The Pack
Imyasel nervously stepped from one paw to another while she stood outside the den of the pack leader waiting for Charnellia to invite them in. Next to her, Demon seemed just as nervous, which made the small wolfess even more anxious.

Finally, the bigger wolfess poked her head out of the den and smiled at her.
“You can come in now.” She announced, while a male wolf exited the den. The stranger, a big black wolf, around the same size as Charnellia, threw a gaze towards Demon that looked not too friendly and passed them on his way down the hill.

Imyasel took a few shivering steps towards the den and turned her head, but Demon did not move yet but just followed her with his eyes. She stopped and continued to look at her protector.

“Don’t mind the big goof.” Chanellia whispered to her and Imyasel winced because the wolfess was so close to her ear all of the sudden. “Our parents want to talk to you first.”

The anxiety inside the young wolfess grew with each step she followed Charnellia, because she felt insecure leaving the side of Demon. She felt vulnerable going into the dark cave alone, but she knew that she could not refuse and therefore she followed the bigger wolfess.

Inside, there were three wolves waiting for her. A male and a female that were clearly older, with coats that were fluffy and gray from age. The eyes of the male were just like Demons, even though he was not as big as her protector. His scanning eyes had a cold shiver run down Imyasel’s spine.

The old female looked much more approachable. Her gaze through the blue eyes was warm and soft, a stark contrast to her, how Imyasel suspected, husband.

The third wolf was a young wolfess, good a head taller than Imyasel, who smiled and seemed to fight hard to stay still and keep her dignity, but Imyasel could see her tail shift right and left slowly, showing her excitement.

Imyasel moved slowly until she was just before the three wolves and Charnelliy sat down next to her. She also sat down with her hind legs, revealing her bulging belly towards the strangers.

The older female broke her sitting position and advanced towards Imyasel, who closed her eyes in her fear and shyness. She felt the wolfess circle around her and sniff her belly, her head and her back. Only when she felt that the wolfess finished and widened the distance between them again, she opened her eyes again and saw the old wolfess sitting down next to her husband again.

“So, you are the wolfess my son picked up on his journey?” the sound of the male’s voice was cold and harsh, even though it was not as loud as the one-time Imyasel had heard Demon speak, it made her wince and look at the older wolf with wide eyes.

“What is your name?” Imyasel took three attempts to finally say her name, totally intimidated by the big frame and the stern words of the wolf. His voice sounded very disapproving, aggressive, and disliking.

The voice of the old female was much warmer and friendlier, just like her gaze, when she turned to her husband and nudged him. “Don’t be so mean to our guest.” She scolded her husband and then turned her head towards Imyasel.

“We welcome you to our pack Imyasel. You have to excuse my husband, but he is just a male and sensitivity never was one of his strengths.”

While Imyasel still shivered a bit from the shock of the harsh treatment, she heard the younger girl giggle, but stop instantly when the gaze of her mother hit her.

“My name is Anella. I am the alpha female here, tasked to keep my husband here a bit in check, care for the pack and organize the hunts, while Jaque, the alpha male and leader of the pack, ensures our security.” She introduced herself and the other old wolf.

“And the young one next to me is Mira, my daughter. She is two years old. I guess you are around the same age, right?” she asked and Imyasel only nodded.

“You already know Charnellia.” the wolfess continued and pointed with her snout towards the older wolfess next to Imyasel. “Don’t you want to tell us your story?”.

Imyasel took a few minutes, gazing from one strange wolf to another, very slowly losing a bit of her anxiousness from the caring tone of the old wolfesses voice, before she took a deep breath and began to tell them about her past.

It was the same story she had told Charnellia already and the older wolfess next to her nodded a few times when she remembered a part of her story.

While the older wolves listened to her story in silence and without changing their expression, Imyasel could see every now and then the eyes of the younger wolf Mira open wide in excitement, when Imyasel talked about the adventurous part, or in shock, when she talked about the death of her pack or the attack of the hyenas.

From the reaction of the girl, when Imyasel talked about Demon, she did not know her brother yet from anything but stories, which was natural when he had been away for over 2 years now.

The girl started to giggle and look at her very interested, when Imyasel talked about Demon mating her, which especially Anella seemed to be very interested in and asked a few questions about.

Only after getting over her embarrassment to talk about this topic Imyasel noticed, that Demon’s mother tried to assess if Imyasel had been okay with the actions and was okay with having Demons’s cubs.

She tried her best to explain how she loved the big wolf and how she was happy to be with him, but to many of the questions, mainly about her knowledge of cubs, of mating in general and other intel on the matter, she could not give an answer because no one had explained it to her. All her knowledge was from her own experience, and this did not explain the reason behind all this.

Finally, Anella let her off the hook and Imyasel sighed, when they concluded the meeting with another welcome to their pack. Jaque, who had been mostly silent, welcomed her again as well and his voice now sounded much warmer and nicer, as if he had finally accepted her as a member of the pack.

“We still have a lot catching up to do with our son, but I think you should get to know our pack grounds and maybe a few of the pack already and get this nervousness out of your legs, right?” Anella addressed her and smiled at her.

“Mira will show you around. She must report to hunter training in a bit anyway.” The younger female looked at her mother a bit sulky when the older wolfess mentioned the hunter training.

“Do you feel fit enough to join the hunter training?” Anella asked and Imyasel nodded. Even though she was not as agile and her endurance was a bit weaker being half through her pregnancy already, she had hunted a lot with Demon and was sure that she could handle a bit of training.

“She is all yours Mira and remember to not be late for the training. I will hear about it.” The girl sticked out her tongue towards her mother before she padded past Imyasel and called out to her with her sweet and playful voice.

“Come, we can race to the bottom of the hill.” But her mother interrupted her with a stern voice. “No race Mira. She is in no condition to take risks. You will walk straight to the hunting training and show her everything on the way, understand?” – “Yes, mother.” The girl giggled and nudged the smaller pregnant wolfess. “Come on. I will show you around.” And with this she padded out of the den and Imyasel turned around and followed her, with Charnellia next to her.

At the exit she saw Mira cowering on the edge of the den’s exit, pressed against the rock and with wide eyes, shivering and gazing at Demon. This time it was Charnellia who giggled and she nudged Imyasel to go and greet her mate.

“Mom and dad want to see you now, big goof.” She joked towards her brother, while Imyasel greeted the big wolf by softly rubbing her head against his.

“Oh, and Mira, this is your biiiiig brother, we have been talking about. And as it seems he is the protector of Imyasel so don’t tease her too much, understand?” the older wolfess laughed at the shocked face of her younger sister.

Imyasel understood that it was just meant as a tease, even though the appearance of Demon made the young female very fearful and had her shivering until Demon vanished inside the den and she closed in to Imyasel with a few shaky steps.

From the inside, Imyasel could hear their father starting to speak in a very stern and angry tone and then their mother chewing out Demon. She could not understand the words, because Mira seemed to be eager to get away from the den and led her down the path past a few dens, but from the tone it seemed that their parents had quite some concerns about Demon.

After Mira got over her shock and started to talk again, Imyasel shifted her attention towards the young wolfess, even though her thoughts still lingered around Demon and she hoped that he was fine. 

Imyasel learned that Mira really was around her own age, just a bit younger, and that she also just got past her first heat. From Mira, Imyasel learned about heat and all she learned from her mother regarding heat and reproduction.

It seemed to be a custom in the pack that females stayed in their den during their heat until they were assigned a clear rank within the pack to not rile up the males. Only after they were assigned a rank, after they completed the training and their first ranking fights, they would be assigned a den in the area and welcome males during their heat.

For an alpha, they usually had set mates. Other than the pack leader, there was only a small number of alpha males and females. The queen was the highest-ranking alpha female and each alpha male had one alpha female and a few beta females that they mated with. The beta females mated with the alphas were the highest-ranking beta females. All other betas usually were not bound by a set mate, but rather by rank. The females were mated by multiple beta males and verse visa.

From the rank of the gammas, up to the omegas, there was no set mating order or rule. Some of them mated for life, others changed the partner regularly.

Imyasel wondered why there were not much more wolves with this much of mating, at least by the sound of it, but Mira explained to her that some wolves died every year from hunting accidents, or by bears, other wolves or, if they traveled very far, by hyenas or big cats, but this usually happened when they left the pack grounds.

Other reasons for the population control were, that lower ranking females usually only got a litter every few years. One reason was that the lower ranks usually were assigned later, so they started mating much later as well. The other was, that they had a lot of pups sitting jobs and lower ranking females were not up for pups next to their usually tasks because it meant additional work for them.

Most of the casualties at hunts or in quarrels with neighboring packs were also from the lower ranks and often females did not want to risk going through the grievance to lose all their pups because they were not as strong as the pups of the higher-ranking females and therefore did not mate during their heat.

Mira told Imyasel though, that they had seen low ranking females mate a lot outside of the mating seasons, even with betas, and the young girl imagined that it meant that mating was a lot of fun. She begged the other girl to tell her all about her mating experience with Demon and even though she still seemed to be scared of her brother, she sighed from the imagination when Imyasel told her about the mating rush she went through during the act.

Imyasel did play down the pain involved a bit and talked more about the later days of her heat and not about her first experience with mating in the first days.

The biggest part of the losses in numbers in the pack however were not because of casualties on the hunt, to other predators or in the rare cases of heavy injuries at the ranking fights, but due to migration.

When a wolf or wolfess was around three or four and did not find a mate to their pleasing in the pack, was not content with their rank or was hit by an adventurous steak, they left the pack to find a new pack.

Very few of these came back, sometimes with a mate like Demon, to live with the pack or visit and talk about their new pack. For most of them they never heard anything about them. Either they found a pack far away, or they died during their adventure.

Sometimes they ventured out alone, but often they migrated in a group, especially when lower ranking wolves set off to find their luck elsewhere. The wolves going alone (or leading a group of migrating wolves) usually were betas that were not content with losing their right to be an alpha, or strong gammas.

One older sister of Mira had left the pack last year and visited them once before the winter to tell them, that she had gotten into a pack a few days away from theirs in the neighboring pack land.

It also happened that wolves of other packs joined them. Mira showed Imyasel a few females and one male that they passed, that joined the pack just before winter.

“Here we are!” Mira announced, when they got to the foot of the hill on a clearing of a few wolves’ length with a lot of young wolves and a few older wolves waiting. There were in total 10 wolves, on the clearing. Two were a bit younger than Mira and Imyasel, two were their age and three were older, with three old adults looking over the youngsters.

“Just in time today.” Imyasel heard the complaint of an old wolfess that greeted them. “I guess you avoided the extra round today, Mira.”

Then the wolfess looked at Imyasel and got a bit closer to sniff her and observe her. The other wolves also came close and circled around them to take the scent of the new wolfess.

“Who is this new female here?” the first adult female asked again and Mira grinned. “This is Imyasel. She arrived yesterday with my sister.” There was a round of murmurs around them. It seemed that she had been the talk of the town and everyone heard that a new female had arrived the day before.

“And she is my brother Demon’s mate.” Mira added cocky, as if it was her own achievement, that Imyasel existed and was mated to Demon. Imyasel had to chuckle a bit remembering how Mira had cowered before Demon just a while ago and now introducing her as if she was the mate of a legend.

The voiced around her got louder and she heard all the wolves starting to talk to each other and investigating her even more interested. Especially her belly, that was clearly round and showed even the more inexperienced wolves that she was pregnant, was center of their curiosity. It took a few stern words of the adults to get the group of youngsters to pipe down.

When it was silent again, the adult females welcomed Imyasel into the hunting group and told her to just watch how they were training and to observe their movements. They told her to tell them when she was not feeling well, but that she was still at the start of her pregnancy and should be able to keep up with the training.

Imyasel noticed, that they all thought she as inexperienced in hunting. Also, even the younger girls seemed to believe, that Imyasel was younger than she was, because she was even smaller than the younger girls.

She did as she was told and sat down at the side and watched the hunting training. She noticed that the younger wolves and Mira were still very inexperienced and working on the basics, while the older wolves had the basics down and were in the progress of learning agility, techniques, and tactics in circling a prey.

For her it was clear though, that she was far ahead of them. She had been a bit afraid, that the training she had gotten from Demon had made her rely on the older wolf and that she had a lot to learn, but now she noticed, that even though he had never explained anything, it had made her much more observant and she saw every small error in the movement of the youngsters, and even sometimes from the adult wolves, and was sure that she was at least at the same level as the teachers.