8 - P R O B L E M S

🐾 Alpha Jake

Like every morning, except on weekends, we had pack training. Every adult wolf came to the training fields at the crack of dawn to run across an obstacle course that changed patterns every day and spar.

The werewolves of my pack were very well trained and pushed harder in every way to become stronger, doing justice to being one of the best packs to ever exist. I took pride in the resilience of my people.

They knew that belonging to this pack also meant having to protect the elders, children and non-warriors amongst them and fight for it very often. That entailed also the importance of training and they took it very seriously.

The obstacle course built stamina and speed, keeping them focused and giving options to analyze, strategize and provide a new challenge every day. It kept them on their toes anticipating every possible outcome.

I was surprised this morning that Pernwél wanted to participate in training with us. My wolf was doing a happy dance in my mind at the prospects of getting to know our mate better and that she wanted to attend training with our pack.

I followed her moves on the obstacle course when I finished first. She kept up with the rest of the warriors and was even faster than a good portion of them. I was proud of my mate. I wanted so hard to tell her but I knew I had to take this whole situation slowly. Get to know her, build a trusting bond between the two of us and prepare her for the fact that the Moon Goddess had given us this mystical gift.

When the pack members separated in teams to spar I felt her distress. I suppose she was nervous because she was the new one and besides me and some others she knew no one. I was quick to put Darren in charge of the training and I took up sparring as her partner.

She looked relieved when I offered to team up with her and I was glad that she felt comfortable around me, we had at least exchanged words.

Fierceness burned in her eyes as she sparred with me and with skilled techniques she tried to attack me. She was unrelenting and incredibly fast.

I had to concentrate myself on the sparring and not let myself falter by focusing on her alluring scent that drifted over to me in the morning air. It awakened my wolf and it stirred his desire.

The morning patrol entered my thoughts through the pack’s mindlink and took my mind off the pretty petite elf that was blowing kicks to my chins. Three rogues had surpassed the border and were closing in on the town.

I jumped into action immediately.

Just as many times before I had no problem in shifting and darting towards the attacking wolves. My wolf was bigger than average and mighty. His paws took the earth effortlessly and with great speed we approached the border.

I growled my indications and strategies through the mindlink as I took on the first of the rogues. The patrollers had already engaged in a one on one fight with the two remaining.

They reeked of decay and death, their matted fur had lost the healthy shine and was clogged with dried blood and mud.

My pack gained the upper hand in the battle easily, I think that when they saw where they walked into their strength to put up a fight died down. It didn’t look like an organised attack, more like they wandered across the border unknowingly.

In a way I found myself feeling sorry for the scrawny wolves, on the other I needed to be the feared Alpha so I gave the command to end their lives. Trespassing without invitation or previous notice was punished by death in this pack.

I pushed my canines through the neck tendons of the wolf I had pressed between my strong jaw muscles and bit down. My mouth filled itself with the red thick liquid and stained my muzzle.

The metallic taste flooding my tongue paired with the sickening stench penetrating my nostrils gave me the urge to hurl, but I remained stoic and put together. Leaders like me couldn’t show weaknesses.

My warriors took care of the disposal of the corpses, they would be burned by the border to set an example for other possible wanderers.

Still in my wolf-form, I took my leave from the scene and headed towards the pack house. A shower would do me good to get the stench off my sandy coloured fur.

My wolf senses picked up Pernwél and I looked to my side to see her walking out of the forest, holding her hand, was a child from the pack.

They were heading the same way that I was and an invisible pull between my mate and I, that had formed since the moment I noticed the mystical connection between us, made me halt my paws and wait for them to catch up.

Pernwél, with her little steps, like she was dancing on the fallen leaves that littered the earth, got the intention and moved with the girl until she stood by my side and gazed into my wolfs eyes with a silent understanding.

We moved in silence to the porch of the pack house. Most of the warriors and family members had gathered around. Between them I saw a woman running to us, hands clamped over her mouth and her tremor showed me that she had been worried, I presume she was the mother of the child.

“Thank you.” She muttered to Pernwél. “She wandered off, just before the attack.”

“No problem.” Pernwél responded in a curt, almost army-like tone. Like a soldier or a warrior would do when they did nothing more than their duty.

“I haven’t seen you around,” the woman insisted in her efforts to converse with the saviour of her pup. “What’s your name?”

“Pernwél.” She responded and her voice failed a slight bit, indicating to me that she wasn’t comfortable with the situation and I found myself bumping her side softly.

She looked my way and I faintly nodded my head to make her follow me inside to the pack house.

Pernwél got up with me quickly and made herself disappear across the threshold at vertiginous speed. If I wasn’t a wolf I would totally have made myself dizzy trying to follow her.

I sat down on my hind legs and looked at her mockingly.

Noticing that everyone was still outside the building, she lowered her hood and scowled at me. I made a whining noise at her, making it obvious that I was joking.

She got closer, green eyes staring right into mine and I felt that pull between us go taut.

Pernwél softly caressed my fur between my ears and murmured a faint, “thank you,” before taking a turn on those little feet of hers and darting up the stairs.

In all my years as an Alpha wolf and leader of this pack I had never, ever felt completely frozen in place. I didn’t see that coming.

When she touched me, the gentle caress of her fingers between the bristles of my fur put my skin on fire with sparks. She should have felt that too. There was no way this was one sided anymore.

My wolf pushed forward to make us howl in approval of the happiness evoked in us by a brush as tiny as a butterfly kiss between us, but I managed to haul him back in spite of my stupefied reaction seconds earlier.

I followed her scent upstairs and even if I wanted to linger in the hallway on the way to the room where she was staying I managed to climb the other flight of stairs to my private quarters.

My shower screamed my name and I would have to make it quick because Darren was already hammering on the inside of my skull over the mindlink.

After an attack it was a custom to get together in my office to discuss. I had a nagging feeling in my stomach, that those random rogues were bringing more problems than I accounted for.