Four: Clara

I have always been a good mom and I’m proud of it. With Brad, I have raised three wonderful children who think their parents are the absolute best parents anyone could ever have. I gave them the best possible opportunities I could give them and Brad showed them the kind of fatherly love I missed out on. Our kids are well-mannered, polite, and responsible. They don’t throw any kind of tantrums or disrespect me in any way. I and Brad made our lives around our children, catering to their needs the best we could, and keeping our desires in the background. We made our whole lives in The Silver Moon Pack; Alpha Richard’s pack and it has been a very good life.

Our perfect lives were shattered when Brad succumbed to his cancer and it was a blow that I had never felt before. The rejection I faced from my mate almost twenty years ago felt like a pinprick to the kind of pain I experienced eight months ago. This pain manages to catch me at random times during the day when random tidbits in the house remind me of my husband, my mate, and the love of my life and all I want to do those days is curl up in a ball and cry. But as a mom of three kids, I can’t afford to do that. Not anymore. Not only did I lose my husband, but my three kids lost their father, which was a big blow for them as it was for me.

And now, when we were finally standing back on our feet when life was finally getting back together when our grief had finally seemed less consuming, I had to rip my children apart from the home they lived in all their lives and take them to a pack they didn’t know or care existed. Of course, I was hesitant and I certainly didn’t want to leave the home I had created with my husband but I would do anything for my children and if Kyle needs to shift to the pack I come from, I will uproot everything and provide him everything he needs.

Brad knew these things better; he was very intuitive that way. He understood the baser needs of the wolves and I craved him at my side during such moments. I had been so doubtful of my decision to return to my previous pack that I had visited Brad’s grave as soon as I woke up. Just seeing his gravestone brought tears to my eyes and it was then that I decided that maybe going to my previous pack might do no good or no harm but I would have to go there to know that. If things didn’t work out, I could always come back here, to my home where my family belonged, close to Brad and the house we created, close to our friends and family, close to everything we have ever known in our lives.

I sigh as I think about the emotional turmoil I had been through these last couple of days, balancing on a rope, and wondering if I should take my kids to the pack where I was born. I debated on the merits when I was packing the twins’ belongings, debated when all my children threw tantrums and vehemently opposed my idea, and debated its till when I had completed three-fourths of the drive in complete silence because of course, my children had decided unanimously to ignore my existence because I was being so “unfair” to them.

It had been a torturously long sixteen-hour long drive and it made me think back to that fateful day all those years ago when I had decided to leave my pack for good. I had run in wolf form for hours without food and water; it was my luck that I reached The Silver Moon Pack when I did.

“We are going to be at The Red Hills Pack in twenty minutes,” I inform my lovely children who hadn’t talked to me in a week. I glance at Kyle, who has been sitting stone-faced in the passenger seat the whole drive, and then peer at the twins in the backseat via the rearview mirror.

We had passed several packs during our journey over here and my wolf had felt the shifts in energies as we left one pack and entered the next. We hadn’t been stopped on our way because Alpha Richard had informed the alphas of the packs in our way that we would be encroaching upon their territory for a short time. Even though no one questioned us, I could still feel the probing eyes of several border wolves, their eyes following us from the moment we entered a pack and left it. I am sure Kyle felt it too because I could sense his wolf shifting inside his mind whenever some border wolves became increasingly aggressive in their vigilance. The twins were too small to perceive these changes but looking at the way Kyle was reacting; I was becoming convinced that returning to my birth pack would do him and his wolf some good.

Alpha Richard had informed everyone but the alpha of the Red Hills Pack, my mate because he didn’t want to allow him to refuse us any shelter. He believed the best course of action would be to surprise Alpha Samuel White, my destined mate. I speak his name out loud in my mind, Samuel, waiting for butterflies to go crazy in my stomach, for my wolf to go panting, and for my heart to start beating faster. I breathed a sigh of relief when nothing happened and I gingerly touched the mating mark at the juncture of my neck and left shoulder, thanking the goddess for a very loving mate. Brad’s mark had effectively severed any residual connection I had with my destined mate, I would have no feelings for him whatsoever and I was glad of it. Samuel was only the father of my firstborn child and that’s it. It gave me a huge comfort that at least I wouldn’t be pining after him after all this time. That would have been hugely inconvenient.

I stop the car when I feel the change in energy and a nervous pit bloom in my stomach as I realize that I have finally reached the border of the Red Hills Pack territory. I park at the side of the road and take a deep breath. I can feel my heart speed up. From the corner of my eye, I see Kyle give me a curious look but I don’t look at him. I turn off the ignition and then stare straight out of the windshield, looking at the pack who had been my home for half my life, wanting to see some similarities from the narrow view I had from my car. “Ariel and Ben, stay in the car. Don’t make any noise, okay babies?” I smile timidly at them but I’m not sure I did a good job at it because it felt more like a grimace. I finally turn to look at Kyle, “Come out only when I tell you to.” He looks confused at my nervousness but nods without hesitation.

I get out of the car on shaky legs, searching for some strength from my wolf who has gone amazingly quiet and numb. I may have spent half of my life in this pack but that doesn’t mean that that time was good or the memories particularly enjoyable.

I walk a little farther away from the car and into the pack’s territory, fully aware that by now borders must have sensed my intrusion on their territory. In addition to me, they must have also sensed the presence of three extra wolves just outside of their territory. I wanted to show them that I meant this pack no harm and for that, I had to walk in unarmed and in my human form. I don’t think a thirty-five-year-old woman poses much danger but still.

I become completely still when I hear the low growl of five border wolves. I wait with bated breath as they step out from the woods and circle me, warning me not to make a sudden move. A half-dressed man saunters out of the woods and I recognize him immediately as Samuel’s beta, Aaron Strong. He joins the circle of the wolves around me. His eyes regard the car where my children are sitting and then finally land on me. His eyes widen when he takes in my face, recognition finally dawning on him. I didn’t expect him to recognize me based on scent as my scent has changed quite a bit since I left this pack eighteen years ago. “Clara Winter”, he whispers in astonishment as his eyes rove over me again.

“Hi Aaron,” I laugh timidly, not entirely sure what his surprise means. His presence easily makes me the awkward seventeen-year-old teenager I had been when I last saw him. And as a testament to this fact, I give him an odd wave. The wolves around me stop growling once they realize that I’m someone their beta recognizes. “How have you been?” Even as I ask this question, I can see that the past two decades have been good to him. He looks like the self-assured jock he had always been in high school. I could see the laughter lines around his eyes, he has had a happy life.

Ignoring my question, he asks me his own which is so very typical of him. “What made you come back after all these years?” Even though I was a nerd back when I was in high school, I wasn’t a social pariah. I just liked to mind my own business and not interact with people; I wasn’t on the social radar. So, I am pretty surprised by the fact that one of the most popular boys remembers my name.

“Uh, I’d love to explain everything but I think it would be best if I can explain myself directly to the alpha,” I state because after all everything depended on Samuel, if he decided to grant us entry, if he accepted Kyle as his son, something he hadn’t done eighteen years ago. “So, would you mind calling him and letting him know that I’m here right now?” I ask him meekly.

“Oh, he has already been informed. I think he must already be on his way here.” Aaron smirks at me and I nod uneasily at his smug expression. I turn around to look at my car, knowing that my kids must be pretty anxious to see me like this, surrounded by fully grown wolves. To calm them, I turn around and wave to them even though I can’t see them because of the glare on the windshield.

“Will it take long for him to come here?” I ask Aaron, wondering if I could march my way back to my children and wait in the car but he gently shook his head. I nod at his answer and watch as all the wolves shift to their human forms one by one, as they become certain that I pose no threat to the pack. I eye everyone and notice that all the border wolves surrounding me have been quite young which explains why I hadn’t been able to recognize any of them.

I hear a deep howl from a distance and instantly recognize the strong tenors of the sound. I smile timidly at Aaron who has been watching me intently for the past few minutes and I wait for Samuel to emerge on the road and face me after eighteen long years. He comes bounding down the road and my sharp werewolf vision picks up his midnight black coat at once. I see as he ends his run at a trot and stands a good twenty feet away from me, his eyes slowly fixed on mine. I wait for him to shift into his human form so that we can have a civilized conversation and so that I can explain my reasons for coming back here. Instead of shifting though, his wolf stands there and watches me intently.

“He’s asking about the three wolves he sensed in your car.” I look at Aaron questioningly, wondering why he was asking me these questions instead of Samuel himself.

“Isn’t he going to shift and ask me these questions himself?” I ask Aaron dubiously, confused as hell about what was happening. Aaron gives a jerky shrug and my eyes swivel to look at Samuel’s wolf who hasn’t moved an inch. “They are my children, Kyle, Ariel, and Ben Paxton.”

“And why have you come here?”

“I was, uh, hoping to tell that to the Alpha in private.” I chuckle nervously and watch as Aaron’s eyes glaze over, indicating that he is mind-linking with someone, most probably Samuel.

“He wants you three to enter the pack territory and he will hear what you have to say in the privacy of his office. You will be escorted by us to the pack house.” Aaron states stiffly.

“There’s no need for an escort. I’m sure I could find my way there. I grew up here after all.” I chuckle nervously, unused to being at the receiving kind of such kind of vigilance.

“The escort isn’t to make sure you don’t lose your way, Clara,” Aaron says pointedly. I nod nervously at him, getting the message.