Exposed

Andre

"I'm sorry. I've never cried in front of anyone before. I don't know why I just did that in front of you," Ki sniffled.

She tried to move away from Jae, but he held her against his chest. Resting against him, Ki listened to his heartbeat. She had always been closed off to people. Only her closest friends, who had to work hard to earn the title, had ever seen her vulnerable. Even they hadn't seen her cry. 

"You trust me."

"I do," Ki realized, sitting up straight.

Her eyebrows furrowed as she tried to figure out why. Why does she trust him? She has no reason to. She's known him for barely a day and she somehow trusts him enough to cry in front of him.

"I trust you too. I don't know why I do, but I do. Apparently, the Silver River pack's alphas have had a long relationship with kitsune. Since we're still here, obviously you've been successful in protecting us. So, from now on we're a team," Jae declared, looking straight at Ki. 

"Okay," Ki nodded, "What am I protecting you from?"

"The neighboring  packs, they've been threatening to take our land. We had been on good terms until about two weeks ago. The alphas from three other packs and some of their wolves came to the pack house and warned us. On top of that, some of our wolves have gone missing. So far it's been one each week since the other alphas visited us."

"What did you do to make them approach you?"

"I don't know. We really don't interact with them. Unless someone did something I don't know about," Jae sighed, leaning back in his chair.

Ki wasn't familiar with werewolf  laws or rules or habits. She didn't know anything about them other than what she's seen in movies and what she's observed here. She stared at Jae. Something about him seemed familiar. Was it his face? His smell? No. She watched as he bent his neck side ways, rubbing his ear against his shoulder. Who else used to do that? 

'Ki! You're back!' Andre yelled, running up to his sister. 

Ki smiled and nuzzled the kit. He sat down at her feet and rubbed his ear against his shoulder.

'You should really kick that habit Andre. You won't be a kit forever.'

'I'll be a kit forever!' Andre giggled, rolling over on his side.

"No, you'll be a kit until it's your time to grow up. Which is coming up sooner than you'd think,' Ki said curling up around her little brother. She wrapped her six tails around them, snuggling up for a cold night.

"You do that thing like my brother used to do."

"What thing," Jae asked, looking through the journal.

"Rubbing your ear on you shoulder. He used to do it all the time," she said.

She had six tails in that memory, so she was 600 years old. Then how was her brother still a kit? She could have sworn that they were all around the same age in the other memories she had. How had she been alive that long and her brother was still a baby?

"We'll make an announcement tomorrow. That you'll officially be joining the pack," Jae decided.

"Okay, but are you sure that's a good idea?"

"How else are you going to get integrated? We need to let them know you're here for a while and that they should get used to it."