Natalia’s P. O. V
I was at a loss for what to do.
For the next few days, Timothy was a stoic mess, shuffling around the house with a pungent air of discontent.
Hailey had refused to return since that day and had practically taken up permanent residence in her Killdrain dorm room. Save for when she’d come to my neighbourhood to be picked up for her date with her crush, she’d stayed as far away from my place as possible.
As the days began to grow into a week, my worry for Hailey grew. While she seemed fine, every time I visited her, I could feel her grow harder and harder, like she was donning more and more armour around herself at every reminder of him.
And he wasn’t faring any better.
Since most of the high level matters were left up to the two of us, I found myself having daily meetings with him to discuss our course of action, though Kaesha teleported over whenever she was free for them and Hailey occasionally joined in over the phone. Every time we met, he seemed to get more and more gloomy, the dark cloud hanging over him growing more melancholic and thunderous each day. Some days, he barely spoke, and others, it was all he could do to keep from snapping at everyone.
A week after their fallout, I called a meeting for the creation of our pack.
For this, I’d been forced to iterate that Hailey’s physical presence was required. So, by three pm on the dot, she shuffled in with all the enthusiasm of someone who wanted to be on the other side of the world.
“Thanks for making it.” I said as she took her seat.
She smiled at Kaesha and I in greeting, ignoring Timothy altogether, “So we’re finally doing this, huh?”
“I know right.” Kaesha exhaled, reclining back in her spot on the couch, “It’s been what? Almost a year?”
“Yes, it’s been nearly a year, and we’re finally commencing phase two.”
Hailey gave a little cheer, while Kaesha and Timothy offered proud smiles.
“So, are you finally gonna tell us what the name of our pack is gonna be? Or will you keep drawing out the suspense?”
The pack name was something I hadn’t thought too much about. It had popped up in my mind, but I’d been too occupied to think of a fitting name. When Timothy had asked me one day, I’d jokingly told him that it was a surprise, so he seemed to be convinced that I had some heavily meaningful name in mind for our pack ready and I just wanted to keep them in the dark till our registration date.
“So,” Hailey piped up after I didn’t respond, “how exactly do we register our pack?”
“Well, according to the WolfNet, we need at least one Alpha or Beta born wolf, the signatures of at least ten wolves willing to join our pack, and proof of ownership of wooded land, or land close to the woods. Of those, the only thing we don’t have is the list of signatures.”
During our travels to find allies, many Werewolves from the packs we visited had expressed their interest in joining us outright. While I was glad they saw the value in joining us, very few of our allies were in position where they could afford to lose and more members.
So we needed new members entirely.
“We already have five people, but since Kaesha’s a witch and not a werewolf, I’m not sure if adding her will count, cause it read exactly ‘ten Werewolves’ on the site. We’ll need to find at least six Werewolves to join us, just in case.”
“Okay…” Kaesha said evenly, “But where are we gonna find a bunch of Lone Wolves? I’m assuming we can’t take members from the packs we’ve been to since they’re already so small.”
Timothy moved his hands, which had been folded in front of him since Hailey walked in, “I might be able to help with that.”
With our gazes on him, he continued, “Lone Wolves still need to gather sometimes, so there are a few sanctuaries they meet up in. They’re kinda like packs, but we could come and go as we pleased. Some Lone Wolves end up staying longer, I guess cause they miss the community being in a pack offered them or some shit like that. Representatives from packs visit them sometimes for recruitment, but they don’t usually get anywhere. They’re Lone Wolves for a reason.”
“Why didn’t you stay there?” Kaesha raised a brow, her tone playful, “Did they get to know you too much and kick you out?”
He rolled his eyes, “Places like that are the first place you look when you’re searching for a Lone Wolf on the run. I can almost guarantee that part of the reason I’m not in a shallow grave yet is cause I tried my best to avoid places like that.”
He wasn’t wrong. Sanctuaries like that sounded like the kind of place a naïve wolf on the run would think of as the perfect place to seek refuge. And that’s what made them unsuspecting traps.
“Where’s the nearest one?”
He shrugged, “I don’t know for sure. Like I said, I did my damndest to avoid those places. But I do remember the general location one of them should be in. A lot of my former pack mates went there, but…” He trailed off, his mind and gaze wandering before snapping back, “I was better off by myself.”
Kaesha and I shared a look, while Hailey just gave him a blank, almost bored once over, her hand on her cheek in her hand, before returning her attention to me, “So how are we doing this?”
“Looks like we’ll have to go to the one Timothy knows.”
He bristled at my statement, his expression turning hard, “No. We’re not involving them in this shit.”
I raised a brow, crossing my arms, “Fine. We’ll try not to involve them. But we might have to if we don’t find enough suitable Werewolves willing to join our pack.”
“I don’t want them anywhere near this shit. They’re off the Lightwood’s radar and I wanna keep it that way.”
I could see Kaesha’s growing discomfort and Hailey’s pointed indifference to him, but focused my attention on him and his abrasive protests to my idea, “I’m not trying to drag anyone into anything they’re not willing to be a part of. But if we don’t have the numbers, we might need to ask your old pack mates if they’re interested.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“I’ll save you the trouble- they’re not.”
Before I could respond, Kaesha spoke up, “Will you both calm down? With the way people are fall over themselves for Ava, we probably won’t need to meet your pack mates anyway, Timmy. And Ava, you know how he is, he’s probably burned all his bridges with them by now anyway. So both of you, relax, it’s not that deep.”
A stretch of silence passed, both of us watching each other while Kaesha and Hailey looked on. Eventually, he exhaled and took his seat but his sour look lingered on me.
“Now, here’s the plan.” I continued, “We visit these sanctuaries and get the numbers we need. I’m thinking of us getting fifteen to twenty starting members in total, but we could settle for the ten that we need if that starts looking unrealistic to accomplish before June ninth. Once we have the numbers, we’ll finally be able to make our application.”
“Why June ninth? That’s just a few weeks away, will we be able to make it in time?” Hailey asked.
“We have to get the approval by then cause that date’s important to me. It’s the day I escaped from that hellscape of a pack and I want to mark that day by having a pack to call my own.”
Excitement and concern built on her face, “I had no idea the date was that close, you never mentioned it. If you want, we could celebrate the day, do something to mark it, or just spend the day cursing the Lightwoods for all the abuse and harm they’ve done.”
“Well, there won’t be anything to celebrate if we don’t have the numbers needed to establish our pack,” I looked pointedly at him, to which he scowled in response, “which is why we need to go to the sanctuary Timothy knows.”
“Fine, but you’ll have to talk to literally every other Werewolf other than my old pack mates.”
“Fine, but you’ll have to put on your best salesman act to get others to join instead.”
He huffed, but his body told of his relief at the thought of his former pack mates no longer being an option. I didn’t care how grumpy he wanted to pretend he was, as long as we got the members we needed.
The trip to the sanctuary was anything but straightforward. As Timothy had pointed out, he didn’t know the exact location of the sanctuary, so he set off on a three day long search while Kaesha, Hailey and I settled into the Air BnB I rented for us in Texas.
Kaesha had offered to go with him so she could teleport him back to the house we were staying in to spend the nights and take him back to his last location in the morning for him to continue his search. In response, he’d scoffed, proclaiming that she’d only slow him down, then stalked off to prepare, all while muttering under his breath about how she shouldn’t be wasting her magic on something as unnecessary as him back and forth.
So for three days, he was gone. And being who he was, his absence came with a near radio silence, apparently not feeling the need to tell us he was still alive till he found the sanctuary.
For the time being, Hailey was notably cheerful, her earlier attitude dissolving with his absence. This was more obvious whenever she was on the phone, giggling away with Kaelin through their hours-long conversations. I imagined all the butterflies in her stomach made her feel weightless.
On one of the days of our wait, I decided to shift and go for a run. I’d been practicing my Special Abilities with a daily diligence that almost felt seem like I were studying for an exam of some sort, but I was just desperate to get some aspect of my existence under control. But, living in a city, I didn’t get many chances to experiment with my shifting, or my Werewolf abilities on a whole really, aside from my senses that were passively on high resolution at all times.
“Be careful.” Kaesha cautioned as I put my shoes on at the door, “You mentioned one of the large packs being around here. We don’t need you trespassing or whatever then they hold you captive and we have to plan a rescue mission or something to save you.”
She wasn’t wrong. The second largest pack in the country was located in and around a massive forest that wasn’t too far from where we were staying. I suspected that that was one of the reasons the sanctuary may be around too, cause which Rogues would have the arrogance to attack it if it were in the vicinity of a pack that could definitely take them out.
I laughed, straightening after tying my shoelaces, “I’ll be fine, Kaesha. I won’t go sniffing around anywhere I’m not supposed to be, and even if I somehow manage to wander onto someone’s territory, I can take care of myself.”
“Well, true,” she shrugged, “you could probably leave some pretty nasty burns on anyone that tries to pick a fight with you.”
I grinned, “Exactly.”
In my efforts to gain control of my fire, Kaesha had proven to be an amazing teacher. Special Abilities and magic didn’t exactly work the same way, but there was enough overlap for Kaesha teach me some theories that I applied, which had gone into helping me gain some control.
With a final assurance to Kaesha and a yell goodbye to Hailey, who yelled one back in response before continuing with her phone call, I left for the forest.
The Claw Moon Pack took up a chunk of the forest, and I’m sure their patrols meant that an even larger chunk of the forest was in the ‘bad idea to enter’ zone, but the forest was humungous, so that left more than a good half of it safe to venture into.
I walked for a bit, taking the greenness of the air in. I’d somewhat acclimated to the intensity of the world that my senses gave me, but the contrast between the atmosphere in the city and in the midst of nature was stark. The freshness of the air, the uniqueness of the sounds, even the caress of the air on my skin, they were nothing like what I’d grown accustomed to in the place I now called home.
Basking in it all, I walked continued walking for another fifteen minutes, before reaching a cluster of rocks where I decided I’d leave my clothes. As I stripped down, the musings of a spell that could keep my clothes intact when I shifted crossed mind and I made a mental note to ask Kaesha if doing something like that were possible.
I dropped to the ground, and in about twenty short seconds, I was a wolf. Being Candy’s form, I took the passenger’s seat in our mind, while she took the lead, leading us about nimbly through the woods.
I knew she’d be able to tell if we got too close to the territory, but I still made a point to remind her not to stray too close to anywhere that’d cause problems for us later.
“Sure, no problem.” She said hurriedly, before darting off.
Since our first shift, she’d become more energetic and enthusiastic, finding the excitement in almost any situation. Her acclimation to her own body had been much smoother than mine, evidenced by the way she moved, darting lithely between trees without any breaks in her speed.
That she loved to be free was no secret at this point. Sixteen years without a form of her own and the inability to share control of mine had that effect, so now that she was free to roam and prance about, she revelled in it. And the feeling of bliss and elation that emanated from her was something I’d come to love. As was the feeling of relinquishing control to her.
We moved about for over half an hour, simply running and leaping and playing and tumbling. We were drinking from a stream when our serenity was interrupted, our ears swivelling up at the sound. The scent of another werewolf wafted to us and we stood upright, at alert.
I knew we’d stayed a safe distance from their territory and their possible patrol route was still too far from where we were to be taken as a threat, so who was this werewolf and what could they be doing around here too?
‘Nat, what should we do?’ Candy asked as she crouched low, to run or to fight was what we didn’t know yet.
Candy was a big wolf, definitely an Alpha size, but we’d never fought anyone in wolf form before. Not to mention, I doubted my abilities would work in wolf form. But on the other hand, even if we could outrun this stranger, I didn’t want to lead him back in the direction of where Kaesha and Hailey were, and I’d still need to shift and get dressed if I were going to end up fighting with my fists and my fire.
‘We need to fend them off then run.’ I decided. My confidence in our fighting abilities as a canine was as low as our crouch, but if I could make whoever this was unable to follow me back, or at least delay them enough for me to get a good enough head start so I could get dressed.
With that, she raised her hackles and pulled her mouth back in a snarl, exposing her fangs ready to tear into anyone and anything that confronted us. Seconds passed and a wolf emerged from the bushes, half our size and whimpering as she limped our way.
She took a few more steps before tipping onto the ground, unconscious.