Lycanthropy

Above the river:

It had taken Amy a few hours to realize and to admit to me, that I was indeed her half-sister. She even had to smell me up close, to connect to her memory, to check if my scent was indeed something different than the smell she had in her mind.

She had never seen me, only got my scent, that was lingering on my father, after he had been with me and my mother. I know the scent she smelled, of my mother’s blood, must have been quite like me, as I remember my scent to be just the same as hers.

Of course, she also apologized for her father to have killed my mother. I couldn’t understand why she is the one to be sorry for it, but I had just let her. She had hugged me and after a talk or two, she called me ‘big sis’ every time we were alone for a minute.

Furthermore, I had seen Alpha Daniel his text, a few days ago. And he had seen that I was ignoring him. I know that I have to talk to him sooner or later, but I don’t know how.

After a few days of not replying to him, he had sent me a bottle of whiskey. And not just any bottle of whiskey, no, it was one of the limited editions of ‘The Golden Brothers’ which is really hard to get nowadays. It wasn’t too expensive for me, as I got plenty of money, but the issue was that they were sold out. I guess that he still had a bottle in his palace, and tried to buy me off, for some reason.

Of course, such a bottle as this, wasn’t going to be thrown away. But I’m not going to let him know that.

So, while drinking a glass or two of that good whiskey, I had sent him a few texts. And a picture.

He had been stupid enough to think, that I wouldn’t notice three warriors to come and enter my territory, a few days prior to his text. The moment they had come near my mountain, I had caught their scent. Amy had told me that I shouldn’t kill them on the spot, as if they were indeed the King’s warriors, we could have gotten a war on ourselves.

So I had put them in one of our cells, thinking about what to do with them. Until of course, I displayed them as pigs on a banquet, and sent them home.

“Amy, do you happen to know who gave Daniel my number?” I asked her, when I had walked over to her room.

“Uhm, yes, his Beta asked me. And since he is the Beta of the King, I didn’t think that I could ever reject his question. Was I wrong?” She asked in return.

“No, I just wanted to know for sure. Safety-reasons and all.” I said and wanted to walk away.

Amy’s phone began to beep, several messages coming in at the same time.

“Wow, you’re popular” I said to her.

She looked at her screen, and a smile came upon her face. She is really happy to have received those messages. From who were they? Nah, I didn’t want to breach her privacy, by asking her that. So I just turned away and got out of her room.

I didn’t have time to linger on any longer, anyway. My car was parked in front, to take me to one of the other packhouses, as a new week had started, and the next two days I’d be spending my time at the northern packhouse.

“Alwa, Alwa, Alwa!” A little girl of barely two years old, I assume, came running into me, as soon as I stepped out of the car.

She clung herself around my leg, and didn’t want to let go. I thought about shaking my leg, as if she was some mud, stuck on my shoe, but that would’ve looked awful. So, I just kept on walking, while she sat with her butt on my black leather boot.

Terrence had come with me, on this trip, to train the warriors here himself, so he chuckled at the sight, but the bastard didn’t want to do anything about it either. I looked angrily towards him, but he lifted his shoulders and raised his arms, as if he didn’t know what to do about this situation.

The little cub giggled, with each time my foot landed on the ground again, shaking her tiny body. I pulled up one of my eyebrows, wondering what could have been so funny. But hey, I’ve hardly had any fun, the last decade, so who am I to judge about anything funny, right?

“Cindy! Let go of our Alpha!” An elderly woman of about seventy years of age, scolded the little girl.

“Oh, it’s alright.” I said, remembering the lessons that Amy has taught me.

Be nice to your pack members! Resonated in a bright, high pitched tone, through my memories.

The woman, looked amazed for a second, but quickly grabbed the child and carried her away. Soon after, the Delta who is assigned to this building, came walking in.

“Alpha, good you’re here. I could use your help with some of the paperwork.” He said.

“Timothy, get me glass of whiskey, and we will get started right away.” I said to him, and he nodded.

There was still a massive amount of work to get through at this packhouse, as I didn’t have the time to finish all the documents, before attending to the mating ball. So, I’m glad that my Delta was being so direct and motivated to get this over with.

We had been at it for several hours, while also food and drinks were provided.

“Alpha, have you thought about the renovations?” Was one of the issues we had to go through.

This building was the oldest one in my pack, and the least taken care off, as the former Alpha only cared about other things, such as himself. The arrogant bastard had expensive cars, attended parties all year long, in customized suits and so on. He never had taken care of his pack members, and that wasn’t something that I was going to let continue.

So, several weeks ago, before the mating ball, we had sold some of the expensive cars, managed to train the men, to hunt better at animals, and assigned each and every single person to a job. Then the packhouse was cleaned up, and inventory was made.

So at least this part of the pack was running properly now, and Timothy was doing a good job to maintain order within all the chaos.

“How much would the renovations cost?” I asked him.

“Well, we need new walls, new power-cables have to be pulled through the whole packhouse, the plumbing is about forty years old, paint is practically withered away from all around the mansion and…”

“Stop it! Just build a new one.” I said, annoyed by all the things that the former Alpha had lacked to take care off.

“Ask contact info about an architect, from the Gamma, and he will get to design a new one. And in the meantime, the residents here, will have to live either in temporary tents or be assigned to other packhouses, until the building has completed. Make sure you make it bigger than this one, as I recall that there are not enough rooms to house all of the people. Spare no expenses in electricity and plumbing, and make sure all appliances for the kitchen and such is bought also.” I said and Timothy’s jaw just dropped.

“What?” I said to him.

“Are we just going to build a new mansion? That will cost millions!” He said.

I shrugged at his comment, I’ve never had any money before I started this pack, and I got plenty of money now, that is waiting to be spend. I’m not going to keep all of it to myself, I want my pack to flourish, and to be taken care off. Besides, after changing a few things those weeks ago, the people here are providing for themselves, but they don’t have the money yet, to buy themselves a new house. So, this will be a onetime gift, to give them a suitable house to live in.

“Maintenance and decorating will be on the pack to do for themselves. They have jobs now, and learned how to hunt better, so make sure that the animal pelts are being traded, and make sure of an income.” I said to him.

“You are going to get through a rough patch, this year, because all of these changes. But you can always ask for help.” I continued.

“You, you, you want me to organize this all?” He asked in disbelief.

I had explained to him, that I don’t pick just anyone to be my Delta. He is capable enough to arrange for such things, and he is caring and nice towards all the other wolves as well.

His eyes started to gleam with pride, upon hearing all my words, and I guess that he couldn’t comprehend what I was all saying. As his jaw dropped lower with each and every sentence I said.

“I don’t know if I should receive all of this, but I’m deeply honoured that you think of me like this. I will not disappoint you, Alpha!” He said, while bowing to me.

After shaking off this awkward feeling of being adored by someone, we continued to do our work. The next morning, gossip has travelled through the badly isolated packhouse, so everyone knew of course, what was going to happen in a few weeks.

Grateful comments were thrown my way, and I just nodded to them and continued to get to the office, and work through the last stack of pages.

At the end of the day, I got mind-linked by Amy.

“Uhm… your mate is here.”