Chapter Four

“Gentlemen,” I nod to Phil and Denton as I walk into the conference room.

“Look who decided to return. What secrets did you spill while you were away, Raven?” Phil laughs.

“Only that you have a hard time getting it up Phil,” I stop in front of him and narrow my eyes, “crap, that’s not a secret though. Everyone here knows that.” Pursing my lips to the side, I shrug, “guess I spilled nothing new then.” I walk to my seat at the council table, placing my coffee down and I sit waiting for Jules, Robert, and Serena so that we can start. 

The Black Moon pack is the original wolf pack. The original wolves created it, and it received the blessing of the Moon goddess and still does to this day. While there are about 10 other outside packs, that are controlled by an Alpha and run rank that way. My pack does not. We have a council of six that the Moon goddess chooses to run things. We have no status, such as Alpha, Beta, Omega, and so on, so no one is looked down upon and everyone in our pack is considered equal. But in the scheme of all packs, we are at the top of the hierarchy. Other packs answer to us and bring issues their alphas can not solve to us.

Serena glides into the room and meets my gaze. “I’m glad to see you have returned well, Raven. Were the twins thrilled when you returned?”

She takes her seat next to me, and I turn toward her. “Extremely. I don’t know that I have ever received tighter hugs than I did then. Haylee stayed with them, so they were well taken care of in my brief absence.”

“We’ll get into the politics of it as a group, but from me to you, did you find him?” Her voice softened on the question. This is why she is my friend. She’s asking this personally if I found him and how I am doing.

I spin my coffee cup on the table and nod. “I did, but as you can see,” I gesture my hands to the empty space in front of me, where clearly no one is. 

“Was he happy to see you at least? I think this has to be the biggest thing that confuses all of us.”

“He was. He smiled and said all the right things, like, how this is the hardest thing for him to leave me and our children, then he followed it up with, but he can’t come home yet. Dammit Serena,” I notice my voice echoing around the room and that Phil and Denton are both listening in now. I lower my voice, under no delusion though, that they won’t continue to listen in. “He said ‘not yet’, as if after this fight, there will still be a home for him to come back to. When I called him out on that, he had nothing to say other than you will see. I don’t get it.” 

She lays her hand on my arm in comfort, “that doesn’t sound like him and his actions are not like the Rafe we all know.”

“Right? As we kept talking, it was like he couldn’t explain his reasoning to me. He didn’t know his whys, other than when Duncan explains it, it all makes sense and he knows he’s where he needs to be.”

Jules and Robert both walk in then. Jules smiles when she sees me, but walks down to take her seat at the other end. 

We wait for Robert to start the first meeting of the week. We rotate weekly between the six of us on who leads the meetings. That way, it stays equal between us all.

He settles into the middle seat on the right of me. “Good morning everyone. Raven, I’m glad you made it home safely. We will get to your trip at the end, so let us start with the usual.” 

The usual is us going over any concerns brought forth to the council from pack members. Whether it’s a concern about another wolf, a tiff that needs to be settled, a request for new job placement, announcing a birth, or a death. We, as the council, handle it all and speak for all in the pack.

Pity for me, it’s a short and easy list today, so that means they’ll have more time to question and dissect my trip and my reasoning.

“With that concluded. Raven, we turn to you. Can you tell us about your trip?” Robert asks.

“How about why you went in the first place when we told you not to?” Phil chips in. Ever the confrontational asshole.

“Well Phil, since you don’t have a mate, you may not completely understand this, so I won’t hold that against you.” I hear him scoff while Serena snickers next to me. “But I had to. This war is getting more real by the day. I couldn’t not take one last chance to convince my mate to come home. As for the trip, I found him easily enough thanks to our bond, but as you can all tell, I was unsuccessful. He is determined that I will see at the end that it will all work out and that Duncan has a plan, that is best for everyone.”

“Did he give away anything about this plan?” Jules asks, leaning forward on the table so she can see me.

“No, honestly, he wasn’t able to give me much of anything. Not an actual reason he’s fighting with them, what they plan for after the war, nothing. All I got was Duncan knows, and his plan is a good one.” I take a breath as I’m getting worked up again. “It took everything in me not to stop and attack Duncan as I was running out of their camp. Which,” I say, holding up a finger, “is mostly males. I saw only a few women. Granted, I didn’t get the grand tour. I ran right inside their gate, then Rafe brought me to his tent so we could talk. But on that walk, very few females.”

Phil again scoffs under his breath and murmurs, “it’s a war. Why would they need the women there?” Though I’m sure he thought murmuring it we may not hear, all three of us women snap our gaze to him and three echoing growls reverberate off the walls.

“Oh, don’t give me that. Let’s be honest here. Our pack is the only pack that truly sees women as equals and lets our women train. The others don’t force their women to train and fight and be on guard patrol. Their fighters are mostly composed of men. So that is no shock to me to learn that you saw few females since their support comes from the outside packs.”

I narrow my eyes at him. I hate how he makes sense. “Fine, I’ll give you that.”

“An almost admission that I’m right from Raven. Please write that down on the scores for today. Robert, write it.” Phil demands with a triumphant gleam in his eyes.

Robert turns to glare at him. “Enough. Raven, it’s good that you didn’t attack Duncan and while we all hope you could have returned with more information, we understand. So we must keep preparing as we have been. I recently spoke with Alpha Wayne from the Harvest Moon pack and he is on our side. He held a pack meeting and found all in his pack agree and will all fight on our side, since this is not simply an us against one pack, Duncan is against all wolves right now.”

My mind wanders. That’s good. We have always had good relationships with the Alphas of the packs. It’s our job too. So it was surprising to find out that two others have already fully joined with Duncan’s cause. We would need to worry only if he could get all 10 packs on his side. Black Moon pack is the size of three large packs alone, and since all of our members are fighters, that counts for more.

“I would like to bring something up,” I say, interrupting Phil. I’m sure whatever he was saying wasn’t important, anyway. “I didn’t stop, but on my way there, to the east, I saw a significant amount of smoke rising. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that is where the Half Moon pack is?”

They all furrow their brows. “Yes, it is. How much smoke are we talking about?” Denton asks.

“A lot. That I was miles away and saw it, speaks for itself. I would think it had to have been a significant amount of forest burned down or their entire village. I bring it up because I think we should think about checking on them. They haven't sided either way, but we still have our duty.”

“I agree,” Jules says, “we all have to be here for the burial ceremony for Mr. George on Friday night, but one of us should go after that.”

“I’ll go, I’ll leave Saturday morning.” I offer. Somehow it became my job to be the traveling diplomat among us when we need to go meet with the other packs on their lands. I don’t know if because they think since my wolf is so much larger than any other that offers me a modem of protection, but it’s whatever, I’ve never minded traveling and seeing the other packs and how they work, some of them are so foreign to me with how they do things compared to us.

We finish the meeting, and I make my way home. What I hate about leaving is that I have to tell the kids I’m going to be gone. Normally, it wasn’t an issue since Rafe was here to be with them. Now though, neither parent will be here. Even though they love Haylee like an aunt, it’s hard for them.