The Moon Wolf

Chapter 7 (1st Draft)

And yet Anex had to concede that all their previous calculations and expectations were wrong  because here the pups all were. Exhausted, hungry and a few pounds lighter no doubt but very much alive in body and in spirit after six weeks of travelling through the worst kind of wilderness with no one but a rogue to trust. And to top it all off the pups really seemed invested in the rogue, which Anex was struggling to understand.

Tired of watching the pups happily crowd around the rogue, he left Jenna and Drummond and walked back over to the small group. The pups all turned together to watch him nervously.  It seemed he hadn't done a very good job of winning them over just yet.

Even though Penn was their guardian, she was still just a rogue and had no ranking at all in Anex's eyes. He could not bring himself to address her or acknowledge her. It just went against the grain of all he'd been taught, and all he'd know about rogues his entire life. So he ignored the rogue and directed his news to Cassidy instead.

"We have a hunting lodge some miles from here," he told her. "We will head there now, make camp there tonight and go from there tomorrow. It's a days hard trek to the hub of the pack from here. So, it's just too late to travel there now," he explained half expecting the pups to be visibly disappointed. The children didn't seem concerned about the delay. But then, they'd been on the run for so long, what was one more day. As far as he could tell they were taking the news in stride.

Anex, kept half an eye on the rogue though. If he thought demeaning her by talking shop with Cassidy, a mere pup, was going to rattle the her chain, prompting her to reveal her true colours, he was sorely disappointed. He was well aware that the she-wolf barely looked at him while he talked - as if she wasn't the least bit interested in anything he had to say. That irked him a little.

He saw that her attention was drawn to his two companions - Jenna and Drummond. Her eyes kept drifting around to a place ahead of them on the trail too. Anex wondered if she'd already caught the scent of their third companion - Raine. Well, if she had he'd have to give it to her because Raine was his best tracker and she was as stealthy as they came.

He stopped watching the rogue long enough to take charge of the group and bark out a few commands to Cassidy and Jackson. "Jenna and Drummond will lead the way," he indicated the other two wolves who had already transformed into their fur again. "You and your pack-mates will follow them and I'll take up the rear. It's going to be a long and gruelling walk but it's almost all downhill," he said with a reassuring smile.

With a quick motion of his hand he directed everyone to move out, but was astonished when not a single pup moved an inch. What was the problem? He looked around at them feeling slightly irritated. And then he saw it. The children looked to the rogue and waited for her approval of the plan. It wasn't until she gave a subtle nod of her head that they moved to gather up their meagre belongings and head out after Jenna and Drummond.

Anex wasn't sure whether he was insulted or just baffled. It seemed, in their eyes she was the Alpha of their pack. They followed her lead and no one else. He laughed to himself thinking how simple children were but not too smart. If they knew anything about rogues they would know they couldn't trust her and that they should steer clear of her. Especially, now that they had reached the safety of the Orthos pack's territory.