un-zap them.” I looked at the two Weres and spoke the word. “Hljóð.”
“Can you two hear me now?” They both grabbed their ears and nodded.
“Dammit Agatha don’t do that again! You just scared the hell out of me!”
I thrust the phone into her hands. “Talk to your Dad and tell him.”
She took the phone. “Dad, I’m an Alpha.”
Chapter 6
Robert Moore, Cat’s father, actually took the news rather well. His brother Marcus was the pack Alpha, after all, not Robert. Robert agreed with his daughter that she couldn’t come home for long visits as a declared Alpha, but she could come home. Marcus would allow short visits if she notified him beforehand and didn’t get into any trouble or heaven forbid try to recruit anyone. There were procedures for visiting Alphas. He told Cat he would get with his brother and set up a visitation schedule for her. He said it was a major boost in status for the family to have a rare female Alpha.
Cat had a good cry on my shoulder. She’d really thought she might never see her family ever again. She’d failed to mention to me that the entire time in South Dakota she had been pressuring her wolf to not make an appearance. The intentional loss of family was the one curse of any wolf. At the first tear I had sent Chuck off and told him we would call if we needed him. It was just us girls and Fergus.
“Cat, honey, it’s Ok: you can see your family again. Your father even said it was a great honor to the family to have a female Alpha. What’s wrong? You can tell me.” I held the small girl in my arms. Her crying had stopped, but I could sense she was still hurting. Empathy was one of the major witch powers and I had a small trace of it. I could sense the major emotions and that coupled with my telepathy gave me a sense of wrongness sometimes. It was one of the things that saved my life last year.
She pulled away from me and looked up at me. “Aggy, thank you for being my friend. I was so afraid I would have to kill Uncle Marcus just to say hello to my mother.”
“Didn’t they teach you about visitor rules for the pack?”
“Of course they did. But not what to do for visiting Alphas. That just doesn’t occur. Sure we can meet on neutral ground or at a pack gathering. But home ground or rather claimed territory is another matter. Most potential challengers don’t get twenty feet inside a claimed territory. They kill them before they can hurt anyone. There hasn’t been a clan war in over a century. Even during internment the Alpha rules applied. I was so afraid.”
“Cat, friends are the family you get to choose. I will always be your friend. I can’t speak for Fergus but he might be your friend too.”
We both heard him mumbling in his little barn. “Damn sneaky cats!”
I just had to giggle. Fergus was good for comic relief. “Let’s get cleaned up. We need to plan for tomorrow. Classes begin!” I checked the time. “It looks like we missed dinner. Want to send Chuck out for Pizza?”
“He’ll be happy I’m OK. You were right, Aggy, and I’m sorry I argued. Chuck is pack. I just didn’t see it. I hope he’s OK with it because I don’t think I can give him up, too.”
“Give him a call and order some pie’s. Tell him to get some sodas too, I think we’re out.”
Chuck was good with going for food. He was much like Fergus in that he was a movable stomach.
~~~~
According to my schedule, I had law enforcement procedures followed by basic martial arts training this morning. After lunch was intro to firearms. I wasn’t starting my own class as a teacher until tomorrow. That gave me a day to make up some handouts. Both Cat and I had a hard time waking up. We were up late talking with Chuck about how Packs are put together and how to form a basic one. Ironically, Chuck had been aware that he