Chương 42: CAN'T LIVE ON BREAD ALONE

I was lying in my bed, wide awake now, and every fiber of my being prickling in fury. As with every prophetic dream I'd had so far, the alarm gave me a whole minute before ringing like the end of the world had come. Welcome to a bright and beautiful Sunday morning! (To be read with all due scathing sarcasm.) I picked up the blasted alarm clock and threw it across the room. It continued ringing, taunting me from the other side. WTH. Savy opened my bedroom door and grinned.

"Rough night?" She picked up the poor blaring alarm clock from the doorway and stopped it. Then she put it neatly on the dresser. But watching my younger sister acting like the sensible grown-up only peeved me off more. Savy was still wearing her dress pajamas. They were just like mine but with red flower prints instead of blue ones. They were really girly and frilly—the kind that a mum would buy for her daughters. Which was, in fact, what had happened.

"I left your bed last night when you started growling in your sleep," Savy informed me.

"You didn't think to wake me up?" I growled back. She cackled.

"Let sleeping dogs lie." I threw a pillow at her. It hit her and sent her cackling as she fled, slamming the door shut behind her. I could hear her holler down the stairs, "Angry Alpha is awake! Everyone take cover!" followed by more cackling. I wished evilly that we had guests downstairs right now. Imagine their expressions should they witness Savy, the angel of the Alpha Family, running downstairs cackling in her red flower-print pajamas like the wicked witch of the west.

I strained my ears, just to hear a few shocked gasps, but instead I heard Mum's soft warning, "Savy, don't provoke your sister."

"It's fine, Mum," Savy told her.

"She's harmless."

"To you," my mum clarified, "but think of poor Ben and Jonah." The mention of Ben and Jonah reminded me that I was going to hang out with everyone today! Sunday morning always meant breakfast at the Pack House. My mood lifted slightly at the thought of freshly baked homemade bread with a buffet of toppings, and the morning did suddenly feel genuinely brighter and more beautiful. After Sunday Breakfasts, some ladies and youth would help make sandwiches with the leftovers from the buffet.

These would go to Morning Light's Destitute Home. Sometimes Savy and I would help. Mum and some of the other ladies visited there every Sunday afternoon. They would bring sandwiches and fruit for lunch to the women living there. Mum said everyone liked the sandwiches we made, especially when we made them pretty and wrapped them neatly with paper lace doilies and plastic. We cut all the fruit and put it into covered plastic cups too.

But more than the sandwiches and fruit, Mum said these women just needed a break from work and kids. I guess everyone needed a break sometimes, but if you heard Mum, you'd think all women needed tea and conversation in their lives. Mum had a lot to say about the ladies at the Destitute House. It wasn't easy being a single parent. Many of these women had left the pack they grew up in to follow their mates to the Morning Light Pack. When their mates died in battle, they were left alone or with young pups.

They mustn't ever be left to think the pack had forgotten them.

"But they aren't even from our pack." I had once pointed out.

"Oh, Sam!" Mum sighed, but she also smiled at me, "They are our neighbors!" From a young pup, I had already realized that Mum's idea of neighbors wasn't the Beta's house next door, but pretty much anyone we should go out of our way to be kind to. So once a week, my Luna Mum would go all the way to the other pack to visit our 'neighbors' at the Morning Light Destitute House. Sometimes I went with Mum, but it was very boring, and some of their stories were really sad.

Sometimes, when I heard them talk, I felt like their sadness passed to me like an invisible suffocating blanket of hopelessness. Mum said she felt it too. When she listened to the women, her white wolf helped absorb their sadness.

"I'm a white wolf?" I had asked.

"I think," Mum paused to choose her words, "you're just very sensitive." A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Savy, on the other hand, never went near the Destitute House if she could help it. She always had an excuse not to go—to the Destitute House, to hospital visitations, to funerals…

"It's very depressing," Savy had confided in me.

"All the more reason we should go support them," I had argued. But Savy only shook her head.

"I don't care. I don't want to." That was why I believed Savy had a white wolf. Because it wasn't that Savy didn't care—she cared too much. Savy had the softest and kindest heart I had ever known. Maybe because I knew that, I had always instinctively shielded her. Whenever pack members came to talk to us, I would field the conversation. Or if she thought any of our friends were troubled, I was the one who asked them what was wrong. Some white wolves could heal. Some could alleviate pain.

It was said that in the mountains, there were white wolves who could resurrect the dead. My mum's white wolf calmed others by absorbing the intensity of their emotions.

"When I was young, I would cry and cry at funerals," Mum had told me.

"You don't cry now," I had told her.

"I had to learn to filter and block out the floating emotions in the atmosphere and control how much I can help at any one time," Mum explained. Maybe that was what Savy would have to learn one day too. But until that day, if there was anything that made Savy cry, it would have to be over my dead body. Getting out of bed, I hopped into the shower and lathered on happiness. By the time I picked out my clothes, I was feeling pretty good again. It helped that I liked what I saw in the mirror.

My hair fell really straight that day. Usually it was a little wavy, but sometimes when the humidity was low, it fell perfectly straight. I curled my lashes with black mascara and touched up just a bit with BB cream. A tight white T-shirt with the words I'M WITH STUPID (it was extra funny when I wore this and stood next to my dad—or generally anyone trying to say something serious to the pack) and a pair of over-washed skinny jeans. New shoes—the white skateboard sneakers from yesterday.

Then a loose black vested cardigan that flowed down to mid-thigh, my favorite denim sling bag, and I was good to go. I liked dressing up on Sundays. It was my vain day. I usually spent most of the day out, didn't have any training happening, and met a lot of people, so it was a nice change from my school or training clothes. Savy frowned at my T-shirt when I got downstairs.

"Don't stand near me today." She was wearing her lighter brown curls in a ponytail that morning, with a gold star clip in her hair. Her T-shirt was also white, with a gold star printed on it. She wore it with a red plaid skirt, gray tights, and a black cropped jacket and boots. I had a matching navy blue plaid skirt upstairs—because Mum had bought them for us. Oh! We could be matchy!

"I'm just going to change my skirt!" I ran back upstairs. I heard Dad sigh at the front door.

"Change your T-shirt too!" Savy yelled.

"No time!" I yelled back. I started stripping the moment I hit my room. I pulled on a pair of tights, my plaid skirt… Sorry, new shoes. You'll have to wait for another day. I pulled on my boots and ran back down. The skirt was pretty short. My long vest cardigan was about the same length. That was why the tights. Should the occasion call for it, I'd like to think I could kick someone's stupid head without showing off the color of my panties. Anyway, our family was finally out the door.

We took a short walk over to the Pack House dining hall next door. I could smell good things happening in there—bacon, eggs, something chocolaty… and homemade fresh-baked bread. Oh, the bread! The bread our Pack House served was the best bread in the world—crusty on the outside, with the softest, fluffiest insides ever. If I ever got mated out of our pack, I would ask my family to bring bread when they visited. Just bread.

Once, while I was in West Mountain, our teacher asked what everyone's favorite food was, and I said, "Bread."

"What kind of bread?" the teacher asked.

"Plain bread," I said. I realized from the reactions of the rest of the kids that this wasn't normal. It wasn't that I didn't like pizza or ice cream or anything. But they had not eaten our Pack House bread. So I wasted no time at the dining hall. I took thick slices of lightly toasted bread from the serving tray and started loading them with goodies at the buffet table—bacon, scrambled eggs, and beans on one slice; then sunny-side-up eggs on another, with some sliced avocado picked out from the salad bowl.

The third slice was just butter, because bread was amazing like that—and because my plate could only balance two loaded slices at a time.

"Someone has an Alpha appetite today," Delta Simon chuckled as he passed. His mate, Aunty Lily, slapped his arm, scolding, "Please, Uncle, don't tease teenage girls about their appetites!" Delta Simon was our pack's head doctor. Aunty Lily was like an aunt to every child in the pack. She liked to go around referring to herself as "Aunty" and Delta Simon as "Uncle." They had two daughters, Sandra and Sally, who were still pups.

"No worries," I shrugged.

"I'm pretty proud of my appetite." Delta Simon's laughter boomed.

"See! You girls learn from Sam now!" Sandra groaned audibly. I saw Sally laugh and roll her eyes at their dad. Delta Simon continued laughing. He didn't take offense at all. We were interrupted by Susan's voice from a table behind us.

"No, Dad! One double chocolate chip muffin doesn't equal two chocolate chip muffins!" Her dad guffawed.

"Okay, okay, Princess. Daddy will go back and get the right one." I blinked in surprise but kept walking toward our table. I couldn't imagine ever talking to my dad like that. Beta Lucas was talking at our table.

"Okay, okay, fine." His hands were up in surrender. Naturally, he was talking to Princess Lizzy. I grinned as I sat down in front of my plate. Ben grumbled next to me, "He's always like that with Lizzy." Yeah. I know. The people who say men with mates are whipped have never met men with daughters. Or maybe it was just something that happened in our pack. Mum said that when I was born, my dad would carry me around everywhere on Sundays.

"I guess it was his way of helping me out," she reminisced. Later, as more babies were born, the dads in our pack started carrying their babies around too. Since even the Alpha helped with baby carrying, the other big, manly warriors could too.

"Next time, don't wake up so late," Lizzy was saying to Beta Lucas.

"Okay, next time. We'll see," Beta Lucas promised. Gamma Harry laughed at that. He could, since he had no daughters. It was nice being a girl in our pack. I ate my toast happily, counting my blessings. The boys held doors open for us, we could—but didn't have to—train as warriors, and as far as our daddies were concerned, we were princesses. Well, most of us anyway. I had never been the princess type. I was more of the future Alpha type. I polished off the last of my toast. Ben got up for seconds. Jonah followed.

I got up too. I could do with some fruit. On the way, I snagged a few mini sausages and a couple of chocolate chip pancakes. By the time I was done, Ben was standing in front of the fruit station, a massive pile on his plate. He offered me an apple and took one for himself. We headed back to the table together. Jonah joined us with an omelet. He laughed.

"Nice T-shirt, by the way." Ben read my T-shirt and stepped away, growling. Hahaha. I love my T-shirt. Our table for Sunday Pack Breakfast was always our three families: Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. I guess I love our table too.