Three day later

I watched as the small female carried a basket towards the post where Lucas was tied. I had learned her name was Willow, like the tree, although I knew, for some strange reason, she liked to be called Will. She had to be one of the bravest juveniles I had ever seen. We had her healed up and passed off to her parents and when the moon was high in the sky I had watched as she carried a basket over to the post, sat down beside Lucas and fed him.

He hadn't wanted to eat at first. He had hunkered down in shame and had turned away, refusing to look at the juvenile he had attacked. But for some strange reason she was persistent, she moved her hand towards his face no matter where he had turned it to. After a while he gave up and I had watched her feed him small bits of food through his muzzle.

I didn't particularly understand it. Any other juvenile would have been utterly terrified to go anywhere near him but despite how she shook, she seemed to force herself, to work through the fear to help him. No matter how confused I was by her actions, that small female showed me a lot about our pack's future. Setting aside feelings and fear to try and create unity.

Just as she was doing now. Each time she went near him she seemed to take a big breath and pull her shoulders back as if trying to bolster herself before she would push on. She would make a strong member of the pack when she grew older, I could see it. Perhaps become a warrior in her own right. We needed more pack members like her. She was something to aspire to, something that we all should aim to aspire to.

I watched her for a few more moments before I turned away from the window and headed out of the office. I believed it was time for Avery to meet the little female taking care of her mate. She was getting too reclusive. She pretty much shut down after I had tied Lucas to the post. She had curled up in their room and hadn't come out. Linnette had to go in and make sure she was eating and doing okay.

I stayed away. She seemed to be having enough difficulties without Lucas for me to add to it. I provided for her outside of the general care, making sure she had enough to get through the few days without Lucas. She trusted Linnette enough to be with her and that was fine with me. I stepped into my shoes, not wanting to deal with the snow as I moved out into the cold air.

It would do well for Willow to meet Avery and it would do good for Avery to meet her as well. I came closer to the post and Lucas's ears flicked in my direction. He immediately hunched away from the juvenile and whined as he tried to hide behind the post. I stared hard at Lucas, just because the little female had forgiven him, it didn't mean I had. He had done something that bordered on the edge of unforgivable. I was half tempted to pull rank on him but I knew it was better for Avery if I didn't.

"Come with me, Will." I motioned for the wide eyed juvenile to follow me as I turned around. I didn't like spending any unnecessary time around Lucas. Willow might have forgiven him but I wouldn't forgive him until my wolf and I were satisfied with his punishment. My wolf bared her teeth in agitation, it would be awhile before she felt satisfied and I didn't blame her. What he had done was beyond anything I thought was possible for my ranks and it would be a long time before I trusted him with any of the pack members while Avery was around.

I had always held a belief that perhaps Lucas' aggression was maybe holding Avery back from getting better. That she felt okay to be scared because he was always there to protect her but now I could see that she wasn't entirely a good thing for him. His behavior had progressively grown worse the longer her progress plateaued. The less she interacted the more aggressive he became. I needed to get Avery out of her little shell if Lucas was going to be allowed to keep his rank.

I could hear footsteps following behind me and there was a faint whine from Lucas but he didn't attempt to contact me through the mindlink. He had learned his lesson. I shut him out completely or simply responded with shoving the memories of Will's wounds at him. I had no want for him to give me a litany of excuses in my own mind. He had done what he had done and the punishment was a result of that. There were no justifications for it, he would stay where he was for the next day and then I would let him off his leash and then the real punishment started.

My training was hard and brutal. Everyone knew that. I tended to only take on the top warriors or Linnette but I always held back when against another because some of my hits could shatter bone if I wasn't careful. It was the perks of having an Alpha's strength. I was simply brutal if I wanted to be and it was a lesson Lucas would soon learn. It would teach him obedience. He had not only disobeyed my orders he had disrespected me as an authority figure. Forty days of training with me and my position in the hierarchy would be firmly entrenched in his and his wolf's mind.

"I- I wasn't-" Her voice cut off and I opened the door for her to enter the main house. She gave me a wide eyed look as she shuffled on her feet slightly. Her gaze fell to the snow covered ground and she hunched her shoulders forwards as if she were expecting a reprimand. "I wanted to just-"

"You aren't in trouble." There was no need for her to think that she was. "Come in." I gestured inside and she blinked at me in slight confusion and I gestured again. She entered the porch as if she had been electrocuted and I bit back a small smile.

"Don't mind me asking, Alpha Sorrel, but why am I here?" She shifted on her feet nervously, glancing at my face before letting her eyes skitter away. She was a nervous creature but then again most juveniles were nervous around me. Too much dominance coming off me for them to feel a hundred percent comfortable with me. After two years I was used to it.

"Taking you to meet Avery." I slipped off my shoes and gestured for her to do the same as I headed towards the sleeping wing. "I figured she would like to meet the female feeding her mate." Avery was too shy and timid. She needed to be exposed to more people, to learn that the pack wasn't something to fear.

"Oh..." Her voice trailed off but she followed behind me as I moved towards Lucas and Avery's room. Willow would be a good influence on Avery. It would help her see that the pack was not something to be scared of. I reached the door and let out a small sigh as I reached for the link to Linnette.

Coming in with a juvenile. I didn't wait for an acknowledgement as I pushed the door open. Avery was curled up in the bed under the covers and Linnette was painting her nails as she sat on chair beside the bed. I could practically feel Avery tense up at my presence. It would have hurt but I didn't really have time to think on it as I gestured for Willow to enter.

"Avery, I know you are awake. Come out of the blankets." I watched her and waited patiently as the blankets shifted around and she peeked her head out. Her eyes landed on my form but never rising above my collarbone. Classic symptom of Omega training, a serious inability to meet another's gaze. "Avery this is Willow." I grasped Willow's arm and pulled her closer so Avery could see her.

"She has been feeding Lucas for you." At that there was a flash of life to Avery's gaze as it landed on Willow, despite the fifteen year old's cheeks flaring red as she stared intently on the floor. Linnette raised an eyebrow but said nothing as she continued with painting her nails. I knew the polish would flake off within a few days but Linnette seemed to enjoy the practice so I never said anything. We all had our quirks and hobbies and Linnette's just happened to be nail polish and pretty designs.

"Hello." Avery's voice was a faint waver but the fact she was addressing Willow was a good step. I had known telling her Willow was taking care of Lucas would be something that the timid little shifter would warm up to rather quickly.

"She is also going to be helping you with the scavenger hunt." I decided that Lucas couldn't be trusted with picking a juvenile because he completely ignored my order about finding one completely. Willow seemed to be a soft enough juvenile that she wouldn't intentionally frighten Avery. I wouldn't normally place a juvenile back in the same circle as the warrior who attacked her but she seemed to be alright with Lucas and Linnette and I would always be right close just in case.

I motioned for Willow to move closer to the bed before I nodded at Avery before looking at Linnette. "I'm heading back to my office." I still had paperwork to complete that I knew wouldn't disappear simply because I refused to look at it. I left the room, closing it so Avery would feel more secure before I headed to my office.

I rubbed at my forehead. I was not cut out for the paperwork. I was good at it, could figure it all out but sometimes doing paperwork was not how I wanted to spend my time. The hunters honestly required way too much of it. I didn't understand why they needed so many forms to be filled out per month. They needed monthly pack numbers, gross income, how big the territory is, whether or not mundanes were spotted in the territory, and so one and so forth. I felt like they had to chop down eight trees just to supply me with paperwork for the year.

I slipped into my office and made a face at my desk before I heaved out a sigh. There was nothing to be done about it. The paperwork had to be done. I sat down behind my desk and grabbed a pen and the first page off of the large stack of papers I was required to go through. I stared at it hard. I honestly did not want to do the paperwork. I set down the utility bill before I pulled the large cheque book from the desk drawer. It was best to just sit down and do the work required even if it made my brain hurt just looking at it.

I shuffled through the papers and pulled out all the bills I needed to pay and set them beside the cheque book. They were a good start and I knew it wouldn't take me too long to do. All it consisted of was me finding the total owing and writing a cheque to that specific business. Easy peasy. I gave a narrow eyed glance at the rest of the paperwork. The other paperwork was what gave me the problems.

However I also knew it would help me keep my mind off of the cold, murky grey that had been my dreams. It was a place no living person should ever have known. It was the place between life and death, the cusp between them both. No one should have treaded there and come back. Those that fell into that murky haze usually never came back out. Maggie had though, Maggie had fallen there and then the moon brought her back.

My grip tightened on the pen. The moon had brought her back to heart ache, pain, suffering, and death. The moon had brought her back to suffer. There was no reason for it, no logical conclusion for it. The moon had brought Maggie back from a place where she was safe, where she would never have suffered needlessly. That murky grey haze was the cloak of death but Maggie had not suffered there.

The moon, the one thing Maggie had loved above all had betrayed her greatly. It was hard not to curse at the symbol our species held dear. It was hard because the moon had prolonged Maggie's suffering, made her feel more and more of it until she dragged her back into her arms. Maggie should have slipped through the cloak of death and let go. I would have lost her sooner but the death would have been a mercy on my twin's soul.

"Your curtains need to stay closed. Vampires like hanging about." At the voice and the sound of the curtains behind me closing made me jump in my spot, my heart lurching in my chest at the startle.

"Jesus fucking christ, Cai!" I pressed my hand to my heart as I whirled around in the chair. He gave me a rakish grin from in front of the heavy drapes. I glowered at him as my heart pounded in my chest. He had even startled my wolf with that move, she was giving a low grumble of agitation at him for it. "Have you ever heard of announcing your presence?" He always did it and I always gave him shit for it. He walked over, that grin still firmly on his face. I turned back around in my chair, patting my chest, trying to calm the heavy thumping my heart was doing.

"And miss that delightfully startled jump you always give? Never." He kissed my cheek quickly before putting his arms on the desk around me, caging me in. "Now what boring things are you doing?" I rolled my eyes as I grabbed the top bill and pulled my cheque book closer.

"Paperwork." I couldn't help how I grumbled the word and he chuckled.

"Very boring. Let me liven it up slightly." He scooped me out of the chair in a move that had me giving a very undignified squeak in response as my eyes went wide. He took my place and settled me on his lap with ease before he plucked the pen from my clenched fist. After a moment I was actually able to find my voice and I slapped him upside the head.

"Giving me a heart attack is not livening up paperwork." I hissed the words at him and he merely chuckled as he tossed the pen on the desk and wrapped his arms around me loosely. He leaned his head against mine and despite my irritation I snuggled closer to him. I hadn't seen him since the last time he had stopped in and I had honestly missed his irritating face. Not that I would ever tell him.

"Well it put some excitement into your world." He nuzzled my cheek with his nose as he seemed to give a rather deep sigh and relaxed into my chair further.

"I have plenty of excitement in my world, thank you very much." I lifted my nose in a rather prim way and sniffed at him with fake indignation.

He gave a short chuckle. "So I heard. Where is the little bugger?"

"Still at the post." I didn't even question why he knew about Lucas. Mordecai sometimes simply found things out on his own. He didn't even need to snoop. I had a feeling he liked listening in on conversations from shadowed corners.

He made a small humming sound low in his throat. "Suitable punishment?"

"Not nearly enough. Have him on four weeks being the back of the pack and then forty days training with me after he gets off his leash." My wolf and I were looking forward to that very much. We needed to remind him who his Alpha was and he was going to fucking take the lessons without an ounce of complaint.

Mordecai's sharp teeth grazed my cheek in a rather affectionate manner. "Such a tough little wolfy you are." There was a thick coating of amusement to his tone and I rolled my eyes.

"We can't all be super powerful half-godlings now can we?" It was something like that. He had a literal shard of a god's soul within him. The ratio was something like half or just under. I couldn't quite remember but the details weren't entirely important.

"Half?" He made disgusted sound as he adjusted his arms around me. "I should let you know that I am full godling!" He lifted his nose into the air with a faint aura of superiority that had me poking his cheek with a sly grin.

"You can still die, so half-godling." It was fucking hard to kill a vampire but one could do it. The soul itself couldn't die but the body housing it could. In a very difficult way but it was able to be done.

He gave me a devious grin in return that immediately made me regret verbally poking him. "Tell that to the people leaving my bedroom." He wiggled his eyebrows at me and I made a face of disgust.

"Oh you are disgusting! Stop it!" I pushed at his face, trying to stop him from wiggling his goddamned eyebrows at me. After a moment he stopped and chuckled before tightening his arms around me in a quick hug. I shook my head at his behaviour, he was always one for an inappropriate comment. "So why did you decide to drop in?" There had to be a reason he was here, as much as Mordecai loved popping in there was always some reason for it.

"Can't I simply want to see how you are doing?" He gave me a look that I returned with a slight glare. He gave a dramatic and heaving sigh before rolling his eyes. "Your beautifully bodacious Beta gave me a call and said you weren't sleeping well and for me to come and deal with it." I raised an eyebrow at that.

"You honestly expect me to believe that Linnette called you?" I was skeptical because Linnette did her best to avoid any and all contact with Cai. The thought of her simply calling him for an idle chit chat was so far from believable it seemed like pure fiction.

"Believe me or not. I got a call from that succulent red head because she was worried about you." He fairly purred the term for her and I made a face at him. He could hit on all the females he wanted but I knew Linnette and that felt wrong on more than a hundred levels.

"She has a name." I threw a look at him as I grabbed the discarded pen. Mordecai or not, I had paperwork to do.

"That she does." He grabbed my hand, snagging the pen from my fingers. "However I agree with Linnette. You aren't sleeping." I turned my head to protest but his eyes were a deep and fiery red that instantly enthralled me. My focus was sucked into those two red irises as his form seemed to flicker and twist with shadows just on the edges of my vision.

"Sleep, my Zoi. Sleep without dreaming and gain your strength." The voice was like a soft whispering caress that touched my mind gently, lulling it to do as it was commanded. My eyes immediately closed and unconsciousness was dragged over me by that rumbling and dulcet tone.