I was right. Mum and Ben were already sitting, as well as Alana and her parents, Duncan, and Scarlet.
Uncle Levi, Ian, Gale, and Aunty Elizabeth sat on one end together just as Alpha Marshall, my grandfather, sat on one end.
I took my seat next to Ben as Dad took the other end, the twelve-seat table full of guests, platters of food, glasses, jugs of water, bottles of wine, plates, and cutlery.
“As late as ever, welcome,” Elizabeth said to me, smiling the way she always smiled.
Human looking but with her skin just that little bit paler and her eyes brighter and whiter than usual, you could easily make out she was a vampire if you knew what a vampire usually looked like.
Her brothers, Gale and Ian, were beside her on either side. Even though they were hundreds of years old and wise, they only looked like young adults.
They didn’t live here with us, the pack didn’t like them around too much because they were vampires but they were part of our family, my great grandfather’s siblings.
By several events, they were captured and turned by vampires. Used to kill thousands of people.
Great-grandfather saved them from the savage vampires and died rescuing them. My grandfather, Conan, brought them home, helped them gain control and heal from their traumas and wounds.
Ever since then, they vowed to keep his descendants safe from any harm. That was my father, Duncan, Ben, Alana, and I.
We were the last descendants of Conan and so they show up a lot and sit with us while we eat and learn of what new we learnt or did in the past week or so since they’d last visited.
They talk to Dad about rival packs and vampires around, if he’d had any threats or anyone crossing the border without invitation.
“You can’t let little things push you to storm, Josephine,” Ian said next and I looked to Mum as she sat opposite me to do something before he told me what to do and how I was going to live my life again.
“Ian, we talked about this. You’re not her father or her tutor,” Dad put in, catching my look.
“I once was her tutor. Until you told me to shoo,” he replied bitterly, making me roll my eyes slightly as I took my fork and started eating.
Roasted potato, carrot, and pumpkin with corned beef and cheese sauce.
“Best thing they’ve done if you ask me,” I muttered, smirking a little when Ben choked a laugh.
I laughed softly with him, looking at him as he stopped to swallow his mouthful before I caught Dad’s look, telling me to apologize.
I paused and then sighed, looked to the other end and at Ian as he waited patiently, also knowing what the look meant.
“I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?”
“Take me back and I might think about it,” he replied.
“You go too hard on her.” Mum shook her head. “And she doesn’t need to know everything you know. I think she’s doing perfectly fine for where she’s at.”
“It’s mostly Ben anyway,” Levi put in, shrugging his shoulders as Ben huffed a little. “He’s not in control and if he stopped annoying his sister then she wouldn’t be tipping over the edge either.”
“I didn’t even do anything!” Ben protested as I rolled my eyes at that, scoffed, and gave him a look.
“I didn’t,” he gritted at me, his eyes lighting up vibrant purple while I raised a brow because now his hair was smoking.
“You poked me, hothead,” I replied, gesturing with my eyes. His eyes followed before he raised his hand to pat his head, the smoke stopping after a few moments.
“You stuffed my mouth with dirt and grass—”
“We’re not fighting about this all night,” Mum cut him off. “Shut up, eat your dinner or you can both go to bed now,” she pointed her fork at us while the others started quiet conversations amongst themselves.
I sighed softly and continued eating, wondering why she was so bossy tonight. Maybe it was from the argument or maybe she was just sick of Ben and I fighting all the time.
Mum was twenty-one when she and Dad became mates. I’m sixteen and so of course she thinks I’m too young, whereas Dad grew up thinking he’d have his mate when he was my age too.
Most wolves do find their mates young because they’re usually paired with another wolf close by.
It wasn’t because Mum and Dad weren’t close, it’s just that they never saw each other until Dad walked into that café and found her reading at a table alone.
“So, any positive feelings for you three?” Grandpa Marshall asked.
Alana and I shared glances before I glanced to Ben and then back.
Alana was young, thirteen still, and even though mates could be found at any age, she was too young to be paired with a mate.
Even if it was a year before he ever met her, he knew she was out there and it was directing him to her. Just like Dad was directed back home from his search.
Exactly why he ever thought he would like a coffee and muffin. The bond drew him to that café and he found his mate.
“Nothing for me,” I put in, looking away from Ben when he stabbed his food and lifted his fork to eat what he’d just impaled.
“Dad suggested getting the packs together. Perhaps he’ll come and I’ll meet him,” I shrugged lightly and glanced at Mum when she gave Dad a hard but sad look.
“It’s a good idea but maybe it’s too soon,” I added as she looked back at me before I glanced at Dad and smiled gently when he nodded, understanding what I wanted.
“You want it unexpected,” Duncan spoke next, making most of us look at him.
“Nothing beats it when you’re suddenly there, staring at her and lost for breath.” He cleared his throat after that, glancing at Scarlet and then away quickly as if he was afraid to see what her eyes showed.
I understood, they weren’t each other’s first mates. Both of their firsts died almost seventeen years ago, but Duncan’s mate had been my mum’s sister. She was murdered playing a part in the war they were fighting.
Scarlet’s mate, no one ever talked about him much. All I know was that he went dark and tried killing her for power, but he was the one to die that night.
Together, they helped each other heal and bonded, found chemistry and a human love, and decided to take the next step together. To become parents and have a ceremony to tell the pack they’d become one.
Some say they both betrayed their mates, but that wasn’t the case. They both lost their soulmates and struggled badly, painfully, but helped each other move on from it.
They filled in the holes, sewed up the wounds, and brought ties together.
“However you meet him, it’s always natural,” Scarlet said, smiling softly at me as I heard my mum mutter a few things to Dad.
“Unless you’re kidnapped and thrown into a war you didn’t even know was going on.”
“Doll,” I heard him reply under his breath, giving her a light look as I pretended not to pay attention and continue eating. “If I hadn’t, where would we be now?”
“Somewhere else entirely,” she murmured back, moving her hand to take his. “Benjamin,” she warned suddenly, making me glance up and at Ben as he cracked a smirk and stuffed his mouth again.
“What?” I asked, curious to know just what he was thinking.
“Well, if Dad had never taken her from Grandpa’s old dump, I’m sure we’d be suffering there with meatloaf every night—”
“Young man,” Marshall interrupted, making me laugh softly. “The pub meals are the best meals, I know you know that. You’re just the one ordering the meatloaf—”
“You feed him meatloaf?” Mum cut in, looking down the table to her father as he shrugged.
“They can eat whatever they want when they’re there,” he replied as I bit my tongue.
As much as I loved spending nights at the tavern and with the Cursed pack, which Levi was Alpha to, taken down from Grandpa, the meals weren’t the best, but Ben didn’t think so.
None of the guys thought so. I hated eating what they had.
The cook was horrible, the chicken cooked only halfway, blood still running off the lamb, and the steak more alive than dead, but apparently it was the best to the guys though.
“It’s actually disgusting. Exactly why I order pizza,” I put in, watching Mum nod with a small eye roll.
I smirked a little at that as I continued to eat, managing to finish everything on my plate just as everyone else started finishing up too.
“They’re coming from the East, building up.”
I stopped walking, hearing Ian tell information to my parents and Duncan in my father’s office. I glanced towards the dark oaked door on the other side of the corridor.
I hesitated, knowing I’d probably get caught, before I made my way over to hear them better.
“I thought they gave up fifteen years ago?” Duncan replied before I looked up when the door suddenly cracked open and Dad poked his head out.
“I-I,” I stuttered, stepping away and then looking at him in confusion as he opened the door more and stepped out of the way.
“Ryder, it’s not safe if they know,” Mum told him, making me stop in the doorway as I looked at her, my eyes going wide for a moment.
“Know what?” I questioned, looking from her to Dad as I stepped further in so he could close the door.
My heart started to beat fast, my pulse picking up as my mind twisted with thoughts, confused but wanting to know. Desperately.
“Vampires,” Dad said and that was all I needed to understand. Because Ben and I were different compared to other wolves, we were our own species.
A mix of Born and Cursed, making us more powerful and stronger than others. Vampires see us as a threat and so they haven’t really stopped coming after us.
Fifteen years ago, a war broke out amongst wolves and vampires to protect me and my mother when Ben was still in the womb.
Vampires almost got us but Dad didn’t stop until he knew for sure we were safe. He killed thousands a day.
He hardly slept because he was either fighting or planning attacks. He’d almost died himself and would have if it wasn’t for Duncan.
They won the battles and the vampires saw how many they were losing and couldn’t continue so they suddenly stopped.
They’ve been sending spies through and other small groups to see if they could get inside but they never succeeded.
Too many wolves compared to them and even though they had no scent, they weren’t entirely silent or invisible. The warriors and guards picked them up before they even reached the packhouse or village.
It was stupid though too. No vampire can access a home without being invited. So they only ever came to spy on us, I guess, or die.
“You told her?” Mum looked at Dad in shock and disappointment.
Dad told me a while ago, told me to prepare myself for the worst when he thought another war was going to break.
He explained it all to me but always told me to never give off that I knew, that Mum would for sure claw his throat out if she ever knew I knew.
Mum’s all about our safety. She’d never think about putting us in danger or even tell us if we were in danger because she thought if we didn’t know then we wouldn’t be affected by it.
But Dad said we had to know, we had the right to understand that we were being hunted all because we’re that little more compared to the other wolves.
“You know what, of course you told her,” Mum continued, shaking her head as Dad moved around, ignoring her as I took a seat down on one of the sofas.
“I bet it was right after I told you ‘don’t tell them, they don’t need to know’.”
“We can talk about this later,” he told her, raising a hand as he turned and leaned down onto his desk.
I gave Duncan a look, my eyes wide and my teeth shutting on my tongue to stop myself from laughing.
He gave a small smirk in return and looked away before a laugh escaped him.
“Gale’s been in and out a number of times,” Ian continued after we’d all settled down.
He stood tall and thin in the center of the room, standing between me and Mum as she sat on the opposite sofa.
The light glowed off his white icy skin, his eyes bright in the reflection also as moonlight gleamed through the windows and onto the floors where the room lights weren’t as bright.
Cabinets stood on most of the walls, cupboards tall and wide, full of books and artifacts.
Portraits and landscape paintings of my family and home hung on the deep blood-red walls, standing out from the dark where the yellow shine missed.
Dad’s desk sat at the back, looking boring and empty but neat as if he’d done all his work. It was possible, there wasn’t ever much work to complete by paper and pen here.
Most of the work that had to be done was outside. Fixing fences, boundary runs, seeing to the pack, and making sure everything and everyone was up to date and alright.
Risk assessments for injuries and then coaching training lessons for the junior warriors, like Ben and I.
“He says they plan to attack within a week. Their numbers are bigger than ever.” I could hear the panic ticking in his tone like a woodpecker tapping wood. On and off but constant.
Silence crawled over everyone like a death blanket, sudden heat coming to my head and chest as I rethought about it all, felt my fear pick up.
“We’ll be safe in here, right?” I asked, looking towards Dad as he stood up off his desk again.
“They’ll burn you out,” Ian shook his head as Dad touched his hand down to Mum’s shoulder in a way that she shoved off.
“I’m staying,” she told him before he had the chance to tell her otherwise but that didn’t change anything. When Dad had his mind made up, he had his mind made up and nothing was changing it.
“A-And I’m not leaving either,” I put in, getting up to watch his expression harden. “Dad, I’m ready. This is what you’ve been preparing me for, I’m not just—”
“I’ve prepared you only to defend yourself!” he yelled back. “Not to fight in a war—”
“A war happening because of me, Dad,” I protested, my heart hammering in my chest.
I hated it when he yelled at me. It made me upset, made me feel like I was disappointing him and it choked me. Always, choking me until there was no more air to breathe or tears to shed.
“Don’t say that,” Mum snapped back as I hugged my stomach lightly.
“Vampires are coming after me. Ben too. It’s our fault.”
“Honey, it’s not your fault,” she said more softly, getting up and passing Ian to touch her hands to my arms lightly.
“None of this is your fault, don’t ever think that,” she said while I clenched my jaw slightly because it kind of was.
Without Ben and I, this wouldn’t be happening. We’re responsible, even if we didn’t do anything, just breathing was making war with vampires and rival packs.
“It’s late,” Dad said, coming to us and touching my head gently, brushing his hand through my hair.
“We’ll talk more in the morning,” he added.
I nodded gently and leaned in to hug my parents, knowing they were going to talk more now that I was gone, probably argue about a plan but figure out what was going to happen.
