Chapter 10

Damien

The drive to the Iceclaw Packhouse would take about an hour and a half after passing the border, and once we passed the border, I would no longer have cell service. The Southern packs were less integrated into the human world, and after passing the Southern barrier, they relied exclusively on mindlink. It always confused me how they could be so much closer to the human lands, but so far removed from them.

My cars, three black Rolls Royce Droptails, were waiting for our delegation’s arrival. The chauffeurs, synchronously opened the doors, and Rolf and I stepped into the first car. My parents would follow, and other members of our pack’s council would be in the third car. Silverburn didn’t need to know about the detail that would follow, and I knew they would be able to move undetected. If everything went well, nobody would even have to know they were there at all.

The cars moved effortlessly through the city streets and it gave way to rolling farmland before approaching the shimmer of the Southern border at the edge of the forest. “How can anyone stand this stifling heat,” I noted to Rolf. “This is no weather for a wolf.” I could never understand what made Iceclaw leave the safety and comfort of the North so many generations ago.

The border guard was a wolf. He eyed the cars suspiciously at first, then seemed to recognize who we were. “Alpha Damien of Silverburn Pack?” he confirmed.

“Yes,” I replied, “You know my business here?”

“Yes sir, we are delighted to welcome your delegation to the New Moon Ceremony tonight. May the Moon Goddess watch over your journey.”

“Thank you and to you as well.” And with that, he lifted the gate and we passed through. She smells of the Southern territories hit me all at once. Damp, mossy earth, dirt, and decaying leaves. Sargon winced as the scents filled our nose and overpowered our senses. “Goddess, please don’t let her smell like this place,” he whined.

“We will rarely have to see her, only for appearances,” I reminded him, “For the alliance and for the Pack.” He retreated to the back of my mind, allowing me to take in the sights of the dark, tangled forests along the narrowing, bumpy roads.

After about an hour, we passed under a stone arch and expansive wall, the edge of the Iceclaw territory. The cars followed the road as it winded to a quaint, cobbled town square. The homes were cute and well tended. “This is unexpected,” Rolf mused, “I was expecting something more…”

“Shabby?” I finished.

“Yes, for sure. This is absolutely adorable,” he chuckled. I had never been to a place I would describe as adorable, but it held the charm of stories I had been told as a child. I had been to other territories in the South, they were all more wild, poor, but this community was clearly well tended to. The Alpha had a lot to be proud of.

We drove past wolves tending to a community garden, pups playing in a school yard, and a Pack clinic. There were shops and stores, cafes and bakeries with people strolling about in the spring sun. Our cars seemed out of place as they bumped along the cobblestone streets and over bridges that crossed zigzagging streams.

Waiting for several wolves and their pups to cross the road, I glanced at the coffee shop to my right, and there, in the portrait window, was the most striking woman I had ever seen. She was in a blue, floral sundress, tied at the shoulders and her wavy blond hair fell effortlessly over her shoulders and down her back. Sargon awoke, his eyes burned while watching her movements.

Her back was to us, but the way her dress fell across her hips and rounded her buttocks was mesmerizing. Her long pale legs sticking out from the hem of her skirt. Sargon was imagining what was hidden between them as he visualized ripping the dress off of her, exposing the most perfect body, the color of moonlight on ice, that I had ever seen.

She was talking to another she-wolf with blond curls and girlish features. I just wish she would turn around, trying to will it across the distance. The car lurched forward, and I found myself looking back, like a little boy looking at a delicious treat, wondering who she was.

Beneath the cheer of the town and the upcoming Ceremony creating a festive electricity through the streets, there was something simmering below the surface. This pack was known for their brute force, and as the car started, I saw several massive, tattooed figures enter the coffee shop. She turned around to face them, and on her face were the two most dazzling blue eyes I had ever seen.

I had never seen blue eyes on a wolf. I had heard tales, and I knew they would be all around me here, but hers were different than I had seen in pictures. “I will find her after the ceremony tonight and know what is under that dress,” Sargon noted. Perhaps the South wasn’t all bad.

“Let’s go find our wife,” I said back to him as the cars started the drive up the hill to the Iceclaw Packhouse.