DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME

We got into the pack house, we weren't the only ones. Everyone went down to the training hall and the Morning Light goons helped us set up the hall with training mats for the different families to settle on.

I heard them saying it would be alright. We just need to wait it out here for a while.

Most of the people left in the pack house were elderly, women, and children. The men who can shift and fight had gone to report to their designated positions to guard the packhouse from outside.

Mum took Savy around the different mats to just talk to the ladies, calm the children. I probably should have gone with them, except that my wolf was way too on the edge for me to calm anybody.

Stupid Wolfie. What's wrong? We are at the safest place possible.

Wolfie didn't seem to care about safety.

{Rogues are near.}

Maybe it's because it's the first time Wolfie got so near rogues on our home ground. Our first brush with them on Sunday was on Morning Light lands.

Wolfie growled remembering the Wolfbane. Wolfie did not appreciate it.

But I think it's something more than that. I just felt, I don't know... The inexpressible urge to go out there and tear off wolf parts. It rumbled within me like a power surge.

Oh, my bad, I was just having a power surge. A pretty big one.

While previously they emerged as heavy bubbles of energy, they've been stronger, more like rushes or waves. And tonight it was like a tsunami. I felt it hover just for a second and then crashed inside me so hard, my ears started tingling at the soundless internal impact.

Hank and Flynn bolted the side doors to the hall. We had never had rogues come so close to home before. But it appeared that the Morning Light goons did and were more used to this.

"Don't worry," Harvey spoke suddenly from my side.

"I'm not." I said, "but thanks." I smiled to prove it.

Harvey nodded, but didn't leave my side.

"Why are you here?" I asked. I supposed there might be a nicer way to have said it.

"Flynn sent me to stick with you." Harvey explained.

"You should be sticking with my mum." I pointed out.

"Hank is on it." Harvey explained.

Oh, I get it. Future Luna needed a bodyguard too. Flynn was certainly not taking any chances. For the rogues to get into our packlands was a new achievement at any rate. I wondered how they managed it.

{Rogues are near.}

If I thought Maria would make a good early warning device, it was because my Wolfie hadn't shown it's crazy detection skills till now.

I mean, an early warning was nice, if it worked like a doorbell. But Wolfie worked like one of those GPS navigation apps that just kept dinging.

{Rogues are near.}

Right on cue.

Why was Wolfie repeating itself like that? It didn't even like talking, unless it's asserting it's dominance. Wolfie was never personable. But it was practical and smart...oh I suddenly got it.

Every time the rogues got nearer, Wolfie would ding. And the spacing of the dings would inform me, like the bleeping of the radar, how quickly they were moving.

I sighed looking at the training hall, we were like a panicked ant nest. We had been in peace for so long, we forgot... Well, some of us like me, had never known what it was like to be attacked by rogues in our own pack land. Yeah, life had been good to us.

I looked around suddenly realizing that none of my gang were here. Probably on home lockdown. Sometimes we had home lockdown drills for if there was an attack, but the threat was not eminent. Everyone would be on home lockdown now till the threat was eliminated.

The families here were the ones who lived in the pack house, mostly the families of the warrior wolves who have apartments here, or staff who served our pack administration and housekeeping etc.

As per tradition, elite warriors had the privilege of living in the pack house, each having a free apartment to their name during the time of their service. This way, their women and children would never be left alone should they be called to duty.

But like I've said, we have been in peace almost all my life. And many of our warriors, elite or not, usually chose to live outside on their own house and land. In times of peace, living closer to the children's school and supermarkets made more sense.

So many of our life decisions had been made on the assumption that our pack would continue to live in peace.

{Rogue approaches}

I startled. That was new development. And the word "approaches", I understood the timeframe I had left. The last time Wolfie said "approaches" I hadn't even had time to get to the front door before the doorbell rung.

Harvey lifted a brow, "Are you alright princess?"

Seriously? The nickname is spreading like a plague. It's like I had it on a note stuck behind my back, like a kick me sign, just that it read "call me princess." The effect was similar.

Although, I'd rather be kicked, at least then I can kick back till they learned their lesson.

{Rogues above}

Now I'm alarmed. What the heck. We were in the basement. Above us was the house. What happened to our guards or patrols or whatever it was out there?

"Harvey," I leaned closer to his ear and lowered my voice so only he could hear, "There are rogues in the packhouse."

"What?" Even in his shock, Harvey kept his voice under wraps. His body language remained firm and calm, and no one else in the hall was none the wiser. Good Beta.

"Are you sure?" Harvey asked me.

I nodded. My wolf had never been wrong yet.

"Let's go." I told Harvey, "We're going hunting."

There was a single door still unbolted to allow access to the washrooms. The corridor outside was narrow. The other door opposite was the hospital hall being set up. They even kept the doors open as supplies were being brought down.

It was as if the rogues passed all those medical staff, guards, and patrols outside without being detected.

Wolfie was quiet. Harvey was still by my side. For some reason, he hadn't questioned my decisions nor reported them to Flynn. Unless he was on mind link. That would suck.

"Beta Lucas request you to stay in the hall. He will send men to check." Harvey told me.

I liked that word, "request". Beta Lucas had never ordered me to do anything before.

It also confirmed that Harvey was on the mind link and that both our packs were now running on the special emergency mind link system.

Because our packs were still two packs, we couldn't mind link across packs to each other. We had a system though. In such times, Beta Lucas and Harvey's Dad, Beta Gerald, would hole up together in the same room and be the central controls. Communicating messages between to the right parties between the two packs.

I forgot Harvey obviously had his first shift long ago and was well connected to his pack mind link. Well, I could work with that. At the very least, he would be my walkie talkie.

"No time." I told Harvey, "They are already in the building. And my wolf can find them."

"But..." Harvey began to looked alarmed, "your Beta said..."

"You better come with me and report my movements then." I joked.

I slipped past the medical equipment coming down. "Try to keep up, beta." I threw back to him while smiling. My power surge was humming at the back of my mind.

Feels good.

I'm relying on my wolf completely now. Because I'm not sure who is reading my diary, I feel socially responsible to include warning: do not try this at home.

Harvey followed me in silence.

"Any update?" I asked him.

"They requested us to turn back." He told me.

"And you?" I asked him, "What do you want to do?"

"I'll follow you." Good answer beta. I award you with full marks.

For some reason, I wished Ben was around. Or Jonah. Or the other guys too. But I felt rather lucky, at least I had Harvey. He wasn't my beta but he was a damn good one.

{My beta}

Wolfie informed me.

What about Ben?

{My beta}

You can't have two betas.

Wolfie kept quiet. But I knew better to take it as a sign of its submission. It was more like Wolfie was waiting patiently for me to understand it was right. Of all the arrogance!

I caught scent of the rogues, faint, but I knew. Wolfie was pointing in my head immediately, rearing to go.

That's how I knew the direction of the rogues location, "The office. They are at the office. We will stall them, request backup."

I sighed internally. That's all I can do...again, like on Sunday with the idiot rogues, just stall for time till the full wolves showed up.

I hated that I was so weak in my human form. A girl even, and not even the tough kind of girl. If I had a wolf form though, that would be a whole different story. My Wolfie would be massive. I don't know how I knew, but I cannot believe it would turn out otherwise.

Harvey followed me without question as I slipped back to the back stairway. Using the main stairway up would have risked giving us away.

"How many rogues?" Harvey asked.

"At least two." I answered. I didn't even need Wolfie to talk now. I knew exactly what wolfie knew. There were two intruders in the office, not sure about the lookouts.

Harvey stared at me for a moment, then shook his head as if to clear it.

"What?" I asked him. I wished I could mind link.

"Your eyes..." He started, and shook his head again, "you haven't shifted yet right?"

I nodded. Right. He didn't have to remind me.

Harvey nodded too, "Its probably just the lighting."

What about the lighting? Well, besides the fact that it was like crap right now. Just the moonlight, the lights in the house were all off.

Except for the office.

The door was closed, but light had slid out from under it.

Should we attempt to take the open corridor there? They might hear us. But taking the balconies outside might give us away if they had look outs in the woods outside.

{Rogues are near}

I'm going to take that to mean that there were wolves in the woods outside.

"Beta, be completely soundless along the corridor. They would hear it from inside the office." I whispered to him. I checked the corridor, it was all clear.

Now how to stall them? I didn't want them to leave through the window or signal their friends outside.

{Rouges are near}

Tell me something I don't know.

{Alpha is near}

"Your dad said go back. He will take care of it." Harvey reported from the central mind link.

{Alpha approaches}

I understood. Dad had come at a super fast speed. I imagined him tearing through the woods and fields in King Kong mode. I guess he really didn't want me to "stall the rogues."

I remembered the last time that happened. Yeah, I didn't think mum took the blood well.

I grabbed Harvey's sleeve. He was wearing a black hooded gym jacket over his sweat pants. I tugged him and darted quickly across the corridor and into a supplies closet. He followed like a shadow.

We'll get out of the way.

I had hidden here often in my years of mischief with Savy or with Dean. It's a large closet, holding office supplies and it was always comfortable to plot and make preparations. It even came fully stocked with general office supplies and some cleaning equipment.

This time the closet felt a lot smaller. Have I grown that much? Or no, my partner in crime was much larger than usual. Harvey was taller than I was by a full head, and broad too, he was almost a full warrior. He remained quiet. We could hear my dad storm into the office. Naturally a fight broke out. I think at this point, I was just waiting for my dad to clean up the two wolves and get lectured for leaving the training hall.

But my expectation was crashed by a single gun shot from outside. The office window crashed too...again. More gunshots and wolves snarling.

If it were just those two wolves, it would have been over quickly. But there were snipers shooting in from outside now.

The wolves and guns cracked and rumbled and resounded loudly in the enclosed space. At least one of the rounds hit the wall I was leaning against. It was too loud to pin point exactly which one and the noise made my wolf feel disoriented.

You know how I said before that a shot gun would be my projectile weapon of choice? Yeah, I just changed my mind. They were too noisy.

Harvey pulled me closer to him, but I pushed away. So he switched places with me to stand closer to the wall where the gunshot hit instead.

For the second time this week, the office would need the windows replaced.