Kaya Cade entered my thoughts. "Kaya." He mind linked. "Cade.” "Are you okay?" "I am fine." I lied. I didn't want to show how upset I was over what the girls had said. After all, the situation made me feel stupid for letting it get to me. "Kaya, it is okay if you are upset. I don't know what was said, but I think you are beautiful and love your tattoos." I could feel the sides of my mouth turn up. His words helped calm me down a bit. I was still upset about the event, but I would have to learn to get used to being an outsider down south. They were so different, and I needed to recognize that. I mind-linked Cade again to pull my attention away from my hurt feelings. "So, what are you up to." "First day of warrior tryouts." "Oh, what is the first day, and why is the tryout? Is not everyone a warrior?" "Yes, everyone has some sort of training, but only some are warriors. Protecting the pack is a full-time job and a great honor. As today is the first day, we focus on endurance. We ru

Kaya I don't know why it was so weird that I ate raw meat. I mean, we were wolves, were we not? Anyway, the guys finished the meal, and we said our goodnights, and Helen and I headed up to the packhouse. She mind-linked me. "Are we really going hunting tomorrow?" "I plan to. You don't have to come if you don't want to. But I am curious: what kind of game do you have here?" "Moose, Elk, mountain lions, regular wolf, rabbits, bobcats, really everything." Wow, that is awesome. Yeah, so hunting here is going to be a blast. But knowing that there are moose, I probably only needed to get one for the whole pack, considering there are only a couple hundred of us. There would be leftovers. I mind-linked Helen. "Helen, I don't need any help tomorrow." "Are you sure?" "Yeah, I'm just wondering if you can transport the meat back." "Um, you could take the side by side." "I don't know what that is." "Oh, um, it is like a small off-roading vehicle. It has a small bed in the back for hauling thin

Kaya Cade mind-linked me. "How did you eat the heart. I mean, isn't a moose heart fucking huge." "Yeah, maybe three or four pounds." "So, how did you eat all that." "I don't know, I just did. I missed breakfast and was hungry, plus I tasted blood." "So," "You don't go into a frenzy when you taste blood when you hunt?" "I don't think so." "Oh well, in the north. When we hunt, if we have blood, we kind of go into a frenzy, and our stomachs get huge, and we can devour large amounts of meat. That is why we don't save the blood of the animals we kill. It does not happen if we taste blood from one another, just something we consider prey." "Oh." I must admit wolves down south were extremely different. I could not believe they didn't make dens. That was an essential thing I thought all wolves did. But here they didn't. Cade also did not know about blood with prey. "I think I need to shower." "May I join you." I smiled. And mind-linked him. "You don't even need to ask." He opened his body

Kaya How could he bring that bitch here? I mean, war was never good, but Annalise here. It just rubbed me the wrong way. I also didn't know why she needed to marry someone; why can't she find her mate. I had never heard of someone not wanting to find their mate. It was a blessing from the moon goddess herself. Why someone would disregard a gift like that was beyond me. I sat there eating some breakfast burrito. I had never heard of it, nor had I had one. It was okay; I liked the eggs. I had only had a few eggs, which were rare in the Arctic Circle. So, it was nice to have those. They had to be the first thing I liked to eat besides the moose from last night. I didn't understand why everything had to be cooked. And all the meat had a funny taste to it. Then again, I am more sensitive to that thing than most because of my heightened sense of taste. I kept eating the burrito. Helen ate hers. It didn't take long for her to mind-link me. "Can I ask you a question?" "Yeah." "Do you wi

Cade I wanted to ask her what she meant by waiting for the boys. But she just wanted to read what was in her hands. I resumed my work. At lunchtime, I saw she was still looking face down in the book. I tried to get her attention by waving my hands, but she would not look up. I just decided not to bother her. I asked the kitchen staff to bring lunch to us in the office. They sat down the meals on the desk. Still, she didn't look up. I mind-linked her. "Kaya, you need to eat." Finally, she looked up for a second and looked at the plate. Leaning forward, she looked at the food. "I don't want that." "Why not." "Smells weird." "What do you want." "Smoked Salamon." "I can see if we can make that happen." I mind-linked the Becky. She ran the day-to-day of the house. "Alpha, we don't have smoked Salmon, but we have Salmon in the freezer." "Okay, well, can you please make sure we have that for dinner and, in the future, have some smoked for the Luna." "No problem." "Thank you, Becky. Oh, a