Wild and Free

(Mason’s POV)

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Greyson spat, looking at the small town below us.

“Nope.”

“It’s tiny, not to mention it’s in the middle of freaking no where,” He complained, stating the obvious.

Riley came up on my other side, “Yeah I hate to break it to you Mason but he’s right. Why this place?”

“Well probably because it’s tiny and in the middle of nowhere,” I replied, glaring at Greyson. “I don’t really know. All my father said was that it’s the perfect spot. One of our allies isn’t too far and the land is right on the river. The town would be where we get supplies and maybe even go to school if we wanted.”

Riley put his hands on his hips and looked out from the cliff where we stood, “Alpha is always right. I guess I can see it more now.”

“Tell your father that he should pick a spot with more girls in it next time,” whined Greyson, earning himself a whack on the back of the head by Riley.

“Shut the hell up, don’t talk about the Alpha like that,” he spat, “Or the future one either,” he whispered, a poor attempt at trying not to let me hear.

“Heard that.”

“Sorry.”

“Whatever,” I sighed, jumping off the rock onto the ground, away from the cliff. “My father and the rest of the pack is going to explore the woods and look for our ally and see if this is the right place to settle. He said that we could go and scope out the town for and leeches or anything that says we shouldn’t stay here.”

“I could name a few things,” Greyson muttered, getting another slap to the head.

Riley was definitely the smarter of the pair. He respected the Alpha as he should, whereas Greyson was a little preoccupied with finding his mate at the moment.

“Look on the brightside, if you want to find her so fast, it’s a small town, it shouldn’t take that long,” Riley told him.

“You idiots shouldn’t be so focused on finding your mates, you should be focusing on finding a home and not getting attacked,” I spat, forcing the walk into town in silence.

Our pack’s old territory got taken over by one of our rivals, the Shaw pack. Sneaky assholes chose to ambush us when we were at our weakest. A deadly sickness swept over the pack, rendering us weak and defenseless. Without a Luna’s power, there was nothing we could do to stop it. Some who caught it were able to recover. Others weren’t as lucky. The Royal pack wasn’t even considered a pack anymore because we lacked any power or intimidation that we once had.

And of course, survival of the fittest, one of our enemies got word of it and took their moment. They raided our pack house, ran everyone out of our territory. Anyone who was still sick was left to die. They gave everyone from the Royal pack the choice to join them and stay, or they’d be exiled. We lost a lot of members but were determined to get back to the top where we were. It would just take time.

My father, Pearce Royal, was our Alpha. He decided to move our territory here because he said one of our smaller, but powerful, allies have land not far and were willing to join our packs together.

“Are you thinking about going to the school?” Riley asked, jogging up to my side and breaking the thick, tense silence.

I shrugged, “Not sure yet.”

“I think it’d be nice to have a diploma in case for some reason we can’t find a place to settle,” he went on.

“You mean you’d rather just pretend to be human?” Greyson asked in a disgusted voice. “Dude, you do realize that would mean, never shifting, no pack, and you’d have to get a job or something to pay for your living,” he counted out on his fingers.

“Okay, now that I’m thinking about it, being human probably sucks,” Riley admitted. “But going to school outside of the pack house sounds good to me. I don’t know about you guys but sitting in the same room as you idiots for years is getting old.”

“Don’t worry about it, my father will work something out,” I dismissed, probably trying to assure myself more than him.

It’d been almost a month of us without a proper place to live and, though we’d never admit it to anyone, my father and I were getting nervous that we never would. But he was hopeful about this place, so I had to be too.

We emerged from the woods, on the edge of the town after about thirty minutes of walking.

WHITE CHAPEL

The sign read, just before you began to see the buildings. It seemed to have everything but just on a smaller scale. Compared to other places we’d been, it was under average but upclose, it was a fairly large sized town.

“Can we rest for a little? Maybe get something to eat?” Greyson asked, “Not shifting for this long is making me more tired than usual.”

I was about to snap at him when Riley spoke first, “Yeah I agree. None of us have gotten much sleep in the past few days. I hate this feeling of being weak but he’s got a point, we should rest and get some of our energy back before we go on.”

I growled but sighed and nodded, “Fine but only for a little while. We should make sure we meet with everyone before it gets too late.”

“Oh thank god,” Greyson said quickly, relieved.

“It looks like there’s a restaurant over there,” Riley pointed to a little retro diner at the end of the long street with a classic neon sign that read Mel’s. It looked very cliche but we headed towards it anyway.

We got within about a block of the diner when I caught a whiff of something, stopping me in my tracks.

Riley ran into my back and Greyson into his, neither of them having expected such an abrupt halt.

“Dude what’s up-”

“Do you smell that?” I interrupted Greyson.

The two of them looked at each other and then around, smelling the air around us.

Riley shook his head, “No, what is it?”

“I do smell something,” Greyson said and I looked to him, “I smell something delicious coming from that diner now can we get moving?”

I scowled at him and stayed where I was.

“Is it a leech? Or maybe another werewolf from a different pack?” Riley suggested.

I shook my head and scanned the area.

There were lots of people out and about, the weather being nice and warm. Some sat at outside tables at a cafe across the street, some roamed in and out of shops and some just chatted away with each other on the sidewalk. But nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Just simple small town people doing simple small town things.

“Are you sure you smelled something?”

“I swear I did…” I sniffed again but the sound was gone, or at least too faint for me to get anything from it. “Let’s just keep going.”

As we continued on, the scent returned, on and off but still there. I refrained from telling the guys though because I didn’t want them to think anything was really wrong. If it was a leech or another wolf then having those two panic might set them off.

But something wasn’t right, I could feel it, I could smell it and-

My thoughts were interrupted when I opened the glass door to the diner and bumped right into someone.

It was a girl, that was a good amount shorter than me, who had been talking to someone behind the counter and not paying attention. God humans were annoying.

“Um, wow this is great,” she said to herself, not looking up. She went to step back but there was something caught on my arm. A necklace. I tried pulling away to put some space between me and the strange girl.

“No stop! You’ll break it!” she protested, focusing on untangling the necklace. It was a strange charm, one that was a small crescent moon shape but it was backwards and had these little black stones in it.

She finally got it off and stepped back, probably feeling as uncomfortable with the nearness as I was. That was when I got an actual look at her. She had long dark brown hair and nice, light fair skin. But the most shocking thing were her eyes. They were the most brilliant sapphire blue color. It was a little startling because werewolves, or in my pack at least, had only eyes of various brown and hazel colors. So seeing someone with eyes a color other than those was… different.

The strange thing was that, though I was sure we’d never met, something about her was extremely familiar. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking,” she apologized.

I looked at her for a second before the scent was back. It wasn’t a bad scent, actually it was extremely good, but I couldn’t tell what the hell it was. I guess I was looking at her for longer than I thought because she looked a little offended that I didn’t say anything in response to her apology.

The girl looked back at one of the waitresses behind the counter, probably the one she was talking to before, “Okay then,” she muttered, going to leave.

“Do I know you from somewhere?” I asked, studying her once more.

Something passed in the girl’s eyes, something that one might have thought was flatary but I saw as fear. However it was quickly wiped away and replaced with a calm, blank expression.

“I don’t think so. Sorry again,” was all she said.

I looked back at Riley and Greyson who just looked confused and dumbfounded.

The girl took that as her cue to leave, not sparing the three of us another look and disappearing around the corner of the building.

“Well that was weird,” Grayson said as we made our way to a table.

Riley went off to the men’s room while Greyson sat down in a booth and picked up a menu. A moment later the same waitress that the blue eyed girl was talking to came over with a notepad.

“I’ll be back in just a second to grab your order,” she said in a flat tone, somewhat glaring at me before she left. She and the other girl must’ve been friends.

“So who’s the ally that your father has? The one that we’re joining with,” Greyson asked, reading the food choices.

I shrugged, “They were called the Vega pack a long time ago-”

“Vega?” Greyson interrupted, his eyes growing wide. “Aren’t they like really powerful?”

I nodded, “Yeah but they’re not the Vega pack any more. I think now they’re the Donnelly Pack. They were amazing fighters, if we weren’t allies they would’ve kicked our asses.”

“What happened?”

“Their Alphas were killed in a fire at their old pack house. Both of the parents died, along with their heir and their Betas took over because the other child in their family was too young and refuses to take the position even when he comes of age,” I explained. “They’re still powerful but after the Alpha was gone they lost a lot of allies so they’re less now.”

He shook his head, “That’s awful. And they’re just willing to let us take over their pack?”

“Well like I said it was the Betas that took control and they don’t have any experience so they are offering me and my father the Alpha position and will co rule along our Betas,”

He leaned back and blew out a breath, “Wow. Sounds… complicated.”

Riley slid into the seat next to Greyson, “How far is their land?”

“Dude, were you listening from the bathroom?” Greyson asked, disgusted.

“Shut the hell up. Tell me your senses aren’t all screwed up too. Not shifting sucks and Ace is going crazy,” Riley spat.

Ace was Riley’s wolf. Every werewolf had one, they’re sort of like a conscious, guiding you through situations and keeping control in wolf form. Greyson’s wolf was named Lex and mine was Bentley. They all got a bit temperamental if you didn’t shift for a while and with my father’s rule against it until further notice, the three wolves were dying to stretch their legs.

“Anyway, their pack house is a couple miles from here and my father says that its huge. Plus, they only just moved their territory here so everything is new,” I went on. “I’ve heard that none of them go to the schools here in town but I’m guessing that our parents are going to force us to go. You know, set an example for the rest of the pack.”

“Great, now I have to put in effort at something other than training. And human school? Of all things,” Greyson huffed.

Riley and I rolled our eyes.

“Maybe you’ll find your mate at human school,” Riley teased, nudging his shoulder.

Greyson visibly perked up and failed to hide it, causing us to burst out laughing at him.

“But seriously the Alpha really thinks this is the place for us?” Riley asked me after we’d laughed so much our sides hurt.

I nodded, “Yep, he thinks it’s the perfect spot.”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Greyson said. “Now where’s that pretty blonde girl? I’m starving.”

Riley spaced out for a second.

“Well save it because Kenzie just mindlinked me,” said Riley, “Alpha says that they found the Donnelly pack and want us, mainly you,” he said to me, “to come and meet them.”

“Oh come on! We just got here!” Greyson whined in protest while RIley and I stood up from the table.

“Come on,”

“I swear they better have food at this place,” he grumbled as we all made our way out the door, leaving the little bell chiming behind us.

~~AUTHOR’S NOTE~~

Comment, don’t hate, and read on!

~your Cheshire Cat loving friend