Shaking out of my stupor in much too canine of a way, I look away first as my training has dictated I should. If there is disappointment in the face of Victoria's second soul, I don't see it. What she said confused me. I'm still unsettled. What did she mean by not failing me twice? Without bothering to gather the pieces of my mind back together, I shove my way out through the passenger door. Crossing to the back of what is apparently my own car, my stiff fingers work open the vinyl backing to retrieve my bag. As I shrug the strap over my shoulder, my gaze lands upwards, and I freeze in awe.
The stars twinkling up there, they are so familiar yet so strange all at the same time. The moon, pregnant and shining, is an unblinking eye that stares at the single soul within my two bodies. While I am the first to admit that gods and their fables have always been a mystery to me, in this very moment, with the scents of home mingling on my clothes with that of sand and pack-ties pulling me to the building behind, I can almost imagine them to be real.
"Leanne?"
I turn, Victoria's eyes are clear and blue once again. She doesn't share my confusion at her wolf's words. Maybe she's ignorant to them. I can't be sure, thinking back to that strange moment, whether I felt her human soul present or not.
"Coming," I say, making sure my clothes are correct on my body and placing the beret just so on my head. My hair has enough gel in it to leave a layer over the breadth of a small country, so there isn't anything to fix there. With everything in proper order, I take my first real steps towards pack. The line I crossed when I boarded that homebound plane over twenty hours ago becomes tangible.
I take one more step.
My arms are stiff at my side.
Breathe in.
Another foot forward.
My boot crunches on gravel.
My kidneys ache from the weird way I slept in the car.
Breathe out.
I need to stop. Stop thinking so abruptly. My neck twinges. My breathing halts with my feet. My hands form fists at my sides.
"Hey," Victoria says as I approach her, shattering my internal cataloging. Her hand reaches out briefly, but she seems to think better of it, slapping it down on her thigh, "You'll be, alright. I promise."
There's something about the claim of those words that reminds me of what her second soul had said, but I ignore it. Letting the corners of my mouth tip up in a reassuring way, I toss my trepidation behind my straightened shoulders and march forward.
The doors are closed. The community of wolves hidden behind them is loud, abrasive on ears that are used to much quieter places. I feel the barest moment of hesitation before I brace myself and twist the knob. Both doors swing open, the hinges protesting their need of oil. The crowd doesn't notice at first. I only have the vaguest idea of what this place, this pack meeting hall, had looked like. The walls have an eerily familiar smell of age and shifters long past. The floor is a pretty green color with specks of white and the tread of dirty work boots scruffed across it.
I can feel Victoria waiting patiently behind me, her second soul gently supporting my little hiccup. I think I have a better idea of what the wolf was insinuating, but it's there and gone when I notice the silence. My hands are still occupying the rough wood grain of the hall's doors, and only one foot has made it fully through the entry way. I can only imagine the picture I must make, like some fool who's never seen the inside of a building before.
Clearing my throat, I push the doors a little wider and step fully inside. My hands snap down to my legs, and Victoria's quiet presence urges me forward. Looking into those that encompass pack, I go still as they flinch, taking in my appearance. Mostly, they look at my eyes. It's hard to look away from them, these shifters that still have their other soul. I may be confused as to what I am if neither human nor wolf, and I am always in ascendance.
I let them take in their fill of my while I do my own reconnaissance. There are many mismatched tables, all different sizes and shapes and one that even looks to be oval, that are shoved together into four long rows that lead from front to back. Directly in front of me is the aislway created by this strange table structure. I think about it, not sure if they had always been placed like this. It doesn't feel like it.
"Go on," Victoria whispers, but it's her second soul that shoves me forward.
The eyes of people my Honey-girl was raised with and would have recognized track me as I make my way past them. For the most part, the silence remains, but I don't miss the hisses of one or two people as I place one foot in front of the other. I ignore it. A little hidden part of me that escaped the army's torture stands tall along the violence seeping into the air around me. It tries to shove me down, weighs down on my back, on my shoulders. It presses up into my chin, desperately wanting me to reveal my throat to what I know is an invisible foe.
Dee had once called this anxiety. I still don't know what the hell that word even means.
At the end of the aisle is a podium where the pack leader are sat perpendicular to the rest. I assume they are the alphas and clan leaders surrounding them. Ah. Now I remember them. Maureen was liberal with the photos she sent me. I notice first that clan Orion is not present. My father should be there. Maybe he recused himself so he could stay with the family. From what I know, that sounds about right for him.
Alpha Morris is a severe man. His hair is still full on his head, but it's grey where his beard is silver. Alpha Soibhan, who's friendliness is shown in the smile lines around her mouth, her blond hair in a perfet chignon. Clan leader Jeri Ashton sits off to the far side, holding her breath, her face is red from the stress of doing so. Mark Cobbler, who Victoria had apparently shoved to the side when it came to fetching me, is someone I think I need to worry about.
He is frigid. I can't explain how he looks at me in any other way. He leans forward in his chair, hands clasped with white knuckles. His heavy brows are notched together, the wrinkles between them deep and crevassed. Feet are planted, and I see the stress along his shoulders that he tries to hide. This is a man and wolf who see me as a threat. I will receive no quarter from any of them, but in him I see a person who will be actively testing my control.
I stop in the square of empty space between the rows of tables and the pack leader's podium, my feet slapping the floor as I stand in the precise way I was taught. I leave my bag over my shoulder in an empty hope that I will not be stuck here for very long.
Alpha Morris stands with a grunt and help from his hand on his knee. He watches the reaction of the pack behind me. In the back of my mind, I already know what it looks like. Fear permeates me. They will reject me. They brought me to my home only to torture me with this. The will expulse me from the call of home. I mentally prepare myself to call Dodger and tell him to send me that twenty fucking dollars.
Apparently finding what he was looking for from pack, Morris Kessler bares down on my with the weight of an alpha's full attention. I immediately drop my gaze and twist my head so that my neck is visible to him. I. Don't. Like. It. Not one bit. But I like tazers electrifying me beneath the skin of my throat even less.
"Welcome home, Sargent Leanne Orion," His voice booms in the absence of conversation. He walks forward at a leisurely pace either to give off a strong presence or not surprise me, and he hugs me to his barrel chest.
My breath, it stutters as I gasp. I am only a ball of emotion as tears are floating down my face as I hold him to me. My knees weaken, and I would have collapsed had he not caught and held me up. The power of an alpha welcoming home one of his own is the strongest, most incredible feeling. In two words, he has accepted me. I feel like my chest is cracking apart. Like I could finally die and be welcomed into the moon's open arms. Someone is whining, it is a piercing keen. When I begin to hyperventilate and the sound goes away, I realize it had been me.
But I am pack. I do not have a leadership role within it, and so I can show my weakness to them. It no longer matters how I presented myself to others in the past, how I was so casual with mentions of pack and it's call to home. I know that Dee always saw through it, but he'd never called me out.
Alpha Morris only waits long enough for me to gather myself back upon my own strength. With a quick pat on my shoulder, he backs away. He leans on the podium rather than stepping behind it, gauging the pack behind me once more.
"We all know what happened that night almost twelve years ago to the very day," he starts to no few harsh gasps, "We watched chaos descend in our peaceful lands when innocent blood was spilled. More than a few could have died with the terror that was unleashed as a result of a disgusting act gone too far. The consequences of those actions went beyond the physical and mental trauma we as a pack had to overcome, but also in that we failed to protect one of our own.
"Leanne Corrine Orion, born to the Sequoias by Dr. Borris' own hands just over thirty years ago, raised and nurtured by our pack, was surrendered to the United States Army in an unprecedented show of trust to a government well known for breaking it's treaties. In their care, her second soul was brought to heel and she was taught ways to both suppress and control it. She managed this in half the predicted time of two years."
His last statement is met with snorts. Even I have a hard time holding it in, the proof of it in my golden eyes. From his words, I also understand that the pack really hasn't been told any of the truth. I am a good wolf though, and the alpha gives me significant eyes. I hope that my nod is imperceptible. I will not, cannot, betray his silent order.
"After successfully completing boot camp, Leanne went on to be trained as an army combat medic. Somewhat parallel to her goals of becoming a veterinary doctor, she excelled in her MOS and quickly rose in the ranks, achieving the title of Staff Sergeant Orion in her short military career."
Short is a relative term, I think. Twelve years is a long time to be in exile. Especially when your NCO wants you either dead or in the process of dying.
"During her second tour in the deserts of Afghanistan, Staff Sergeant Orion and her platoon were engaged in a fourteen day battle against the militarized forces of ISIS. In that time, she proved herself to be a capable warrior as she defended those that stood in as pack."
Don't think about. Don't think about it. Don't think about—
"When they returned, battle weary but victorious, she was awarded the Army's Combat Medical Badge, proof that while in certain peril she maintained her duty and performed medical assistance on those in need. She has saved many lives with skill and integrity that we as pack can only hope to achieve," he completes the end of his memorized speech with a jerked nod in my direction.
I don't respond. We're left hanging in the continued silence, but Alpha Siobhan doesn't let us drift much longer. She stands as soon as her mate settles into his chair and claims the podium.
"I think it's easy to speak about the triumphs one experiences when in the heat of battle, but no one talks about what happens after," she says, her bright voice conflicting with the heavy words.
I think I see tears in her eyes, but I'm not sure. She won't look at me directly. I can't say that I blame her, but I'm fucking bored of accolades from people who don't really understand the suffering behind them. I'm sure whatever Siobhan has to say will lead me to collapsing dead asleep on the floor of what is becoming an awards ceremony. By the moon, if only they'd let me walk off center stage already.
"My mate said that her military career was short, but as a mother, as an alpha who failed her pack, I believe it was much harder than Leanne will let on."
Oh, so this is the route she was taking. Great.
"Pack is home. Pack is life. I'd like to call for a moment of silence as we stand together and remember all that we could have and did lose over a decade ago on June the second."
As if she needed to call for a moment of silence. This whole meeting was a moment of silence broken up by what could have been as simple as per-recorded speeches. And why did they keep reminding everyone of my age? Is thirty old? I don't feel old. I'm just happy that no one has called me my by girl's name.
I think she waits a full minute before she speaks again, but her voice carries stern undertones that hadn't been present before, "As we welcome Leanne back into the folds of pack life, I hope you will remember the events that led to her exile and into the hands of the government. Underage children drunk on moonshine made by one of our own inhibited the already modest judgment of those who had only just graduated from high school. A prank gone too far? No. There was devious intent behind the actions of those present at the bonfire supposedly celebrating those rites of passage.
"Instead of arriving home safely after spending much needed time with her friends, Leanne Orion, who for years had been viciously bullied over her lack of wolf, was tortured so brutally that she was forced to find her second soul. A girl who had been accepted into one of the most competitive human schools, who would have brought much needed skills home to us, was taken over by a wolf made so aggressive and deadly by the dangerous acts she endured. For twelve long years, she was punished for reasons out of her control, paying penance to the moon in place of those who truly deserved it."
The only reason I'm listening is the for the bare scraps she's offering of that night.
"Honey-girl is a decorated military veteran who has protected pack and overcome enormous obstacles you or I can't even begin to imagine. I can only ask, even as alpha, that you remain pensive over these details and find in yourselves the wrongs that were done to an innocent child."
I want to SCREAM.