Julia's Pack.

Chapter 31 - The weak and the strong

Kids? Check. Julia watched her kids wander along with some of the older children, arms crossed, foot tapping impatiently as she waited.  Kale. Australia. Alpha should be there, right? No, apparently, apparently the Alpha was here herding kids into the main hall and setting up a sleepover night.

The older kids clearly weren't fooled. The younger ones were. Angelica and Evangeline were trailing after the older girls, Selene and Ana, fasinated by them. David was right on Levi's heels, almost getting knocked by Levi's walking stick, Ophelia wandering around behind Julia with their hands clasped tightly. Now that the shock had worn off, Julia wasn't sure what to think of what Ophelia had done to her hair, but at least no one seemed to stare at it. Not too much.

That wasn't what was worrying her. All she could think about was the problem and how, right now, her kids were wandering around in full on ground zero where Kale could pop up anytime.

Either way, it felt like a mess, and not for the first time since she'd had her kids Julia wished they were far away. Not because she didn't like them- she fucking loved them- but because right now, the idea of them being thousands of miles away safely in the middle of the ocean away from bad guys so she could stress about everything else she was supposed to be worrying about.  Right now, although she was supposed to be worrying about the Pack itself as the Alpha, Mom brain kept kicking in. Over and over.

Julia wasn't sure how Oliver's dad had done this- be Alpha during such a chaotic time without going dad-brain on everyone.

"You want to cook some dinner?" She muttered to Oliver, who was more or less following the two older girls like a protective hawk daddy, while staring at his phone's screen. He didn't seem to hear her or notice that it was coming up to dinner time.

Levi did though, his eyes rising up from David to meet Julia's eyes for a moment. He held up a piece of paper David had given him. "Look, it's an elephant. He's got your skills with drawing animals."  He smiled a tense smile, she knew he was trying to make her feel better, but it didn't work.

"I think he'll be like you." She tried this light hearted conversation and it just felt forced. Levi mouthed something, probably I love you, or maybe 'let's go upstairs and relieve tension' because it had seemed like a hell of a lot more than three words. Funny guy. When he was angry or stressed, he liked to relieve it physically, the man was still surprising her. All the time.

Julia sourt out Randy and Tim- both of them were in the Alpha's residance in the study, she could sort of hear them if she focused on hear hearing, both of them softly talking with the fighters. They were trying to get a clearer understanding of what 'Kale in Australia' actually meant. Susan was with them. 

As she tried to listen, she heard other thigns, the parents in the Pack more or less doing what she was doing mentally. Stressing about the kids being here. And who could really blame them? If Kale was here, who was to say half his Pack hadn't somehow got here too? Or at least the good fighters? And she knew he wanted to crush this Pack, probably more than any Pack anywhere, though she wasn't entirally clear on why he hated it so much. Maybe he was mentally sick in the head.

A loud scream made her flinch- it was just kids racing aroudn outside though. Julia met the eyes of one of the other moms, who looked kind of pale too, and bit her lip.

Okay. This was not going to work. The kids here, the vunrable ones, they were not going to make anyone focus and do their best.

"Levi, can you come with me?" She said softly as she walked past, her hand brushing across his shoulders and the nape of his neck, feeling his soft shudder and pleasure bleed through the mate bond to share with her.