Crimson Moon

Fifteen

The next few weeks passed quickly, and Lou fell into a routine with her new pack, if that's what she could call them. She was never officially made a member, but they treated her like one anyway.

    Everyday she got up to help whoever was making breakfast. Everyday they tried to refuse her assistance, but she was stubborn and helped anyway. She laughed and talked with the pack over breakfast, especially Kristine who was close to her age and had become a good friend. Lou had never had the opportunity to be friends with a female her age, and she loved having Kristine around. Plus, being friends with Kristine meant she got to hang out with Henry all the time.

    She and Henry had become fast friends as well. She and all the pups really, but especially Henry. The toddler was sweet and absolutely adored having someone new to work his charm on. He insisted she play with him and color with him and basically do everything with him all day long. Lou didn't mind in the slightest, and neither did Kristine. The young mother deserved a break, and she'd started helping Ellen teach her three pups music. Lou had discovered a piano in one of the sitting rooms on the first floor, and it turned out that Kristine was a gifted musician. As in one of those prodigy kids who could pick up an instrument and master it. With Lou helping watch Henry, she had more time on her hands to teach the older pups who were enthusiastic about a new teacher who wasn't their mother.

    When Lou wasn't with Kristine or Henry, she was with the warriors. They had made it abundantly clear they had no interest in her as a female, which would have been insulting if she hadn't wanted exactly that. Instead they had offered to train her. Vince was trained in multiple forms of martial arts, which he had taught each of the warriors, so she spent her time away from Henry with them. They were of course all trained from their time with Cain's pack, and they trained with Cain almost daily, but they took special training from Vince. Lou enjoyed the exertion and the feeling of control the training gave her. Ryland still flirted and teased, but he was the last person she was worried about after Cain told her he would be more interested in her brother.

And Cain... well Cain ignored her and she ignored him. He ate meals with the pack, but didn't say much. On nights they watched movies, he joined them but stayed far away from her. He never looked at her. Or if he did, he did it when she wasn't looking. Her wolf longed for him to pay her any sort of attention, but the Alpha female would only pine away for so long. She had pride too, and she wasn't about to make a fool out of herself over a male who was making it incredibly clear that he wanted nothing to do with her. The night he kissed her was a mistake, she knew that. He was an Alpha male and males like him could only control their urges for so long. He hadn't meant it, and he certainly didn't want her like that. She should have been relieved, glad there wasn't a single male here who would dare harass her, but she found herself in the same boat as her wolf.

At the moment, precisely three weeks after her arrival, she was walking along a path through the woods. The snow had been melting rapidly, with the sun beating down on it for about twelve hours a day and the temperatures above freezing. The path was well worn and covered with leaves, but the fact that she wasn't walking on snow for the first time in nearly a month made her incredibly happy. A smile spread across her lips as a cool breeze lifted her hair, counteracting the warmth of the sun shining down on her. She walked on quietly, by herself for the first time in days.

Normally Ryland and a few other pack members would join her, but they'd all been busy today. Henry was napping, the pups had a test to study for, and Kristine was starting dinner while Jack accompanied Riley and Caroline on a trip into town. The latter two were needed for medical purposes while Jack wanted to get ingredients for a recipe he wanted to try. The warriors, Will, and Cain were running patrol. Now that the snow had finally melted enough for them to reach the edges of the territory, all six of them had been gone since before dawn, which was saying something since the sun rose at about three in late May like it was.