Wolfless Luna

Chapter 5

Hannah's POV

I feel weirdly comfortable here. Since I got to this pack I've not had a moment of discomfort apart from the eagerness to hide myself from the female werewolves ogling at me. They keep whispering and acting shocked. I think they might know me or something. Why do they act like I am familiar?

'Jennifer?' A woman approaches me, but I swirl around to see who she addressed, only to discover that it is me.

'It's Hannah not Jennifer.' I correct her kindly, but receive the loudest snort of disappointment from her as she walk past me.

I've been roaming about the compound since Tyrell and the other very masculine wolf men dropped me off. Actually, they told me not to move a muscle after sitting me on an old creaky bench with a couple of women to watch over me while they went about their business.

This place is a cattle ranch with an area that stretched into the horizon. It seems like a village, a peaceful village where women were complete housewives and men their protectors. It is amusing to me, I've never seen anything like this. I wonder what they'll do to me, or how they'll help me phase. Would they use diabolical methods? Methods that'd make Luca recoil? Was that why he was a bit worried? That they'd break his favourite useless porcelain while he was away? What was that expression on his face as he was about to go?

The women were young, probably the same age as me, some a little older and some much younger. Their hands were either busy with laundry, throwing chopped woods under a steaming cauldron or chopping ingredients for whatever joint cooking they were doing. But their eyes never leave me. I get it. I'm the odd one out, but they should master the art of subtlety and spare those laser gazes biting into my skin pores.

'Hi.' Another woman approaches me with a steaming bowl sitting in a stainless tray. The woman is blonde and beautiful, her fingers annoyingly long and neat. I feel insecure as my fingers were far from neat, they were chipped to the skin and dark with musky dirt from always fighting and cleaning.

'You should sit on the bench. Welcome to our pack. What is your name?'

She starts walking in front of me before I can answer her, back to where I had sat. Then she sits on the wooden bench, waiting for me to join her with the most welcoming smile splayed on her lips. And wow, she has dimples. And red lips. And gorgeous emerald eyes. And long eyelashes. If perfection was a person! Oh my, this lady steals my confidence!

I sit quietly, observing her with strained eyes.

'Here. It's goat meat soup. My recipe. Have a taste.'

This might be poison. But it is damn an appetising poison that makes my stomach growl. The aroma alone sends me, not to talk of the chunks of meat dancing in the brown liquid, calling me by my name to have a taste. How can I resist when the food craves me!? I notice the spoon in the tray but ignore it, cupping the bowl in both hands while abandoning the tray in my beautiful companion's hands. Etiquette does not concern me right now, there are more pressing matters literally at hand.

I bring the bowl to my lips, unbothered by the heat steaming the life out of my face. But lord the aroma! Is it even real? I smell onions, goat meat, curry and sweet scented herbs. The combination all just make sense.

Mistake. Big mistake. I forget to taste, not allow a mouthful of hot boiling soup into my mouth and digestive system. And before I could control what is happening I find myself spewing the hot liquid mixed with saliva into the pretty woman's face. And lord I know it's spicy... That kind of hot. I grow numb, my face holding a bewilderment as my companion reacts differently. She is neither angry nor screaming her head off, nor crying from irritation and the sharp burn that pestered her emerald eyes.

As a matter of fact she gives me the sweetest smile and wipes her face off by pulling the helm of her black t-shirt to her face. And in a few seconds she is back to being flawless. I am still shocked, waiting for her to scold me or give me a look of disgust.

'Is your mouth okay?' She asks instead, earning a ridiculous blink from me, cause it makes absolutely no sense.

'How are your eyes? Ain't they burning up?' I question her in true concern, still in awe she isn't reacting.

'Honey we bath in boiling water... Mutilate ourselves for fun. What do you think a little sting would do? Don't beat yourself... I'm good, even better.'

Is it just me or did this girl just confess to self mutilation? She bathed in boiling water!? I thought I had escaped madness. What is this now?

'Eat your food. Our Alpha will literally kill me if he thinks you've been starved.'

If literally meant literally I must eat to save the nice woman's life, not to abate my growling stomach. Like could my stomach take a breather. I have just scalded a woman's face. Have some shame, stomach!

I pick a chunk of meat from the bowl and shove it into my mouth. And now I know heaven exists in flavours. I let out a moan as I chew slowly, savouring the texture and juice spreading into my senses. My eyes are closed and I am teleported to my personal universe for the first time in six years.

Living on peanut and stale bread, sometimes raw meat had pushed me to the verge of insanity. A weak werewolf they called me. Was I even a werewolf? This goat meat makes me sentimental, tears brimming in my eyes from its deliciousness. I can remember my mother's face, the aroma from the kitchen during Sunday dinners and mostly thanksgivings. The times I had a normal life, the times I had not known about the curse, or a pack of werewolves.

'You've not told me your name.' The girl's voice pulls me back to reality.

'Hannah. What is yours?'

'Janelle Tyrell.'

I lift both brows high, my eyes opened to its limit and the remnants in my mouth raining back into the bowl.

'The big dude is your father?'

Janelle chuckles shyly with a hand over her mouth. Now I see the resemblance, or wait I don't see it.

'He is my uncle.' Ha! I said it! 'He's too young to be my father. I'm eighteen. How old are you?'

'Twenty-two.'

'Cool. But I heard you've not had your wolf yet. That's really sad. You should have phased at fourteen, if late seventeen.'

I nod, paying no attention to her analysis. I am more invested in the food. Afterall they hated wasting food.

'You look like Jennifer though. I see why my uncle likes you.'

That catches my attention. I stop eating and stare squarely at her, my brows furrowed into a wrinkle.

'Jennifer. Your uncle likes me. The big dude. Like the big man. The Alpha. He likes me...'

Janelle giggles, shaking her head like I am some comedian. Like Girl! Who's laughing with you!?

'Jennifer was his mate before she died. She was our Luna. You have same height, same eye colour, hair colour, facial structure and same smile. Are you sure you're not related to her? Now that I look at you closely, your resemblance is almost perfect.'

The once delicious food now tastes stale and tedious. Meanwhile, Janelle keeps smiling into my face in a disturbing manner. Dealing with phasing, healing from Luca's torture is about to swallow me whole, but this revelation is even more perplexing than my life itself. I cannot have an Alpha like me or force me into replacing his Luna that I somehow resembled.

'Oh hey. Uncle!'

I crank my head as fast as lightning to the person that now has Janelle's attention. Her uncle. Thankfully, he is wearing a sky-blue T-shirt and white joggers, seeming more responsible than when I'd seen him earlier today.

Janelle's words is running through my mind, juggling itself with a maelstrom of assumptions as her uncle approached us cheerfully. A wide smile on his handsome face, hopefully it is not for me but for his niece. If it is for me, I shall forever recoil.

'Janelle. Hannah.' He acknowledges us with his thick buttery voice. Maybe I can be his Luna so he can whisper dirty werewolf things into my ears.

Oh wait... I don't want that.

'I fed her and kept her company. She is all yours now.'

_No Janelle! Don't leave me with this guy!_ I scream in my head, but maintain a friendly countenance and watch in horror as Janelle abandons me, excusing us to ourselves and the bowl in-between as my defence.

'Hi Hannah.'

'Hi... Sir.'