The Last Pack

5. A THIRD OF YOUR STRENGTH

After returning to the culina, the matriarch berated Fidella for her inability to serve, and her lustful appetite. As punishment, she gave Fidella the most menial of jobs for that day.

“If this is punishment, I'd get in trouble every day rather than serve that bastard,” Fidella mused as she peeled her thousandth potato. Despite the cramp in her hand, the mundane job allowed her to reach out to her wolf, Isla. The silver bangle made communicating with her more difficult than usual, but eventually she could feel Isla dancing in circles, rearing her back legs to expose her belly and cutely placing her paws over her eyes as she lay flat.

“Is it true, Isla? Is he really our mate?” Fidella questioned her wolf, hoping she would justify this unhealthy fixation she had.

“He is out mate Fidella, I can feel his wolf calling to me, he wants us,” Her tail was moving so quickly, she was surprised it was still attached.

When her father and mother had described the mate bond, she was a child and they had made it seem like love was a movable force just as powerful as the wind, and it had sucked them together so tightly that they couldn’t differentiate where one ended and the other began. They had each been an ‘I’ and now they were an ‘us’. What happens when the other part of your soul wouldn’t stitch together with your own? What happened when you were forbidden to touch the other person that was destined to complete your soul?

“We will pull down all obstacles, no-body will stop us getting to mate,” Isla raged in her mind aggressively.

Fidella felt a painful sting in her chest as she replied, “Mate will stop us Isla, I don’t think he wants us,” Sorrow almost knocked her to the ground as she faced this likely reality.

“Mate doesn’t know about the Goddess’ gift, he can’t be blamed for something he wasn’t told about,” With the last word Isla took refuge in the back of Fidella’s mind and away from the negativity.

Interrupted by the sound of the giggling, she turned around to see more house slaves behind her. “Matriarch says you need to carry the stock pot to the Ludus. The gladiators need their meal,” Fidella simply nodded her head.

Fidella placed one hand over the wooden handle and the other hand beneath and, with a grunt of effort, lifted the considerable weight to the Ludus that was next to the training yard she had seen in the morning. Conquering the last step, she recognised the girls, but they weren’t laughing anymore. If anything, they looked frightened. In fact, the entire gathering of gladiators and house slaves were staring at her in disbelief.

Ewan had always prided himself on thinking fast, his stories and excuses had saved many slaves a whipping in the past. For the first time ever, he couldn’t think of how he would fix this. Fidella, who was no taller than five foot four and very slender, was carrying the stockpot that usually required two gladiators to lift it. The only other people who would lift it on their own were Ewan and Conri, and to add insult to injury, she looked as if she could do it all over again. Ewan knew better than most, that people would ignore the unbelievable if a realistic alternative was provided. Leaping from his seat, he got to her in three quick strides and lifted the pot from her, placing it on the hot stove where the three younger women were waiting to serve. He was lucky that he didn’t need to hide his strength from his fellow wolves, but Fidella would have to, and this was a silly mistake to have made.

“You must have hurt yourself carrying that, or spilt most of it on the way,” Ewan announced loudly enough for all to hear, and was pleased when the strained atmosphere was broken by the jeers and laughter of the men, who refused to believe a woman could be stronger than them.

Grabbing Fidella by her arm, he manoeuvred her back into the stairwell she had emerged from.

“Do you want to get caught and f**k everything up?” He gritted through his teeth at her, while whispering so quietly that had she not been a werewolf she wouldn’t have heard him.

“Nice to see you too, Ewan, thank-you so much for bringing me to this s**t place. Now kindly explain why you are shouting at me,” She retorted. Clearly, her last nerve had completely frayed away.

“You just lifted the stock pot, which usually takes two gladiators to huff and puff up those stairs, as if it were a bloody picnic basket,” Ewan was exasperated, but couldn’t help feeling sorry for her.

“The kitchen girls told me to bring the pot. I didn’t realise, they must have wanted me to get into more trouble,” She looked down and a small, heavy tear dropped down her cheek.

“Sweet Goddess! Anything but tears,” He tried to comfort her with humour, gently patting her shoulder, “You weren’t to know Fidella and the jokes on them now, because you manage to lift it, and hopefully they will be a bit wary of you now and leave you alone,” She gave a small smile at his advice, “In future, try to use no more than a third of your strength. Nobody can know who and what you are. I’m trying to keep an eye on you, but my own plans have to come first,” Giving her a reassuring smile, he returned to the Ludus.

Meanwhile, Conri was sat down as the kitchen slaves brought him a bowl of potato and hare stew. Like everyone else, he had seen the new slave girl, who his wolf had a genuine obsession with, effortlessly carry in the stock pot. Unlike everybody else, he wasn’t fooled by Ewan’s intervention. She had lifted that pot as if it was a bowl of soup, using strength equal to his own. Staring down the hall where Ewan had pulled Fidella, he felt unsettled with an unusual mix of anger and sadness, once again not feeling as if the emotion was his own or his wolf’s. It irked him to think of Ewan knowing more about this slave girl than he did. He was irritated when Ewan put his hand on her arm, yet he knew this was an unreasonable response to have towards his only friend.

“We should feel jealous, the only man helping, touching, talking, rescuing our mate should be you, but you’re sat here slurping stew and not making any effort, human!” Einar was beyond enraged.

Previously, Einar had thanked the Moon Goddess for pairing him with a strong human like Conri, but now he was beginning to think that brawn was no substitute for brain. Conri had never been insulted by Einar before, and he couldn’t understand why his wolf was behaving this way. He couldn’t understand his own responses. He could smell the salt from tears in the direction Ewan had taken her, and his heart physically ached that the girl was crying. Why did he care?

“What does that word mean, Einar? What is jealousy?” Conri asked his wolf.

Einar lay on his stomach looking miserable, “Jealousy is when someone else tries to take something precious from you, something that belongs to you.”

“I don’t have anything like that, Einar, nothing belongs to me, and we are slaves. I don’t understand,” Conri was perplexed, and Einar’s temper cooled. It was difficult to explain these things to his human, who had never known love or the strength of a pack.

“What is a mate Einar?” Conri asked the same question he had been asking all day, but once again there was only silence.

Completely absorbed in his own thoughts, he didn’t notice Ewan’s return until he accidently nudged the table while sitting down.

“How do you know that girl?” Conri asked Ewan, trying to look mildly interested rather than obsessively absorbed in the answer.

“I rescued her from Leighton yesterday. I told the Dominus she was only seventeen, so she could work the house for longer,” Ewan replied.

The thought of Leighton touching her, even breathing near her, made his wolf apoplectic. Ewan could see his friend struggling to control his wolf, with his flickering iris turning green and black.

“Her name is Fidella,” Ewan volunteered in the hope that it would appease Einar, and he was pleased when the dark green one again took residence.

“How old is she? How did she lift that stock pot?” Conri asked, still trying to mask his eagerness for the answers.

“I’m not sure of her exact age, but she’s old enough to have a wolf that she hides. Her wolf must be strong enough to help her lift the pot, even though she is wearing the bangle,” Seemingly satisfied with these answers, Conri continued to eat the last of his stew that he noticed was far more moreish than usual. His appreciation of the meal was interrupted by Jerrick, one of the more talented wolves in the Ludus.

“That new she-wolf will haunt my dreams tonight with a body like hers. Did you see her lips? They looked like they were sculpted by Aphrodite. What I wouldn’t do to get those around…” A terrifying roar cut off his immoral imagination, as Conri reached over and slammed Jerrick’s forehead into the table.

“Do not even think about the end to that sentence, or I swear you will meet a most unfortunate incident on the training field tomorrow where my wolf and I will tear you stupid head off your neck. Leave us now!” Einar and Conri spoke as one and their reaction made Jerrick tremble in fear before he ran away to his own cell.

Ewan raised his eyebrows at his friend, for the first time he had used his Alpha command while merging with his wolf and this was something that Ewan had waited a long time for. The conversations from the other gladiators slowly resumed. Conri looked at Ewan with intense seriousness.

“Do you know what a mate is?”

“I do, but I’m not going to be the one to tell you. Be patient, follow your wolf, you’ll find out soon enough. I’ll tell you this though, without a mate we are only tapping into about a third of our strength,” Ewan comforted his friend, but couldn’t help the smile that was permanently fixed on his face for the rest of the evening.