6. Quinn

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Saturday, August 22nd
Waxing Gibbous Moon (Four Nights to Full Moon)

With school starting in a few days, I took advantage of my last few days of being able to guiltlessly sleep in. I slept late into the morning, fully exhausted from the previous night’s activities.

I woke up around eleven, still feeling a little tired, then showered and got dressed. Then I called the second number that my mother had programmed into my speed dial, the first one being the police.

“Hello?” A woman answered. She sounded young and bored, as if she was doing the job because she had to, not because she wanted to.

“Um, hi. I would like to speak to Mr. Lewis?” That was the name on the contact list, and I hoped my mom had gotten it right.

“Who may I say is calling?” She asked formally. I heard the creak of her chair as she sat up straighter, suddenly more interested.

“My name is Selene, my parents spoke with Mr. Lewis a few weeks ago. I just recently moved into his…” I paused. I didn’t even know who or what this girl was. Was I telling her too much?

“Territory, dear?” She sounded amused now. She knew what this was about and now she found it funny.

“Yes, t-that’s right,” I stammered.

“Wait just one moment and I’ll transfer you.”

There was a click and a pause, then the phone picked up, “Selene! How nice of you to call! How are you enjoying it here so far?” The man sounded excited to receive my call. Here was a person who understood everything that I was going through.

I opened up to him, gushing everything over the phone, probably saying more than he wanted to hear, “Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Last night, I was walking with my roommate, and some random man attacked us. He…called me a monster. I was scared. I don’t know what he knew or if he was just crazy or if he knew something, but my roommate pulled him off me and he got injured and there was blood and…I almost lost control.” When I admitted it out loud to him, I felt ashamed. I wiped away a few tears while I waited for his response.

“However, you did not lose control, did you? Not at all?” His voice spoke to me kindly over the phone. He was right about that, but it still bothered me. I didn’t want to be so vulnerable anymore.

“No, sir. The moon is but half full, though. I’m worried! I need like…a mentor or something. I’ve never been on my own like this. I feel like I’m all alone.” My voice cracked on the word, “alone.” I pulled a tissue out of the box on my desk and wiped at my face and nose.

“I’m sure we could arrange something for you. I am actually leaving my office for the day in a few hours, why don’t you come over tonight for dinner? That is, if you don’t already have plans. You can meet my family. Once you join our pack, they will be your family too.” How did my parents find such a nice man? My mom did something right for once that wasn’t incredibly obnoxious.

“No, I don’t have any plans. Dinner tonight sounds great!” I was finally going to meet others of my kind. He gave me directions and I told him I would be there by six.

I changed into some nice black slacks and my favorite black-and-white knit top. It was comfortable and pretty, can’t argue with that! I put on some black and white converse because I didn’t have any dressier shoes and then brushed out my hair, pulling the brown strands into a low and loose ponytail.

I left my dorm at five-thirty to give myself a little bit of leeway just in case I had trouble finding the place. I was glad I did, because Mr. Lewis’ house was a large, red-brick, two-story home in the middle of nowhere. I almost got lost on the way several times. There were no other homes nearby and no landmarks, just lots of land filled with trees. I still arrived at his house a few minutes early, mostly because I gave myself so much time to get there. When I rang the doorbell, a pretty woman answered the door. She had long reddish-blonde hair that went halfway down her back. It was smooth and shiny, and it looked like probably took her hours to get it to look that pretty. She had blue eyes and delicate, pale skin. She looked a few years older than I was, and I wondered if she was Mr. Lewis’ daughter. “Welcome to our home,” she said as she let me in.

Inside, the old house was decorated with modern appliances and furniture. The living room was dominated by a big screen television and a huge couch that could probably seat ten people. The kitchen was full of shiny new appliances.

“We just renovated,” She told me. “Before we redid it, this place was hideous, straight out of the seventies!”

The enormous dining room table was set for four, but no food was on it yet. I could smell meat cooking outside.

She led me out the back door onto an enormous wooden deck and then went back inside. Standing in front of the grill was a man, who smiled at us me as I walked out onto the deck. The man looked as young as the woman did, in his mid-twenties at the most. His dark brown hair was trimmed close to his scalp and his skin had an almost natural tan to it.

“Welcome, Selene!” He greeted me, shaking my hand with a firm grip and looking me over with his dark brown eyes.

“Good evening, thank you for having me over,” I said, trying to be as polite as possible. I recognized his voice from the phone, but the face and body didn’t match at all. He looked much too young to be who I thought he was.

“I’m Quinn Lewis but you can call me Quinn, everyone else does.” He smiled at me. His face was as kind as his voice. His eyes were all that hinted that he might be older than he looked. They were filled with knowledge and experience.

I nodded, still confused. I looked around and was awestruck by the view from the deck. The house was at the top of an incline and at the bottom of the hill was a pond. The pond wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t tiny either. I noticed some paddle-boats tied up to a small dock and thought that it might be fun to paddle across it. The way it reflected the setting sun reminded me of Lilith for a moment, with her aversion to the sun and all its beauty.

“Do you own all this land?” I asked him, looking past the pond at the undeveloped forest that surrounded us.

“Most of it. This land has been in my family ever since we came to this area, back when there wasn’t much of a town and land was cheap. Many developers have been trying to pressure me into selling it. They’ve offered me a lot of money. They want to turn it into a planned community with these cookie-cutter houses that all look the same and then they want to build an outlet mall and some restaurants or something. I won’t sell it though. It’s not mine to sell, really. This land is a part of me, a part of my family, and a part of the Pack.”

“The Pack,” I repeated, trying out the word, “How many…” I didn’t know how to ask.

“We have eighty-seven, not counting the children who haven’t hit puberty yet. Our pack is much larger than any natural wolf pack, but we’re human too. We like the big group, the closeness,” He told me, following my gaze out over the shining water and into the trees.

“Wow, I didn’t realize that there were so many.”

“We’re very secretive. It’s hard to truly tell our numbers. We like it that way. The humans don’t know we’re here, we contribute to the community like normal people, we’re just a little more special.” He grinned at me.

Eighty-seven of them, running around out here every full moon. That sounded dangerous. What if someone lost control? I didn’t feel comfortable asking Quinn if they ever had any accidents, especially during hunting season.

“How about you go on inside and meet the rest of the family?” He ushered me inside, “Oh yeah, how do you like your steaks?”

“Rare,” I said as I slipped inside.

“Good girl,” I heard him say behind me. I looked back through the window and he grinned at me, flipping over a huge chunk of meat.

Inside, there was no one in the kitchen or living room. I wondered where the girl had gone. Since no one was in sight, I settled on the couch and began to nervously chew my fingernails, wondering how tonight would go. I didn’t know these people. I didn’t even know much about the Pack, or packs in general. I never joined one. There were no local packs that I knew of in my hometown. Would they pressure me to join this one? Did I want to? What if they had strange traditions? Painful, sexually deviant things, horrors ran through my imagination as I sat there.

I looked down at my fingernails and they were torn and ragged, but I didn’t care. After the next full moon, they would be grown back, so long that I would have to cut them.

Someone came down the stairs as I was sitting on the couch. He looked to be around my age, but who could tell in this household? He saw me on the couch and smiled, then walked over and sat down next to me, turning inward to talk to me.

“You must be Selene. My parents told me you were coming tonight,” He smiled again as I took him in. He had an untidy mop of thick, straight red hair that came a little past his ears. The color was a little redder than the other girl’s, but it was the same texture and still had a little bit of blonde highlighting it. His eyes were a blue-gray under his light reddish eyelashes. He had thick eyebrows that matched his hair and was clean-shaven. He was handsome, and a little less pale than his sister with a perfect face that could be in movies. “I'm Randall.”

“Your parents…is Quinn your dad?”

“Yes, and my mom is Sylvea. I think you already met her. Lady with hair like mine, but a little lighter?”

So the girl wasn’t really a girl, she was a woman, a mother. I probably looked like an idiot as I tried to take it all in, “They look so young. You’re at least my age. How can they be your parents and be so young?”

“They're Alpha.” He said and then saw the even more confused look on my face. “There are two kinds of us, Alpha, and well, everyone else, the other pack members. Alphas are rare and they can be either male or female. An Alpha is stronger and more powerful than a normal wolf. They can also slightly change their appearance. Alphas are the only ones who can ever rise to pack leadership. An Alpha male will often choose an Alpha female as a mate.”

“You know a lot about this stuff,” It sounded like he was reciting something from a book. I wondered if there was a manual somewhere that I could pick up. Lycanthropy for Dummies or something like that.

“I’ve been around it all my life. The Pack brought me up. I have nearly ninety brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers. They're my family and one day I'll take my father’s place as pack leader.”

“So that means you’re Alpha too?”

“You can’t tell?” He looked amused.

I shook my head, “I haven’t really met many others.”

“Oh that’s right, you’re still like a pup,” He ruffled my hair playfully, messing up my ponytail. I pulled back, startled. The instant that he had touched me, I felt an energy from his hand. The warmth of it flowed from the spot on my head where he had touched me, then down and through my body. Before I could stop myself, I hugged him. My body was almost desperate for more of that warm energy.

He seemed startled, but then he hugged me back. I had never met this guy before, yet he made me feel so warm and safe. My body buzzed with his energy, it was intoxicating.

“I see someone’s making friends already,” Quinn interrupted.

I sat up quickly, smoothing my hair as much as I could, but I knew it was a mess. My face was red from embarrassment.

“I was just telling Selene about what it means to be Alpha and about growing up in a pack. I guess she was overwhelmed with gratitude,” He was grinning, but I could see a tinge of embarrassment in his expression as well.

“I wonder…” Quinn said thoughtfully as he set a tray of cooked meat on the dining room table and then came over to us, “…Selene, where were you bitten?”

“Um, when I was attacked, he tore into my lower back, and you can still see the scar.”

“May I?” He walked behind me.

“What do you mean?” I was confused, not for the first time and probably not for the last time that night.

“I just want to see something. It won’t hurt or be invasive or anything, just let me see your scar, please.”

“Okay…” I cautiously lifted up the back of my shirt a few inches, exposing the old scar tissue. Quinn ran his fingers along it, and then put his face close to my skin. I could feel his breath on my back and it gave me goose bumps. Then he began to sniff at it, a very animal-like gesture. Randall took the opportunity to inspect the scar as well.

“As I thought,” He stood and motioned for me to put my shirt down, “You are Alpha. I’m not one-hundred-percent positive, but we’ll see for sure come full moon.”

Randall looked happy, “You would be the only female Alpha in our pack if you were to join, besides my mother, and I am the only male Alpha, besides my father,” He grinned. “Right now we would sort of be in the Beta position, second to the leaders, but we still have the potential to lead.”
“How can you tell that I may be Alpha?” I asked Quinn.

He tapped his nose and smiled, “An Alpha can tell another Alpha. It’s a certain smell, that of power, which we can detect. It is especially easier to tell at the site of the bite, if that person was bitten. Those of us who were born into it, well, it is a little harder to tell.”

Sylvea walked into the room to listen to our conversation.

“If you weren’t so inexperienced, I would think you were sent here by another pack, maybe to overthrow us, but I can also smell a lie. Well, most of the time,” He continued.

“I guess I don’t smell like a liar,” I mused.

“No, you smell quite nice,” Randall blurted out, and then he turned a bright shade red as his parents began laughing. This family seemed so happy, so content. I liked it; it was a stark contrast from my own family.

“By the way, dinner is ready,” Quinn went back to the table where he had put the plate of meat. “Let’s eat, and then we can discuss more.”

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A/N: So this chapter is REALLY long, probably the longest in any of my works. I didn't really see a good place to break it up, though. This week may be the last week of posting twice-per-week. If it's not this week, then it will be next week. Depends on how productive I feel. So now you all know what Selene is, at least I hope I made it fairly clear without Selene just coming out and saying, "Hey people, I'm a werewolf!" The original drafts didn't really have good descriptions for Sylvea and Quinn, so I did those. I also made Randall a redhead, but he has a little bit darker complexion than a normal redhead, musta gotten that from his father. I need to go back sooner or later and add stuff like what they're wearing and whatnot, but I'll leave that for another day. I procrastinated on revising this chapter and now it's late. I still have to post Becoming too!

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