Alpha Gloria was yelling orders, trying to organize a defense line. When Alexander returned, he brought with him the only surviving members of the Midnight Pack. Adria was able to see their faces when Alexander returned with them. They were all so scared, most of them crying. The older kids guided the young ones, and the elders walked behind them, most with babies in their arms.
Rose assigned Adira and a few others to help them and protect them while the rest of the pack left to investigate the rest of the small village. She saw an elderly woman covering a young five-year-old with a jacket who then thanked the old woman.
Adira was in her human form wearing shorts and a tank top. She approached the old woman.
"Is she sick?"
The old woman was startled, clearly still under a lot of stress.
"I don't know. She's shaking."
Adira kneeled in front of the girl. She looked at Anira with her big brown eyes, grabbing the arm of the boy seated next to her, the boy placed a hand around the girl in a protective gesture. He was around eleven, his features similar to the girl's
"Hi," she said with a soft voice. "What are your names?"
"Xa... Xavier Alvar," said the boy. "This is my sister Alana."
They were the children of the Alpha. Adira had known they were among those that survived, but she never actually met them.
"Hello, Xavier, Alana. My name is Adira."
"Have you seen our parents?" He asked.
Adira smiled sadly, not sure how to tell him.
"Dear, they are still looking for other survivors," said the old woman instead.
Rose and the Beta of the Moonshine pack guided the survivors and the warriors in charge of protecting them away from the village. Adira was alert for any sounds, any rogues that were still in the area. She could not depend on her sense of smell since everything around her smelled like blood, putrid meat, and death.
They avoided crossing through the houses, as that was where the right had taken place and the bodies were still all over the area. That would traumatize the children even more.
"Adira!" she heard Rose call her.
Annoyed, she walked faster to catch up with her.
"What?"
"Take ten people with you and go through the packhouse kitchen to look for food for these people. We'll be waiting across the bridge."
Adira took her friends and five others to go to the village. When they entered, the smell of burned flesh entered her nostrils.
It looked like the pack had tried to use fire to burn the creatures and keep them away from the packhouse. Adira saw halfway burned scavengers around the perimeter, as well as some rogues. Unfortunately, in an attempt to keep their attackers away, the pack had trapped themselves inside.
Alexander was supervising a few warriors as they looked around a house with a broken door. Adira passed by him and gave him a simple explanation for their presence there. Alexander nodded, letting her do her task.
The group entered the house where they found even more bodies than outside. Most of them belonged to members that were not trained for combat. They walked around the bottom floor, looking for the kitchen, and when they found it, Noah started to open the cabinets of the pantry and pulled out cans of food.
Adira looked under the sick and found trash bags and had Tobias help her bag the cans inside. Adele and another member of their group were protecting the entrance, making sure there were no unexpected visitors.
Matias and Camila started to load some of the trash bags with bottles of water. Before they left, she noticed baby food on the counter. She forgot babies could not eat the same solid food, so she made everyone wait and looked for the necessary items.
They carried four full bags of food and water back to the bridge; Rose and the Beta of the Moonshine pack were organizing the survivors.
"Most of the things are destroyed, but we were able to find a good number of bottles of water," She told Rose.
"Good," she told her. "Did you find anything else?"
"Just more bodies."
The two women looked over at the village in the distance. The number of trees was not enough to cover the smoke coming from the center of the village, and a few minutes later, the smell of burnt flesh reached the area where they were. They were burning the bodies.
"We should move them."
Rose nodded, agreeing with her.
Together, they started to guide the people further away from their old homes. Soon, the smoke was but a small spot in the distance, the smell no longer lingering.
Alexander and Gloria sent back a few of the warriors that had been with them and together, they all set up a camp. Adira was part of the first watch, and she saw the two Alphas and their warriors return. Some warriors were carrying survivors on improvised stretchers, Adira counted twenty-three stretchers.
She stayed awake until well past midnight when Tobias came to fetch her so she could get some sleep. Noah and Camila covered for the two of them.
The next morning, she was woken up by the sound of Rose's voice.
"Wake up."
"Are we under attack?" she asked, ready to defend herself.
"No. We need to have a meeting; Alex wants you there."
Adira rubbed her eyes and got up from the small, improvised bed. She grabbed her backpack and opened it to take out her toothbrush. She brushed her teeth as she walked to the side where Rose had pointed her and saw Alexander and the ones he had called to his office a few days ago.
She spat the paste and used a little bit of water to rinse her mouth.
"Really?" Alexander asked her with no surprise.
She shrugged and continued to floss her teeth with a floss pick.
"Just because we are here does not mean we should stop taking care of ourselves."
"We are in the middle of a rescue mission."
"No. We are in the middle of a meeting," she argued, now less upset but still mad at him. "It's called personal hygiene. Look it up."
She ignored him. She cared for her herself and hated smelling bad.
"Are you feeling better?" he asked her after a few seconds of silence.
She let a loud sigh out.
"As I said before, I am not hallucinating."
She sat on the ground, using the bottom of her shirt to clean her mouth. Alexander did not attempt to talk to her again, which she was glad for.
She listened to what Alexander had to say. He reported to them that they had found twenty-three other survivors and would continue to assist them until the pack could get back on their feet. Alpha Gloria and a few of her warriors joined them and discussed how both packs would take on half of the refugees.
As the Moonshine Pack was closer, they would take the injured members to receive care and a few of the elderly. This meant that the Crescent Moon Pack would open its doors to the rest of the pack.
When the preparations were done, both packs parted ways.
When they had one day left to reach the Crescent Moon Pack territory, the group made camp near the same place where they had rested on their way to the Midnight Pack. The entire way they had walked, Adira had to do so as a human since Rose had assigned her as a babysitter.
Adira was sure Rose had done that out of spite. Just to annoy her.
The children that were too young to transform into wolves had to walk slower than the rest of the group. Adira and her friends had been stuck with the ten infants the entire day, listening to their crying, feeding them every time they got hungry, and changing diapers every single hour. A few elders were with them, helping with carrying the babies.
Alexander and thirty other warriors had been stuck in the back with them. They needed protection in case of a sudden attack, and Adira and her friends had their hands full of shit.
Literally.
"It's not too bad," said one of the older women in their group. "Kids are precious, they grow up so quick after all. You blink once and they are all grown-ups."
Adira was feeding a five-month-old baby. The infant was relatively quiet compared to the rest of the young ones, especially the toddlers. She hatted toddlers.
"I wouldn't know," she told the old woman. "I don't have any kids of my own."
"Oh, dear," the woman smiled. Adira saw that, although she acted happily and smiled at all the kids, the woman had certain sadness in her eyes. Maybe that was what it meant to lose your home. "You do look young," she continued. "Have you found your mate?"
"Nah," Adira looked down at the baby who had stopped drinking from the bottle. She remembered seeing her cousin burp the babies whenever she went to the nursery when she was her escort. So, she turned the baby and placed her over her shoulder, giving her small pats on the back.
"That's okay. I am sure you will find that someone soon."
"I am in no hurry." She told the lady. She was twenty, almost twenty-one years old. Her mate would come eventually. "What about you ma'am?"
"I lost my mate two years ago," her sadness filtered through her words. "I miss him dearly every day."
Adira felt uncomfortable. She was not good at small talk, but she liked the lady enough to try.
"How did you guys meet?"
The lady laughed before answering.
"We grew up together. He wanted to be a doctor, so he left to travel among the packs when he turned sixteen. I was five years younger than him you know. So, we could not tell we were mates yet," Adira heard the baby burp and she place her on her lap, the baby fell asleep soon after. "When he came back, I was out in the field, training as a warrior myself. We had an accident, and I got a nasty blow on the head that cracked my skull."
"Ouch!" she smiled.
"Yeah, very nasty," she agreed. "My friends brought me in and there he was, cleaning something. When he saw me, oh goddess!" she touched her chest. "His eyes almost popped out."
"And then?" Adira was enjoying the conversation. Tobias was also listening while he was watching over a few toddlers sleeping by his feet.
"I don't remember, but he later told me I tried to flirt with him. They took me in for surgery to patch me up. When I woke up, he was the first one I saw, and he never left my side after that until two years ago."
"I'm sure you miss him a lot," Tobias commented.
"Yes, a lot. I would have followed him, but alas, it is not my time to go yet," She turned to Tobias then. "And you handsome? Have you found your mate?"
Tobias face turned red, and he shook his head.
"No."
"And are you also in no hurry like your friend here?" the lady pointed at Adira.
Tobias looked at Adira, his face now as bright as a tomato.
"I don't..."
"It's not something you think about when you have a lot to do already" Interrupted Adira. "The moon goddess makes sure we meet our mates, it's just not our time. Righ, Tobias?"
"Right..." he replied, looking at the kids again.
They went to bed after that. Now that they had to look over the kids, they were exempted from watch duty.
Adira laid down next to the baby she had been taking care of and look over at Noah and Camila. The two were cuddling each other. They looked so in peace together. Camila even looked happy as she brushed his hair.
Adira thought that was what it meant to be mates. To be at peace as long as your mate was next to you.