The Pack Of Children

The rugby game had bruised me black and blue, and probably wasn't the best thing for my still healing ribs, but we won, and that was all that mattered. Now everyone was drinking again, so we were joining in. I had been trying to escape from the party when Leo caught me, tugging me over to his group of mates. He was very, very drunk by now, and that was from me, who couldn't even walk in a straight line anymore.

"Hey, you know what this gal did today? No, Joel, shut up and listen, this is what she did." At this point, I was in a bloody headlock, but I wasn't one to say no to an ego boost. "Not only did she score four trys, but she killed an alpha! Just like that!" This was not a rumour I wanted to help spread right now, not when da was still so angry, so I wriggled out of his grip and made my escape, fleeing to the woods when I looked at the line for the latrines. When I emerged, I was treated to a round of 'we like to drink with Natty' after they shoved a small bottle of vodka into my hand. Naturally, I downed it, then stumbling my way up the hill to where my friends were waiting.

"We thought you'd fallen in, Nat." Gwenna laughed, and then she couldn't stop laughing, and then she fell over. Nate laughed at her, a loud cackle that made it clear that the discarded and empty bottle of rum to one side had been full when he got it.

"Oh, very funny, guys. Come on, get up." I sighed, holding out my hands to help them up. They both accepted, and then with evil smiles, yanked me down too. Really, I should have seen it coming; it was exactly the kind of thing I did on the regular, but I was a little bit too drunk for my foresight to be working. I tumbled onto them to a chorus of yelps, the three of us quickly becoming a tangled mess of limbs and bruises as we tried to scramble free.

"Jeez, Natty, you've put on weight." Nathan groaned, prompting both me and Gwenna to hit him. When his new set of groans depleted, we ended up being laid side by side, me in the middle, all of us gazing up at the star dotted sky. We lay there for about an hour, slowly sobering up in companionable silence until I broke it.

"I'm getting tired, wanna turn in?" It was after a long moment of no responses that I realised they had both, in fact, gone to sleep. A huge part of me wanted to leave them there, but it looked like it was going to rain and I'm not entirely evil. So, first, I lifted Gwenna over my shoulder (she was a good bit smaller than either of us), and staggered back to our den. It was hard to drag her into the small space beneath the wall, and I had to settle on just laying her on top of her sleeping bag before returning for my brother. He was a good bit taller than me, so I didn't even attempt to lift him, instead hooking my arms under his and around his chest and half carrying, half dragging him back. How I didn't wake him up, I'll never know, because I wasn't trying to be gentle. I didn't want to hurt him or anything, I was just tired and more than a little bored with being the mum friend. That was usually Nathan's job.

Eventually, I had wrangled him onto his sleeping bag and collapsed on my own, only just managing to kick off my boots and wriggle in before I fell asleep, happily nestled between my brother and best friend.

That night, I had strange dreams, of the alpha pup chasing me through the forest. I couldn't run like I usually did, as though there was something heavy inside slowing me down. There was no fear, oddly enough, and instead it felt more like I was playing with my littermates rather than running from my enemy. Suddenly, Nathan and Gwenna were there, and I wasn't running but he wasn't attacking, and then a gunshot echoed through the forest and there was a sharp pain in my side-

I woke up, eyes wide and heart racing. The first tinges of dawn were beginning to stain the sky, which meant that I hadn't gotten nearly enough sleep, but I doubted I would get off again anyway. I crawled out from under the wall and pulled my boots on, making my way through the now suspiciously quiet camp. Aside from the patrols I could see on the horizon, there was no one in sight. Of course, all the adults would be sleeping off a hangover, but the pack of children were usually roaming by now. And when you couldn't see the children...

It usually meant mischief.

Pushing that aside for the moment, I went to the cafeteria tent and got a cup of coffee, though it was the cheapest stuff we could get and tasted like crap. My father was already there, nursing a cup of his own, and he gave me a world weary grin as I sat down opposite him.

"The children are nowhere in sight." I informed him, taking a swig. He nodded.

"Well that isn't good." He muttered.

"You gonna do anything about that?"

"Nope. You are." I groaned and threw my head back. I loved those kids, don't get me wrong, but they were still rogues and absolute little shits. Which I couldn't really complain about, given I had helped teach them to be that way. But I really didn't want to spend my morning chasing down the little pack and prying them away from whatever suicidal mission they had set themselves on. Whenever someone tried to make them do something they didn't want to, like scaling an ice covered cliff or lessons, then they had a bad tendency to scatter and run as far and fast as they could.

"Fine. But I'm not happy about it." I complained, downing the rest of the too hot coffee and wincing as it burned it's way down my throat.

"Good. If you hadn't caught on yet, this is part of your punishment. Which is why I've also linked and woken up Nate and Gwenna, while making it clear it is your fault." A look of incredulous anger crossed my face and he laughed. "What, you really think I'd believe it was a group idea? The whole plan reeks of you, Nat, like all your schemes have since the three of you were little. Which means that you take the brunt of the punishment. However, I will concede that it was a very impressive feat, which is why, as a reward, I'll give you a piece of advice." I scowled.

"Boo. That's a shitty reward. I want chocolate." I complained. He leaned forward and clipped me round the head with a stern look.

"Fine. A piece of advice, and I'll tell Isaac to give you a second helping at dinner tonight." He offered. I narrowed my eyes.

"What's for dinner? I don't want that if it's that shitty soup again." I knew why we'd been having the watery, tasteless soup so much lately. Food was running low, so a meal that could be watered down to make it go further was always a good back up, even though everyone got precious little out of it. It was why on soup nights we'd go hunting for our suppers, even though the area surrounding our camps were swiftly hunted dry within days of us arriving.

"Kebabs. Rodney and his team are gonna nick us some pigs from that farm up Howden Road." My father offered, bringing a grin to my face. Kebabs I could work with. Still, da had been the one to teach me to milk each negotiation dry, so on I went.

"And for Gwenna and Nathan." I argued, watching him roll his eyes and smirk.

"Fuck off. For you alone, and that's final." He insisted, and I knew when I was beat.

"Fine. And the advice?"

"Here's me thinking you didn't want my advice."

"It was part of the deal. I take all I can get." He grinned at that and shook his head, standing up and grabbing my empty coffee mug along with his. He dumped them in the great big washing bowl, which had been empty before we came along and ruined that. I thought he was just going to leave without telling me, especially as I could feel Gwen and Nate's discontent rolling through the link as they got closer. Just as he passed me to leave, he stopped, clapping his hand on my shoulder and speaking to me.

"You're a leader, kid. One day, you'll take my place, but only if you manage to get it together and make the rogues respect you for more than just being my daughter." I started to speak, outraged and ready to list my many accomplishments before he clipped my ear and cut me off. "Shut up and listen, Natalia. You're going the right way about it, I'll give you that, but you're only leading your little group. Start branching out. I'm going to give you your own raiding team, and you'll need to learn to manage them while keeping your loyalties to your own mini pack. Good luck; it's bloody hard to do." And that was the extent of the advice; I'm making things harder for you and I'm not gonna tell you how to handle it. Which really summed up his whole parenting method, come to think of it.

When I was seven, and wanted to learn to swim, I had gone to my dad about his. The next day, he had walked me to a nearby reservoir, took me to the deep end, picked me up by the ankles, tossed me in, and walked away. I had damn near drowned, but before that happened I figured out how to keep my head above water and managed to drag myself to shore.

"Nat, what the fuck? I was sleeping." Gwen complained as they entered the tent, taking one sniff of the coffee and visibly change her mind. Nate didn't say anything, though one glare from him confirmed that he shared the sentiment, if not the awareness to share it.

"Da wants me to find where the pack of kids have gone and stop them doing anything stupid. And if I have to do it, you have to do." I won't lie, it made me and my wolf quite happy the way they instantly agree. Da was right, I am a leader, and I would do great with my own raiding team. A bigger one, I mean, more than just the three of us.

"We should probably get going, then, before their tracks are destroyed." Nathan decided, going to the food counter and picking up a few breakfast packages. And by that, I mean we each got a hunk of damper, the easiest bread to make with flour and water and half an hour by the fire. The downside being that it tastes like shit, of course. We ate as we walked, me giving the two of them enough time to wake up as we followed the wreckage the children had left in their wake. We started in the centre of the camp, where there was a large, bare circle of earth that the adults used to train and the kids used as a meeting spot. From there, the dew had been brushed off the grass as the pack made their way into the nearby forest.

"So da's giving me a raiding team. Like, a proper one." I told them, not able to keep the excited grin off my face. They... didn't have the reaction I was hoping for. They looked at each other uneasily, a new hint of competition in their eyes.

"So who's gonna be your second?" Nathan asked. I laughed aloud, shaking my head before seeing the deadly serious looks on their faces.

"Are you two fucking kidding me? We've been running together for years, and now you get all competitive?" I spat, angry both at them and myself. Gwenna scowled at me, and started to speak, but we were cut off when we heard a child's terrified scream in the near distance.