Just a Wolf

Dominic

I’ve snagged our table at the back, but haven’t gotten any food yet. I’ll wait for Amelia. I watch the door eagerly, waiting for her, but first I see Luna Darlene come in. And behind her is Corinne.

Huh.

Darlene’s eyes scan the room, and when she sees me, she begins walking over. Oh! Was she actually looking for me?

“Hello, Dominic,” she says when they get to my table, and I lurch to my feet. I can’t very well be sitting down while being spoken to by my Luna.

She smiles, and says, “Oh, don’t bother, sit back down.” She turns to Corinne, and gestures at a chair, then takes a seat herself.

I look back and forth between them. Luna looks perfectly calm, and Corinne even seems okay. I know Amelia was worried about her, but she appears to have gotten through the questioning all right.

“Amelia should be in shortly,” Darlene says, when I don’t say anything. I suppose I should stop being so tongue-tied whenever I’m around a leader. If Amelia is my mate, and she is a leader’s assistant, this sort of thing is probably going to happen all the time. I have to try to get used to it. Besides, I’ve spent a couple of days now hanging around my Alpha and Beta, driving and exploring caves and such, and that’s turned out okay.

Darlene turns to Corinne. “You should go ahead and get some dinner,” she tells the girl, who is staring around at the big cafeteria area, the tables starting to fill up with pack members eating and talking and laughing.

Then Luna looks at me and says, “Why don’t you show her the ropes, Dominic. I’ll stay here and hold the table for you.”

Oh, okay. Corinne and I get up and head over to where the plates and trays are stacked, while my Luna sits calmly at the table holding our spot, like she is just any other person.

My life has gotten so weird.

The buffet is huge and appetizing like always. River Moon’s kitchen staff is really great at what they do, and I’m starting to get to know them. When Corinne and I start going down the line to fill our plates with food, I see them watching her, obviously wondering who this is. I suppose there’s been a lot of gossip. I wonder if there’s going to be any sort of announcement about what’s going on.

I start filling up a plate, heaping it with enough for both me and Amelia, so she can share with me as soon as she arrives.

Corinne timidly puts a couple of small items on her plate, and I wonder if she’s just not very hungry. Or, more likely she’s just super shy and worries about seeming greedy. “Um, here, Corinne, you should try this,” I say, pointing out some of the ribs that they have stacked on a tray. “They’re really good.” She takes a little, and I encourage her to have a few more things. Eventually she has what looks like an actual meal on her plate, not just a snack.

We go back over to the table, where Darlene is waiting, and I know she’s been watching us. She gives me a smile and a nod, I think to acknowledge that I encouraged Corinne to actually, you know, eat.

Right after we sit down, Amelia arrives. She gives me a big, beautiful smile, and heads over to our table. Evan follows along with her. Theo is with them, but he heads off to go talk to some other people who are sitting at a different table, a couple of the surfers from Christmas Eve.

Darlene stands up, so that there is room for both Amelia and Evan at the table, which has four chairs. Amelia smiles at her as she sits down next to me. She doesn’t touch me, of course, not with the Luna and everyone watching, but just being this close to her I get a little thrill, an almost physical sensation of nearness. Later, Dom, later, I think to myself.

“Did everything get sorted out?” Darlene asks, standing casually next to Amelia’s chair.

Amelia nods, then looks at Corinne. “The leaders are planning to go out to investigate the caves you showed them on the map,” she tells her. “They were thinking of taking you with them.”

Corinne’s eyes get big, and she looks alarmed, and says with a voice barely louder than a whisper, “But, Xavier would know I had been with them, if he tracked my scent together with theirs.” She wrings her hands together. “He’d find me.”

Amelia nods. “I know. That’s what I told them. So you’re going to just stay here in the packhouse. There’s a basement room that you can stay in.”

Corinne looks down at her fingers twisting in her lap. “You mean a cell?”

“No, just a bedroom. It’ll be just like mine, I have a room in the basement too.” She hesitates a moment. “I have to be honest with you, though, the door will be locked while you’re in there, they want to make sure that you are, um, secured.” Amelia looks worried to be telling her this, but I know that my mate would never lie to Corinne. She tries to assure her. “You won’t have to stay there all the time, though, Alpha said that as long as someone from the pack is with you, you can move around inside the packhouse. Like right now.”

Corinne whispers, “Thank you.”

Luna Darlene says, “Well, enjoy your dinner,” smiles around at all of us, and heads out. Corinne looks after her, with a perplexed expression.

Amelia tells her, “There’s a separate dining room for the leaders to eat in,” and Corinne nods.

Evan hasn’t sat down yet, and he says, “I’m gonna go get dinner, I’ll be right back.” He looks at Amelia, “Coming?”

“No,” she says, “I think Dom has enough to share.”

I smile and hand her a fork, and she starts helping herself to some of the mashed potatoes on our plate. She looks at Corinne, “Go ahead, eat,” she says. “I don’t think you ever even got any lunch.”

Corinne nods, and starts nibbling on her food, but soon enough seems to have lost her shyness and is digging in. Evan comes back in a minute and sits down. I guess the little private corner that I have shared with Amelia is now a group table. It’s all right, though, I know she’s happy to have Corinne here, and I know we’ll be alone later.

“So Corinne,” Amelia says, “what did you talk about with the leaders?”

“They wanted me to mark up a big map to show all the caves,” she says. “It was a little confusing, but they had a lot of pictures and they helped me figure it all out. I think they can find everything all right when they go look for the caves.”

“Oh, right,” Evan says, who has been staring at Corinne. He looks over at me. “Dom, you’re going too. Nolan wanted me to tell you to pack up and be ready to go tomorrow by 8. We’ll be back by New Year’s Eve.”

I’m going? Tomorrow? And I’ll be gone for days? Away from Amelia? I stop chewing, the food suddenly forgotten in my mouth, and stare over at her. She meets my gaze, and her beautiful blue eyes are sad, but she nods at me. “Just for a few days,” she says.

Amelia

Poor Dom. He looks even more stricken than I feel about the idea of being separated for the next few days. It’ll be four days apart, four nights apart, and I have gotten so used to him being in my room with me that I don’t know how I will be able to endure his absence. How will I get through the nights without his warm body on the little bed with me? Without his arms wrapped around me? Without his lips, his scent, his fingers working their magic on me?

On the other hand, I have to be practical. For one thing, we’ve figured out that our not-marks keep us from being in pain while we aren’t together. We’ll just have to do it again tonight, a lot, to make sure they last for four days.

For another thing, our mate bond has increased enough that I think we’ll still feel connected, even while he’s gone. We won’t be able to mind-link since we won’t have completed the mating process, but our emotions have started to be increasingly tied together. We’ll get through it. It won’t be comfortable, but we’ll survive.

And really, it’s going to help us achieve the goal of waiting until after Alpha Kanen and Luna Janine’s mating ceremony before making our own mating public. I had really started to doubt our ability to get through the next few days, and I didn’t want to get this far and then fail, and end up disrupting the leaders’ ceremony. This will ensure that we can succeed.

But, this means that I don’t have those extra days to get ready. We’ve been getting a little bit closer every night, learning a little more about each other’s bodies, making a little more progress towards mating. If he’s gone until that night, I won’t know as much about him, I won’t understand as much as I would have wanted before we actually have sex and mark each other. I don’t want to face that night as ignorant as I am now, and I’ve started thinking about what I can do tonight to progress a little faster than we would have otherwise. I’m trying to make some new plans.

I have to find a way to make do with the situation as it is now. I don’t want to be separated from my mate, but it isn’t my decision. The leaders have given their orders, and we have to comply. We’re just wolves, we'll do what we’re told.