THE TEA ON ME

9 FEBRUARY, TUESDAY, 5AM

"Who's Boo?"

"The really bad scary one that I think is probably evil." I answered.

There was a silence. And then Mate answered, "Isn't it obvious princess? That's your wolf. The puppy was the 10 year old wolf from your first merger. 'Boo' is your wolf as it is now."

My wolf was evil?

"But what I don't understand, is how when I look, I only see the puppy." Mate's expression soften when he looked at me. He stroked my hair gently.

"That might be the second part of the technique Alpha Kingsley taught her. As you pressumed, Luna, the first technique enables an adult wolf to half shift and access the wolf's power quite seamlessly even in the human form..."

Bell interuppted, "That was thought to be impossible. It's insane, not to mention f***ing dangerous."

"Yes," Ki cut back in, "As Alpha Kingsley realised when he saw what happened to his brother. Without a clear distinction between wolf and man, what resulted was a monster. So he created a control technique to repress the wolf selectively. For example, Alpha Kingsley was able to utilize his wolf's strength and speed without physically turning beastly in form. And we have all see your princess move and strike with supernatural prowess, and even produce claws even while maintaining an otherwise perfectly cute human form."

I flared and Ki corrected, "I mean, a perfectly terrifying human form."

That's better. I folded my arms and sulked. Ki chuckled. Mate smirked. They were both in a good mood this morning.

"On top of that, it seems your princess has somehow modified the control technique to run on default. Unlike her father who had to actively apply both techniques at the same time. Your princess' control technique appears to be a passive one." Ki said.

"Like in a computer game?" I remembered the game I had been playing on my phone when I first got it. It had active and passive abilities, "Yes, my control technique runs automatically in the background."

"You know I don't play computer games." Bell grumbled.

"Her control technique is run subconsciously at all times." Ki explained.

Yes. I wished mum was here to hear this - the level of my self control - "at all times"!

"And subconsciously, she uses the control technique to suppress her wolf so only the puppy version merged to her is able to surface." Ki continued, "We aren't sure what the trigger is, but every now and then, her control breaks and 'Boo' is able to surface. Because it's operated by her subconscious, it's largely instinctive, and she can't control it."

Okay, so Mum didn't have to be told the whole thing.

"Why?" Mate asked. He turned to me, "Why are you suppressing 'Boo'?"

Eh? I'm not? I was? I hugged myself tighter and sulked even more.

Now Mate came closer to me, growling gently, he touched my cheek with the back of his hand, "Baby, why are you suppressing Boo?"

I flared at that! Don't call me baby!

Because that was all it took for my mate to surface Wolfie. And then the tears started falling.

"F***." Mate said.

Ki handed him a tissue. He gave it to me but I wouldn't take it. I wasn't crying. Wth was wrong with me? Why was I leaking?

"Boo's mean." I told Mate. And then I shook his hand off my hair and swatted his tissue away, "I'm the alpha. I will protect everyone's happiness."

{Damn cute.}

Mate didn't say that out loud, but he patted my head and pulled me closer so my forehead touched his shoulder.

{Safe.}

"You know it's a matter of time before Boo takes over." Ki said.

"No." I flared childishly, "Dun wanna."

The guys laughed.

"Let it be, Ki." Bell decided, "It's probably for the better."

"That's what her dad said too. In fact, her parents plan to... Goddess, I'm technically speaking to your Luna and not to you when I say this, but her parents plan to suppress her wolf till she is 18."

"Cos Boo is mean." I said again. Now that I heard my parents plan, I was all for it.

"Baby, there is no such thing as a nice black wolf." Mate informed me.

"Not true! Dad's nice. Beta Lucas is nice." I could list lots of nice black wolves, "Ben's nice. And Esmeralda! Esmeralda is nice! (Except to Oscar), Grandpa Alpha was really nice too! (Didn't you hear all the nice things everyone said at his funeral?)"

A lot of my favourite people were black wolves.

"They're nice to you, baby." Mate corrected.

"Black wolves are highly territorial and aggressive in nature." Ki felt he should remind us.

"There's no shame in that." Mate said matter of factly. He had let go of me to fetch his jacket. Ki took it as his cue to help Bell into it.

"It's probably why Night Leaf is the only pack on the Green Packlands that successfully kept out the rogues all these years." Mate added ruefully.

"They blew up my home!" I flared again.

"Whose idea was it to let them in?" Mate challenged.

Yeah, who's stupid idea was it to let them in... Oh wait. I think that was me.

"Your Dad's insane." Mate shook his head, "I can't believe he used rogues to demolish his home so he could renovate."

"The rogues completed in one night for free what would have probably taken at least three weeks with a professional construction crew. I understand we received a huge insurance payout from it too." Ki smiled.

"You black wolves are insane." Mate shook his head again.

No, no, no. That's just Uncle Louis. The rest of us were perfectly sane wolves! The entire fiasaco with the rogues was just an accidental miscalculation....right? It just happened to work out to our benefit. We were lucky like that.

"Well, they don't call your dad a mad genius for nothing." Mate concluded.

I flared. Who called my dad a mad genius?

"I believe the polite term would be 'maverick' Luna. Alpha Kingsley's unofficial title is the Maverick of the Green Packlands." Ki seemed to feel it was important to remind Mate, "Not mad genius, rabid dog, or babarian alpha."

Those were what they called dad?

Cool.

"What about me? Did I get any cool nicknames too?" Of course I wanted to know, wouldn't you?

"You're the Alpha Princess." Ki said firmly.

"Yeah, but what am I not?" Maybe it was too soon.

"At this point, I believe you're known as Alpha Kingsley's daughter and Night Leaf's future alpha in Lycan society." Oh great. I guess I wasn't known for anything at all.

Ki continued, "The vampires know you as the Little Blue Alpha. Although it is not public knowledge that this is one and the same as Alpha Kingsley's daughter."

So the vampires knew me? Like just Edward and his coven or like all vampires?

"Your most controversial alias was the Kingsley Heir. Which was used over the years in the High Council during leadership renewal discussions. At the point, I understood it to refer to either yourself or your future mate. Your father had deliberately kept it undetermined this way for many years." Ki informed me.

"Keeping his plan to make his daughter the next heir underwraps until it was too late to be contested. Mad, but genius." Mated approved.

So Dad had meant for me to be the next Alpha from the onset? Really? Tbh, I think these two were giving my dad too much credit.

"Later on, this title of Kingsley heir was changed to Night Leaf Future Alpha because Alpha Louis felt that the Kingsley Heir title implied that the person would by birthright also be the Future Alpha of Night Forest, thus the controversy." Ki explained, "I found this while investigating Alpha Henry's claim that it was your birthright."

"He was just speaking hypothetically." I argued.

"Well, it was hypothetically true." Mate said.

"It certainly explains your uncle's refusal to accept that your grandmother handed you that ring. It wasn't so much about access to the family vault, although of course there was that, but it is the heirloom ring of the Kingsley family." Ki told me, "Handing her ring to you would mean handing the reigns to Night Forest."

"But the ring was not a Kingsley ring, it was from my Grandma Luna's side." I argued.

"Kingsley was actually your Grandmother's maiden name. Your grandfather was married into the Kingsley family. It was as contracted, as with her mother, and grandmother - which is another point that indicates your birthright. The Kingsley lineage had always been passed down the maternal line, without male offspring. Your father's generation was the exception, with your grandmother having no daughters."

Why had no one ever told me these things? And how did Ki get his hands on this information?

Because he was my Beta. I felt quite sure he had access to the papers in our document room. He just needed time to read everything.

"So following tradition, it was not so much for you to change your name to Lorent, than for your Luna to change his name to Kingsley." Ki concluded with his usual brilliant smile.

Mate growled. He had not liked to be told that. I laughed, "Luna James Kingsley."

JK! I mean, just kidding.

I wasn't going to change Bell's name. It would be a waste of paperwork.

A Lorent by any other name was still a Lorent. These two were always going to be Lorents no matter how much they hated their own home packs.

They talked like Lorents, they reasoned like Lorents, they fought like Lorents, they PRed like Lorents...In all of Lorent Packlands, Bell and Ki were probably the most blue blooded Lorent princes. Well, them and Charles probably.

They even dug up my family history and narrated it into some kind of Lorent-like saga.

I'm quite sure my family history would have been read quite normally by any other normal person...right?

Right. Whatever. It was the past anyway. My name had already been legally changed. I wondered if Grandma Luna had known it when she said the only one to keep the Kingsley name would be my little cousin Edgard.

At the time, I thought she meant that Edgard would be the rightful heir to Night Forest. Because Dad left and blah blah blah... She never did approve of Dad leaving Night Forest. She never accepted Night Leaf as an extension of Night Forest, despite the homage our pack name paid to Dad's home pack, or the fact that Dad always referred to Night Forest as his home pack or family pack.

We were a young pack. Most of the adults had home packs or family roots someplace else.

Ki checked his watch, "Goddess, the breakfast table is open in the dining room. Delta Emerson and his family are still in talks with Alpha Lorent there right now. You are due to leave for school in an hour."

"Let's go down and make sure my old man doesn't go soft on Delta Em." Bell decided.

"Understood Luna." Ki smiled and held the door open. I watched them leave and sighed.

It's not true! Not all black wolves were territorial and aggressive! I mean white wolves were supposed to be peaceable and compassionate and look at how Bell and Ki turned out!

And boo wasn't just territorial and agressive. She was fearless - and that alone frightened me.

There were a few people I never want to become. These were the women who have left such an incredibly strong and silent imprint on my mind.

One. My Grandma Luna, who was too proud and alone to ever be happy.

Two. Evelyn, who lived everyday being pitied.

Three. Priscilla.

It was the look on her face, the lines that broke under the make up. The family she had left behind. The son that had left her. The unpleasant man who was her mate. Her large home that felt hollow.

I'm really not good that the soul searching thing. I'm not good at the Ki-style narrative that strung points from past and present, and produce endless speculatives to conclude with dramatic flourish.

I took a quick shower, got dressed in my uniform... Oh look, my school bag had appeared, with all my books, my kindle, and phone all fully charged (and lest I forget, tracking my every move.)

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't affected by what Ki had said. It wasn't the first time I've heard him "pour tea" but it was the first time I heard him pour tea about me. It felt weird

Ki was a tea master, but now that I've heard his spin on my dad and me, I was beginning to understand why they called it tea - it wasn't just because they were drinking it. It's because the most delicious tea was also just plain water stained with tea leaves, steeped over conversation, and then presented in pretty cups and adjusted with just the right amount of additives for its listener.