I can’t stop myself from saying, “it was tangible all right!” Then I laugh, hardly able to believe that I admitted that.

She only smiles. “You are ready, Amelia. You are so ready. I look forward to being able to acknowledge your mating to everyone after tomorrow night.”

Me too. I take a sip of the chocolate, inhaling the scent so much like my mate’s. Me too.