hapter 139
Chapter 139
Kennedy
I feel like Quirin is finally starting to recognize that I’m not just some silly little pup, but I’m actually an intelligera wor that can help the pack. At least, it feels that way. He apologized, which was totally unexpected but very much appreciated
When we walk into the packhouse, I take a deep breath. I’m guessing that this conversation isn’t going to go over well. This pack is very arrogant. I wasn’t joking when I called Quirin that earlier. That’s all it is, arrogance that the human sits hack and leaves the brunt of the work to their wolf.
“It looks like we’re on a mission,” Beta Kier says, walking up to us. “Anything I need to know about?”
Yeah, Kennedy has found silver in two of our pack member’s wounds. Since she didn’t find any in your wounds, she believes, and I’m inclined to agree, that this is Jasper’s doing.”
“How would that even work?” he asks me.
I give him the quick version of my suspicions as we walk into the dining hall.
“Everyone, listen up. I have two announcements,” Quirin begins. Two?
“First, I intended to announce this last night, but obviously we were attacked. Everyone knows that this weekend is Kennedy’s Luna ceremony. For those of you who don’t know, her family will be here and will be staying one to two nights. I have no intention of allowing anyone to cause problems this weekend. This is Kennedy’s weekend, and you will respect that If you do not believe that you can be civil and respect Kennedy’s family and my guests this weekend, you may leave the pack for the weekend. However, you will be required to accept Kennedy as your Luna before you leave, or you will not be allowed back in the pack.”
This is so not the way to start the conversation about me finding the silver powder. If anything, this is going to make the pack members feel put off and unwilling to let me help them.
“Where would we go? Back out to the wilderness?” someone asks and I sigh. They’re already planning on leaving.
“I’ve spoken to Alpha Henry and he is willing to take in anyone wanting to leave during the days that we celebrate Kennedy officially becoming our Luna. He cannot guarantee that he’ll have rooms for all of you, but you would be welcome to sleep on his pack lands where you would be safe.”
I feel nearly all eyes turn to look at me. At this rate, it’ll just be my family and Henry’s at my Luna ceremony. Great. I wish Quirin had mentioned this to me before. And when did he and Henry even have time to talk about this?
‘Probably when he was here the other day,’ Echo says distractedly, watching the pack members. I can feel that she’s upset that so many of our pack members seem to want to leave. It’s just another reminder that they don’t respect us.
“If you have any questions about that, come see me or Beta Kier. The second announcement is that your Luna has found something that impacts all of us. Kennedy, do you want to explain it?” he asks me.
I go through the process of how I found the silver, first on the pup and then on Warrior Lane without mentioning any names. I tell them my suspicions about the silver powder and let them know that if any of them have wounds that their wolves can’t heal, they need to see me for medical attention.
“So, does anyone have wounds that need to be treated by Kennedy?”
I’m not surprised when no one says yes. Once again, this pack has become too arrogant.
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“No one?” he asks again. When no one responds, he nods. “Okay then.” He turns to leave, but I’m not done.
1
“Just a moment,” I say and Quirin turns to look at me. “Show of hands, how many of you fought against Alpha Jasper or his pack members in last night’s battle?”
I wait as everyone looks at each other.
“I know I wasn’t the only one,” Quirin growls and people slowly begin raising their hands.
“Everyone who fought against Alpha Jasper or his pack, stand up please,” I say, receiving a lot of grumbles.
Quirin’s angry growl shuts them off and they begin to stand. Along with my mother’s interest in medicine, I inherited her ability to sniff out infection. I’m sure there will be others, those like Lane, but for now, this will do.
1 begin walking around sniffing each of the warriors who is standing.
“What are you doing, Luna?” Beta Kier asks. He’s still standing by Quirin. Quirin is standing with his arms crossed, watching me intently. I hold up a finger, telling him to give me a minute.
When I’m done, I return to the front of the room. “Every one of you who is standing and many who aren’t, have wounds that are becoming infected. I will tell you what I told your Alpha earlier tonight. It is arrogance that allows you to sit there, making your wolves suffer and probably feel like they are letting you down because they can’t heal you. You are weakening yourselves and this pack from the inside out because of your arrogance.”
“No offense, Luna, but how could you possibly know that we have open wounds. If we got them yesterday, they wouldn’t be infected yet,” a warrior says to me.
I give him my best fake smile. “Why don’t you pull up your shirt so we can see your stomach and let’s talk about it,” I say, watching the smirk fall off his face. “Or you,” I say pointing to another warrior, “take off your pants and let’s look at that leg. Or you, let’s see your shoulder, or you,” I say, pointing to the warrior who has multiple wounds, some of them infected. “Take your pick, you have three, back, arm, and thigh. Anyone else want to question my nose?”
“Lift up your shirt, Terrance,” Quirin says.
He presses his lips together and pulls up his shirt, exposing the wound that is covered in bandages but is obviously seeping through.
“Son of a bitch! After everything your Luna just said, no one thought it was important to say that they have injuries that aren’t healing? Are you trying to get yourselves and you pack members killed?”
I desperately want to call Quirin out, letting him know that he’s exactly the same, but I don’t. I’ve already challenged him once today in front of his pack members.
“Every one of you better get your asses to the pack hospital. Tonight! Anyone that isn’t standing and has a wound that isn’t healing better get their ass to the pack hospital tonight as well. Anyone who has a pup with a wound that isn’t healing, get them to the pack hospital. Anyone who doesn’t, will answer to me,” Quirin barks.
“Yes, Alpha,” the group says.
“Well, I guess I’d better get back to the hospital. Sounds like I’m going to have a busy night,” I say.
“Is this what you were doing earlier today, Luna?” Deborah asks me from across the room.
“Yes. I needed to confirm my suspicions, and I have.”
“I’ll come help you, if you’d like,” she says.
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“That would be great. When you’re done, head over,” I tell her.
“You need to eat something too, Kennedy. You’re not a machine,” Quirin says.
I look at the dinner options and none of them are things that I can eat easily with my hands.
“I can make you a sandwich, Luna,” Susie says.
“That would be great, thank you.”
“I’ll come check on you in a bit, Kennedy. I need to talk to Kier about how we’re going to handle this and what we’re going to do to make sure our pack lands aren’t contaminated with silver.”
I get my sandwich from Susie and head over to the pack hospital. The first few warriors to come through not only acted aggravated to be there, but also asked if they could accept me as their Luna while they were there. As upsetting as it was, I agreed.
When the warrior with three injuries came in, he actually thanked me. “My wolf was getting nervous that there was something wrong with him,” the warrior, Leo, tells me.
“There’s nothing wrong with him. Next time, don’t wait until it gets this bad. I don’t bite,” I tell him.
“Thank you, Luna,” his wolf says to me.
“What’s your name, Warrior?” I ask him.
“Javier, Luna.”
“Javier, don’t blame yourself next time. Tell your human to get his butt over here to see me,” I say as I finish stitching him
- up.
“Yes, Luna,” Javier says.
I turn as I pull off my gloves. “Did you want to accept me as your Luna now, so you can plan to be away from the pack this weekend?” I ask him.
When he doesn’t answer right away, I turn to look at him. I see Leo is having a conversation with Javier.
“Luna, do you mind if I think about it?” he asks.
“No, that’s fine,” I say. He’s the first one who needed more than a couple of seconds to decide, so I’ll take it.
The next patient is a patrol member, Randall.
“I didn’t know what was going on, Luna, but I think the reason my hands and feet are burned is because we’re running over silver on our patrol runs,” he tells me.
I look at his hands, then carefully scrape them before doing the same for his feet.
“Give me a few minutes, will you?” I ask him.
“Sure thing, Luna,” he says, smiling at me. I think he might be the first warrior who has smiled at me.
When I put the skin scrapings under the microscope, it’s definitely silver.
‘Quirin, the patrol routes have silver on them. They’re burning our patrols‘ paws and it’s causing blisters and making their 3/5
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hands and feet raw,’
‘Since when?” he asks. I walk back into the room and ask Randall how long he’s noticed this problem.
“Honestly, it’s been a couple of weeks, maybe a month. At first it was just a little bit. I thought maybe Ridley and I were just out of practice with running, but then it started getting worse and hurting more and Ridley couldn’t heal me. When you mentioned the silver tonight, I thought I should have it checked out.”
“Well, you were right, Randall. It’s silver.”
Two to four weeks, Quirin,‘ I tell him in the mind link.
‘Son of a bitch,‘ he growls before closing the mind link.
“Can you fix it, Luna?” Ridley asks, pushing forward.
“It will sting, but I’ll scrape it off and you let me know if you can heal it.” I start with his hands and then move to his feet, carefully scraping them until they bleed. By the time I get to the second foot, his first hand is already healed.
“How does that feel, Ridley?” I ask him.
“Great, Luna. I’ll have us healed by morning.”
“Good! You may have to come in every day you have patrols for a while until Quirin and Beta Kier figure out what they’re going to do.”
“No problem. I’m just glad we could get it fixed. Ridley was starting to get depressed thinking he was letting me down,” Randall says.
“You’re doing a great job, Ridley. You both are. Ahh, did you want to accept me as your Luna while you’re here?”
“Are you kidding? And miss the party? Hell no! I’m excited to have you as our Luna. I think you’re exactly what this pack has been needing. I look forward to accepting you as my Luna along with everyone else this weekend.”
“Well, I’m not sure how many will be there,” I say to him.
He looks at me, his face becoming serious. “Give it time, Luna. You said it yourself, we’re an arrogant group of people. They’ll see it eventually. I saw it when you and Echo passed us over and over when you were running. You may not know how to fight, but you can run faster than any wolf I’ve ever seen. And don’t get me started on your sense of smell,” he says, making me laugh.
“Thanks, Randall,” I say, feeling better.
“Thank you, Luna. I guess I’ll be seeing you again soon.”
“Anytime,” I say as he walks out. I take a moment to breathe and collect myself. Tonight has been stressful for a lot of reasons, but that conversation reminded me of my purpose and my resolve to earn the respect of this pack, one warrior at a time.
“That’s three,’ Echo says.
