The Moon Wolf

Chapter 8 (1st Draft)

*The pic is of Anex (the Master at Arms) in his fur.

A few hours later Penn woke again. It was just after 7:30am according to a clock on the wall. The house was quiet. It seemed everyone was still sleeping, which was a relief. Penn knew the pups needed the sleep. Still, just to be certain, she did her rounds.

The littlest one, Mia, was wide awake on one of the bunks where two of the younger girls were sleeping. Penn beckoned Mia to come and the girl climbed off the bunk bed quietly and came over to her with her hands held up. Penn scooped her up easily and then closed the door quietly behind her.

Since the little ones were always hungry, Penn headed straight to the kitchen with Mia in her arms. It didn't take her long to find some dry cereal, which she poured into a bowl and set on the table for Mia. Penn quietly pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down with little Mia still in her arms. Mia quickly settled on her lap and began to eat the dry cereal with great interest, though, half of it somehow managed to end up on the table rather than in her mouth. Watching her eat was amusing.

Penn could smell the Master at Arms long before he bravely turned the knob of the front door and pushed it open. The front door gave a negligible creak - nothing loud enough to wake the pups. Penn didn't bother to look his way or make any move to greet the male wolf. She knew any greeting from her would still be unwelcome. So, she continued to sit perfectly still, as if he wasn't even there, while Mia continued to eat her cereal.

Penn could sense, by the scent he gave off, that he was more curious about her in this particular moment then anything else. She felt a small modicum of relief. The morning was getting off to a good start if he could control his hostility levels this well. She knew it was almost instinctual for him to think and behave aggressively around her - a rogue.  Any time he showed restraint she thought better of him for it, but she wasn't fooled. She knew she would do well to avoid provoking the wolf unnecessarily.

Rogues had terrible reps, which were often well deserved, but no one ever talked about the brutality and quick tempers of pack-wolves when faced with rogues. Pack wolves were notorious in the rogue world for turning territorial on a dime - seemingly without provocation. So, Penn knew she could never let her guard down even for a minute with these Orthos wolves - not even the seemingly somewhat rational Master at Arms.

Penn swallowed a sigh and then picked up the dry cereal all around Mia's bowl that she kept knocking out or dropping every time she tried to get a handful of cereal. From the corner of her eye she watched him walk off into the lodge. She assumed he was checking on the pups. So long as he didn't intimidate Mia or set the other children off, she was willing to ignore him if he was going to ignore her. She let out another sigh and relaxed a little into the chair with him out of sight.

Anex couldn't lower himself enough to speak to the rogue even if there was no one from his pack to witness the exchange. For the time being, since there was no aggressive posturing from her despite his sudden morning visit, he busied himself checking up on the status of the pups.

He quickly found that all but the smallest, who had been sitting comfortably on the rogue's lap, were sound asleep. The sight of them either huddled together or sprawled right out like they didn't have a care in the world touched a chord in his heart. Anex had his own pups. They were grown now but it pained him to think what would have become of them if the Orthos pack had ever been decimated by another. Once again, he begrudgingly had to admire the rogue for getting them all safely to this point. She was an enigma and that bothered him.