“Did I hear my name?” Finn calls, tromping down the stairs. “Howeyeh, Sue! Ginny! You made it!”
Ginny is relaxing by degrees, and Susan must notice. She lets her arm drop-slide so that it’s draping her in a loose hug. One Ginny can pull out of when she’s ready.
Ginny stays where she is. She meets Finn’s eyes, her face earnest—and worried. “Can I see my mom?”
Finn’s response is easy. “Sure you can, sweetheart. Do you want to eat lunch first or see her now?”
“Now,” Ginny replies, visibly bracing herself.
“Follow me.” Finn motions for her and Susan to follow him.
Reluctant to part with Susan, I follow her.
Finn turns to look over his shoulder and leans out around the girls so he can shoot me a knowing smirk.
We make the trek to the London House where Ginny’s mom is still being rehabbed. She’s doing well. This visit, she isn’t hateful to her daughter, and Ginny is moved to tears of relief as we make our way out.
“This weekend, we’ll take you into the woods,” Finn announces to her, staring ahead of us at the tree line to give her some time to compose herself, “and we’ll start your training. You’ll be given a guide.”
“Like a book?” Ginny asks, swiping her face clean with the backs of her hands. Susan soothingly rubs her back.
“Like a person,” Finn says. “Someone to teach you what you need to know to be a wolf.”
“Will Deek be my teacher?” Ginny asks, surprising me enough to glance up, and therefore I end up catching the gentle smile Susan turns my way. It’s so warm.
“Bah, no! You need an alpha to match you. I’ll be your teacher,” Finn announces. He rubs his hands together with anticipation. “But first, lunch!”
Lunch is full of hearty laughs, camaraderie, and a worry-eased Susan and Ginny.
Supper goes the same.
Everyone heads outside to walk off the food, and because it’s a Saturday with nearly all of the Pack home, we play games with both forms participating—a bastardized soccer game played with multiple mauled balls clutched in shifter mouths, tag for the younger pups, racing for all ages, and for those exclusively in human form, there’s horseshoes and tennis and volleyball.
Susan wanders to the impromptu soccer field, and I follow her. It probably doesn’t strike her as strange that I’m dogging her heels because Ginny is too.
They watch the soccer game with naked fascination. They gasp when an alpha uses deliberate intimidation (an aggressively direct stare, looming, and body tensed for conflict) on a group of submissive players, causing all three of them to drop to the ground—one of them in human form—and show their bellies.
One of the submissives in wolf form turns her head, slowly closes her jaws around the ball, and rolls to her feet in an explosive burst, dashing to the net with every lick of speed she’s got, her tail tucked between her legs and her ears pinned back, eyes wild as she escapes the alpha’s laughing growls.
She darts right into the net, skidding past the goalie, slamming the ball and herself into the netting.
“GOAL!” someone shouts.
Susan and Ginny cheer.
With a victory yip, the submissive bitch takes up her tattered ball and trots past the ruefully grinning goalie, sending him a sneeze on her way to rejoin the rest of her team.
I nudge Ginny and Susan to move with the other onlookers, who are constantly pacing. Which is a typical behavior for werewolves. Staying still is a skill we learn, and in hunting, we practice. But for games like this where we play or watch others play, we pace.
Back and forth we trek along the sidelines, watching the game and calling encouragement. Ginny takes in everything, watching people with sharp eyes and a keen expression.
Her jaw drops when she spots males (in shifter and human forms) taking breaks to lope to a nearby stand of trees to water them. She taps Susan’s arm, never taking her eyes off of the men’s backs, and when Susan spies what she’s gaping at, she covers her mouth in shock.
“You don’t need to use the great outdoors. Bathroom closest to us from here is in the Ōkami House,” I murmur to them, glancing at the yakan—the Japanese ‘wild dog’ shifters on the field who mostly live in Ōkami. In their wolf form, they’re creatures that look like crosses between Shiba Inus and wolves. “I can take you or ask anyone for directions.”
They only need a moment to shake off their surprise. Which is good, because then we