The Innocent Luna

Chapter 7: Mia

I wake up really early to the smell of breakfast being made by Cookie and the weight of the twins laying across my legs. They like to fight over who gets to use me as a pillow when they used to stay the night. I crawl out from under them and make my way to the kitchen.

“Good morning, Cookie. Do you need help?” I ask with a big yawn. I always loved to help her cook when I could. Cooking is like a hobby of mine.

“No, I don’t NEED help, but you are more than welcome to help me if you would like. What do you think we should make to feed the masses this morning?” Cookie never felt right about allowing me to help her in the kitchen. She always thought that I should be more uppity instead of down to earth.

“Hmmm… How about scrambled eggs with cheese, sausage, bacon, ham, toast, biscuits, gravy, and some fresh fruit?” I knew we would need a lot of food since we were feeding four fully grown alphas, a growing alpha, and the rest of us as well.

“Sounds like you are expecting everyone to be hungry.”

“Oh, I am. Where would you like me to start?”

“You preheat the oven and then start cracking the eggs. I'll start on the meat, and we will meet in the middle.”

“Okay,” I say and get to work with what she tells me to do. I start by preheating the oven and then crack three dozen eggs into a huge mixing bowl. She starts cooking the meat while I beat the eggs. I season them with salt and pepper and break cheese slices into them while she finishes up on the meat. I can smell the thick sliced bacon and it makes my mouth water.

“Okay, princess, You start on the biscuit dough while I cook these eggs.” She knows how she wants things done.

“Yes, ma’am.” I started making buttermilk biscuit dough from scratch like Cookie taught me when I was 6 years old. I can’t believe how long it has been since I first learned how to do this. I pull down the self-rising flour and add the shortening and buttermilk as I was taught so long ago. She finishes up the eggs and starts working on a whole loaf of bread for the toast while I finish cutting the biscuits out and put some of the bacon grease on top of them before I put them in the oven. “The biscuits are in. What kind of fruit do we have?”

“Berries, melons, apples, and oranges. What are you going to make?”

“I’ll do strawberries, blueberries, cantaloupe, and orange slices this morning. Does that sound good?”

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Cookie laughs as I pull the fruit from the refrigerator and start washing it. We don’t want anything on the fruit that could hurt us. I prepare all the fruit by cutting it and arranging it on a tray. The toast comes out and is ready to be buttered and sliced into triangles. That is the best way to serve toast. We start on the home made gravy and we hear the others start to stir.

By the time everyone is starting to wake up, it is 9 in the morning and coffee has been made along with fresh orange juice. We set the breakfast up buffet style with jams, jellies, butter, and sugar out to put on top of the toast and biscuits. Once all the food is set out, we start digging in. We all eat in silence as the adults wake up from the ‘long night’ and the kids try to overcome their sugar hangovers. I told them not to over do it on the sweets, but none of the boys would listen to me. After several long minutes of silence and a few downed cups of coffee, conversation was finally ready to be had for the masses.

“Are you ready for tonight?” My father asks out of the blue.

“Tonight? What about tonight?” I question flatley. Surely there isn’t something I am missing, is there?

“Your first shift.” He states.

“Tomorrow is my birthday though,” I look at him very confused. He knows when my birthday is.

“I know, but you will get your wolf at midnight. Normally, we wait up until midnight and then help you through your first shift.” His explanation is a solid one.

“Oh… I didn’t realize it would be tonight. I thought I would do it tomorrow night before we all went to bed.”

“It’s okay. I just don’t want to keep Alpha Alex and his family away from their territory too long. With all the guests we have arriving this week, they will need to be home to beef up their security as well. Is that okay?”

“Oh… I guess I didn’t realize they would be leaving and then coming back on Friday, but yeah, that’s fine.”

“We wouldn’t miss Friday for the world,” Alpha Alex says with a smile. I laugh as he nudges my dad with a knowing look. “Besides, who knows what tonight will bring.”

“True.” I quickly finish my plate trying not to overthink what is being said. “Okay, I am off to train!” I say as I run upstairs to my room to change into training gear. I know training will help me get my mind off the situation. It always helps me relax when things seem to be spiraling out of control.

Today, I went with a pair of black Nike shorts, a royal blue sports bra, a matching razor back shirt, black socks, and black Nike tennis shoes. Even though my clothes were all five to ten years old, they still held up real well because of the quality of the brands. I throw my hair into a braided bun that I secure to my head with bobby pins and hair gel. I don’t want anything getting in my way while I am at my final training session before I get my wolf.

I race down the stairs and out to the training grounds where I meet up with our head warrior and trainer for the under 18 group of students, Eric. Dad thought it was best to separate the groups this way. They also have subgroups with-in the two main groups. They split us up by age range in the under 18 groups and they split the over 18 group up by ranks and job titles.

Eric is only 22 years old. He is our youngest head warrior in the history of the pack. I know that information goes to his head. He loves to flirt with the younger girls, especially me. Sometimes I wonder if he realizes that I know he is hitting on me. I sometimes forget that human standards and werewolf standards aren’t the same though. It isn’t too taboo for an unmated male to flirt with girls who don’t have their wolves yet so long as they are about seventeen years old.

There are only a handful of us out this Saturday morning as a lot of the pack members under 18 were out partying since we are now officially on spring break. It’s about eleven o’clock which is a good time to train right before the heat of the day. Eric steps up to address the nine of us who made it out.

“Alright, class, we have an odd number of students, so, Mia will train with me and everyone else break off into pairs.” I roll my eyes at him as he smirks. Sometimes he is way too obvious with his intentions.

“You really think you are going to win this time?” I ask him with genuine curiosity. He knows that I can kick his butt because I have, several times in fact.

“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t plan on holding back this time… would you care to make a wager?” The smirk on his face grows into a grin.

“What kind of a wager?” I narrow my eyes at him knowing he is up to no good.

“Well, let’s see, if you win, you get to name your price as to what you want, but if I win, I get to come to your shift tonight.”

“What!?!” I ask in disbelief. “You know that is an intimate event. Why would you want to be there? Also, how do you even know I am having my first shift tonight?”

“Are you scared you’re going to lose? And I know tonight is when your dad wanted to do your first shift because he asked the guards to keep a tight perimeter around the pack house because of that reason.”

“No.” I shake my head. “I’m not scared to take you on. And that’s fine with me, if you are so determined to become my little sister’s permanent escort for all formal occasions.”

“No, I won’t be hers.” He says with an evil grin.

He starts to circle me for a while as we feel out what the other is going to do. Dad was really adamant about training me to wait for my opponent to make the first move. He, finally, takes a step towards me and reaches out to grab my arm. I spin out of his reach and take a jab to his ribs as I do so. He always seems to leave that side open. He huffs at me and tries to grab my arm again. I twist away from him only to feel something tug on my bun.

My hair falls loose around my shoulders as I realize what he has done. I take a dive roll to put some distance between us and give myself a chance to recover. The butthole did that on purpose. With this much hair in the way, there is no telling what could happen.

He doesn’t stop. He pushes forward and tries to push me to the ground. I kick at him and throw dirt up into his eyes as I continue to roll away. This gives me enough time to tie my hair into a literal knot at my back.

“That was cheating.” He growls as he rubs the dirt from his eyes.

“All is fair in love and war, Eric.” I blow him a kiss as he finally manages to blink away some of the dirt.

He screams as he rushes me. I trip him and he tumbles to the ground. At this point I can’t help but to get a few more jabs and kicks in while he is on the ground. After I have satisfied my need to beat him to a pulp for what he wanted to wager, I straddle his chest and pin him to the ground.

“Submit.” I say and let some of my aura out. He goes flaccid under me.

“I submit, Alpha.” He whispers under his breath. I stand and offer him my hand to help him up. He huffs and pushes it away. “I don’t need your help or your pity.” He growls at me. “Class is over for this training session. The next lesson will be at one this afternoon. Go home and get some rest if you plan on coming back,” he projects his voice over the class. He turns around and walks off toward his gym bag. I can tell he is pissed.

I look at him with fury in my eyes. What did he think was going to happen? He knew I could and would beat him. “What is your problem, Eric?” He turns and I see the fury in his eyes mixed with something else. Is that passion?