The rightful Luna

Chapter 17. Winter magic

Celia's temporary pack settled down near a creek in the heavily snowed dark forest.

Normally, the large area covered with trees that preceded the royal palace was rich in natural resources. Rabbits, dears, foxes, squirrels, all kind of animals and different kind of birds formed its rich natural above ground ecosystem. In the river as well, even an inexperienced fisherman would surely catch a lot of nourishing fishes.

Considering such facts, the makeshift packs would normally be well fed in this lush patch of nature. They had fishes as a main food source and they could also hunt, the forest would be a perfect place to assure their daily lives in the summer. The problem was that it was winter now, not to mention freezing cold.

So even if there were a lot of animals, most would be hibernating and the animals that wouldn't, would be scarce. The creek was also starting to freeze, and the fishes had most likely settled already at the deep bottom, if there were still fishes left in the creek.

So each one of those rich resources, unfortunately could not entirely be depended upon. The solution was to make the most out of everything they could find. Which meant the students had to hunt on their own to assure their everyday meal. An activity that took most of the students' time.

One might think that these were not conditions for the students to be put through, and the students would agree with such opinions, but they were not ordinary humans, they were werewolves. They were stronger than humans, faster, their senses were hundreds of times better than humans, their stamina far surpassed theirs, and they were also resilient to cold. At least they were supposed to be, but looking at the girls around her, honestly if it weren't for the specific scent a wolf had, she could swear they were humans.

"I am dying of cold. I can't stand it anymore!" Lisa stated aggrieved. The second grade student who most likely was the source of all the rumors about Celia. How would she know for certain, well the rumors that were said were very similar to what she knew from Marcus, it was the same words she said before, those that had determined Marcus to leave her in the middle of nowhere. So it didn't take a genius to figure it out.

Lisa was dressed warmly, and was also besides the fire doing absolutely nothing, as she had done for the past week. Well not that most of the other girls did something either as they huddled around Lisa. So if they were cold, what could the ones doing the work with their hands in freezing water could say.

Almost all the girls spent their time eating whatever the boys managed to catch, or resting in their tents or, if not one of the first two options, then they spent time around the fire complaining of the cold. Most of the guys had enough of them, they thought that, if the girls were cold, actually doing something might make their blood circulate better and keep them warm, than just do nothing but complain.

But seeing as Lisa's father was an assistant to the Council, they kept their mouth shut. The girls, with a little bit of flattery towards Lisa, also dared to do the same as her. She felt proud because of their compliments and so she defended them if a guy dared to say something.

So as opposed to the first two –three days, the guys had given up on saying anything more and thought to bear with it. They were counting the days.

The bright side was that, as the guys felt more and more that the previous most popular girl to date in the Royal Academy was nothing but a brat and had completely changed their opinion of her, their impression of Celia changed for the better.

She hunted alongside them, and was actually the main catcher of prey. Her bow and knife handling were impeccable, she was also skilled in living in the forest and helped them get used to it as well. Not to mention, they realized that she was in fact truly fit to be a watcher. She was several times better than even the alphas of their home packs.