Fuck You, Mate

XXXVII

Alice's POV

It has been three weeks since being named Luna of this pack. I had taken on more responsibility, along with Paige and some other members, to ease some of Peyton's work.

I had been at The Tracks five nights a week, training twice a day and eating more to put on more muscle. I had focused pretty heavily on fighting as human and wolf. The other majority of training had been a focus on stamina and working as hard as I could, even after I was beyond exhausted. Climbinb, running, strength, anything I could think of.

I had even fought Peyton a couple times to ensure my wolf was up for a challenge and ready. I know Peyton hadn't fought as hard as he could've, but I did feel better knowing I was stronger. I fought some of the stronger weres too, for practice and experience fighting as a wolf.

My wolf and I had grown stronger too, knowing we would only have each other and would be put through a difficult and rigorous test, I had come to terms with trusting her more. And she had come to terms trusting me as well.

She also agreed that we couldn't be close to Peyton all the time or we would be weak when we leave each time, so we had an understanding. She wanted to impress him by being a warrior. She seemed to understand the honorific a little more.

It was good being able to trust her. These past three weeks I've been able to focus on other things, be less anxious, and overall more calm. Constantly controlling a monster is no small feat. It's a 24/7 job that I've been doing since I turned 18. These three weeks I've had more energy and slept better, being able to mentally relax a little more.

I've kept my wall up with Peyton, but we've been more calm around each other, too. We have still had some fights, which seem to happen more often, the closer I get to leaving. I think having a calmer wolf has helped me be less defensive and a little more open. I'm not challenging him and my wolf, instead my wolf and I think through and reply to him, which is much better.

I am less tense and much more calm, it's been nice. I wish we'd found common ground earlier, it would've made some fights easier without me fighting her as well.

"Luna, do you want to come see the first one?"

I nodded and followed Margaret to the first room. Paige and Margaret had been helping me design the new pack house. They quickly realized I did not have any design skills, so I'd done more of the labour and discussions and they had made more of the decisions with style and such.

"It looks good," I said as she showed me the first apartment. We had completely stripped, cleaned, speckled, sanded and primed every room. It didn't smell like rogue any more, which was nice. We'd kept every window open for the last three weeks to air it out, and it mostly smelt like primer now.

"You would think anything looks good."

I shrugged.

Paige rolled her eyes, "How is the light though? Is the colour too dark?"

It was a light cream colour on the ceiling and top half of the room with the bottom half a dark green. "It looks warm. Inviting."

They high-fived. "We figured we would do different colours so people have options, cream and green, white and blue, and so on. Some will be all cream, and if people want to change them obviously that's more than welcome too, but we want them to be move-in ready."

"Sounds good to me. Adrian is going to come help with trim next week when I'm gone. The walls are all ready for paint though and the plumbing and electrical was all considered safe and in good order with those few fixes. So I think it's just the decorations to be done."