Once Upon a Wolf

Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

Four days later,

My grandmother's silver necklace felt warm from my skin as I twirled it around my fingers. I hadn't taken it off my neck since I found out it stings werewolves' flesh.

I smirked. My own little protection.

Alice and I took a brisk stroll through the pack ground with our bellies full of this morning's breakfast. The dense and tall forest enclosed the grounds, and now I knew why they were so deep within the wilderness... to keep away from humanity. They were so reclusive. Isolated was their world to preserve their secret.

The summer sun still held on, warming our cheeks. But the cool breeze whispered that fall was around the corner. I pulled my denim jacket tighter around my chest.

Alice gave me the breakdown of werewolves for dummies. I learned about beta, who was the right hand-man and second-in-command to the alpha. Savina was Clark's older sister, and their father was Lincoln's beta. That meant that she was a beta, too. Each wolf in the pack had a role and was either a gamma — the caretakers; delta — the warriors and hunters; or omega — the lowest ranking wolves, who deal mainly with chores.

Every pack member ran like a well-oiled machine.

My head hurt with all the newfound information. In college bio-chem lectures, I could take research on organism macromolecules with ease, but the hierarchy structure of a werewolf pack I couldn't swallow down.

"Plus, there are elder werewolves that holds wisdom and carry the history of the Moon Stone pack," Alice smiled eagerly and perked up when she spotted a middle-aged woman with long flaming red hair, collecting mushrooms from underneath a shrub. "Oh! And that woman is a pack scout. Apparently, she has skills in tracking people and foraging and stuff."

I nodded my head vaguely. "Are you supposed to be telling me all this information?" I narrowed my eyes at her. "I mean, they're already don't want me to know this shit."

Alice waved me off. "It's might as well you get some knowledge, you're staying here now."

"Only for a while," I said with my jaw clenched. 

Gradually, life felt like before I found out about Brett's family secret. The only thing that was different was that I had no idea when the hell I would make it home. All I could do was to show them their secret was safe with me. But I didn't know if Alice explaining me all this was helpful.

"That's where the male wolves train," Alice pointed at a large clearing a short distance from us. Twenty men stood in formation, dressed in black vests and military trousers with black boots. "It's called the combat field."

"When did you become an expert in all thing's werewolf all of a sudden? What the fuck." I chuckled, always wondering what that large clearing was used for.

Alice shrugged her shoulders cheekily and placed her thumbs in her skinny jeans back pockets. "Brett wanted me to feel comfortable and explained how things worked around here. I had a lot of questions I needed answering."

I was the opposite. I wasn't sure if I wanted to know any of it!

We observed the training men with interest. Maddox, stern and commanding, paced back and forth in front of the assembled men, his voice booming across the training ground.

I watched him, and my left brow unexpectedly hiked up. He looked good in his usual all black. This time in a muscle top, outlining his toned abs beneath the material. His powerful arms framed with chiseled biceps, and I swallowed hard. My eyes ogled how Maddox tackled down his opponent with ease, demonstrating to the others who fell into pairs for sparring quickly after.