The Lunam Ceremony (Book One) (15 page)

Twigs and leaves crunch under my boots as I walk to Hopi. The playground outside the lodge is empty. Some mornings the children play on the swings after breakfast, but it’s too cold now. The infirmary building doubles as the nursery. It’s decked out with cribs and playpens. There’s even a bedroom for the nannies. Most of them have children of their own, so they don’t mind sleeping close to the smelly, crying, little monsters.

I reach the cabin and pull my keys out. Locking up the food was another issue for me, but Dillan adamantly agreed with Drake and Leah on keeping the food safe. Their argument about keeping animals and small children from pillaging our food supply seemed reasonable. I still felt shitty for having to lock the others out. I suggested we leave the key accessible to the adults, but I was shot down.

“What the others need is balance; they can live without a midnight snack,” Dillan had said. I guess he was right about that, too. Other than Clio asking for extra juice boxes for the children, no one has ever bothered me for extra food.

Besides Dillan and me, the other council members have keys—Rusty, Leah, Drake, Ray, Patsy, Tripp and Clio. We had to install the same type of governing system in camp that the pack uses. Someday we might have actual power over the pack, but for now we just run our little piece of it. It feels very elitist, but we need the structure. People need to know who is in charge. Who to go to when something is wrong. Who to turn to when they need a favor. I try to keep things fair. Like food. We sign our name beside the item that has been taken and mark the quantity. This keeps us honest and accountable. We all do it, except Dillan. He never comes here. He doesn’t even have his key on him. It’s hanging on a hook in our kitchen.

Hopi is climate controlled. The pantry is set to sixty-five degrees, which felt cool when we arrived in late fall. Now it feels warm inside. I pull my beanie off and unravel my scarf. I grab the clipboard off the wall beside the walk-in fridge and see Leah’s name beside the items she took for breakfast this morning. Clio also stopped by for yogurt and granola for the kids.

We are down to fourteen dozen eggs and the milk is close to expiration. Looks like we need to make another food run. The closest grocery store is forty miles away in Folsom. The highway is a narrow two-lane road that winds around the mountains. I get car sick every time I go on a run. Since we need to go shopping, I might as well inventory the dry goods. The less time I spend on that road the better.

I’m halfway done when I hear someone pull into camp central. I look out the window and see Dillan’s truck.
I didn’t even know he left the camp.
He’s never left without telling me before. I hope everything is ok. I run outside to see what’s going on, leaving my jacket in Hopi. The cold air hits me like a brick wall. I stop to go back and get my coat, then I see her. She hops out of the passenger door and looks around. I forget the cold and sprint towards her.

“Cassie!”

Cassie spins around just as I crash into her. The warmth of the truck and Dillan’s scent surrounds her. It feels odd smelling Dillan on another female. Something pinches the inside of my stomach. Cassie is crushed in my embrace, unable to move or speak. I feel her arms squeeze back and hear her sniffle.

“Are you surprised?” Dillan leans on the side of the truck.

I leave Cassie and run into his arms. I kiss him hard, forgetting Cassie is there. Dillan drops Cassie’s bags on the ground, then twists his fingers in my loose hair, and pulls my hips to him. The movement makes me shiver. “Where’s your jacket?” He starts to pull his coat off, but I stop him.

“I left it in Hopi. I’m fine.” I wave him off, but my body disagrees. I shudder in the cold breeze, and Dillan wraps me in his coat.

“I’ll go get it,” Cassie offers and steps away. “Just point me in the right direction.”

Dillan’s radio hums and he fumbles in his pocket to pull out the handheld radio. Cell reception is horrible up here, so the guys use the handheld. Sid calls them walkies. “What’s up, Drake?” Dillan speaks into the walkie.

“We’ll go together,” I whisper to Cassie and step out of Dillan’s arms.

He pulls me back for a goodbye kiss then jumps back in the truck and drives slowly past camp central towards Genny. Genny is the building with all the camp controls, like power and Wi-Fi, if we can ever get it working. We’re lucky to have electricity and running water, for that I’m grateful.

I help Cassie with her bags. There are only two of them, and we head to the cabin I reserved for her. I never gave up hope that she would come. Even after Dillan told me his father was having no luck convincing Conall to let his only daughter leave his pack for ours. Cassie is the last of his bloodline. Asking him to let her leave and join another pack with no hope of producing an heir was a long shot. But I had faith and now she’s here and I couldn’t be happier.

“Mt. Shasta.” Cassie reads the name above the door while I fish for my master key.

“Yes.” I smile as the lock clicks open.

Mt. Shasta is a large open room with a small kitchen and decent-sized bathroom. It was filled with old board games and a pool table. Ray and Tripp wanted to set it up as a man cave, but I pulled rank and told them to find another cabin. Mt. Shasta is four buildings away from mine and sits on the edge of the woods, so Cassie can have some privacy. Patsy helped me clean it out, and we moved furniture from one of the empty remodeled cabins into this one.

“It’s cozy,” Cassie says as she sets her bag on the sofa.

“It converts to a bed, see.” I pull up a cushion to show her the bed underneath. “We can get you a real bed if this one isn’t comfortable. I just figured the space is small, and this way, you can fold it up in the daytime in case you have guests over.”

“Yeah, right,” Cassie says bitterly. “Like Sierras really want to socialize with me.”

Her tone surprises me. “I’m a Sierra.” It hurts me to think of us as enemies.

“The females here will see me as a threat.” She picks at a loose thread on her scarf.

I take her hand and pull her onto the couch. “Everyone here knows how important you are to me. I have your back.”

Cassie looks up and smiles. I can see there is something she wants to say, but she holds back. Then I recall our last conversation. She said she didn’t want to leave her family, and now here she is with me, because I wanted her. “Cassie, if you don’t want to be here, I will tell Dillan to take you home.” The thought of her and Dillan driving back to Shasta together causes a pain in my chest. Maybe I’ll have Rusty take her home.

“No, I agreed to come. I wanted to see you. I’m just feeling out of place and I miss my family already.” Her eyes are glossy with tears.

I pull her in for a hug. Dillan’s scent has faded, thankfully. “Don’t feel out of place, this is your home now. I will make sure everyone knows it.”

I leave Cassie to get settled in and head back to Hopi to finish the inventory and let Dillan know we need to make a food run. The sun feels warm on my face; I lift my chin and inhale. I’ll never be able to live in the desert again. I’ll miss the smell of the trees and grass too much. Suddenly, this place doesn’t feel so bad. I have Dillan and Cassie. My life is complete. Once Cassie gets enrolled in classes and maybe even meets people outside the pack, she’ll see this was the best option for her.

I finish the inventory and lock up. The children are finally outside playing; I hear their laugher and screaming before I even reach the playground. I wave at Clio. She’s sitting at the bench with one of the older kids, reading a book.

“Kalysia,” she calls to me. “Wait up.” I stop and let her fall in step with me.

“I heard about Cassie,” she says cautiously. “Are you ok?”

I laugh a little and shake my head. “Why wouldn’t I be ok? I asked her to come, she’s my friend. Actually, she’s family.” Cassie called us cousins, but I know now that is what pack members call each other whether they have actual blood ties or not.

“Look, I don’t believe in this Shasta-Sierra pack rivalry. My mother was Shasta and my father is Sierra, I feel connected to both sides. I expect all of you, especially my closest friends, to respect my wishes and accept Cassie as part of our family now.” I see Clio shrink down a bit. Her head bows and she walks half a step behind me. “Do you understand?” I stop and look down at her.

“Yes,” she says quietly. “I understand, she’s family.” Clio nods and steps back even further.

“Maybe you should get back to the kids,” I suggest and she shuffles away.

My office, if you want to call it that, is next to the lodge. It’s a small building, about ten feet by ten feet in size. It’s just one large open room with a small storage closet off to the side. Leah and I each have a desk and computers that Leah deems are useless without internet connection. I use mine to track inventory, and I started files on everyone in camp. Just to keep records of births and matches, that sort of thing. This way there is no question as to our bloodline or lineage. I also have spreadsheets for job assignments, so we know where everyone is supposed to be at all times. I keep track of all of our food runs, and soon I’ll track our beer deliveries. The first couple of weeks here, we were all just trying to find our spot. Where we would fit in. I naturally started doling out orders and everyone listened. Even Dillan. I like that Dillan is accepting me as a partner in both work and pleasure.

The brewing is coming along great. I only visited the brew house once since I’ve been here. It’s a trek up the hill by foot. The only vehicles that can make it through brush and trees are reserved for the people that work out there. So, unless you hitch a ride in the morning with one of the workers, the brew house is cut off from camp. Dillan said we need to start distribution soon, but we are still waiting on licensing. Technically, we are brewing illegally. Not only by human law, but we are also breaking a pack rule.

When Dillan’s grandfather bought the winery that started Sierra-Duke, he created a set of rules. These rules were put in place so other branches couldn’t start similar businesses and compete with Tuluka. Dillan called it a non-compete clause. The irony of it is that nobody ever had enough power or money to compete, and now the rule is biting them in the ass.

In the mid-eighties, Shasta found a niche of their own. They started brewing beer. Every branch has their own variation of the same recipe. Shasta was the first to bottle and sell it. They opened a brewery in Dunsmuir, where Cassie is from, and their business took off. Soon they were distributing beer all over the country. The Tuluka branch is now breaking its own rule by jumping into the beer industry.

All of the branches are required to give the elders a percentage of their business. Thirty-seven percent to be exact. The Dunsmuir branch used money from the pack bank to start their brewery, so they have to give a higher percentage to the elders. This is why Lowell senior didn’t take out a loan to start the winery. Conall has to give more than fifty percent of his profit to the pack bank.

Dillan says Conall has been looking for a way to buy the elders out. To do that, he needs a lot of money. The Sierras offered to help, but he refused. So, Lowell and Monte decided to start a beer business of their own. Thanks to the non-compete clause, they have to get permission from Conall before we can sell a drop. Dillan thinks Conall is dragging out his approval because once the Sierras start to brew, he will lose even more power. The pack with the most money and pureblood alphas will eventually run the elder council and bank. I just hope Conall makes his decision soon, because according to Dillan we are at max capacity. We need to sell the beer we’ve made before we run out of places to store it. Cassie being here may be an indication that Conall has decided to let us brew, and he’s just making Monte and Lowell sweat it out. It isn’t like he can actually say no, the elders would overrule him if he did. Asking Conall for permission is mostly done out of respect.

I’m going through the latest stack of mail when Leah walks in. “Hey,” I call to her. “I have the list we need for the food run. Do you want to radio Drake and let him know?” I look out the window at the ominous clouds looming overhead. “We should go before it snows.”

“Yeah, ok.” Leah sits at her desk and fiddles with the knobs on her radio.

“What?” I say when I catch her watching me.

“I just heard Cassie is here.” I can’t tell if she’s just stating a fact or if she’s upset. She can’t still be angry about Lunam. It was one dance.

I raise an eyebrow to her. “Seriously? You’re going to give me crap now?”