Chapter 28: Simon

“Nothing,” I said quickly. “I’m just frustrated.”

“You don’t have to say that twice.” Greta laughed. “Anything I can help with?”

“Unless you want to be my Luna, no.”

Jared growled under his breath; it was an involuntary reaction when I asked her to be my Luna.

“I was joking, Jared. Calm down.”

“Not funny.” Jared said through gritted teeth. Even though I was his Alpha he didn’t like the mention of claiming Greta as my mate. I never would, but the comment set him on edge.

“Beta, stand down.” I said in my deep Alpha voice.

Jared took another step back.

“Hey, it’s ok. It was just a comment. You know I only have eyes for you, Bear.” Greta said as she walked over to Jared and grabbed his arm. He seemed to relax a bit at her touch.

“Yeah.” He leaned down and kissed her. I watched them together and it was like getting stabbed in the heart. I ached for that comfort, the knowledge that I had someone by my side.

“Really, what can I help with?” Greta looked back at me.

“How are you at planning parties?” I asked her.

“Awful.” She quickly responded.

“I need help planning the Yule Ball that is coming up and it seems that it has taken the back seat to my other tasks at hand. I do have the Luna’s of the other packs coming to help, but I still need to organize most of it.”

Greta walked forward, pulled Jared along with her, and sat down on one of the chairs in front of my desk. “My solution is to get a keg, roast some burgers and hot dogs and throw some tinsel at the walls. Boom Yule Ball.”

I laughed at her response. “As tempting as that sounds, I don’t think that would go over very well with the other packs. This is supposed to be a way for other wolves to meet and potentially find a mate. As well as to celebrate the holidays.”

“I still think a keg and a barbecue would work.”

“Not everyone has your exquisite tastes, my love.”

“I swear to god, if you put shit on the menu that I cannot read I will raise hell!”

“Understood.” I laughed at Greta. She had simple tastes.

The mood was lifted but I still had this huge task to accomplish. At that moment, a huge gust of wind hit the pack house, it shook the walls, dust that had settled in the cracks drifted down from the rafters. I felt the wind go through the packhouse; it shook it in its entirety. As soon as the wind came, it was gone, it left the house quiet except for a few cries from pack members in the distance.

It couldn’t have been a tornado; they weren’t common in the area, and it left as quickly as it came.

“What the hell was that?” I said as I jumped up and ran to the door. The people that were in the pack house talked animatedly amongst each other. Some clutched their chests in fright. “Is everyone alright?”

“Yes, Alpha.” A few people said while others nodded. Most looked alright, a little girl had tears in her eyes and a couple older members were being helped up.

Jared, Greta, and I walked out the front door and looked around. “You two go right and I will go left, look for anything weird.”

Greta and Jared nodded and started jogging in the opposite direction that I took. The forest was calm now. I heard the birds coming back to life after the wind shook the trees. The leaves were settling in the now calm air. It was like nothing ever happened.

I got to the back of the pack house where it faced the lake, waves were still lapping up against the shore. No other signs of where this wind came from. Jared and Greta met up with me.

“This is so weird.” Greta exclaimed.

“Yes, very odd.” Jared chimed in.

“As long as I can remember, we haven’t had anything like this in the past. Can you think of anything?” I continued to look out at the lake.

“Not that I can recall. But it is a little weird that this just so happened to happen when a witch moves into the area.”

“There’s a witch in the area?” Greta said happily.

“Didn’t Jared tell you?”

“No, he says he can’t divulge information that you two have in your private meets” Greta said, as she tried to mimic his voice.

“That’s good I guess,” I laughed. “Yes, there has been a few pack members that have come forward to let me know there is a powerful witch in our pack lands.”

“That’s exciting!” Greta smiled. “I wonder if it’s from one of the old covens or of the new?” she asked out loud, not really to anyone.

“Does it matter?” I asked her. I knew very little about witches and their covens. For the most part, magic creatures keep to their kind. Only venturing off when they want to cause trouble or escape.

“Old Coven would want to cause harm; New Coven would want peace.” Greta shrugged.

“How do you know so much about witches?” I turned to her.

“I mentioned this before, my family was really tight with this family that was part of a new coven. Super cool family. I had a friend that would make me levitate. It was awesome.”

I raised an eyebrow and looked at Jared. He looked back and shrugged his shoulders. He really was out of his league with this one.

“I think it would be good to follow up with Bruce about the scouting. Hopefully, he would have some answers,” I said to Jared.

“I’ll get on that.”

I looked across the lake to the little cabin that sat alone on the other side. That was Wilber’s cabin. It sat empty for as long as I could remember. He said the witch occupied it now. I don’t know if it was a good or bad thing having this witch so close to our pack house. I could see some movement in the distance, my heart skipped a beat.

I shrugged off the sensation and turned to go back into the house. Jared started to laugh.

“What?” I turned to look at him over my shoulder.

“Get this,” he stopped to laugh again. “This big bad witch is cleaning and dancing to music.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, Bruce said she looks young and has a bunch of Target bags. And she’s cleaning the cabin. The gust of wind was her attempt at cleaning faster.” He started to laugh again.

“What you’re saying is that this witch is considered to be super powerful, and she used her powers to clean her house?”

“Yeah.” Jared composed himself.

“I mean if I had powers, I would just use them to do everything. I wouldn’t lift a finger and probably gain a million pounds in the process because I was being so lazy.” Greta said as she made her way into the house.

“That’s a relief then. I still want to have a scout go out twice a day to check up on the situation. I want this as discreet as possible.”

“I’ll let Bruce know.” Jared’s eyes shifted white as he spoke to Bruce through the mind link.

“This has gotten interesting.” I said as I gave the cabin across the lake one final look. “Very interesting.”