Claiming Treasure

Heather Nygaard’s POV

Blue River, British Colombia, Canada

Wednesday, November 25

I looked up at the mountains rising up from the valley we were driving north through. The town of Blue River, population 260, was coming up on the Southern Yellowhead Highway. “It’s pretty remote up here,” I said from the back seat of our Ford Excursion.

“Coral’s Pack is nearly as big as the whole town now,” Carson said from the passenger seat. “Many of their Pack members decided to return, and they picked up a few dozen from Bitterroot. Add in the members of the Beloretsk Pack staying there, and it’s probably bigger.”

“When are they going to be able to move to their new land?” Beloretsk Pack fled from Russia after werewolves were exposed to the world, arriving in Canada with very little. The Council was helping, as was Rori.

“Late spring,” he said. “They’ve purchased five hundred acres on Downton Lake, near the South Chilcotin Mountains Provincial Park. It’s on the other side of the mountains from Vancouver, a little more than a six-hour drive to the southwest. With the prairie in between, it’s far enough from other Packs to be secure.”

“That’s not a big Pack territory,” I said.

“It’s not a big population either. The Pack will more than double the forty residents of Gold Bridge, the nearest settlement. There is lots of running room up there for their wolves, with a full mountain range to run. Heck, it’s four hours to the nearest big airport in Kamloops, and five hours to Vancouver.”

“Wow.” I’d grown to love the Cascade Pack, with our mountains and the views of Mount Ranier to the west, and we were in the mountains, but Yakima was two hours away, and Portland four. Tacoma was five hours away, even though it was 102 miles as the crow flies. Nothing was straight or fast in the mountains.

It was fantastic riding on a motorcycle in the summer, though. Our Pack lands had become a convenient destination for day trips from both the Renton and Portland Steel Brotherhood chapters. We were close with both after the attack that happened two weeks after our existence became known to humans.

By then, the initial protests and curiosity had waned, and the Sheriff only maintained one officer near our entrance for our protection. That officer merely called for backup and hid in his cruiser as five trucks filled with armed men attacked just before sundown. The group, a mixture of religious fanatics who thought we were demonic, families of missing persons, and self-proclaimed wolf hunters turned onto our road and crashed the gate. Two members of the Portland chapter and one from Renton died as they returned fire. The bikers fought side by side with our warriors, stopping the vehicles near the entrance and keeping them pinned down. Our counterattack was swift and brutal, the attackers that didn’t surrender quickly killed by the rest of us.

There was one bit of good news out of the attack. Rattler, one of the Portland members and a former Marine, was shot in the left lung while charging one of the vehicles. When Christine, one of our female Betas, arrived with the reinforcements, her wolf led her to the injured human. Claiming him as hers, he underwent the Change and survived.

He’d taken to mated and Pack life well; he found it similar to being in the Club and the Corps. Ranks, discipline, shared purpose, he’d learned quickly and was a great fighter. The pair were so fierce that Carson had appointed them as our new Guardians. That’s why Rattler was driving our SUV while Christine was sleeping in the third-row seat. “Living in a remote area, as we do, makes it easier to defend ourselves,” Rattler said. “Defensive emplacements, elevated firing positions, and interlocking fields of fire. Far simpler than a place like Arrowhead Lake.”

“You’re such a Marine,” I teased. He’d pointed out a few improvements in our Pack defenses that Carson had quickly implemented.

“The Russian packs have always been that way,” Carson said. “It’s how they stayed out of trouble, at least until now.” Our Excursion slowed as we entered Blue River. “They were able to get foundations poured, wells dug, and power lines run before the ground froze. They have a bunkhouse and workshop set up, and the log walls are going up as fast as the trucks can deliver them. They plan to have the Pack House weather-tight next week, and then they can work on the inside the rest of the winter.”

“That’s a challenge,” I said. “I remember Dad had a ‘three-trip’ rule. Every home improvement project required three trips to the hardware store, but in this case, the hardware store is hours away!”

“Another storm or two, and you’re only getting there by snowmobile or helicopter. The Pack has been transporting all the building supplies up there by container for months.”

We slowed to a stop at the light, then turned into the gas station to fill up and use the restrooms. Blue River was a quaint little town, subsisting on logging and the tourism in the mountains behind it. “How did this town react to our kind?”

“Coral had it the easiest of us all, I think. The Pack was there before the town, and the population is so small that everyone knows them. They’re also so far out of the way that protestors didn’t bother. Hell, they make money off it now.” Carson pointed to the T-shirts with howling wolves and a Blue River Pack logo on the wall. I bought two pink baby onesies with the logo, then we loaded up and headed east into the mountains.

A wolf checked us at the turnoff for the Pack, and we drove another mile or so until the road opened up in a big clearing with the Pack House on the top of a hill. As Rattler stopped at the base of the stairs leading up, I could see Coral standing at the entry door with her baby in her arms, Keith by her side, and her Betas behind her. Christine got out first, helping me remove the babies from the car seats as Carson came around to help. He took a crying Kelly in his arm, covering her with a blanket from the chilly wind, as I took Connie. Omegas went out to get our luggage as we hurried inside.

“Welcome to Blue River Pack,” Coral said with a big smile as she gave her brother a side-hug, then slipped her arm around me. “Oh, they’re so beautiful!”

I looked over at Hunter, Coral’s ten-week-old son, as their toddler Hope clung to her leg. “Look at those fat cheeks! What a happy boy,” I said as I made faces.

“Come on; Mom is in the nursery with the others,” Keith said.

“I still can’t believe we need Pack nurseries,” Carson said. “We’ve got seven babies in the Pack now, where before we’d be lucky to have one!”

“I know,” Coral said as she led us to what probably used to be a sitting room or office. Cribs lined the walls, with two changing tables, rockers, and comfortable couches for the Moms. Colletta and Ashley were sitting in the rocking chairs, both nursing their babies.

“Bring my grandbabies over to me,” Mom said with a big smile as she looked at me. I handed her Connie as she shifted Cassandra Marie in her left arm. Carson stood near the door, holding a fussy Kelly in his arms.

“Congratulations,” I said as I leaned down for a hug. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for it.”

“It’s all right; you were busy with your girls, and I wanted to be there for my other daughters when they were due. SOMEONE was going to get stuck with me when Cassie decided she wanted out. At least it let me keep Rori company while we were both in labor.”

I snorted. “I talked to Rori, your labor was like thirty minutes long, and she suffered the whole night,” I said as we both started grinning.

“Not my first rodeo,” Colletta said. “Cassie was tiny compared to my older boys.”

“I was in labor for fifteen hours for my Shane,” Ashley said as she moved him off her breast and burped him. “My big boy, making Momma wait an extra week.” He let out a loud burp in response. “I don’t think Sawyer has calmed down yet. He makes one noise, and that man is up checking on him.”

“He waited over a century for you, and I think he expected decades would pass for you to have a child. Of course, he’s thrilled; he has a son and heir now,” Colletta said.

I sat on the couch, opening my blouse and maternity bra for a fussy Kelly. She settled as soon as she latched on, then Keith brought me Connie and adjusted the pillows. “I’m exhausted all the time, and I feel like a dairy cow,” I complained. “It gets better, right?” I looked over at Colletta, who just tried not to laugh.

“Yeah, with your next baby,” Rori said as she walked in with their daughter Nancy. She named her second daughter after the woman she almost lost her life to save. Rori had become good friends with Nancy Clark, the wife of the St. Louis County Sheriff, and the hostage taken by Jack Coffey. Nancy’s vocal and public support of Rori and her Pack were critical factors in the public perception changes after the exposure. None of us could get up, but she quickly made the rounds with her sleeping daughter. “How’s my wolf buddy doing?”

“Glad to be on two legs,” I said with a big smile. Rori and I both had to spend months in wolf form until after our deliveries, meaning we couldn’t talk to each other on Skype without our mates translating.

“I know, I missed a whole summer on the lake, and I rarely got outside.”

That must have been hell for her; with the tensions, she couldn’t even ride like a dog in Chase’s sidecar. “At least you only had ONE baby. My belly hung so low I was getting rugburn on my nipples when walking over to eat,” I teased.

She set her baby in the crib, then sat next to me. “All of our men went to check out the pool, of course.”

Coral’s face just lit up. “Honestly, it’s better than I dreamed it would be. You’re going to be SO jealous, Rori.” It took another fifteen minutes to get the babies fed and settled so we could go. “We stole a lot of ideas from you, but we took it up a bit. Two stories, to be told.” We got to the locker rooms, stripping down and taking a quick shower, and then we walked in.

“Wow,” I said. The space was expansive AND tall; south-facing windows rose three stories up, while the roof steeply pitched down on the north side to the first floor. The upper level was where the waterslides started, three tubes that snaked around until they dumped into the deep end of the pool. It also had an area set aside for tanning and relaxing as you looked out over the valley. The middle floor held the snack bar and dining area.

“That’s a great idea moving the food and social area upstairs,” Rori said.

“With the hillside, we couldn’t make the room as wide as yours without the costs skyrocketing,” Coral said. “We went longer and higher instead. By moving all that upstairs, we were able to use most of the ground floor for pool space.”

“Heather! Watch me, top blue slide!” I looked up to see Carson standing at the entrance to the steepest waterslide, one that dropped a good forty feet down at a seventy-degree angle. I pointed, and we all watched as he disappeared. Carson shot out the tube horizontally at high speed, skipping across the water like a rock until finally sinking into the chest-deep water. He stood up and shook the water out of his hair. “WOOOOOOOO!”

“I swear I mated the world’s biggest child,” I said.

“I want to know how those men use that without ripping their balls off,” Colletta said.

“Oh, you don’t forget to cross your legs after the first time,” Coral said with a smile. “Look, there’s Chase.” She pointed to the Lazy River that snaked around the outside of the big pool, where Chase sat in an inner-tube with Mark and Cheryl. They were bouncing and laughing, their little life jackets fastened around their chests. “There lazy river takes about ten minutes to get around, and there is a section in the back where swimmers can exercise in place using the pumps,” she said. “We left a deep end for the diving boards, a big area in the middle for water sports like basketball and volleyball, and a shallow end on this side for sunbathing and the younger ones.”

“I want the hot tub,” I said. “Now that we’re not pregnant, we can hang out again!”

“Let’s go, I’ll get some drinks brought over,” Coral said. The hot tub looked like a big kidney bean, allowing multiple groups some privacy, just inside the lazy river on the near side.

Sawyer was already in the tub, groaning softly as the jets worked out the kinks in his back. “Come on in, ladies,” he said as he lifted his plastic glass of beer. We greeted the Pack members as we got in, and Coral came by with a tray of plastic champagne glasses. “One now won’t hurt us breastfeeding,” she said as she passed them out.

Our men joined us in the tub, and I relaxed with my leg hooked over Carson’s as we sat there. “You’ve done a great job with this, Coral,” Chase said to his twin.

“All thanks to my family,” Coral said. “We never would have been able to make the improvements here without the money you took from the Sons.”

“Your Pack looks happy, and that’s all we wanted,” Sawyer said. “Who would have thought that all of us would end up as Alphas? Even the scrawny little Doctor here?”

Chase pushed his shoulder. “Some of us out-punted our coverage,” he said before he kissed Rori.

“I had no idea just how much WORK being an Alpha is,” I complained. “There have been a few times I’ve wanted to get stuck in wolf form again, just to get out of doing payroll and bills!”

“I hear you. It took me months to get used to the constant demands on my time,” Coral said. “I love it, though. It’s the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done.”

“Turning this Pack around, making it a place people WANT to join, that’s been fun,” Keith said. “I miss Arrowhead, but this is my home now.”

A new couple joined us, one I’d only seen during videoconferences. “Does everyone know Alpha Ivan and Luna Svetlana,” Coral asked.

“I’ve never had a formal introduction,” I said. Ivan settled into the water, his pregnant mate just putting her feet in the warm water. “I’m the little homewrecker, Heather Nygaard.” The last time I saw the couple was at the mating dinner for Greg Barks and the Beta’s daughter, Tatiana.

Svetlana leaned forward, embracing me and kissing both my cheeks. “Our world is better with you in it, Heather. Congratulations on your twins.”

“You must have stories about your escape,” I said. Svetlana laughed before regaling us with stories about crossing mountains clinging to Ivan’s back as they evaded the Russian troops sent to find them.

“How is Timur progressing with Mykayla?” Timur was their Chief Warrior’s son, mated to Mykayla, a former Omega rescued from enslavement. Now that Beloretsk was staying with Blue River, the Alphas had agreed to transfer Mykayla here under Coral’s supervision.

“They are doing better; she trusts them in wolf form, but it will take years to trust him and other men,” Coral said.

“Timur understands. He knows it’s better to have this time with his mate now than to not find her until he’s older,” Svetlana said. “We sent Greg and Tatiana out to work on the Pack House over the winter. Hard work and isolation will be good for them.”

“I’m over that,” I said. “I loved Greg, back when I had no idea how strong the mate bond was. I’m happy we’re both with our mates.” Honestly, Greg meant nothing once I realized how much I loved Carson. He was nothing more than a sperm donor to the twins; my mate was Daddy to them.

When Coral told us our time was up, I didn’t want to get out. “The babies are waking up, and we need to eat soon,” she said.

The meal and company were great, and I slept deeply between feedings that night. When I woke up, it was Thanksgiving day. My parents and I LOVED Thanksgiving, in later years celebrating at the Clubhouse. I wasn’t quite sure why we were all in Canada celebrating it NOW, on the American day, when Canadians celebrated Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October. I brought that up at breakfast, causing Coral to start laughing. “My Betas asked me the same thing,” she said as they nodded. “My family loves Thanksgiving, and we can trace our lineage back to wolves that arrived with the Pilgrims. It’s no surprise that a holiday involving eating heavily and lazing around on the couch started with werewolves.” There was laughter at that. “I told Mom we’d like to host a get-together here so everyone could see what we’d done, but October was too close to the due dates. Keith solved the problem by volunteering to celebrate TWICE this year.”

“I took one for the team,” he said with a laugh.

“Poor guy,” I said. “Having to eat all that food AGAIN just because guests are here.”

In the early afternoon, both Packs gathered in the dining hall for the celebration. The Russians didn’t have this holiday, but they enthusiastically joined in the preparations. In addition to the traditional turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and gravy, the kitchen turned out a dozen traditional Russian dishes. As hosts, Keith did the opening prayer. “We give thanks to the Moon Goddess for the blessings and protections she has shown to us over this past year. We have opened our lives to humans, added to our numbers, and relocated two entire Packs to safety. We thank you, Luna, for this feast before us and those here to celebrate with us. May we continue to follow Her divine will and bask in her blessings.” He paused for a moment, allowing everyone to add their silent prayers. “My friends, my family, let’s eat!”

Life was good.