Choleric

Chapter V

Unedited. Sorry

Seconds on her thin, gold wrist watch ticked through the eerie silence as Celia stared into the distance where Alpha Cassius had previously been. She was contemplating getting out of the car, but had no idea how to navigate herself through the territory. Or how the pack would react to an intruding teenager with limbs too long to fill out.

As she stared into the luscious forest, a fierce lady marched towards the car. Her small body held immaculate posture and her jet black hair was scraped into a tight ballet bun. As she reached the large four wheel drive she pulled the passenger door open, causing Celia to yelp in surprise.

The lady glared at Celia's dark face and inspected her head to toe before coming to the closed-minded conclusion that she didn't approve of the girl. "I am Aleara, current high lady of the pack and Cassius' mother," she stated roughly as she stood back and waited for Celia to hastily unbuckle her seat belt and stumble out into the humid summer day.

"What is your name girl?" Aleara shut the door and glided back towards the house, expecting Celia to follow.

"Cecilia, but nobody calls me that," she replied as she scuffed behind her.

"Well what was the point in telling me then? I asked you so I had something to call you by child," she lectured. The hard gravel driveway was soon replaced by soft sandstone tiling as they entered the porch and headed into the red carpeted, large stone building.

"Celia. Call me Celia,"

Aleara sighed, as if the sound of Celia's voice was enough to enrage her. Celia looked around in curiosity as they entered the building. The room long and seemingly plain with light gray, plastic chairs stacked in sets of eight against the stone wall, along with fold up tables.

Across the opposite end the women entered, the floor stepped up near ten centimetres off the ground, creating a makeshift stage. There was a thin spiral staircase to the left and a black wooden door on the right.

"This here is the meeting room. This is where the pack congregates for events and meetings. It is also the largest room on the territory and can fit up to 800 heads at a time. Above us is where all the high wolves reside. Other status wolves live in the blocks surrounding us while the packs wolves stay in the valley. For now, this building is the only one you need to acquaint yourself with," Aleara's voice rang throughout the room as Celia nodded profusely, wondering what the atmosphere would be like when the whole pack was here.

She imagined the tables set out and everyone sitting there, eating dinner and talking about their day as children weaved between them, chasing one another while mothers yelled at them to settle down. She could feel the warmth as the hundreds of bodies heated up the large room.

She sighed as she turned towards the stage, thinking about how her mate - the alpha of the pack - would stand on the brightly lit stage as the entire pack huddled together, awaiting his orders. The room felt strangely safe, as if it were a place where people belong.

Aleara turned once it was clear Celia had taken in everything and headed towards the staircase. "Up here is where you will stay, with the rest of the high wolves," Aleara explained as Celia looked wearily at the thin, black metal step.

"Don't worry, it is sturdier than it looks, now hurry!" Aleara pestered as she scampered up the steps. Celia followed behind with cautious steps, not yet ready to accept the partially rusting steps to hold her full weight.

"You room is at the very end. As the rooms get closer to yours, the people in them have higher ranks. You should know how it works, only high wolves are mated with alpha's, so what was your daddy's position?" Aleara's feet made near to no sound as she gracefully swept across the red carpeted floor to the end of the short hall. There was a total of seven doors, three on each side and one larger one at the very end.

"My father was Beta of the South Pack," Aleara scoffed as Celia said this. 

"No wonder you're so scrawny," she criticised. Celia chose to ignore her as she stared the small golden plaques on the wooden doors. The first door on the left had nothing engraved into the thin gold rectangle drilled into the door, but on the others had impressive cursive that looked to be as old as the building itself. Celia ran her hands along the engraved titles as she read them. High chef, high healer, high warrior, beta, retired alpha and lastly in neat cursive the word Alpha was engraved into the last door. These were the most important males of the pack, the ones needed in order to keep a pack going.

Celia took a deep breath as Aleara opened the heavy door and stepped aside. "An omega has gone to fetch clothes. Your old pack will bring your belongings to the gathering in three weeks time. Until then, we will provide for you. Now go clean up, Cassius is at an important meeting, he will not be back 'till supper which commences downstairs at 1900 hours," Aleara turned on her heel and headed into the room to her left, where the plaque stated Retired Alpha as Celia tried to figure out what time 1900 hours actually was.

After a gruelling minute of finger counting, she discovered the time was 7pm and quickly shut the door, wondering why on earth Aleara didn't just tell her the time like a normal person.

Celia sighed into the silence as her feet hit the harder sandstone flooring inside the apartment. It was abnormally large, even for an Alpha's quarters.She remembered spending days in Alpha Lennon's apartment with Eve. They would always spend their time upstairs in the small living room, watching old TV shows created before the plague wiped out all humans. They were illegal, but her mother was always fascinated of the time before the pandemic disease hit.

Standing in the plain greeting room now reminded her of Eve's place and she felt her heart ache as she thought about home. Taking a deep breath she hid herself of thoughts about home. This was her home now and there was nothing she could do about it. Looking around she saw a small kitchenette off the the right. Entering the building she had thought it to only be two stories, but a staircase was strategically placed above the kitchen door, making the building three stories high. 

She walked past the greeting room and snooped around the spacious apartment before heading to a bedroom upstairs. She was surprised to see the bedroom was decorated in light greys and green-blue hues instead of the stereotypically expected blacks and reds. 

Looking around, she found a large window seat, bathroom, closet, desk and turquoise sheeted bed. It wasn't fancy, but neat and functional. A small pile of clothes had been folded at the foot of the bed and she shambled on towards them and had a quick glance. Picked up a pair of leggings and a top, Celia checked the antique looking clock on the wall before sighing. She had an hour to kill before dinner was ready and Celia couldn't help but shy away from the idea of asking Aleara for company. So instead she settled on having a quick shower and waiting tediously for the minutes to tick by before heading downstairs.