Chapter Text
Pyrrha ran through the forest that surrounded the pack house, her brown and grey fur dappling in the pre-dusk light. It had been a rough day, with Gideon and Harrow mid-heat, driving everyone crazy with their fighting (and very loud resultant rutting). The pack leader was sure that there would be pups this time, no matter how hard Harrowhark protested. She knew they weren’t using protection, against her advice.
Unlike other pack leaders she had known in the past, Pyrrha was not obsessed with the pack numbers or always having a more powerful group of wolves than others. Pack Rho was peaceful, for the most part, and certainly had never looked for trouble. Apart from Abigail and Magnus’s semi-nomadic pack, they didn’t really have contact with other wolves at all, so it never mattered who was able to fight or not, or even hunt. They could eat in their human forms, so why would they need to hunt unless they wanted especially fresh meat, or more often, for fun. The nearby town of Bennett was plenty for what they needed, and the garden, tended to by Nona and sometimes Harrow, did well for their vegetable and fruit needs.
They didn’t need puppies in the pack, and goodness knows if either of them were ready for parenthood, but Pyrrha would do what Pyrrha always did; support them unconditionally. Gideon was a confusion some days, but a comfort on others. The girl wasn’t ready to take over the pack—by her own admission. It was a good decision, and a wise one, and Camilla had been especially impressed. It boded well for the young Alpha’s future.
If only Wake had been here to see the child she had grown into. Her child. Pyrrha felt the same pang of sadness she always did when she thought of her mate. How she had never told anyone of her shame—of the child, of her old pack. Pyrrha had never thought to ask; her partner had always been so private—was not used to being an Alpha with an Alpha. The mating had been explosive in the best way, and though they had created quite a controversy, it had worked.
Then, she got sick. As is the way of their wild, natural cousins, she had tried to hide it—refused to show weakness. But she couldn’t hide the inevitable, and Pyrrha still remembered the day she had been told. She’d come home from taking Camilla on a run around the edges of the territory they claimed as their own, and the new second-in-command had turned tail as they watched Wake, in wolf form, finish destroying the old tractor that hadn’t worked for years—and now never would. Faced with the rage, Pyrrha could deal. Faced with the sadness, the fact that her mate was going to wither away and die? Unbearable.
There was more than once in the following year that Wake begged for Pyrrha to end her life. It was near the end, when her beloved was skin and bones, wasting away in a way that no one could bear to watch, that Pyrrha gave in. It didn’t take long, and it wasn’t hard. Not with the wolf holding her head up, baring her neck as they had done so many times before, always in pleasure. It was the last mating bite she would ever give.
There were still days that it haunted her, those last moments. Pyrrha sped up, trying to outrun her brain. It only worked fifty-percent of the time. She just wanted something to distract her.
She was heading for the lake, the one spot that Camilla hadn’t managed to get to. She knew Pash and Nona had been out here earlier and had marked accordingly, but it was always better to have an Alpha’s scent marking the territory. Pyrrha wasn’t one for control, and she liked to have every member of Pack Rho play a part in keeping and maintaining their territory. It was unusual, but it worked, and more often than not, the confusion strangers had when they smelled that an Omega had marked territory stopped them in their tracks long enough for the Alphas to intervene.
As the trees started to thin, the wind changed direction, and instantly the wolf skidded to a halt. Lifting her head, she took in the scent of the stranger. An Omega. Male. Older. He was on the other side of the lake, across the water. Stealth now was her friend. Moving swiftly but silently through woods she knew as well as her immediate backyard, the Alpha, for that was what she was in that moment, circled around the outside of the lake and, before long, set eyes on the newcomer on the edge of a small clearing.
He was tall, but fairly thin, and had clearly been moving for a while. He was a white-grey, paler even than Camilla and Palamedes, and his dark ears and nose stood out on his silvery pelt. He held the distinct scent of travel; river water from washing, dirt from sleeping and the hint of blood on his breath that came from eating raw meat in wolf form for extended periods of time.
He was standing still, head up and seemingly listening, a pack dropped at his feet. As she stepped out into the clear, he turned to look at her, immediately lowering his head and tail, dropping closer to the ground and bunching up, as if to make himself smaller.
Pyrrha approached, her tail up, and she almost trotted, confidently, quite secure in the knowledge that he was clearly not a threat.
There was a deep growl from her, and she bared her teeth, canines clear.
Who are you?
He let out a small whimper in contrast, lowering his ears down and to the side.
She whipped her tail side to side for a moment and then looked around them, before tilting her head slightly to the side, asking a question.
He nodded, and immediately, as a sign of trust, changed form.
He was tall and slim, same as his wolf form, with slightly olive-brown skin and clear grey eyes. He had short black hair, a little bit scruffy, but he was clean and healthy—as well as one could be when they had apparently only been bathing in natural pools. .
Dropping to his knees in the undergrowth, he lay his hands palm up, resting on his thighs, lifting his head so his neck was bared, a simile of the wolf form. He spoke, then, and his voice was calm and steady, with a beating cadence that was pleasing to the ear. “I mean no harm to you or your pack, Alpha. My name is Paul, and I wander, seeking… something. Seeking a home, perhaps. I’m not even really sure anymore.”
He started to reach his bag but, at a warning growl from Pyrrha, he stopped. "I only wish to grab clothes." He didn't move to grab them again though, and instead moved so that the Alpha still in wolf form had easy access to the bag. She stepped forward and, with as much care as she could manage with her teeth, lifted the outside of the bag so the contents spilled out, as close to the ground as possible. Her nose told her a lot already, but seeing nothing of harm—basic travelling supplies and essentials—she stepped back, indicating he could grab his clothes.
With that done, she shook her coat out and then followed into human form, immediately standing and brushing her small scruff of hair back. It was the same greying brown as her pelt, but cropped short. She was tall and powerfully built, and Paul couldn't quite hide his interest. He got dressed, but the confidence that the Alpha carried with her didn't require clothes, and besides, she didn't have any with her. She hadn't anticipated needing to shift.
Pyrrha made a mental note to speak to Camilla about setting up clothing stashes on their land. She approached the man, who was now dressed in a basic dark green shirt and jeans. "So, Paul, where are you from?"
He gestured back behind him, away South. “I'm from a pack down over the Divide, I've been travelling for maybe… eight days.” Pyrrha did a quick mental calculation and marvelled at how quickly he had apparently travelled. Stamina was this omega’s forte, for sure.
“That’s quite a trip looking for something you don’t know. Why leave?” He didn’t seem to be on the run—he didn’t have that ‘haunted’ look in his eyes, but it never hurt to be too careful.
He seemed to consider this question seriously for a moment, choosing his words carefully, though not, Pyrrha noted, with the air of someone having to make up untruths. “The place I came from—my birth pack, didn’t feel like a safe place for me anymore.”
“Why not?”
“The Alpha was starting to turn into a tyrant. I couldn’t stand his treatment of my family.”
She didn’t ask why he didn’t do something about it; he was an Omega. “Why did they not come with you?”
Paul grimaced, and he looked at his lap for a moment, letting out a frustrated huff, but it was very clearly not directed at her. “They felt more comfortable in a cage.”
Pyrrha, standing there confidently, even in her state of undress, didn’t move, and her stillness, and lack of change in her expression, prompted more from him. Those grey eyes looked up at her and she listened as he told a tale of an Alpha who sounded like they needed a beating, the messed up ‘love’ story of his parents and a whole lot of pack drama. Apart from the odd growl and nod to acknowledge the words, she let him finish and then considered him once more, still kneeling on the ground, defenceless. He had drooped visibility for the harder parts of his re-telling, but he sat up straight now, and unguarded, watched her.
“Sounds like that Alpha needs an attitude adjustment. Pity I can’t give him one.” Pyrrha could not stand for Alpha’s who mistreated their pack. Paul didn’t respond, and she didn’t expect him to.
Contemplating her options, she let out a brief huff, turning her back on the stranger. It was the ultimate show of whether she could trust him, and when all he did was continue to watch her, staying in place, she let out a sigh, the tension she hadn’t realised she’d been holding running from her body. She spoke then, as if to herself, “Seems like I’m destined to take in all the strays…”
There was something different about this one, though. He was older—closer to her age (by a lot) than Harrow or Pash, their current Omegas, and he had clearly lived some kind of life. A quick look showed her that he had no mating mark, unlike the very clear shoulder bite mark she wore like a sad trophy, a reminder of a time before. It would never fade, and she never would have wanted it to. Perhaps he could offer something the others couldn’t. “Well, come on then, omega. Let’s get you back to the pack house, and we’ll see what the gang has to say.”
Paul’s smile made her smile in return, automatically, and as he nodded and shifted back into his wolf form with a small thank you, after stripping again, she let out a small huff. Shifting herself, she gave him a moment to get a firm grip on his pack, before leading off into the forest, leading Paul to Pack Rho’s den.