After cooling down and taking a shower, Olwen was eating in her new home. She'd been moved in here after her Integration Ceremony, and was still in the process of decorating her space. As she finished, Gamma Josh spoke to her through the mindlink.
Go to the Alpha's parents' house once you're free. They requested to see you.
Wearing a grey polo T-shirt and jeans, Olwen left her home and cycled to where Landon's parents stayed. Josh had pointed it out to her during one of her first few days in the pack, but she hadn't really seen or talked to Mr and Mrs Cartwright yet.
As she knocked on the door of the house, she briefly prayed to the Moon Goddess and hoped she hadn't done something to tick off the Alpha's parents.
The woman that answered the door had dark hair with small wisps of grey, but kind blue eyes like Landon's.
"Hello, Mrs Cartwright...you and your husband wanted to see me?" Olwen asked cautiously.
"Why yes, we wanted to finally meet the newest member of our son's pack." Landon's mother smiled and stepped aside to allow Olwen to enter the house. "I'm not sure why, but my son wasn't too keen on us meeting with you so quickly during your first week here."
Despite her words, Olwen caught the teasing glint in the older woman's eye and felt the blood rush to her face. Even if Landon hadn't said it out loud, his parents probably saw right through him.
"I see...well it's nice to meet you finally, Mrs Cartwright. I'm Olwen."
"Wonderful to meet you, Olwen! And please, no need to be so formal with us. I am Holly, and my husband, whom will be down shortly, is Wendell." Olwen shook Holly's hand, surprised by the firmness in it. But then again, what did she expect from an Alpha's mother?
"Ah, Miss Olwen, you're here!" Landon had definitely inherited his father's dirty blonde hair, as the older man approached and shook Olwen's hand as well. "It's a pleasure to welcome you. I heard about what happened to you in your previous pack, and I apologise on behalf of all alphas. Alpha Bradley is as prideful as he is stubborn."
Surprise flickered through Olwen's eyes. "I see." She'd seen how Alpha Bradley had interacted with the other leaders at the function, and everyone looked polite. On the surface, at least, because no one wanted to offend the Alpha of the strongest pack in the forest.
"Well, come in, we must talk." Holly spoke with a warm smile.
Olwen had a strangely comfortable conversation with Wendell and Holly for the next half an hour, considering who they were. They didn't address how she ended up at the Moon River Pack, instead sharing random anecdotes about recent events. The two older adults were keen to hear about Olwen's experiences in her new environment and how she'd found her Integration ceremony, of which Olwen carefully avoided mentioning anything about the little moment Opal and Lark had.
Before Olwen was about to leave however, Holly passed her a plastic wrapped box.
"Oh yes, we were hoping you could help us pass this to our son? He should be in his office about now."
"Uh...sure." Olwen managed, glancing down to find that she had been handed a box of tea. She'd seen a mug of chamomile sitting at Landon's desk the first and last time she'd been to his office, so that made sense.
The two nodded brightly, knowing all too well what they were doing.
"Thank you, Olwen. We'll see you around." Wendell said with a grateful smile before they closed their door and Olwen left, clutching the box.
Cycling up to the building, Olwen located Alpha Landon's office fairly easily. Passing by the main rooms and down the corridor, she relaxed upon receiving his forest after rain scent, only to tense up again as the sweet smell of vanilla and honey reached her too. She'd smelt it before, in fact a few days ago during the integration activity with Opal - it had belonged to a small cream coloured wolf she'd found crouching amongst some bushes.
It was a pleasant scent, but right now it made something inside of her curl.
She knocked on Alpha Landon's door.
"Come in." Came his voice.
Olwen opened the door wide, seeing a young woman with platinum blond curls and green eyes getting up from the chair opposite Landon's desk. The Alpha himself was attempting a neutral expression, but Olwen could recognise the surprise and yet relief in his face the moment he laid eyes on her. As for the young woman, her eyes reflected dismay and some amount of irritation.
"Your parents wanted to pass you this." Olwen said, trying to ignore the envious feeling gnawing at her stomach as she held up the box of chamomile tea.
Landon stood up, heading towards her just to accept the box.
"Oh, well uh, I'll have to thank them later. But thank you for bringing it over, Olwen. Could you stay for a while more? There's something I'd like to talk to you about."
He lightly pushed across another box of chocolates to the blonde woman - it appeared to be some kind of present, wrapped neatly with a bow.
"Elise...for the final time, I'm not interested in your gifts. Please go and save it for someone else. And if you keep coming back here again, I'm going to have to ask Beta Elijah to ban you from this building."
Elise opened her mouth to say something, but as her eyes met with Olwen's she closed it. She nodded to Landon, looking a bit more embarrassed before she retrieved her chocolates and left, closing the office door behind her.
"Who was that?" Olwen asked Landon curiously, as she turned back to the desk.
"I mentioned a lot of she-wolves in my own pack have been trying to win me over." Landon replied, unwrapping the tea box and placing it in a drawer. "Elise is...by far the most persistent. I'm grateful my parents sent you here, I was prepared to have her escorted away."
That name definitely rang a bell. Olwen felt Opal growling a little and hushed her.
"I take it you said you needed to talk to me as a way to get Elise to leave..."
"Oh...not really. It did help to get her to leave but I did actually want to talk to you." Landon assured her, beckoning her to sit down.
"...Oh. What did you want to address?" Olwen's mind flashed back to the small interaction between their wolves a few nights ago.
"I hope your new residence is to your satisfaction." Landon spoke, fixing his eyes on her. "And that no one in the Moon River Pack has been giving you trouble."
"Yes, my new place is perfectly fine. It's small, but manageable for one person like me." Olwen told him. "And ever since I came here, everyone has been at least civil or polite towards me, even though I'm not originally from your pack."
Landon nodded, looking as if he was searching her eyes for any sign of discomfort before relaxing when he found none.
"...That's good to hear."
"Can I ask...how are you and your Pack adjusting so well? I would've thought the rogue attacks a few years back would have made everyone wary of me...even if I once was from another pack."
Landon nodded thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair.
"The rogue attacks dealt quite the blow of our pack. We're lucky that we didn't lose more of our own. People are still very much weary, but I try not to let it cloud my judgement, that every rogue outside of this pack is not to be trusted. That's why we have the increased security and monitoring in place if someone wants to stay in the pack."
"That's a surprisingly mature approach..."
"Besides, a rogue saved my life once."
Olwen looked up at Landon with surprise and interest.
"Really?"
Landon nodded.
"It was years earlier, when I was about thirteen I think? I had just shifted and had gone on a run. I got carried away and went a bit further beyond the Moon River Pack borders, and I found myself lost."
Olwen quietly listened to the Alpha tell his story, envisioning Lark wandering around in the trees helplessly.
"And then this stranger found me. I could tell from his scent he was a rogue, and as a newly shifted son of an alpha, I was scared. I thought he would kill me or try to kidnap me, but...he didn't. He guided me back near the entrance of the Moon River Pack, where my parents found me. They wanted to find and thank him after that, but we never really did find out who he was."
"...Huh..." Olwen nodded thoughtfully.
Rogues were usually believed to be uncivilised wolves, those who had perhaps at some point belonged to a pack and had been cast out for committing a sin, or those who were born in the wild. Especially after the rogue attacks, where many of them congregated into a group of their own and tried to usurp the established Evergreen packs, this belief only intensified. When Olwen had become a rogue herself, she'd never stayed around to interact with members of other packs because she knew she wouldn't have been a welcome presence.
"Perhaps I'll never know whether he had motives or not that day when he found me lost in the forest," Landon said. "But I'd like to believe he was one of the good ones."
"Aside from me, I hope?" Olwen supplied in an attempt at a lighthearted joke. She didn't have the time to feel embarrassed as Landon chuckled a moment later.
"I guess you could say that."
Landon paused before he spoke again.
"Are you...comfortable spending time with just me like this? I know I said I would have extended the same offer to you even if I didn't have any interest in you, but..."
"No, I'm alright." Olwen assured him. "I was...actually hoping I could get to know you better a little now that I'm part of the Moon River Pack. It feels a bit strange that I don't know a lot about my new Alpha yet, when my last Alpha very nearly became my father-in-law."
Liar, Opal teased in her head. You're more interested in him than you think you are, Olwen...
Please don't. Olwen pushed Opal to the back of her mind for now, but deep down she knew she was right.
"Well, if you say so...then ask me whatever you wish, Olwen. If I can answer it, I will."
Landon calmly poured a kettle of chamomile tea for himself, the aroma filling the office.
"To begin with, why do you like drinking chamomile tea?" Olwen settled on, inhaling the fragrance.
"Oh, it started after I began my alpha training, and after...Rianne." A look of sadness passed through his eyes before he continued. "I was in a bad place for a while. I felt the weight of my future responsibilities as alpha crashing down onto me, and I had convinced myself that without a mate I wouldn't be able to lead the pack. I started pushing too hard, overworking, punishing myself for not being good enough to keep my mate around. It got so bad, I finally got myself drunk one night and just collapsed in my office. Mine and Elijah's father, the then Alpha and Beta, found me out cold and had to carry me back home. It was humiliating for me since a number of pack members witnessed it all."
Olwen couldn't help her astonished reaction. Given how put together Alpha Landon seemed, she couldn't imagine him in such a state - though she knew just as much that assuming a leadership role for one's pack was never a smooth sailing journey.
"When I woke up the next day, I felt worse than I ever had in my life." Landon recounted, his expression showing nothing but shame. "I had to drag myself out of bed with a pounding headache and felt queasy the rest of the morning. I finally realised after talking to my parents and Elijah, who was my childhood friend and still training to be Beta back then, that what I was doing was only making things worse for myself. With their support and encouragement, I started to give myself room to breathe, to take a step back and look at everything."
The man inhaled gently and continued to speak, his tone affirming as if he was still addressing himself.
"Rianne rejecting me and leaving the Moon River Pack...was not my fault. It was her choice, and even if I had tried, she might not have changed her mind. And regardless of whether I had a fated mate or not...it wouldn't impact how I would do as an alpha."
He smiled softly, and there was no regret or wistfulness in his face this time.
"It took a while, but I moved past it. I became the alpha of the Moon River Pack, and I have been for the past few years. My mother stayed as Luna for a while, but eventually I got used to doing everything myself. She deserved to have a comfortable retirement after years of supporting my dad."
Olwen felt a rush of admiration and fondness for Landon, more so than previously.
"Oh, and also I've never really drank alcohol that heavily since." He admitted. "At most one or two glasses but not beyond that. I started out drinking chamomile as a way to calm myself down, but...I guess I got used to the taste. So now I just drink it for fun."
Olwen cracked a smile at his choice of words.
"That's a surprisingly heartfelt backstory for something like your choice of tea."
"It is what it is." Landon shrugged. "Next question?"
"Do you have any...hobbies aside from drinking tea and warding off admirers?"
Landon smirked, amused by her choice of words.
"Heh. In fact, I do. Several, actually. I play several types of sports. Elijah and I were part of a soccer team when we were kids," He stated, his eyes gleaming with pride at the memory. "We also used to race with our other friends in the river near the pack borders, so in some ways my wolf and I are just as used to the water as the land."
"Pfft, you don't need to tell me that." Olwen recalled the way Opal had found Lark hiding in the water at the end of her initiation, and quickly shoved away the memory before her thoughts could drift further. Fortunately, the Alpha didn't seem to notice.
"Did you get the opportunity to swim a lot back in your old pack?"
Olwen truthfully shook her head.
"No. Not for long periods of time, at least."
"Hm. If you want, I could help you out." The Alpha offered with a warm and somewhat shy smile. "You've got to become more used to water if you're part of our pack."
Our pack. Olwen was sure that wasn't the first time she was hearing that phrase, but she couldn't help the soft fluttering inside her from the way Landon said it. And the implication that he wanted to bring her swimming himself, not delegate the task to one of his subordinates.
She felt the slight blush on her face.
"That would be great. Thank you, Alpha Landon."
"What about you?"
"Hm?"
"What hobbies do you have, Olwen?"
Landon was now watching her with an expectant but patient look on his face. He was about a third taller than her could come across as imposing to anyone at first glance, but sitting here in his office just talking to him like this made him a gentle giant.
A capable yet warm Alpha who was genuinely interested in getting to know her. Even when Aaron had started courting her, she didn't remember him showing this much interest in her as a person.
Gently folding her hands in her lap, Olwen smiled back warmly.
Despite her wolf already getting eager from the clear attraction Landon had expressed for her, Olwen hushed her again. Perhaps Landon was better than Aaron or his father, but it was still too soon to rush into a relationship without knowing more about the alpha. Heck, she'd thought she knew Aaron before he started his affair with Kylie.
Don't rush, and don't think about Aaron. She assured herself, as she began to share her hobbies with Landon. Maybe eventually, I can give someone else a chance.
I just realised I gave Aaron and Landon rhyming names it wasn't my intention i swear xd