Mala was sitting in a meeting with Ben and the other head warriors. It had been brought to the Alpha’s attention, that their pack did not have an agility course, and many had now expressed their wishes to have one. It was good fun and good for strength building as well.
Aston was off training with his Alpha Unit and some of the pack members, having taken over while they all sat down to discuss the things, they wanted to go into the agility course. What they had seen from their old packs. What they saw when visiting other packs for mating balls.
It was going to be left up to them to sort out and design what they wanted, then to present it to their Alpha for his perusal and approval or adjustment. They had made a list of the things they actually wanted and were currently all drawing up layouts that they thought would be the best options for the area that had been chosen to put in the course.
When everyone in the rooms’ head snapped up, at the severing of their Luna from them all. Pain coursed through Mala’s entire body, it was so very sudden and then a massive howl ripped through the pack. Everyone heard it. It was Aston responding to the loss of his Mate.
They were up and gone from the room the instant his howl was ripped out of him, mind-links were opened by all of them trying to find out what the hell had happened. No one knew. The Luna was last seen inside the pack house over an hour ago. Now she was just gone from them.
Roberta had not called for help, there was no fighting heard or seen anywhere within or on the edge of the pack, anywhere, no freaked out Alpha yelling at everyone that his Mate was in trouble and pulling everyone to her defence, nothing. She was just suddenly gone. In an instant, ripped from all, including her mate, it seemed.
They were all tracking their Alpha’s tether to them to find out where he was. His connection to his Luna would always allow him to know where she was. His wolf was faster than any of theirs, and they found him on the northern border of the pack completely naked. His wolf had ripped out of him in his need to find out what was wrong with his Luna.
He was sitting, cradling his Luna’s lifeless body in his arms, staring down at her still open eyes. There was a single shot to her chest, right through her heart, died instantly from the attack.
They had been attacked and out of nowhere, Mala looked at her Luna, the wound, the area around where they were all crowded around their Alpha. She noted his entire Unit was standing directly behind him, protecting him from the enemy, she thought.
Turned and looked around her, this particular place on the northern border was clear of trees, it was out in the open. She could see the blood splatter on the ground and turned her attention to the direction the bullet had come from. Looked up the mountain range, one single shot of high calibre.
“Sniper.” Ben growled.
They all agreed this had to be the case. The pack was still majority female and they were mostly still unmated. This was their only major concern about being legitimised. Another pack coming in and trying to take over, take the women in the hope they would be able to mate them off to their own pack members. Killing the Luna would weaken the Alpha and leave the pack weak as well, for the incoming attack.
“Get the pack ready for war.” Ben snapped “Mala, you and I are going hunting up the mountain.”
The Alpha didn’t say anything was still with his Luna, the Packs Beta Simon nodded and stated, "Leave nothing unturned.”
Then they were gone, shifted to their wolves and racing off up through the valley to search the mountains to find that bastard that dared to kill their Luna. Spent all afternoon and all night searching out all the nooks and crannies.
Any place that could be used to sit and watch the pack, that had a direct line of sight to the northern border, there were quite a few from this high up, they noted. Both of them were in agreement that trees needed to be put in to stop this kind of thing happening again.
They only found where the sniper had been, because that son of a bitch wanted them to. There were no wolfen scents up here to track. No human ones either, a few wild animals but nothing wolfen detected. Had likely used a scent masking spray of some sort.
But from this place there was a clean direct line of sight down the mountain into the valley below. The entire pack could be seen from up here off in the distance. There, on a relatively large flat, out crop of rock was a picture of their Luna, a rock holding it to the ground and a single high calibre shell casing stood next to it.
Ben picked up the photo and shell casing, turned the photo over looking at it, and on the back were the words “You get no other.” Showed it to her, Mala stared at it with a frown.
“What are the odds that our Luna, would just happen to be out on an open area of our border, and this asshole just happened to be here at the same time?” Ben mused aloud.
“Low.” Mala muttered, “Real damned low, like one percent, if that.”
“Lured out!” he huffed.
“Likely so, though by who?” Mala took the photo from Ben and turned it over, looked at the picture of Roberta, she looked a bit younger in the picture, though not by much.
“Her old Mate?” Ben posed.
“Did she reject him or he her, is the question.” Mala asked, turned the photo over to read the words again “You get no other.” She mused out loud. Frowned deeply, looked around them, there were plenty of places for this asshole to escape from, not to mention it had taken them all afternoon and night to find this place.
“They’re long gone. They only wanted to take her out, could have taken all of us from up here one at a time, including the Alpha. They didn’t, left after killing our Luna.”
She saw Ben sigh heavily as he too agreed with her statement. “let’s head back,”
They were headed back down the mountain. It was going to take all afternoon and into the evening in all likelihood to get back to the pack. She allowed her mind to think about what had occurred and the possibilities as they walked.
“Might not be aimed at our Luna, could be our Alpha’s rejected Mate.” She finally voiced.
“I don’t think so. She rejected Aston for his brother, I believe. Could have had either of them, scented them both out.”
“Oh,” Mala had been here now for 8 years and did not know that, “Still it could be aimed at either of them.”
“What are you thinking? We’ve been around for 18 years, Mala, and no attacks, until now it’s a bit odd.”
“No, it’s not. The council brought the pack into full legitimacy Ben, so it is now registered along with the Alpha and Luna’s names. Perhaps no-one knew where Aston or Roberta went, and now they do know.”
“We need more information.”
“Agreed.” Mala nodded. “But first we need to find out how our Luna was lured out, who got to her. Let’s start there.”
“Alright, though Aston is not going to be happy with us going through his Luna’s things."
"He is distracted Ben, likely won’t even notice, I’d say.”
“Do you think war is coming?”
“I don’t know. They did just weaken the Alpha…but not the pack. No-one really knows anything about us Ben, we certainly have never gone around advertising that we’re a warrior pack. So, anyone attacking us will be looking at numbers only.”
Heard Ben snort with amusement now, “We’re mostly female, they’ll think we’re weak, with most of the pack headed for the pack house and lockdown.”
“That they will.” Mala nodded “They will get their asses kicked, is what will happen.” Liked the thought of that. “I need a good fight Ben, a bit itchy I am.”
Heard him laugh now “Well, I heard on the down low, the council gave Aston a warrior challenge invite. The last time they were here.”
That grabbed her attention, stopped walking, and looked right up at him. “Really?”
“Mm, is still considering it, I believe.”
“Why? He hates those things, told me so himself the day I arrived.”
“I don’t know, you’d have to ask him that one.”
“What do you think?”
“I think.” Ben smiled as his eyes slid over her naked body. “You're naked and so am I, and we’re all alone out here.”
“Ben?”
“What, we need some happy right now, don’t you think?”
“I could use the distraction,” she nodded.
Saw him smirk right at her “Good.” Was all he said, before he was pulling her to him. Kissed her and picked her up, Mala wrapped her legs around him and sighed as she met with his hard cock against her, rolled her hips against it “Never takes you long to get hard.” She chuckled.
“Nope, your easy on the eyes.” He grinned right back as he walked them over to the nearest tree and pressed her up against it, rocked himself hard against her and groaned “you could turn any man on Mala in the blink of an eye.”
“Ben.” She moaned and knew he understood, took her in one hard thrust “Fuck.” She murmured it had been a while and had forgotten how damned good sex was, held on to him, arched up to meet his thrusts to move with him, pushed them off the tree “My turn.” She growled at him “Get down.” Heard him laugh and let her shove him down on the ground, to ride him hard and fast, till she was crying out, his hands were on her hips pulling her hard to him felt him thrust up hard as he yanked her down onto him and groan “Fuck.” As he came.
Mala smiled and flopped onto the ground next to him “I forget how good it is sometimes.”
Heard him chuckle “Give me like five, and I’ll be good to go again.”
“Sure, why not.” She chuckled right back, they’d been sleeping together on and off for years now, a mutual agreement to scratch each other’s itch. Though she was not his only woman. But she had never touched another. Was only a warrior wolf, her itch was not as big as his, being that he was Delta-blooded and all. She did not judge him, he had no Mate and was free to do as he pleased, as was she.
So occasionally they pleased each other. It was good for the both of them, neither of them let it affect their job within the pack. It didn’t bother her that he was more than twice her age, he didn’t look a day over 35, had all those muscles that she-wolves liked, including her and although he was a mass of scars from fighting and living as a rogue for many years, he was more than capable of turning her on.
Sometimes he only had to look at her and she knew what he was thinking, the man had some dirty thoughts in that brain of his, and didn’t mind stating what he was thinking, especially when it came to what he wanted to do to her. The sex was good, and he liked it in all manner of ways; hard and fast, slow and steady, or just having a bit of fun and keeping it playful. When she’d first come here, she’d found him to be hard and no-nonsense but he was actually, once you got to know him, really nice and funny to boot.
A stern and hard task master, just like she was. But everyone liked him, had a dry sense of humour and was fun, was known to pull a practical joke once in a while. Though occasionally he had that far off look like they all did. Like everyone here did, pain and self-doubt that was buried way down deep inside of them all. It could rare its ugly head sometimes in all of them.
Likely on the day rejection or banishment had come to them, even she had that still. One day a year she and Suki were quiet and sometimes sadness would fill her wolf for the Mate that treated them so terribly and rejected her before he even knew about her. She had accepted it because of how they had treated her human counterpart.
That was the one day a year they thought about Tamala Lucas. She was long gone, but still a part of them way down deep inside somewhere. The beloved dark tree hidden away from everyone in this world, to always be protected by Mala Luca.
On that day every year, they spent by themselves away from pack members. Still within the confines of the pack, had a spot on a large rock where they just laid in the sun and tried not to think about anything at all. Was difficult to do. Couldn’t always blip it off into nothing.