Werewolf Moon (The Pack Trilogy Book 1)

by Chanel Smith

  If he’d been forced to describe his new feelings about Petra, he would have only been able to say that she felt like home. Not any home he’d ever had, either: she was the kind of home that meant wherever she was in the world, he would be at home. To say the sensation was odd was an understatement. Raya thought as he ripped open the doe’s still-warm belly and buried his nose in her intestines; Bliss.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Petra flat on her belly crawling up to the kill, ears partway back in pleading.

  “Petra requests permission from her Alpha to feed,” Raya heard to his total disbelief.

  “Are you cra–” he stopped himself there.

  There was much about this wolves’ world that he did not know. He did know better than to insult who he figured was his only mate, if his new and growing wolven senses were correct.

  “Raya grants that wish and any other from his female alpha, Petra.”

  Terrified that he’d overstepped, he physically backed away from the doe until he heard that voice once again.

  “Last one to the heart has to eat the asshole.”

  A grey flash shot by him, he took one leap and the game was on.

  About ninety minutes later, Petra led him to a small stream.

  “Was she that thirsty,” he wondered?

  Then he watched her curl up next to it and he caught on. A thin line of light near the ground through the trees heralded the coming sunlight: his first night as a wolf was coming to a close. There was no sensation of any kind as he shifted back to human. He looked at Petra, stifled laughter and wondered if he looked anywhere near as filthy and caked with mud and gore as she did. He walked, on two legs, upright to the water’s edge and learned from his watery reflection the he in fact looked far worse.

  They both cracked up, then Raya sobered. He had a question he was burning to ask, but it was somewhat delicate and he had no idea about werewolf sensibilities. The last thing he wanted was to hurt the magnificent Petra in any way.

  “Um, Petra. I have a—that is, something happened that is—”

  She laughed, a rollicking gay sound, “Why Raya, I believe you’re actually embarrassed! After all these years, you’d have come out with a doozy to make this old girl blush so go on, spit it out. What’s up?”

  Still Raya paused, and to his shame he felt his face burning.

  “When we, ah, had our little episode last night and we howled at the end of it seems to me we weren’t the only ones howling. At least a couple of others chirped up just like they were cheering us on! What gives with that?”

  When Petra fell silent, he was genuinely afraid he’d either embarrassed her or asked something that shouldn’t be discussed in that culture. Shit, he didn’t really need to know.

  “Never mind, Petra, it’s all good.”

  She heaved a dramatic sigh and grinned.

  “Listen, bucko, like I said you’d have to go a long way—and you haven’t even started down the path. Truth is, I don’t know how much to tell you as all this is so new to you. Hell with it here goes.

  “I’ve been with Charissa and Erigny for almost 300 years now: they’ve trained me every way but upside down in pack culture. Enough so that I know our small pack is basically hanging in the wind with only three women and no Alpha. Isn’t like any male who is a wolf can run a pack or even want to—pretty thankless job, but the perks are really good,” she gave him an exaggerated wink and his cock literally jerked in his britches, just at the memory of last night.

  “When you and I got together last night, it was partially because the three of us had sensed the wolf in you and the alpha in the wolf...” she stopped speaking momentarily, then slowly continued, “And not just the Alpha, Raya. The Trans-Alpha, or Transcendent Alpha: the leader of all currently-alive werewolves. Other than the Uber-Alpha who doesn’t exist in physical form, the Trans-Alpha has the final word over all wolves in all packs.”

  “Jesus Christ on a rail,” Raya exclaimed.

  “How could that even be when I’ve only been wolf for a matter of hours?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she insisted.

  “It’s in your blood and it evinced the instant you shifted: all wolves felt it, not just our puny pack,” it was her turn to hesitate.

  “Naturally all joined in the celebration: the mating of a Trans and his Alpha is a major reason to celebrate. Now, your turn. It’s your call—what will you name our new pack?”

  Raya began pacing, an unconscious habit left over from his warrior days. Now his mind was chewing on that necessary name problem. The pack name had to be elegant and meaningful, not just a quick name. And suddenly it popped into his mind. He stopped pacing and faced his Alpha female, a large grin on his face.

  “Petra, you’re now Alpha female of Pack Lupeinescu!”

  Petra’s face lit up, “Raya, that’s absolutely perfect. Wait till Charissa and Erigny hear that. ‘Son of the Wolf’ in ancient Romanian—it’s perfect.”

  Petra’s words were prophetic. The older blue-eyed Charissa in particular literally danced around camp with sheer delight.

  “We knew you’d be here one day, and we knew on that day we’d finally have a name. We didn’t know it would be so elegant or meaningful. Raya, this is a fine start for your life as the Trans-Alpha.”

  At his look of uncertainty, she hastened to reassure him, “This isn’t a test you’ll be taking tomorrow. You have a couple of years to learn our customs and create the Lupeinescu Codec.”

  Raya looked mystified, “The Lupeinescu what?”

  “Customs, rules & regulations to be followed by all packs.”

  “You know, Lupeinescu is a great name for a pack. For a legal book? A bit too long and complicated, I’d think. It should roll right off the tongue, really, like the ‘Lupein Codec.’ That work for you guys?” At their concerted happy nods, he continued.

  “Right, then. Create a book of rules and regulations for an entire species I didn’t even know existed until last night—Shit, I’ll whip that out in ten minutes,” Raya said with a grin of pure bravado.

  He had one part of the story only with Pack Lupeinescu ‘s history: it would be a matter of tracking down all other available packs and discussing their customs.”

  “Dead easy,” Petra chirped. “Have it done in a week-end!”

  “Give or take five years,” Raya muttered.

  The bitches in his pack didn’t respond to that one: they only gave each other knowing looks. Raya’s guess had been spookily close to what the pack considered. A better guess: eight to ten years might cover it. Five years would simply cover the travel between pack territories, the negotiations, meetings, sometimes with the rare packs who had no intention of meeting others, much less recognizing the absolute power of a Trans-Alpha discussion would be extended. Such packs as the latter were mercifully rare, as their own culture differed radically from that of the preponderance of global packs.

  Over the next couple of years, Petra taught Raya all she knew about the Were lifestyle even as Charissa, Erigny, Raya and herself moved slowly through Romania and on into Russia. Raya made copious notes upon meeting other packs, and the Lupein Codec began to come to life, taking the shape of a large, flat book with gorgeous calligraphy painstakingly scripted by Erigny. Raised in a monastery until she was eight, Erigny was then considered a woman and forced to leave the only home she’d ever known. A monk had volunteered to escort her to a nunnery in a town high in the mountains, but the pair had never arrived. History has them being attacked and killed for the paltry sum of money the monks had provided Erigny so that she wouldn’t arrive at her new home penniless, but once again the truth was somewhat different.

  They’d been attacked, but a small group of travelers had only taken Erigny: the aged monk had been left to return home. Erigny had been ‘bought’ by a pack who recognized a certain scent about her. They raised her with love and honor: on her eighteenth birthday she’d received a special gift, a bite by her own ‘father’.

  Now as the pack
was en route to locating other packs, they learned to announce their arrival via music: specifically the ancient whistle, which Raya’s father had carved for him and then taught him to play, accompanying him on home-made bagpipes.

  But music wasn’t the only trick in Raya’s ever-expanding talent list. He himself was impressed with all of their abilities to change form, but he learned from Erigny that certain Weres developed other talents upon gaining wolf-hood. Erigny knew of Weres who could literally vanish and appear miles away: this particular trick took a lot of stamina as the wolf sometimes travelled miles to make the stunt yet more impressing.

  Then there were the Weres who could sing with such unearthly beauty that audiences were transfixed, sometimes literally under the power of the singer.

  There was only one other talent that Erigny had seen in her long lifetime, and that one wasn’t nearly so pleasant as the others. She was highly reluctant to discuss it at all until Raya convinced her that his ignorance would serve no one well.

  According to Erigny whose normally-reddish face turned a pale yellow during the telling, certain wolves had the power to kill using only their minds. No matter how Raya coaxed, she’d explain no further. Raya was consoled by the fact that not all Weres acquired any gift whatsoever, so the chances of his having that last, dreadful power were minute indeed. As the fire was burning low, the small pack retired for the night and the subject of wolfen mind control wasn’t raised again for many years.

  When Raya asked if four was the normal number of wolves in a pack, the three women shared a glance.

  “Not exactly,” Petra said at last, “A normal pack has eight members.”

  Raya pondered on that one for a while then gave up. Some understanding would come with time, he was sure. Meanwhile, he was determined to learn how to make money. Lots of it.

  As they traveled from city to city, one thing struck Raya to his soul: the number of dirt-poor people who lived lives on the edge of death. Never knowing when their next meal was coming or if it would, these people had no hopes for a better life. At most they could pray that one of their beautiful children would be selected for slavery, and bought for what was truly a pittance. Otherwise they had no hopes of rising out of their current spot due to their religion, their politics or any other reason concocted by the wealthy who wished to hang on to their resources.

  Raya soon realized that he too needed to understand business; how to do it anywhere, no matter the conditions. He longed to help those hopeless souls and their even more hopeless children, and there was only one real way to do it—

  Giving them money wasn’t it. Putting them in a position where they could make money themselves, now—that was a different proposition. First, though, Raya had to learn that feat on his own.

  It would take some thought.

  Finally he decided that there was only one way to learn, by doing. And wolves were blessed with many gifts that enabled incredibly rapid learning, such as their enhanced hearing and sight. If he could work for as many businesses as possible, starting on the ground floor, he’d learn what each business was really about and how to progress in it. He would also learn which businesses would prosper in certain regions.

  He held a small pack meeting and informed the females of his decision; he was off to get his first job in the morning. Horrified faces watched as he stood and went to bed.

  ***

  Thereafter, each city the pack passed, Raya took a small job in a different business. A food stall here, a blacksmith there. Builders in another city. Vendors. Even money lenders. And everywhere he was, Raya heard the conversations that occurred at higher levels. Some were perfectly disgusting, while others opened his eyes to issues he’d never considered, nor imagined.

  Finally as they entered Germany, Petra snapped.

  “The Trans-Alpha leader once again returns home covered in shit! Enough is enough. I have enough money for a thousand of these damn businesses you’ve apprenticed in. It’s time you started one yourself, Raya. You’ll never learn to run them if you don’t open one of your own. Just working and listening won’t work.”

  Standing in the doorway of the small house they were renting and indeed covered with horse crap from cleaning the stalls at a livery stable, Raya conceded that she had a point.

  The next day the small pack began its very first enterprise: ‘Lupein Fine Horse Traders’. This enterprise allowed for plenty of travel, and Raya even opened branches in other cities. It was a success.

  After a year and countless hooves marks smashed into various places on Raya’s body (horses and wolves do not and never will get along) Raya decided it was time to turn these businesses over to those most in need, those who could make them flourish after enough training. He located areas where poverty was rife, and posted lowly positions such as stablemen. Those men who were truly desperate would jump at such a job and Raya would then have a list of candidates. Petra had laughed when he’d mentioned the stable-cleaning job as the test job.

  “Well, you have that right! Anyone willing to clean up horse shit will indeed do anything for their family,” she’d admitted.

  He and the pack split up and went to several villages and cities, located the impoverished sections, and posted their appeals for help. At first responses were thin: the poor had been tricked before and were now cautious. As they landed legitimate jobs and spread the news, lists began to fill more rapidly.

  The pack made their way across Europe slowly, creating businesses here, buying them there. Always on the lookout for those who needed help and those who took advantage of others. Raya was accumulating a list of fun things to do when encountering these individuals. His best idea came to him after an official pack dinner.

  He’d suggested they keep score. Points would go to pack members who had taken down the most corrupt businessmen. Bonus points would be awarded for creativity and the deployment of sustainable aid for the needy in their wake. He also intended on providing unique rewards to those with the most points. Intrigued, the entire pack had agreed. This would be the first month where Raya would give rewards and he’d been racking his brain for days for something appropriate.

  The pack reached the outskirts of Paris, where Raya rented a small farmhouse and a good-sized barn for the numerous horses they’d brought with them. Raya and Petra had learned the horse trading business well. They carried several breeds; each section of Europe had different tastes in horseflesh ranging from the heavy but stable breeds to the muscular but hardy donkeys. Pack Lupeinescu prided itself on carrying at least eight breeds of horses and donkeys.

  As Petra walked into the city through a poverty-stricken area she noticed a large, elegant church right standing tall in the midst of the poorest section of town. Out of sheer curiosity, she hiked to it and walked into another world.

  Candles burned in large racks near the door and there were a small number of pews set out in lines from the door to the upraised altar down front. The unfortunate could be seen in the shadows of the main hall, sitting or lying on the chilly stone floor eating what was obviously refuse. Petra was horrified; hundreds of souls were here, tucked into corners, curled up under pews, some of the braver persons used the pews as beds.

  Even with the rack of sputtering candles, it was darker than the inside of a horse’s arsehole, as Raya would say. How was she to post a list and, moreover, how were the people to see well enough to respond to it? This would take some thought.

  She made her way back into the welcome sunlight and instantly had the answer, chiding herself for taking this long to figure it out. Promptly she pulled a thin piece of bark out of her backpack, one of several where Raya had written job listings in several languages. Using a bit of sticky mud mixed with water, she fixed one to the church wall just near the entry where the occupants couldn’t help but see it.

  She headed back to the small barn they’d rented and wait to see who appear for a job, if anyone did.

  ***

  After no takers in nearly five days, Petra was ready to
call it quits. This town was simply too large to have heard job news from the smaller villages they’d visit in the other cities across Europe.

  Resigned to a have a wasted week she began to pack up the meager supplies she’d brought. The wolf in her smelled the arrival of the first applicants, a familiar yet strange scent and she whirled in a crouch toward the barn door.

  As fast as she moved, Raya moved faster, she hadn’t even seen him arrive! He simply appeared between her and the painfully-thin Japanese man at the barn door. Actually he’d leaped in front of her, lashing one accurate foot out to knock her sideways into a stall—well out of reach of the stranger.

  She stood and began to shake off the straw.

  “You devil. Don’t you think I can take care of myself?” she was so indignant that it took several seconds to realize Raya wasn’t responding, hadn’t even looked in her direction. There was a low, vicious growl emanating from deep in his throat and from the look of him, Petra observed that Raya was acting on instinct.

  “What the hell was going on? Who was this thin Japanese man propped in the doorway from sheer weakness, and why was Raya responding to him as if he poses a threat?”

  As if he heard her thoughts and agreed, the Japanese man eyed her briefly and bowed his head in a show of respect. A brief suspicion went through her mind but no, surely not.

  Not in this place, and assuredly not in that jam-packed poor house of a church. It wasn’t possible. Just as she’d decided that, the man spoke for the first time.

  “Raya, Trans-Alpha. Petra, Alpha to the Trans. I would ask mercy for myself and my mate. My son was snatched from her arms two days ago.”

  To Petra’s horror, those slanted black eyes began filling with tears. She shot Raya a panicked look, for a moment their eyes locked, and they had one of those unspoken discussions common to long-term couples. Raya nodded briefly and turned to the Japanese man.

  “What is your name and what happened? Come, sit down.”