"I heard you told Patricia she will become a werewolf, Your Excellency."
Shalei tore her gaze away from the half-built beacon to find a sweaty Keith beside her. The man had rolled his sleeves up to his shoulders and just as Shalei expected, there were tattoos along his arm; bold strokes of black and crimson that compromised the silhouette of a howling wolf.
Its bushy tail was curled around his forearm, spreading around his chest with its snout just barely peeking out of his collar. It was a really magnificent sight and Shalei took a few seconds too long to admire it before she registered what Keith was saying.
"Oh, you're right, I did." Wait a moment, she paused. Keith had been toiling outside since early in the morning and Shalei was sure that he hadn't gotten any chance to meet Meagan or Patricia yet. So how could he have heard of that?
When she decided to voice the question to the man, Keith merely blinked and pointed to his temple. "Your Excellency, do you have no idea about the mind link?"
Ah, mind link. Shalei had certainly read of that before. It was the default ability that every werewolf pack member should have with the Alpha's bestow. With the mind link, everyone would be able to send messages to each other and be warned of any potential danger.
The Alpha would also be able to have a firm control over his pack with that. How could she not think about that? It seemed like she didn't know werewolves as much as she thought she did. Now that Shalei knew it, the coincidences of Meagan arriving in time without Sebastian summoning her became clear.
Keith leaned himself against the tree trunk beside the boulder where Shalei used as a temporary chair. "To be honest, it's kind of pathetic how our pack has been reduced to this." He lifted his fingers one by one and started counting. "Me, Sebby, Collin, Meagan. Little Patti still hasn't gone through the ceremony yet because she hasn't shifted anyway. Just us five from our old pack, struggling to survive each day."
Five…? Shalei blinked in confusion. "What about Sven? Moreover, I heard from Meagan that you have around twenty members in your pack."
The corner of Keith's lips tugged into a lopsided grin but Shalei thought that she could see the underlying irritation beneath. "Ah, Meagan, ever the trusting. Those people haven't even submitted to Sebby yet. How can they be considered as members of our pack?" He shrugged. "Sven is a rogue."
"Rogue." Shalei echoed. "You mean, he's not included in this pack?"
Keith grunted and threw a faraway gaze toward the messy construction. Sebastian was walking back and forth to carry the broken bricks out whilst Collin and Sven were building the outer wall.
Now that Shalei replayed their brief interaction she had seen, there was just some kind of bond, closer and more intimate, between Keith and Collin. Whereas Sven often kept to himself, only piping in when the situation called for it. It was different from Sebastian whose nature was reserved and detached to begin with. Sven, despite his cordial smile, didn't seem to integrate fully with the group.
"No, he's not. To be honest, I don't even know if we can still be called a pack." Keith huffed out a frustrated breath. "Normally we don't let rogues join us because they are plainly suspicious and a lot of them are ferals. We literally don't know when they will turn their back on us because they aren't willing to swear their loyalty to Sebby. But Sven is a rare case, we let him stay because of a few complicated reasons."
His eyes returned to Shalei, asking. Shalei offered him a nod and urged him to continue. Keith seemed like he had something he wanted to say and Shalei knew if she wanted to get more information, Sebastian was the last person she would rely on. "Our old pack, the Silver Moon, used to be one of the largest and most distinguished packs in the whole world. We had over five hundred members, all of them were loyal to Sebby."
Shalei's lips parted in astonishment. Holy— five hundred? That was an awful lot of people! Even her father's company didn't have that many workers, and he's still listed as one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world! It was hard for Shalei to wrap her head around it.
Too many things had been different and she didn't even have any idea where to start. Shalei knew it was cowardly, but she hadn't had enough courage to mull over the most important thing yet, especially ones that related to herself. So she turned her full attention to what Keith was saying. "What happened then?"
Five hundred reduced to five… wasn't that too severe?
Keith kicked a pebble under his feet and scowled. "The Moon's Curse happened. It took us by storm and before we knew it, over three hundred of our members had been infected in the short span of two weeks."
Shalei sucked in a breath. Just imagining it was enough to send shivers down her spine. "I'm sorry for your loss."
Just for a split second, Keith threw her a glance that she couldn't quite comprehend, kind of incredulous, disbelieving and dark. It made Shalei squirm in her seat. Why did he look at her like that? However, before she could ruminate about it further, Keith had offered his usual nonchalant grin as if what Shalei saw was merely the product of her own imagination.
"Nah, it's an old thing already. To make it short, we tried to save as many members as we could whereas the government tried to create a cure, both failed. More and more people got Infected until one day, I told Sebby that we couldn't stay there any longer. So we brought everyone who was healthy and ran away to find another place to live."
"When…" Shalei trailed off, unsure of how to word the sentence without showing how clueless she was.
Fortunately, Keith understood her question. "It has been eight years since then and Sebby has just risen as the Alpha for less than a year." He pondered for a moment and then added quietly. "It's also the year he lost his arms, he was trying to save his mother but…" Keith shrugged, a wry smile on his face.
"Oh." Shalei's heart gave a twinge. Her mind conjured up the image of nineteen years old Sebastian, still learning how to be a good leader when disaster suddenly struck.
He not only lost his pack, but also his family, his arms, and his home. All of a sudden, she just wanted to smother him into a hug even though she was eight years late. Was it weird that her heart ached for these people, for Sebastian whom she had only known for less than five days? Was it weird to feel so much toward them?
"Alright, enough about the sad story!" Keith clapped his hands twice, effectively cutting through the somber mood that had started to envelop them. He offered a wink. "Your Excellency, are you interested to hear a secret about Sebastian?"