Scales of the wolf

Mikael had spent the morning training. His father insisted that he trained for three hours each morning under their gamma. Mikael didn’t mind it, it meant less time being stuck in the office with his father. His alpha training was his least favourite part of the day. Four hours with his father in his father’s office felt like physical torture. 

As he had showered and changed he headed to the pack house. He wondered if he could talk Rayvin into going with him off pack ground. They could sneak out and go to the diner and have milkshakes. Rayvin could easily beat the best warrior in sneaking around in the forest. 

As if she was summoned by his thoughts, Rayvin came walking. She must have come from the school, but why was she at the pack house in the middle of the day? Mikael wondered. 

“Hey, Ray, where are you heading? You’re not skipping class are you?” he called out to her. He was the only one in the pack that called her Ray. Everyone else called her Vinny as her mother had done.

“Hey, Max. No, the alpha wanted to speak to me,” she said. She had her own nickname for him as well, it always confused people why she called him Max as everyone else called him Mike. 

Mikael had once confessed to her that he hated his middle name. After much nagging from her side, she could be very stubborn, he had told her his full name was Mikael Maximus Bloodfur. That had been it, from that day she called him Max. Since no one but his parents knew what his middle name was, everyone was just confused by it.

Mikael loved it, he had gone from hating his middle name to actually loving it. More than anything he loved that her nickname for him showed that they shared things with each other that they didn’t share with anyone else. 

She looked nervous, Mikael thought. Most wolves would be when being summoned to the alpha’s office, especially when they were sixteen and had no family to speak of. Mikael smiled at her.

“Don’t worry, Ray. I’m heading there as well,” he told her and ruffled her short, blond hair. 

When her mother passed away last year, Rayvin had cut off her hair. She had said it was a symbol of a new start. Mikael had been upset at first, he had liked her long hair, that had reached almost down to her waist. But she was adorable with short hair as well. 

“Hey, don’t mess with the hair,” she said, batting his hand away. 

“Sorry, miss prim and proper,” he joked and playfully shoved her shoulder. 

“Watch it, alpha boy,” she warned him. Mikael just laughed. 

The two of them had been friends since Rayvin and her mother had returned to the pack when Rayvin was four years old. Her mother was originally from the Whiteriver pack. But after meeting and mating with Rayvin’s father, she had left the pack. But they both returned when her father died. 

Rayvin’s mother had worked hard to support the two of them. That had meant that Rayvin had been left in the pack’s daycare facility more than most pups. Mikael had spent a lot of the time there as well. Both his parents had been busy running the pack and thought he needed to socialise with his pack members. 

When they had met, Mikael had been seven and Rayvin four. She had followed him around and at first he had been annoyed by it. But then he had come to like the quiet shadow that seemed to be attached to him.