The Crow and The Wolf

Chapter 4

4.

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The cafeteria was filled with buzzing and loud chatter by students and Valeria was enjoying her lunch so much that she hadn't noticed Nicco's glum mood, that is until her wolf gave her a subtle nudge. She looked up from her lunch box and finally saw this sombre look on his face,

"Would you like to share some of my spaghetti?"

"Why do you even ask such questions?" He grinned as he slid the clear lunch box across the table and placed it immediately in front of him.

"You insult me horribly, crow," he pouted with his hand on his heart as he dug into the food.

The lunch hall was large as the chatter continued to bounce off the baby blue walls and the grey-tiled floor with wooden picnic tables equally spaced across the table. Each table held some sort of click, each classifying the hierarchy in the pack.

Valeria lived in a pack that had order, everyone in the pack had a purpose and a place. In the pack, fate chose your place in it and there was no avoiding fate.

Right in the middle of the room, was the Elite table. This was the next generation of leaders, the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and the rest of their family members. The aura they emitted was enough to bring any student passing by their table down to their knees.

The Head children were huddled around Zachary's younger brother Neil listening to him intently and a few moments later a small bubble of laughter left the group but her eyes drifted to the sombre Beta who didn't seem much interested in the group or anyone for the matter.

Her gaze left their table and landed on the table five feet to their left, this was the hunters' table.

Valeria remembered little about them, except that they were of a higher rank than the Gamma but they knew their place below the title, although she never quite understood how that worked.

The Salutary were next, seated to the right of the elite, they were the pack healers.

They were as important as the hunters, sometimes the Salutary worked hand in hand with the hunters as trackers, but not a few have the skill of both healer and tracker.

The Sentinel were the first line of defence, they sat with the Salutary, and the pack considered them one alike.

Then there were ordinary pack members, omegas and the runts of the packs.

Each wolf, once they enter senior year, their last year in high school had to undergo a series of tests and evaluations to be placed into these groups. Valeria seemed to prove herself a Salutary during the evaluations and later in the tests, she was a tracker.

The Claws were well-known, they were once envied and trusted by all, well the way Mr Edgar told her stories made it seem as if he kept referring to the olden days. The pack was situated in the Zairian mountains, they kept to themselves. Their white/grey coats only served to highlight how much they were meant to belong in the snowy mountains, away from prying eyes.

"Do you think he still cares for me...he ever did?" her eyes moved away from the surrounding area and they landed on the male in front of him. His skin was brown and his hair black, the locks sweeping in his eyes seeming to cover him from the world.

She looked back to the Elite's table and her gaze landed on the soon-to-be alpha. She sighed, seeing him laugh with his friends as if he wasn't rejecting the very thing made for him.

"I think he cares, even if he tries to ignore it, the bond exists and it's there," she said looking back at her friend.

"Do you think he heard about what happened between the Beta and me?"