A Second Chance

Chapter 1

Sophia

Packing your life of six years into boxes is enough to exhaust anybody. And I was exhausted. I was moving out of the cottage that Will had built so that a makeshift 'orphanage' could be made. The sad truth was that many warriors were mated to each other, and if they died protecting the pack, they left children behind. But a she-wolf named Aylen, whose mate had died too, wanted to take charge and make sure that these children were cared for. I solved the problem of there not being a place for them to stay by moving out of my house.

I'd known for some time that I needed to move out of the cottage; there were too many memories of Will in this house. Not that I wanted to forget him, but I knew that I'd probably go insane one day if stayed there much longer. I would always love Will, and I'd always remember being with him, but I needed to move on. I needed to remind myself that no matter what happened, Will would not come back. He was gone.

And I was tired of being all sad and mopey all the time. I was tired of putting on a facade of happiness for my pack when I was anything but. I wanted to go back to living my life, not just surviving it. This move from my cottage to the Alpha's quarters (that Will had never used) in the pack house was the beginning of a series of changes that I was finally going to make.

I sealed up the final box and carried it out, turning around to glance one last time at the place where I had been so happy and so sad. Some wolves had helped me carry the rest of my boxes and only Jamie was still here to help me with last of them. He took the box from me and we walked in a comfortable silence till he asked me a question. "The Council Ball is in three days. Will you send me and Chenoa again?"

"No, not this time. I was thinking of taking Ellie with me, make a bit of a girls holiday out of it. I trust that you and your mate will be able to take care of the pack in my absence?", I replied. Jamie stopped walking to stare at me. "You- You're going to go?"

"Yes. I thought it was about time."

"I'm happy for you Soph. I know you still miss Will, but you should be happy, you know? You should move on", Jamie said. "I know. That's why you're carrying my boxes around", I said while bumping into his shoulder, trying to make light of the situation.

There were two kinds of Council Balls. One was the slightly smaller, less grand version which was attended by the Alpha and Luna of packs in one country. So all American Alphas would attend one ball, the Canadian ones another ball and so on. The other Council Ball was held every five years and was attended by every single Alpha and Luna in the world. It was held on a private island owned by the council off the coast of Argentina because so many wolves attended.

It was mandatory for each pack to have some kind of representation at both the balls. If the Alpha and Luna could not attend, then the Beta or Gamma had to. The Balls were basically three days and three nights of important meetings and fancy dinners. On the last night, a proper ball was held, like the kinds you'd see in some Victorian era movie.

The last ball that I'd attended was with Will. After he had died, I had sent Jamie and his mate Chenoa instead of going myself. But this time, I was going to go. It would be tough to get through, but I knew I'd be able to manage.

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Three days later, I was packed and ready to go to the airport. Ellie and three warriors were also going with me. We were supposed to board a private plane that would take most of the American packs straight to the island.

When we reached the airport, only one pack was left to arrive after us. We boarded the plane and buckled ourselves in. Ten minutes later, everyone was present and the flight took off.