98

"Hardin isn't available right now, can I take a message?" I ask politely, grabbing the notepad and pen.

"Can I ask who I'm speaking with?" The man asks cautiously.

"Oh, I'm Hardin's wife. Is there a problem I should know about?" I ask with a frown, not entirely certain why the stranger would be so cautious to give information out.

"No, no problem. The items Mr. Stone asked for are available, can you let him know that I'll reserve it until he's back next week?" The man responds.

"Uh, sure, yeah. Is that all?" I ask, scribbling down the phone number and items being available to pick up.

"It is, thank you."

"Ok, bye." I end the call and place the phone back on the stand.

Personally I don't like to pry into Hardin's business because he tells me pretty much everything now, although I can't deny I'm a little bit curious. Maybe he's just ordered something completely ordinary like training gear for the pack?

"Kali?...uh, sorry to interrupt but I found this little girl asking for you.." Winter awkwardly carries a familiar little face.

"Lottie, hi!" I beam instantly, forgetting about pack work as I stand up and round the desk to take the toddler off her hands.

"Hi! Draw with me?" She asks so sweetly, smiling so big that I didn't have the heart to say no.

"Of course I will." I grin, placing her on her feet.

"Do you want to draw with us?" I offer Winter, who glances between me and Lottie, before nodding slightly.

Grabbing a bunch of paper and coloured pencils and felt tip pens from Hardin's desk, I lay it all out on the floor and throw a couple blankets down to soften the wood a little.

"Do you want pink? It's so pretty." I offer Lottie the pink highlighter, which she immediately takes with a huge grin.

"Pretty." She copies, happily laying on her stomach and colouring on the paper.

"This little one is Lottie by the way, one of the many mini hearts of this pack." I tell Winter with a small smile.

"She's cute." Winter smiles, watching Lottie draw.

"Don't get on her bad side." I whisper playfully.

Winter laughs quietly, and we colour and draw, passing pens back and forth while entertaining Lottie as much as possible. I think Winter enjoys being around the pack children more than the adults and teens, mostly because children don't judge your past.

"How many Alphas have signed so far?" Winter asks casually.

"Eight, Hardin is spending the week travelling to the packs that are more secluded from society." I tell her.

Not even a whole week in, and we have eight Alphas on board. Considering the amount of meetings we have lined up this month, Hardin decided to use the spare time to ensure we have every Alpha.

"How many Alphas are there around the world?" Winter asks curiously.

"Fifty eight." I admit, which sounds bad considering we still have fifty Alphas to convince but I mean, eight is a good start.

"What if this doesn't work?" Winter worries.

I pause for a moment, turning my head to her.

"If this doesn't work, then we'll help you find a place of your own out of the city, and you'll go to school, and on weekends we'll drop in and eventually you'll have to beg us to stop turning up because we're annoying-" Winter let's out a small laugh, which makes me smile.

"Don't worry about the numbers so much, if my words don't convince every Alpha then I'm certain my wolf will." I assure her.

"Can I ask you something personal?" She questions, eyes on the paper as she scribbles.

"Sure."

"Last week in the temple, you saw Hardin hurt...did it trigger the urge to kill?" She asks me.

"It did, and I made the mistake of fearing myself around Hardin and you, and that kind of gives it freedom I guess." I say lightly.

"Is that the reason you're training me with Jackson...so I don't have those fears making it worse if it happens to me?" Winter asks quietly.

"Yes, I just wanted to take precautions in case I noticed the signs, I thought if I got to you in time then you'd be a lot better off than I am." I admit without shame.

"Do you think it'll happen?" She asks lowly.

"I don't, I think the fear and the nightmares and memories need to be talked about openly instead of pushing it away, but I think if you keep working with that therapist you'll be just fine." I say honestly, offering her a small smile.

She seems to relax a little, nodding her head.

"For me it wasn't just the loss of my pups that I had to work through. I had the anxiety and terror of loosing Hardin, the overwhelming agony and loneliness from the death of my pups, being manipulated by my twin brother which technically caused the whole thing, on top of that I had the stress of the entire pack, plus our enemies, plus wanting revenge, plus eighteen years of abuse that I always thought I could just get over, you know?" I sigh.

Winter stares at me, shaking her head a little.

"What?" I quiz.

"Nothing." She smiles. "You just seem so nice, and so open about everything that it makes it hard to believe you actually went through all that. Not many people would go through that and still come out smiling."

Saying nothing, because I feel like she didn't need a response, I just smile warmly and continue drawing with Lottie. After some time a shadow appears on the doorway.

"Figured I'd find her here." Phoebe jokes as she enters the office, joining us on the floor.

"We did drawings, do you want to show your momma?" I ask Lottie, handing her all of her pictures.

Nodding eagerly, so sits next to her mother and shows her the colourful paper. I watch them with a small smile, my heart aching faintly as Phoebe interacts with her pup.

I could have had that. I thought for a moment, just a brief second of sadness filling me.

"You're Winter, right?" Phoebe suddenly asks.

"Uh..yeah, that's me." Winter smiles awkwardly.

"I'm taking Lottie and a couple of the other pups to the beach this weekend, do you want to come? I could use the company, and an extra set of hands." Phoebe smiles hopefully.

Winters eyes widen slightly, surprised that she's actually being offered to do something fun.

"Yeah, sure, I don't mind." Winter agrees with a smile so big that I could feel her happiness radiating.

I smile a thanks to Phoebe, knowing she's done it because she's seen how the pack have been treating Winter. A little kindness never hurt anyone.

"Great! I'll find you the day before and let you know what time to be ready." Phoebe smiles, standing up with Lottie and grabbing the drawings.

"Ok, thank you."

"No problem." Phoebe gives me a wave before leaving the office.

Winter and I clean up the pens and paper, and I get back to work while Winter reads one of Hardin's history books about pack wars. To say she's a rogue, I've done some digging and the girl went from knowing almost nothing to having all B's within a matter of months. It's obvious she studies a lot, but after what happened she hasn't yet been back to school.

"Have you decided what you're doing about school?" I ask her later that night as we sit down for dinner with the pack.

Winter shakes her head silently, eyes on her food to avoid conversation with the pack. I could feel that none of the wolves at the table felt particularly comfortable anymore.

Wow, when did pack moral become so...unhappy? Surely this isn't all because of one rogue?

"Tomorrow I want everyone to cancel whatever plans they have." I announce, my voice clear right across the table.

All eyes snap to me, some seemingly perplexed by the idea while others show excitement. The instant whispers make me feel good about the split second choice.

"To do what?" One of them ask curiously.

"Training day, I think we could use a little fun." I say, flashing a smile.

To my surprise not a single one of them argue with me about it, which makes me think that they like this idea. If they want fun, they shouldn't join a pack with such a formidable reputation. Hardin doesn't have days off to have fun and play games, so naturally the pack don't enjoy stuff like that.

After Dinner I have the guys help me plan tomorrow's events, which naturally means camping out in the office with snacks and whiskey.

"Three teams, rotate every hour." Beck decides on the patrol duty, scribbling it down as top priority.

"We should set up a area for the young pups, have a couple of she-wolves tend to them." Zed adds.

Nods of agreement surround the room, concluding our most important concerns. Doubling up on patrol while having the wolves clock in and out so they get to enjoy the training too, is going to be nerve wracking.

"We can blindfold everyone, see how well they can hunt their opponent down without sight?" I say.

"Yeah, Hardin hasn't trained the young teens to use their senses yet so we could focus on hearing, smell, and touch with them." Zed nods, scribbling it down on the list.

"What about the older teens?" Jackson asks.

"When I was with the Elders, they used to talk about their training days." I voice, recalling how they mentioned it was so long ago and yet such training isn't forgotten.

"The Elders needed training?" Beck scoffs.

I suppose it's hard to believe that the most powerful wolves to ever exist did in fact have to be trained. Kind of feels like they should know how to wield their strengths and gifts.

"Anyway, they would be blindfolded, and injected with just a fraction of wolfsbane to eliminate certain senses that our wolf provides." I explain.

"So...we'd be human?" Beck frowns deeply, not liking the idea one bit.

"No, we have strength and speed without our wolves, not at much but we're still far from human." I shrug.

"You know a lot about this, did they train you like that?" Zed decides to ask me, more curious than anything.

"No, wolfsbane would have drove my wolf to insanity." I admit without flinching. I guess talking about my personal life doesn't bother me anymore, I'm not ashamed of it.

"So we drug 'em up, blindfold them and then?" Beck turns to me for the answer.

A sadistic grin spreads across my face widely.

"How good is your aim?"