Surreptitious

Chapter 43: Paradigm Shift

“Ah, finally, the famous tribrid comes to see me!” River grinned from his perch on a fallen tree some feet away from the water of the lake. The other two male wolves from his pack were busy wrestling each other into the dirt – obviously practicing or blowing off some steam as their alpha looked on.

“Come on, it’s getting late. Dr Saltzman wants you guys down in the basement soon.” Hope approached the dominant male slowly, but not at all wearily. If anything, she could feel herself bristle just by the sight of him. It was irrational, she knew. He was not the bad guy of the story and she had no real reason to feel hostile towards him. However, her wolf would not be stilled deep within her chest.

“Like some wild animals, right?” River scoffed and stood up, tall and proud.

“Don’t take it too personally. We have a lot going on.” Hope rolled her eyes and smirked. “Not everything revolves around you, ya know.” She then pointed to a small cut on his forehead whereas the day before it had been a major gash that she wasn’t sure would stop bleeding. “I’m glad to see you’re looking – and obviously feeling – better.”

“Yeah, sure.” He smirked and stepped closer to her. “Soon we’ll be right as rain and we can get out of your hair.”

“Where would you go? You can’t go home.” Hope asked, a little startled. Despite that the presence of the dominant male rubbed her wolf the wrong way, she still felt care and concern for the wolves. They were, after all, the only members – along with her – left of the once mighty Crescents.

“No, we can’t.” River sighed as he shoved his hands deep into his jean pockets and turned to watch the sun set through the reeds and over the water of the lake. “We’ll seek a new one. We need to find a town we can settle close to, but still remain independent of.”

“You mean like here?” Hope stated the obvious and smirked at the back of River’s head.

River turned back around and matched Hope’s smirk with a contrite expression. “I’ll admit, we do like it here.” He shrugged his shoulders and kicked at the ground with the toe of one shoe. “Nim is 18, so is Velles. Dolin is 17 and Quin 16. They could use a place like this.”

“And what about you?” Hope arched a brow curiously.

“Nah, I’m done with school. But they’ll always be my pack. I won’t leave them.” River looked at Hope with a certain steely expression.

“Well, we have a problem. If you want to stay, you have to integrate into the school’s pack. This is their home, and it could be yours, but you have to at least respect the boundaries then. You know how important that is in wolf terms.” Hope wanted to plead with him. She didn’t want any more incidents between the Crescents and the Salvatores. She knew they all had bigger things to worry about and prepare for than wolf-politics and it was irritating her that she even needed to play mediator.

“Integrate…” River repeated after her and nodded, seemingly lost in thought as his brow creased in concentration, his dark eyes staring at an invisible point in space. “And submit to… what’s his name… Rafael, right?” River bit his lip then as he looked at Hope for an answer.

Hope simply nodded. Darkness was starting to surround them and she was getting anxious about getting the males back to the transition cells. River seemed to have other ideas though as he stepped back from Hope and whistled to Velles and Dolin who had been play-wrestling off to the side. First River’s eyes started glowing a bright golden hue, though within a second the other two males followed suite. The three started removing their clothes.

“I need to convene with my pack. We’ll be back by midnight. I promise.” By the time he had finished his sentence his subordinates had already taken off into the woods. Hope felt uneasy, her own wolf suddenly itching to be let loose. She could feel the golden glaze creep over her own vision as she watched River start to run but dive and shift before disappearing from sight amidst the trees. A minute or two later Hope could hear the alpha start to howl, calling his pack, and they answered one by one – even the females that had been at the school had bolted into the woods to join their packmates.