For the next couple weeks Lil continued to bring me to the meetings. We built up the booth, designed and created the uniforms for it, picked out recipes, and decided on the schedule of who was going to work when. The weeks seamed to fly by and we were approaching our last week before break. Not only was it finals week, but at the end of the week we had the school festival. So along with studying and training like crazy, we were also baking and cooking any and all food we could before hand.
Everyday of this coming week we would have one or two finals, a pack training regiment, and a alpha meeting. On the first day I got a text message from Lil reading “Hey Jun, I won’t be present for our pack’s training regiment today, the alpha meeting, or for class. I took my final early this morning and got caught up in some crazy shit. Lead the pack’s training like we discussed. I’ll contact you if anything changes. Thanks!” I honestly couldn’t believe I wouldn’t have Lil there, but I thought she would tell the rest of the pack… Right?
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE’S NOT COMING?” Winnie yelled when I told everyone, “DIDN’T SHE DESIGN THE TRAINING REGIMENT FOR THIS WEEK SO WE COULD PASS THE FIGHTING EXAM THIS FRIDAY! HOW DOES SHE THINK WE WILL BE ABLE TO WORK INSYNC WITH HER IF SHE DOESN’T SHOW UP!”
“Listen I know everyones all fired up because of this, but she said it was important, okay? I designed the training regiment with her so I can run it just fine. Please just try and work with me here, I don’t really know whats going on either, okay.” I signed exhaustedly as I rubbed the back of my neck. ‘What do they expect me to do? I can’t just instantly make her appear out of thin air. She’s harder to keep track of then my siblings.”
After the pack training we went and got a late lunch/early dinner before I went off to the pack meeting alone. When I arrived everyone started asking me where she was. ‘She didn’t even inform the other pack leaders!?’ God she is so unpredictable right now.
Cherry tried getting in contact with her, but to no avail. She wasn’t answering anyone, the ‘prince’ also attempted but didn’t say whether he got an answer or not. Cherry started complaining about it.
“I can’t believe she’s ignoring everyone… why won’t she answer me? She knows all the recipes for the candies, I don’t have them and she has them memorized.” Cherry whined.
“Wait Lillith has all the recipes for the candies?” Cherry nodded, “Weren’t you two going to start making them today?” Cherry nodded again, “Do you know any of the recipes?” Avalen asked.
“Well yeah, I do. But she knows it all and can do it better then I can. I still have trouble with the whole pheromone thing. Like how much do I really need to put out while making it? And do I need to add more since I’m bonded? Or less? Is it just a little or a lot? She was going to teach me all this.” Cherry looked down at his shoes.
“Well just help us with the meat prep today and we will figure it out later, hopefully she’s back tomorrow.” Avalen stood up and clapped his hands together, “Alright lets get to work.”
We finished the meeting earlier than usual, and parted ways back to our dorms. When I got back, I knocked on Lil’s dorm door to try and check up on her. I didn’t get a response. Maybe she’s sleeping? I hope she’s sleeping. I went to my room, studied a little, and went to sleep.
…
When I woke up the next morning, I received another text from Lil, reading “Hey, thanks for taking over yesterday, you did great! I’m gonna need you to do the same thing today. I still haven’t finished up dealing with my stuff. Tell Cherry not to worry about the recipes, I’ll take care of it. And tell Winnie that if I needed to practice to stay in sync with her I’d be there, but I don’t so she needs to work on herself and not worry about me. I really appreciate this Jun, thanks!” Avalen and Winnie are going to kill me today.
This continued for the next two days, she’d text me in the morning thanking me, then give me directions for the day. When I went to the pack meetings the candies would be made and packaged. No one knew where she was. But she is helping us out and doing more then her part, I’m still really worried about her. And when I text her back she never responds.
It’s already Thursday night, tomorrow is our final exam, its for our fighting class. We are being sent in our packs into random parts of the monster ridden woods that boarders the northern edge of the school grounds. Our goal is to survive and get to the safe house in the middle of the woods. They judge it by how well your pack does, your organizational, tracking, and fighting skills. As well as finding substantial food and water sources, and shelter. We start at 6 am, so I better get to sleep.
…
Somebody's shaking me… I wonder who…
“Juniper! Wake up! Come on, how hard is it to wake him up?”
That sounds like Zander, why is Zander in my dream? That’s so weird.
“Hell if I know, just wake him up already”
Bexley? What are you doing?
“What will happen when Lil gets here? When will she get here, I’m scared without her here.”
“Like that bitch is gonna come, she didn’t come to training or any of our previous tests so why would she show up here!”
Arbid? Winnie? Stop yelling, you’re gonna give me a headache.
My eyes fluttered open to see Bex and Zander sitting on either side of me. I sat up and looked around, we were in a dark forest, Arbid and Winnie were arguing right in front of me. We must be in the test, did they transfer us while we slept, if so, where is Lil? And Braden? I stood up, but felt shaky, like I didn’t have full control of my body. “Arbid, Winnie, stop arguing. Lil should be here soon, so get into place. Zander, where’s Braden and Lil? Have you seen either of them?” I asked eagerly, hoping they were off scouting the area.
“Braden ran off once he woke up saying he had to do something. But Lil wasn’t with us when we woke. We figured the teachers knocked us out with a sleeping drug and transferred us here while we slept. No one knows what’s going on or anything. And we kinda need you or Lil at the moment…” I followed Zander’s gaze over to Arbid, this time I noticed blood flowing from his upper arm, and a slight whimpering coming from him. “He kinda got hurt-“
“Hey, Arbid what happen?” I asked as a rushed over to him to inspect the wound.
“I was climbing one of the trees to do a little scouting and my foot slipped, I caught myself but a branch caught my arm.” He smiled though the pain, but his eyes couldn’t hide it.
“I’ve been practicing, I’m still not as skilled as Lillith, but I’ll try to heal it. Alright?” Arbid nodded. I brought my hand up to heal him. When I heard a thump behind me, I looked over my shoulder to see who or what it was. But when I saw it I froze. It was Lillith.
“You’re gonna shred his arm up even more if you don’t focus.” Lillith warned me, she walked over. While all of us were in our pajamas she had on what looked like combat cloths. I couldn’t see very well with how dark it was. She bent down next to me and started the healing process on Arbid.
“You! How dare you show up now! After Braden left us and Arbid got hurt! Where have you been? What have you been doing that is more important then your pack? And where is Braden? Did you send him off somewhere?” Winnie screamed at Lil.
Lil didn’t look up at Winnie, everyone stood there in silence until Lil finished healing the wound. “Winnie I did what I had to do. It isn’t something I can or will tell you about. So don’t try to pry your way in. I don’t know where Braden is or why he left. And I left to get help. They will be arriving shortly.”
“What do you mean by help?” Winnie asked nervously, she shifted her feet around.
Suddenly I heard branches crack and foot steps quickly coming near us. I turned around and saw Libryinth and his pack. “Heyo! Did my little sister need help in the big dark scary forest?” He said mockingly as he walked over to Lil.
“Are you some kinda masochist?” Lil sneered as she punch him in his stomach. “We don’t have time for you to show off to your buddies right now. We’ve gotta get a move on.” Lil sounded really serious. “I asked you to join packs. Not be a big pain in my ass.”
As Libryinth retorted to Lil, one of his pack members walked up to me. “Hey, sorry about chief, he can be a real pain, but when push comes to shove he always pulls through.” He smiled kindly. I finally got a good look at him, he’s the beta Libryinth brought to the meetings, he has wolf ears and a tail, like Libryinth does when he’s in second-form. Now that I look everyone in his pack has them, they’re a wolf pack!
“It’s no big deal, Lil can usually handle him fairly well… but… umm… why are all of you in second-form? And are you all wolfs?” I asked kinda nervous for his response.
He smiled again, “Chief told us to. And yeah we are all wolves. A real life wolf pack huh? Haha! I’m David, I never got to properly introduce myself. I went to school with Lillith and Libryinth. But I’m glad she’s sticking up for herself again.’
“Yeah, she’s slowly coming out of her shell. But I still don’t know why she asked for our help all of a sudden instead of some other group. She came up to us and suddenly pulled Chief off to the the side to talk.” Griped one of the wolves.
“Calm down, Chief said we were going to help so we’re going to help out. So don’t rile him up even more.” Said David back to the angry wolf. “Sorry about him, Chief suddenly came back from talking to Lillith and told us to transform up to second and follow him. That we were helping out Lillith and her pack. But didn’t explain why. It makes no since, since they hate each other up until now.”
I realized that David was playing nice, he was furious underneath. “Oh it’s okay, I understand. We didn’t know about it either.” I awkwardly smiled back at him.
“Alright lets get going, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover tonight and not much time to do it. We also need to keep our eyes out for Braden. He’s one of our pack members, but he ran off once the drug wore off of him and we don’t know where he went to.” Lil called out.
She turned around and started making her way through the forest, everyone in our pack and Libryinth started to fallow her, when Libryinth suddenly turned around and said “That means you too, we are joining them I already said so. Our pack is made up of all Hunters and theirs has gathers. We need them in order to succeed. So lets get a move on!” He turned back around to fallow Lil. His pack started walking with us as well.
As we walked, I tried to make my way up to where Lil was. It took a great deal of effort because of how many people were with us now. I finally got up to her, “Hey Lil, ya mind filling me in on what’s going on?” I asked, too nervous to even look at her. I mean, I haven’t seen her in almost a week.
“Yeah… when I woke up from the drug I realized I had started my heat. Lib always caries a spare collar for me so I ran to get it from him. When I got to him I realized that I don’t have any refills for it. This will last 5-6 hours tops, Lib knows this so he insisted that our packs combine for the test. I tried to protest, but you know Lib… he does what he want’s” She had a slight smile on her face.
“Maybe I should start carrying a spare collar or cartridge for you… I mean only if you feel comfortable with it. But if not I won’t, but ummm…” I fumbled over my words, I shouldn’t have said that.
“That’s probably a good idea. And ummm, sorry about this week… I didn’t mean to stick you with all the pressure and all the problems with Winnie and Avalen.” She was fiddling with the edge of her shirt, “It all just suddenly happened and I needed some time.”
“It’s really fine, I mean it is my job after all, being beta and all, it all worked out in the end. So it’s no big deal.”
The wolf pack around us started to tighten up, as if the were going in for the kill, they gnarled and snarled, staring at Lil. Our pack tighten around her, Lib seamed to notice as he walked right next to Lil. Lib transformed into his quarter-form, and noted to me as I went into quarter as well. We kept walking. Lib’s pack getting tighter and tighter around us.
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