6: History

"Ansel, what pack are oyu from?" I ask, suddenly curious because it can't be one of the pack's near by, or surely i would have met him before now... But if he was from a pack further away, i may not have met him. We are friendly amongst ourselves, most werewolf packs send groups of 17 year olds and older unmated wolves, to visit other packs in search of the amore. Traditionally the men do the traveling and the woman remain at their home packs. This started after an Alpha missed his amore because she was out looking for him, he found her 2 years later than he would have if she stayed put. It is not a law or anything, but most packs follow this as an unspoken rule, because no one wantds to miss their amore. The young men spend the summer months traveling from pack to pack until they find their amore, or the summer ends. Amore is the word we use to mean fated mates, paired by the moon goddess. Inamorato is the name you call your make partner, and Inamorata is the female partner. I know the words are Italian, but i am not sure of the connection between Italy and our use of the words. I have also heard that some of the smaller, new packs use the word mates instead, but i always thought that sounded less like soulmates and more like breeding stock. But that ay just be me being cynical. Either way i am surprised that I have not seen Ansel before now. I am 20 and he must be at least my age...

"I am from the Waterson pack..."He answers hesitantly.

"Oh, i know Alpha Andrew Waterson!" I sayexcitedly. "My uncle Maxwell is our Alpha, and since his children are still babies, I fulfill their role at most interpack functions and events. So i know at least a few people from most of the packs near here. But... The Waterson pack is near the boarder to Canada, right? what brings you to southern Oregon? And how have we never met before? Did you not look for me..?" I ask him, and then add "Sorry, I should slow down.."

He chuckles lightly before he answers "Actually, i am Alpha Andrew Waterson's son. When i was 15, he sent me to Europe, to a boarding school. And then after high school, I started college at Oxford. I recently graduated, my major was business managment, and i minored in marketing. I plan to expand the packs businesses to the human world, so as to afford the expantion to the packs living quarters i am planning. Some years ago we absorbed the remaining 300 members of the Castor pack after their Alpha, Beta, and 905 of their warriors were killed off by hunters. The survivors hid in the mountains for weeks, mostly woman and children. A pack of 1700, down to 300. I left school a week ago, I told my father that i had a few weeks of school left, and that i was planning to stay in my apartment an extra three weeks after that, so I could take my time packing and use up the remaining time on my lease. He agreed. But really i flew to Georgia a week ago, and i have been tracking those hunters since then. They were a part of a network of hunters known as The Collective. The different groupd rarely work togeather, but they do communicate, and send intel to each other. If, say, one group interogated a prisoner who told of the location of a pack 3 states away, near the headquarters of another group, they would notify each other. I was trying to gather as much information as possible about them.... I think that the group from the other night was the group that slaughtered the Castor pack. I was planning to make the pay, but you took matters into your own hands." He had a look of playful admiration on his face as he finished. 

"I was not really supposed to so that..." I admite, a bit sheepishly. "My Father thought i would have the best chances of posing as a human and infiltrating theit ranks. He was told they were planning to attack our pack, and while I'd like to think that we could take them, they did have an aweful lot of wolvesbane... and they had it in tranquilizer guns, so i think we may have been in trouble. I definitly would have been if wolvesbane effected me. The doctors here figured out a special blend of wolvesbane and seditive that work on me, neither one has any effect on its own, but somehow mixing them works" I tell him "Come to think of it... I am surprised my father didn't ask about the hunters while he was here... He was expecting me to be gone for weeks spying on them.." I add in confusion.

"Oh, he did ask about the hunters! When we first brought you in he thought it was the hunters who had somehow found a way to hurt you. If fact, Micheal and Ri'elle had a hard time trying to convince him that the hunters were dead. In the end i had to tell him the whole story of how you had been made, and fought your way out, how I had watched you poised to step in should you need it, but you held your own so well that it was all over in a matter of minutes. I told him how I was confused by the fact that you didn't seem to be affected by the darts full of wolvesbane that they shot you full of... Your father did not explain that one to me, he simply said that you were special. We also talked about the fact that you didn't pick up on my scent until I took of the charm I had been using." He paused and quickly explained how a witch friend of his had made him a charm that hides his scent and aura from the world so he could follow the hunters without their witch noticing, then he continues. "But as my Inamorata YOU should have been able to smell my scent regardless, there is no spell I know of that blocks the scent of the Amore. The goddess makes sure that you can find each other, no matter what..."