Chapter 140

Chapter 140
Landon--

I try my best to empty my mind and… think quietly while Cora is working. Part of it is because I know she gets distracted by my thoughts sometimes– she likes to pause in her work and basically meditate until her brain burps out whatever she needs to do next. If she’s hearing whatever I’m doing with the rest of the pack, it interrupts her process. I’m not sure the stars thought about that part, but questioning them brings on the usual pang of childhood guilt. Dad used to be… devout? Faithful? Whatever it’s called for our version of what the humans deem to be religion. Logan and I care a lot less about it, especially now that we’re older and both our parents are gone. But the echoes of our childhood are there. We used to get smacked for questioning them, and that kind of training early on is surprisingly effective.

I don’t typically think about our beliefs in a meta kind of way like this, but Cora has me thinking like some kind of anthropologist about my own people. She’s so full of scientific curiosity, for everything. I’m thinking about everything I do and why, thinking about my relationship with my wolf more than I was even when Emory was figuring things out. It’s like when Ollie used to ask me how often I blink in a minute, just to fuck with me. I never figured out the answer because it always took me forever to go back to blinking without having to think about it first. Asshole. 

Nice try, pookie. You lost quiet mouse again. Oops. I guess I got too loud in my head again. At this rate, we’ll both have to take up meditation just so she can work. No, I’ll have to figure out a new system. We can’t trade off when we’re productive. It would be so inefficient. I guess it would be, but we’re also not bee shifters. Efficiency isn’t the answer to everything. I get the sense that Cora’s rolling her eyes at me, but she leaves it at that. To be fair,  I purposefully ignore the use of her new nickname for me. If I don’t encourage her, it might go away. At least she doesn’t use it out loud. If I’m going to be a disruption either way, though, I might as well get some shit done. 

With Emory’s creation of her Luna role in our pack, she has created for herself most of the work she does for the pack. Logan cutting back on his hours at Industries has led to him taking on a lot more pack duties as well. I can’t say he does all of what I was doing in his stead better than I was, but sometimes things just need an Alpha touch to them. 

The increase in security has been a brainchild of Hammer and I since the media circus got out of control, though, and most of my duties have become wrapped around security since then. Hammer has stayed on for a long time to help with training, but I feel like the pack has a handle on it for ourselves, now. 

Hammer’s presence was appreciated when he was able to take up the slack for me while I traveled back and forth to Cora, but now I need to get back into my role. I can feel the subtle loss of respect among the pack, the questions that weren’t there before I became “flighty”; will you be here to take care of this? Is this an issue you’ll care about? The fact that they don’t trust me like they did before cuts me, but I can’t go back in time. I wouldn’t change anything that led to realizing Cora’s my mate. I would give up anything else I had to in order to have her. I make a mental note to ask Logan about the logistics of sending Hammer back to James as I walk into the security booth at the front of the property. With a quick look at the schedule and some joking with the guys on duty, I head to where the training is taking place today.

Hammer and I decided that the off-duty security teams should train together twice a week in rotating locations throughout pack lands. That way they’re prepared for whatever they need to do. The amount of volunteers we had for the security team and the rotation we set them on makes it so even with regular duties, no one misses training. We have other duties to the pack, of course, and security work is only part time at the most, but it’s a commitment for Hammer and I both to make sure everyone is trained. Usually, three teams train and one works in actual pack security while four teams have the day off. When Hammer leaves– and I mean when like soon– I’ll have to set aside part of every day for training. I don’t mind it, though. It’s nice that I get to spar more regularly now, and I can go harder when my opponents aren’t teenagers. Nodding to myself, I jog into the forest to get some sparring in with the teams training instead of working today. That’s a good way to empty my brain out and work productively. Cora’s precious efficiency will be intact.