Chapter 2: Chapter 2

“For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the

Wolf is the Pack.

Rudyard Kipling

22 years later

Annie ran through the train station swerving around the Friday rush hour commuters and school children as fast as she could. Trust her to be late, although to be fair, it had been a hell of a week at work with Fresher’s week and all and she hadn’t counted on her taxi finding itself in gridlocked traffic navigating the small Northern town where she had lived for the past twenty years or so. Jumping out of the taxi, Annie saw the train already idling in the station. Dashing along the platform, trying to find her carriage, her inner wolf’s voice encouraged her to move faster.

“Hurry Annie…..wait it’s this one, you’ve run past….go back.” her wolf urged in her head.

Annie skidded to a stop and turned about. Scuttling back to the carriage she’d just passed, she jumped on board and dumped her bags on the luggage rack. Checking the seat number on her ticket, she proceeded down the carriage until she found her seat. Luckily no one was sat in the other seats yet so she shuffled sideways into hers by the window, plonked herself down and gave a long sigh of relief. Soon the train filled up and Annie found herself surrounded by travellers heading to the airport with multiple suitcases and revellers travelling for a night out in Manchester.

“I’m looking forward to this trip” her wolf commented. She could sense her wolf’s excitement but the feeling wasn’t rubbing off on Annie. While she still felt part of the oldest wolf pack in Northern England, the Lunar Meadows Pack which dated back to Norman times, she had lived outside it for so long she no longer felt the pull to return. She had left when she was 20 years old when she could no longer stand the pitying stares, the stares that said ‘poor Annie Lovell, her parents must be devastated’. Not that any of it had been her doing, but it continued to make her feel like a failure. Still, she loved her family and tried to visit a couple of times a year so it wasn’t like she had gone rogue or anything, it was just… uncomfortable for her to be there. Annie had left, worked her way through university, teacher training college, and at forty- two, was now a senior lecturer in Ancient History. Even if she said so herself, she had made a pretty good life for herself in the human world, she had bought a house, had many friends and enjoyed an active social life. Humans were much more private about their personal lives, nobody in the human world batted an eyelid at an unmarked or unmarried childless forty-two-year-old and that was just how Annie liked it.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the blowing of a whistle, doors being slammed shut and the lurch of the train as it pulled out of the station.

Once the train had left the urban sprawl and was wending its way through the green countryside, Annie continued her musings. At least they were only staying in her home town for one night she thought to herself, as Saturday morning she, her sister Amelie and brother Jacques, along with some of their pack would be driving up to the Scottish Highlands for her niece’s wedding. This wedding was a big deal, Amelie’s daughter Aimeé was marrying into the mighty Reiver Pack, the largest pack in Scotland. Packs from all over the country would be there but no one outside her own pack would know her, she would be just like any other wolf and hopefully, there wouldn’t be any awkward questions like… ‘Why are you forty- two, childless and not yet marked?’

"It’s going to be fine Annie" soothed her wolf, sensing Annie’s apprehension. "You get to wear a nice dress, eat great food and drink expensive wine" she joked, everyone knew how rich the Reivers were.

"Thanks Sabine" she answered sardonically, suppressing a smile. That was the thing about being a Were in the human world, you had to be careful not to give yourself away. No reacting to conversations you were having with your wolf in your head or losing your temper and shifting into your wolf form the middle of the supermarket for example. There was no room for mistakes, it was a fine balance of skills which Annie had honed to a tee.

"Promise me we can go for a run in the hills before we come home?" begged Sabine, "It’s been a while."

"Sure we can, and you’re right, it’s been far too long since we really stretched our legs." smiled Annie

Forty minutes later, Annie was lumbering off the train with her luggage at Manchester, navigating across the vast station to make her connection with the little local train which would carry her across the Yorkshire moors, back to the home she barely knew anymore. When she alighted at the station, Jacques was there to meet her with a big smile and an even bigger bear hug.

“Good to see you little sis” he grinned

“You too big brother.” grinned Annie pulling him in to another hug. Jacques was forty- four, over six feet tall with the same chocolate brown hair as herself. Like Annie, he didn’t look his age, looking about thirty with no sign of greying or thinning of his hair. His physique didn’t give his true age away either, he was as toned, strong and as fit as he had ever been.

Jacques loaded Annie’s bags into his car and they began the 30-minute drive to the house. Whilst winding round the country lanes Jacques filled Annie in on all the wedding news. Aimeè, he told her, was already in Scotland, having been there since meeting her mate at the Moon Festival Ball a few months ago. Jacques’s teenage daughters were also in Scotland as they were to be bridesmaids, so they had a free evening at Amelie and Patric’s to have a drink and catch up. Once they had arrived and had hugs all round, it turned out to be a wonderful evening full of laughter and love. Annie’s siblings had never judged her for the decisions she had made or the life she chose to lead, they simply loved her, as she loved them.

“So glad you could come.” Amelie whispered in Annie’s ear as they hugged before turning in.

“Of course I came, I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.” whispered Annie returning Amelie’s hug.

Annie and her sister were very alike in looks but that’s where the similarity ended. Annie was tougher than her sister, Amelie was a sensitive soul who had suffered the most when their parents died. Even once she had found her mate, Amelie had continued to live in the family home, persuading Patric to move in rather than moving to his town as was the norm. Their parents were aged and needed looking after especially their father and Amelie had felt she couldn’t leave them. Annie’s mother had been in her late thirties when she met her father, and her father had been almost fifty. They had spent all of their adult lives looking for each other, both of them thinking they would never meet their mate. Consequently, they had pups later in life, three in quick succession.

“See you all tomorrow.” Annie called to everyone and a chorus of ‘goodnights’ followed her up the stairs leaving her with a warm feeling of belonging, something she hadn’t felt in a while.

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