Heart of Stone (Parts I & II)

II. Chapter 22 | Part 1 - Aubree

Aubree knew he wouldn't hurt her, but she still hadn't been expecting to see his hand like that. Moreover, his anxiety about it made her all the more nervous too.

They spent the entire morning working on the garden and around noon they all went to bed. There was still a fair bit of clean-up left to do, but the majority of the flowers had been transplanted. By then, Aubree's back was getting tired and sore from bending forward so much. She welcomed the break, even though she would have liked to have finished everything. It could wait a few hours, if not until tomorrow.

Even Stone expressed his exhaustion, even though it was written all over his face.

"I didn't sleep at all last night," he said as he rubbed his forehead. "I stayed up, linking with everyone to make sure they were all okay. I don't like being apart from them and leaving the hunt up to them. Other alphas may leave the hunt up to their pack members, but I don't feel right sitting at home and twiddling my thumbs."

Aubree hummed while she ate some leftover pizza for lunch.

Stone sat across from her at the table, rambling away as his eyelids grew heavier.

She swallowed the piece of pizza she'd been chewing. "What do you mean? If other alphas don't go out hunting, then what do they do?"

"Maintain pack cohesion and relations with neighboring packs," he said. "But our pack is small, we can't afford to have me sitting at home like a king. I need to be out there with them."

"How big are packs normally?"

"About the size of Vincent's. Thirty to forty or so members. Packs in Europe tend to be a bit larger. The ones in Russia are the largest because of the available land. Before the migration, that started some five hundred years ago, packs typically consisted of seventy-five lycans, with the largest sustaining about two hundred members."

"Wow. You guys were like little villages then, huh?"

He shook his head. "Two hundred is obscene. An alpha of a pack that size would be constantly trying to maintain peace within its own ranks, never mind maintain peaceful relations with neighboring packs." He sighed. "Food was more scarce with all of those mouths to feed and there was less work to go around. Higher numbers don't necessarily mean strength. They tended to be weaker, lazier, more prone to causing trouble because of boredom, hunger, and thirst for power."

He closed his heavy eyes, struggling to keep them open. "We like to keep active. It's in our blood. When there's not enough work to keep everyone occupied and motivated, we'll find ways to entertain ourselves, and that might be to get into mischief or cause drama. And for some, they want to rise higher in the ranks. Challenges for rank are more common. More power and prestige beget more respect."

"So, smaller packs are better?" she asked, finishing off the last of her pizza.

"Yes, but not as small as ours," he said. "We're weak because we don't have enough members to do the work. That leaves a weakened border where threats can slip through. We're also over-worked as a result. For a territory this size, we need at least five more lycans."

"So, basically we need to double in size?"

He nodded. "We've managed this long because we're strong, but with the looming vampire war, we need ten more members."

She chewed on her bottom lip as her stomach twisted into a knot. She had an idea but knew he wouldn't like it. "We could fix that."

Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Aubree..."

The warning tone in his voice was like a challenge to her. She knew he was tired and didn't want to talk about it but now seemed as good a time as any to bring it back up.