MetaDeprivation - 10. MetaPrompts 580: Ring (MW5)

A sad howl filled the chilly New Year’s night air.

“CE,” Jackson answered. “No worries.” Nonetheless, he instinctively checked that he hadn’t forgotten his cell phone at the party.

“He didn’t sound dangerous,” Sarah answered burying her hands deep in the pockets of her coat.

Jackson closed the gap between in him and her to spread his body heat. He tended to forget female wolf shifters were not as impervious to extreme temperatures as male ones. After all, it was always pleasantly warm in the kitchen and the bedroom. “He’s sad.”

“The White Wolf?”

Jackson nodded. “Yep, deep asleep. Well, not really asleep the doctor says, but not really awake, either.”

Sarah lifted her head, letting her cute nose take in the scents. She smelled the unique winter lake scent, with some ice frozen at the benches, a deer far away looking for something edible, the fancy drinks served with pink umbrellas at the pack’s New Year’s party, the fresh paint of the new Inner Circle building, Jackson’s delicious masculine whiff, so comfortably male, so unpretentiously caring, the many other wolves and humans she had met over the past months during her frequent visits to ShadowLands, but she couldn’t pick up a scent from the famous White Wolf. “I cannot smell him,” she stated nearly disappointed.

“They made the room they care for him in scent- and sound-proof,” Jackson explained.

“Should you tell me that?” Sarah asked. She was a West Montana pack female, so not an enemy, but that information seemed to be confidential.

“Maybe not,” Jackson agreed. “But can you spot CE next to the wall over there?”

“Yes.” Her wolf eyes found the obscenely big wolf, with fur in different brown shades, covered partly by the snow fallen in the past hours, rolled up like a puppy, with his back against the white wall of the building. She had to agree with Jackson. It did look a bit like a spaceship, she thought. The center was a semicircle, with high church-like windows over three stories. It resembled the bridge of the ship. Behind it, two tracts with two floors approached the hills. Even closer to them, several buildings finished the aft of the ship. She knew about an armory, a very generous gym, and a guesthouse as if the two planned hotels wouldn’t be enough to host pack visitors. It was also rumored they had a garage that housed a couple of classic cars next to all the other vehicles the Inner Circle used. She was pretty sure they had several other cars hidden there nobody knew about – maybe not even Jackson.

“He guards the two windows that lead to the room. He always sleeps in wolf form, always outside.”

“How loyal,” Sarah’s lip quivered, more because of admiration than of cold.

“I’ve never met a more loyal wolf than him.”

Sarah noticed how Jackson’s voice broke. She unpocketed her left hand and reached for the wolf’s. “It seems all the White Wolf Pack’s wolves are very loyal.”

Jackson smiled gratefully.

“And big.”

The wolf giggled. “Everyone hoped they’d stop growing after the battle, but it doesn’t seem like …”

“… as if the battle wasn’t their destiny,” Sarah whispered.

“Not sure what else is to do than kill half a dozen vampire queens?” Jackson asked.

“You’re right,” she agreed. After all, it had been the battle that had brought them together. Jackson had been in charge of evacuating the New Mount Patterson pack wolves in case the wolves lost the battle; as the vampires’ main revenge would have focused on them with their Inner Circle heaving lead the attack. During one of the preparations, Sarah had been introduced to Jackson. His scent had given her a headache, shortage of breath, and a racing heart in one. Jackson’s eyes turned in his sockets, and he had to sit down as if he had a heart attack. Once they had recovered, everyone was talking about how the nerd wolf Jackson and the attractive, but cold-shouldered enforcer daughter Sarah had found their mate in each other.

Strangely enough, since then Jackson had grown as well like hell. He didn’t look like the nerd wolf anymore who had been the main customer of the West Montana’s only gumball vending machine, but more like an enforcer before his last growth spurt; she had fallen in love with the smaller Jackson because of his smarts, his humor, his heart, because he was so different to all the enforcer boys who had been chasing her until then to breed perfect enforcer pups, and his devotion to his pack and his Inner Circle, so him resembling now a football player didn’t make such a big difference to her, but she wouldn’t complain about her fate. Maybe her kissing him had turned the adorable frog into a ravishing wolf.

“They’re just not big party tigers,” she summarized the New Year’s festivities.

“They are,” Jackson contradicted. “I mean Brian and Sam are huge on parties … and so was Leo …”

She squeezed his hand supportively; she just had to follow his gaze towards the two glass columns, lit by two spots, with a ‘hood’ of snow on top of them. They were too far away for her to decipher the inscription but she knew they read ‘LEO’ and ‘AL.’ It had been one of the first things Prime had shown her when she had been introduced to the Inner Circle. She had seen the Alpha before the battle but never talked with him. To see the difference, though, between a vibrant, confident, optimistic, and battle-ready Alpha and the pensive, worrying, grieving, and yet utterly steadfast Prime afterward had become a constant reminder that one had to celebrate every good thing Fate gave one, because sooner than you thought you might lose it. And Prime had; despite more wolves of his Inner Circle alive than dead despite bad odds, a beautiful pack land, and an Inner Circle mansion that could make it to the front page of ‘Architectural Digest.’ “You miss them as well,” she stated more than she asked.

Jackson nodded. “I know it sounds strange. But in my previous pack, they all resented me. Luke was nice, but I was a sympathy case for him, nothing else. This pack – the White Wolf Pack – has been different for me from the first moment. I was sad Luke died in the challenge, I was from the enemy pack, but Prime supported me from the day he took over. Brian and Leo let me design the pack IT infrastructure. CE and Sam consulted me for the pack security; and Al …”

Sarah didn’t say anything. Jackson didn’t have to. If he had a favorite within the Inner Circle, it had been Al.

“… we played computer games all the time. And when he designed this …,” he pointed towards the spaceship, “he involved me from day one. – And Warren? Despite making it into the Inner Circle, he never looked down on me.”

“They know how to use a smart wolf,” Sarah commented with pride.

Jackson glowed. “Thank you. But …”

“Don’t be too humble, Jackson. They made you the first Gamma. The White Wolf Pack, the pack that kicked the vampires, made you a Gamma. Take a compliment when it’s warranted.”

“You’re right. Fate was generous to me.”

“Fate? Really? Fate has decided you male wolves can shift the moment you can spank your monkey until the rest of your lives; while us females can only shift after a penetration … now that is quite some sexual activity control or incentive …”

“Sarah …” Jackson knew she resented that gender difference. But he didn’t want to discuss it on this perfect winter night. Not today.

“And with menopause, we lose even that … exactly when a shift would be most refreshing …”

“I’m sure she had her reasons,” he tried to interject.

“’She?’ How do you know she’s a ‘she?’”

Jackson frowned. It was obvious he had never thought about that. Why would somebody think about why the sky was blue, water wet, and a vampire evil?

“Given the state of wolf societies, I wouldn’t be surprised if Fate were a man; an old misogynistic man with an inferiority complex on top …”

Jackson laughed, but he stopped, sensing a CE in the distance lifting his snout to check the surroundings. “But the moon is female,” he tried to argue.

“So what? Look,” she pointed at the waxing gibbous moon high in the sky, clear on this last night of the year. “In four days, it’ll be a full moon. Is anything going to happen to you, to me, or any other wolf?”

“No,” Jackson agreed.

“So I think the ‘gender’ of the moon has no consequence for the gender of Fate.”

“If you say so, my dear,” Jackson smiled good-naturedly, he wanted to change topic badly. “I think you should have had that argument with Leo … he liked to provoke things … or with Colt …”

“… if he ever wakes up,” she whispered.

“I hope so. For Colt, for the Inner Circle, and for the whole pack …”

“They’re not the same without him …”

Jackson shook his head in agreement. “Even the outer circle wolves, although most of them don’t know how to deal with him.”

“It’s tough to be a girl on the top,” she quipped.

Jackson suppressed his burst of laughter. “Don’t say that in front of Prime …”

“I promise,” Sarah giggled. Her grudge towards Fate had vanished.

Jackson stopped. The lake was tranquil; the moon lit the mountains around them. The thin layer of snow reflected the light. The air was clean, crisp. And they were far away for the party noise gone unless one focused on it with one’s wolf senses.

“It is gorgeous,” she repeated. “I mean, Montana is stunning, but there’s something special about ShadowLands as if it’s enchanted. But I have to say I liked it even more in summer … the orchards, the fields, the pine forest, the pups playing in the lake, it was special …”

“Well, you’re invited for next summer.” Jackson’s voice turned odd.

“Thank you,” Sarah teased. “You just want to see me in that swimsuit again.”

“Yes. But seriously,” he repeated, taking a deep breath.

And then he went on his knee.

And she gasped at Jackson’s insecure smile and the gem glittering in in the moonlight.