Little Red and the big bad Alpha

Chapter 2 - Tense Pack...

Lilia sat on the chair in the kitchen, staring at the pie, feeling so warm and fuzzy that she could cry. Eddy and Emmie, as she was now going to be called, had both bought and baked her a pie. A week ago. They'd baked so much pie that it had lasted a week.

Three pies, to be exact. One for Lilia and two for the fridge. Now, almost exactly a week since Emilia had come back and they ate the last of it. She ate happily, leaning against one arm, never knowing the sheer joy in banana-related foods till lately. The past few months it had gone fever pitch.

Emilia sat beside her with the slice that Lilia had managed to spare, Edmund with his slice, the three of them fairly content. Emilia looked kind of thin. Lilia stared at her. Was that pregnancy envy or was that because she had lost weight?

She yawned, trying to relax, leaning back in the sunlight. It had cooled down now, a butterfly drifted past, and it really was a relaxing summer day. Honeysuckle had grown up the side of the Pack Hall's Alpha residence where she'd planted in spring.

“Edmund, is it just me, or do some people not like Lilia?” Emilia said it so lightly, so casually, that she might have said 'Isn't it a lovely summer's day outside'. She waved a bee aside gently, watching as a group of the fighters walked past. They avoided Lilia's eyes but

At least Emilia had noticed too.

“Some people forget I'm not an idiot.” Edmund said lowly, ignoring them, the spoon lowered. He gazed at them evenly as they walked past, their eyes lowering from him, malevolence evident in his face. “That the Alpha isn't that easily manipulated.”

No one spoke till they were gone. Lilia saw one of them flinch though, glancing up briefly, only to glance away.

Emilia blinked. “What?”

“They think I'm using him.” Lilia said quietly, stabbing into her pie. “That it's not his baby.”

“Who told you that?” Edmund's voice raised slightly, as if he hadn't realised she'd known, his teeth gritting. “Did someone talk to you?”

“Relax. Sometimes they hiss things. But everyone knows.” She shrugged. Lilia glanced up and her face softened, watching Georgie and David slip past their parents for a house. Lilia knew that look. “It's no big deal.”

“Yeah, it is.” Emilia snapped. She stared at Edmund. “You going to stand for it? Going to punish them?”

“No.”

“What?” Emilia stood up. She glared at him. “I-”

“Lilia has to do that herself.” He smiled apologetically at Lilia, but she just nodded, gazing away. “They aren't placing her in direct threat and I doubt they will, as long as she carries a baby. If anything she's safer because of it- she has time to earn respect. It's going to be difficult for both of you. Coming into a Pack that's been together for generations. Some of us have been with this Pack since Europe. You know why we're called the Southern Pack?”

Emilia sat down. She didn't answer. She looked kind of pissed off, glancing at Lilia's stomach, as if that made it perfectly all right for Edmund to wave the Alpha stick at everyone.

Lilia gazed at him. “Why?”

“We come from Italy. Well. Italy, southern Europe, along the coastline.” He relaxed back in the sun, shutting his eyes, the warm skin making the pale brown stand out more. That explained why he always looked brown, as if he tanned all the time. “Northern Pack was mostly from Northern Europe. We came to America together. Allies then.”

“Then what?”

“You know. Werewolves, land disputes, fights over mates. There's a whole lot of things that just slowly broke us apart.” He opened one eye. “There's a long history of it we've got. You should read it, both of you. It's an interesting read. Once the indigenous Americans were fairly good with us-we used to let them know what we were. They had their own shifters so we respected each other's hunting grounds. Sometimes we even hunted together. But more humans crowded us and them, and we had to be more careful, hide more. They got guns. We really had to hide then. Imagine once, when we could live openly without worrying about being seen with our skins, when we could change and hunt and run without fear of humans seeing us. Then wander on into your home and change to human for bed.”