Momma Sed

Oliver

Trevor and Thom would be getting to the pack today. I was on a call with them orchestrating exactly how they’d get here. They were under instructions to take the most convoluted path possible, which required extra time. Trevor was driving south before making his way back our direction, and Thom had taken a plane to Wyoming then rented a car the day before. It was probably an extraneous measure, but I wasn’t willing to risk the pack safety.

A sudden stroke of fear racked my bones. I gulped it down, unfamiliar with a relatively standard thing rattling me so much. Adair stirred, growling in defense.

'What has you so bothered?' I asked. Another shudder of nerves ran down my spine. There was an overarching, gut wrenching, loathing of what was going on, but fear at this one particular instance? That was far stretched.

'That’s not ours,' he insisted.

I frowned, trying to place where the feeling could possibly be coming from. Instinctively, my hand went to the mark I had kept carefully covered. I pushed the feeling down, deciding the head over to the training grounds. Clearly, I had some pent up emotions to deal with, and for as long as I had known, training was the best way to deal with that.

Running there was a good warmup, but driving was faster. I elected for faster today. My time would be limited with my brother and friend getting into town.

Lya’s scent was so ingrained in me. No number of showers or clean changes of clothes could erase it from my mind. Even walking out onto the field, it was easy to confuse the faint scent of incoming summer for her unmistakable lilac and pine.

I whipped my head around, convinced the smell was actually her. I caught sight of Cody watching over Jeremy sparring with an incredibly small girl. Must have been a new recruit. I chuckled to myself. It seemed incredibly unfair, but it was the typical rite of passage. He was big and lumbering and slow, but his size alone could strike fear into the hearts of anyone. If a new or potential recruit would stand up to a fight with him, even if they knew they would lose, they at the very least had what it took to be worth our effort of training. I stood for a moment, impressed by how the tiny little spitfire held her own. A small, morbid part of me was excited to see how she progressed up the ranks.
I hoped my own little spitfire would face a fight like that when she inevitably started training. But, she wasn’t training right now for a reason, and if I had it my way, I was going to push that off for as long as I could.

Cody glanced across the field, eyes locking with mine. A look of dread overcame his expression.

Wait a minute.

Lilac and pine.

My spitfire.

A gentle gust of wind pushed her scent in my nose and down my lungs, and for hopefully the only time in my life, it was the absolute last thing I wanted to smell. It was all the confirmation I needed.

I seethed. Adair raged. She had no business being here. At that, I had specifically said she wasn’t to train yet. Lya went behind my back and my Gamma broke my orders. This was not acceptable.

I stormed across the pitch, fists clenched. Claws broke through and pierced the palms of my hands. This was a fierce brand of rage I was not completely familiar with, and it all stemmed from keeping Jeremy’s filthy paws as far from my mate as possible.

The voice that came out of my mouth was not my own. Adair was possibly more furious than I was, but for a very different reason.

“What in the everloving hell is going on?”

Lya’s eyes snapped up to me, her expression mimicking Cody’s.

I marched up to Cody, grabbing the front of his shirt. “What the fuck is wrong with you? I told you - I told you she wasn’t to train!”

“Alpha, I-”

“She just got out of the hospital and barely has a wolf!” Spittle flew. I was on the verge of shifting.

“Alpha, she-”

“Oliver, for fuck’s sake, I can make my own choice!” Her sharp voice rang over the both of us, bringing all eyes onto her.

I spun around, pulling her to me, trying to convince myself she hadn’t gotten hurt. “Not in my pack, you don’t,” I growled.

Lya pushed away from me. “Last I checked, I actually do.” She turned, rushing off the field towards the treeline. She jumped over a log, a lythe auburn wolf landing in her place. I stared after her, and just a small part of me wondered if maybe I had overstepped.

I had overstepped before, though, and it had always been for good reason. Keeping Lya safe I saw as a very good reason.

Adair’s anger had dwindled away so quickly. All it took was Lya pointing out her rightful place of power, whether she realized it or not. I knew him. He was never angry that she was sparring. He was angry the gamma we had hand selected had gone against our wishes. Truthfully, he was anxious to see how it played out.

I desperately wanted to chase after Lya and give Adair a chance to actually meet Tala in the flesh, but Lya’s anger was directed toward me, and I had already learned she wanted to stay away from whomever she was angry at. Instead, I whirled around to face Cody. “Office. Now.”

I stomped my way toward his office, wanting to get this conversation over as soon as possible instead of wasting the time to head back to mine. I took up a chair and glared over at him.

“Why?” I demanded.

Cody gave me a sly look. There was little to no remorse for what he had done, which infuriated me. “Her request to train superseded your wishes to keep her grounded.”

“She barely has a wolf, and without full access to her wolf, she can’t heal as quickly,” I reminded him. “The physical combat that comes with training is actively putting your Luna at risk.”

Cody cocked an eyebrow at me. “The girl converses with her wolf regularly, shifts daily, and accepted life as a werewolf a while ago. What makes you so certain she ‘barely has a wolf’?”

“Because if she was actually fully reintegrated with her wolf, she would have noticed I was her mate,” I scoffed.

“And what makes you so certain she hasn’t?”

Blood pulsed in my ears. Cody’s accusation that she would keep something like that a secret infuriated me. I wanted to put him in his place, but it was Adair who reminded me part of the reason we chose him as Gamma was because he was willing to go toe to toe with me.

“Don’t assume you don’t need to clean up your own house when you and your mate are keeping secrets from each other,” Cody growled at me.

Again, it was Adair who kept me from lunging across the desk. Adair that reminded me of the truths behind his words. I slumped in defeat, unwilling to be the alpha that took anger out on his own pack.

“You talk as if you’re harboring secrets,” I said dully.

Cody held his hands up in innocence. “You two just need to clear the air before it drives a wedge in between you two. Don’t keep secrets about who she is.”

I just shrugged, knowing exactly what he was talking about. “Her pack might just be a useless piece to the puzzle. Finding out that that secret was kept from her might do more harm than good.”

“She already knows, Oliver. The future Luna is many things, but dumb is not one of them. And it is important. It is in her DNA to do the utmost. You never actually leave the Wulver Pack, even if you join another. She needs to know her responsibilities to her pack,” Cody insisted. “You can’t keep her a secret, especially if you make her Luna, and the rest of us will come looking for her.”

I looked up at him quizzically. “The rest of us?”

“I wondered if you just didn’t know when I transferred into the pack,” Cody chuckled. “Marjorie knows, Greg and Thom caught it. FIgured they’d fill you in.”

I motioned for him to continue

“Just like Lya, I am destined to be the silent protector residing in the shadows. The guardian of peace and the unsung bringer of hope. The gladiator of goodwill.” A smile flitted across his face, the first one I’d seen in nearly a week. “Secrets aren’t very fun, are they?”