Part of the Pack (Book 1 in the 'part of' series)

Chapter 34 Peace before the storm

Chapter 34 Peace before the storm

We stepped into the kitchen, to my surprise we didn't stop there as Ralph opened the backdoor and sat just outside. "This is my thinking place." he told me as I sat down next to him. It looked slightly humorous. ;It was as though he was trying to sit in a child's chair, his knees were almost up to his ears.

I looked around slightly teasingly. "Nice, nice." I said with a smile. He shoved me slightly as he picked up on my mocking tone. "Seriously, it's good to have a thinking place." I gave him a smile which he returned. The atmosphere was lighter but as the silence grew as did the tension."What are you guys going to do?" My voice was soft and low.

He bit his lip and looked down. Shaking his head he replied. "I don't know." He was honest but he didn't sound weak. He didn't sound defeated in the way I would have felt. He sounded strong and determined to face whatever came his way. I admire that about him. I felt that this was going too fast but I hadn't really had a relationship before. "How did you find out?"

It was my turn to be nervous and bite my lip. I was hoping that nobody would ask me this. I didn't really want tos ay that my dad told me and he seems rather passionate about it. I wanted to just say I saw it on the television. At this point I had forgotten what I had already said. I wasn't going to lie to them, they haven't lied to me. "My dad works for the construction company." I said simply. I think that was all that needed to be said.

He raised an eyebrow at me but nodded. "Well then we're lucky." he slightly shoved me with a grin. "We wouldn't have known if you didn't tell us." He paused slightly and his eyes became darker. "We would have had no idea what was happening." I could hear the roughness in his voice. I sighed slightly. "We don't blame you, it would've happened anyway."

His voice left no room for discussion. No matter how eager I was to give it a try. I knew that it wasn't my fault. It was people like me who were threatening to tear down their home. I knew that it goes against my personal morals, yet it still felt as though it was me who was doing the destruction. "It's not right."

I wanted to be clear, I wanted him to know my thoughts. I could see brightness appear in his eyes as he gave a wide smile. "I know. I'm sure they have their reasons. Yet taking over territories is a fact of life." He sounded rather casual about it. I hadn't considered the fact that wolves are rather territorial creatures but they often used other territories and became rather protective of it. "Though, it's the wolves we're more worried about."

I nodded slightly, I didn't know anything about this part. I didn't know anything about how werewolves interacted with other packs. I know only what I have seen. It was vicious and the wolves weren't afraid to fight. I wondered if werewolves handled situations like this purely physically and violently. I chuckled slightly at the thought of them having regular human negotiations. It really shouldn't have been too funny to me.

"I got that from t the other night." I tried to chuckle lightly but it was a bit weak. I hesitated slightly before moving closer to him. "I know we'll sort this out." I don't know why I was saying this. I usually felt the need to comfort others but in this case. I felt different, I didn't feel confident and I felt like my words wouldn't do anything. "People go up against this sort of thing all the time." I continued as I looked forward.

I didn't miss the fact that he looked at me when I moved closer, I didn't miss the relaxing of his shoulders. "Do they?" He had a raised eyebrow. If he had noticed my doubt, he didn't mention it. "What do they do?" He seemed genuinely interested, I knew a little about this, I had put a few on with my university class.

"Well there are protests and petitions." I started to say somewhat slowly. I was careful with what I was saying as I didn't want to raise hope. "There are other ways of interrupting these things. Those are often more dangerous than this though." He seemed to look even more interested when I mentioned danger and so I quickly waved my hands around and said sternly. "You aren't going to do anything like that."

"Why not?"He whined slightly. I looked at him oddly and he cleared his throat with a small smile. "Okay that was a failed attempt at lightening the mood." He shrugged slightly and looked off to the other side fo the garden before looking at me. "What are you doing today?"

I huffed at the changing of the subject but leaned back against the door. "Nothing planned. I got everything sorted and I go back to uni soon." I frowned slightly as the thought of going back to university entered my brain. I didn't hate it there, yet it meant I didn't have as much free time as I would've liked. "Why?"

I had a curious look on my face. I could tell there was something more to this conversation ehn what he was telling me. "I'm just making conversation." He tried to pull off. He was a very bad liar, I made a mental note to tutor him on that skill. I raised an eyebrow and he cleared his throat again before looking up. "I got a plan. Be there in ten!"

I was a stuttering mess as he stood up and lifted me up. "Woah wait what? You have a plan? What might this plan be and why do I feel like I gave you the plan?" I followed him back into the house and through the halls until we reached a familiar door, Lathen's office. "That wasn't ten minutes."

He shook his head lightly before knocking. "I didn't say ten minutes, I said ten." I opened my mouth to argue but I was interrupted by the door opening. "We're going to do a protest." Ralph said determined. I widened my eyes slightly but nodded. It was much better then what I thought was going through his head.

"Okay for one, that's not english." Athens aid as he gestures for us to come in. Eben was stood on the other side of the room. I gave a slight wave and he nodded back with a small smile. "Two, that might work but that only takes care of one threat."

"We'll have an advantage." Ralph said and placed an arm around my shoulder. I tensed up slightly, though he didn't seem to notice. "They won't expect us to know these things. They would think that we'd fight them head on. We can take an alternative route."