CH 8

Nora Nora pulled herself from the memory and looked over her pack. It was still growing and flourishing, the land was good and fertile and from here she had a lovely view of the lush gardens that bloomed here inside the pack. They’d all been brought back to life over the past 10 years. Her Beta Esme strolled into her office as she stood there drinking her lavender and rose tea. There had been no training for Nora today, but she’d seen her unit come back from the training grounds. They were now all showered and dressed, had breakfast and Esme was hunting her, not likely having expected her to be up so early after last night’s events. “Nora, your sister Nita is in labour,” Esme told her, and Nora heard the smile in her voice. “About time.” She smiled and turned to look at Esme. “Three days overdue.” She chuckled softly. She understood why Esme got the information before she did. Normally today she’d be asleep until nearly noon, but she was up and awake. She put that down to it being the last time she ever had to suffer that pain. It had also likely surprised her own Beta, she'd thought, to feel her in the Alpha’s office. She made her way from her Alpha’s office to the pack’s hospital; just a short 10-minute walk. Where she found her mother, Loretta, and her father, Baxter, right there already, and Nita’s Mate, Rob, she knew would be in the delivery suite. “How’s it going?” she asked as she came down the hall. “Your niece is going to come hard and fast I think,” her mother smiled at her, We barely got here, before she was bearing down.” Nora smiled, and leaned on the wall outside the delivery suite. She had brought her family here and ranked Nita up to Alpha status. Though her parents had refused it, stating it was best to keep their natural bloodline to keep Jace in the dark. He'd guess if they were alpha-blooded, that so was she now, especially if he saw Nita, and she, too, was an Alpha. But Nita alone could have gotten it from the rite of bite. It was a perk of being the Alpha, and something that gave the pack an ascension line as well, if something happened to her. Nita was currently the next in line to take over, seeing as Nora didn’t have an heir. She leaned on that wall and looked at her parents, and smiled as she recalled the memories of going home for the first time after her sudden rise to Alpha status. She recalled returning to the Silken Moon to speak with Alpha Clayton after becoming an Alpha; he had already heard from Alpha Gretta of the Wolfen Council, and she’d gone right to his office when going to see him. He and Luna Nelly had kind of stared at her, then Nelly had laughed so hard she’d nearly fallen over. “Now Nora, I always knew you were strong, but this… I swear is the sweetest form of revenge you could ever get on that ex of yours.” She’d nodded; it likely would be when she ever came across him. She’d told them she would like to take her family to her pack and rank them all up, when it was set up properly and ready for wolves to live there. Alpha Clayton had just nodded his head and promised to make sure they had a clean exit from the pack; he would devise a plan to make sure Jace didn’t see it. Clayton had told her even nine years after she'd rejected him, that Jace was still searching for her and that he thought he had eyes in the Silken Moon. But then he reassured Nora that those eyes weren’t to be worried about, Clayton had them under control as well. He’d also not told her family what had happened to her, even though he’d known for a full day before she’d arrived. He'd wanted her to be able to do that herself; it had come as much of a shock to her mother, father and sister as it had to her. But within a year of gaining her new-found status, she’d had them all living inside the Black Rose Pack. They’d even set up their own business in the city of Colorado Springs not long after arriving. It was all planned on their part and just needed to wait until the move happened and locations could be sourced. Her parents owned two individual businesses while living in the Silken Moon. Her mother ran a body shop that sold skincare products for both men and women, along with bathroom products such as bath salts, waxes, bathbombs and bubble baths; it did very well. Her new store had turned her business into a franchise, and within just three years of opening her first store here in Colardo Springs, she’d opened another in Denver. One of Alpha Clayton's wolves had taken over the running of the original store near the Silken Moon after the refurbishment and renaming of the store. Her store had been called the Silken Delight Body Shop, but was now the Black Silk Body Shop, and its symbol was a rose made from black silk tying into the pack's name. Her mother was looking to branch out into another store, down in New Mexico near Alpha Garrett’s pack. His pack members were happy about that. When they came here to the pack, they could purchase from her mother's store here in the packhouse, and she already had wolves wanting to take up the franchise from Garrett's pack. Her father had owned two human gyms back in the day, and coming here had seen him branch out as well. He now had several of them, called Edge’s 24/7 gyms; named after his wolf. He had six locations for his gyms now, two in Texas, as well as the four he had opened and ran here in Colorado; they were all doing well. Her parents' two businesses kept her pack and Alpha Clayton's pack fully connected, and they were, of course, allied to each other as well. Her attention was pulled from her thoughts of her parents and how well they were now doing, to the sounds of a pup crying, and she smiled, as did everyone else, even Rosa wagged her tail inside her mind, excited to see their first niece. She saw her mother hug her father and Nora chuckled. “Grandparents finally.” She teased them a little. They both grinned at her, “Yes, seeing as you’re not going to give us one any time soon, Alpha.” Her father chuckled. Nora just nodded her head. “You’re right on that.” She had no inclination to go out and find a Mate or have babies at all right now. It may have been 19 years since she’d ended her mate bond, but she was not out looking for another Mate at all. She was still building her career and pack, and that was more important to her. She didn’t see a need to rush out into the world just to hunt a Mate. She wasn’t one of those she-wolves desperate to find their Fated Mate. Her career would always come first. Her unit were also all unmated just like she was. She’d had to tell them not only that she had an ex-mate but also who he was, seeing as she wanted nothing to do with him or his pack. So they wouldn’t unwittingly bring him into her office and reconnect the two of them. They’d all been shocked by the fact she’d once been marked and mated, considering she had no venom running in her veins and no marking scar. Something her own, Gamma, Tessa, had reached out and moved her collar to check for herself. She'd shaken her head and stated, "Explain how?" Which Nora had once she'd had a full unit, she'd not wanted to rehash it three separate times. Alpha Garrett's plastic surgeons had resolved the particular issue of her marking scars. There had been a discussion about if the two scars would come back or not. None of them knew, because none of them had performed a surgery like that. It was something new to them, but they’d been removed and not come back. So, not only didn't she have any venom within her, but there was no marking scar either now. She’d told her unit everything she’d done and in full detail, because of that one day a year when she was in agony for those five minutes. She’d laid it all out for them, so they understood she would hold no secrets from them. Gaining their trust, seeing that she was an unknown to them as much as they were her. All three of them had been given the Wolfen Council's mark of approval, so she knew they were trustworthy, and she'd not been wrong. It was nice to be able to handpick your own Alpha Unit. Most didn't get to do that, because they were born into being an heir to a pack and so their unit were the former unit's heirs. She'd explained in full detail, so they could understand why she’d done what she had, gone to extremes, as Gretta called it. Nora had told them not only who he was, but why she’d left him, when and how, also where his pack was. They’d gotten the entire tale, she'd even found she could speak of it without issue; it didn’t cause her pain at all anymore, not to think of it, and not to speak of it, it was just a lesson to be learned from: for her. The pack members that were new to this pack and didn't know her when she’d been a young she-wolf of 20, didn’t know she’d been claimed before; but they did know she’d once had a Mate, but as far as they were all aware, he and she had rejected each other before any claiming had happened. That explained her not having venom or a marking scar. The pack's surrounding allied map in her office had the Dark Wilderness pack shaded out in orange, as a pack not to interact with, and the new pack members all asked why. She told them, and they could understand her not wanting anything to do with an ex she deemed as heartless. This pack was in fact larger than the previous one. Gretta had found those details out and relayed them to her. The pack had nearly doubled in size, to which Gretta had stated, “I’ll be expecting great things from you, considering what the land did.” That had also surprised them, but it was what it was, and she was now happy in her new life. She liked the unit. Gretta had shown her many pictures and bios of wolves with the right bloodlines for her to choose from, seeing as she had no members in her newly formed pack, and it was literally starting from scratch. She'd opted for a full-female unit, but she wanted to be different from all other packs, show that an all-female leadership was as good as an all-male one. She'd certainly proved that now too. Her unit's response to her tale had been varied. “What a dick.” Had come out of Paloma, her Delta, at hearing what Jace had done. Tessa, her Gamma, had shaken her head, “Seems to me, he would fit in well in the Wolfen Realm. Alpha’s there think it’s okay to have a Mate and she-wolves on the side, are uncaring of the pain it causes their own Mate.” Tessa was from the Wolfen Realm herself; she had come here to the Human Realm to get away from a life just like that. Esme, her Beta, had just sighed heavily, and stated, “You’re better off, Nora.” She knew that, and she’d not once regretted her decision in the past 19 years of leaving him, not even the pain once a year; did she regret.