Garrick was old, even older than he looked. He was a head shorter than his three sons, but he still drew glances on his rare trips to town. With his straggled mane of grey hair and patched up lumber shirt and denims, strangers to the area would take him for a 60-something hobo, but the citizens of Pulver knew better than to judge the man. For as long as anyone could remember Garrick Stone had been an occasional feature of their lives and there were even old folk in the town who could remember him from their youth; only he hadn’t been young then.

The full moon was still a week away but that didn’t stop Garrick from being restless. In the recessed shadows of the barn he sat brooding and smelling the night. Some of the young folks had yet to return. He wouldn’t have minded if those that could had just been stretching their legs in the woods or hunting. But some of them had gone to town to the Shack to ‘hang,’ as they called it these days, or to slum it on the main drag.

Mostly it was the young women who had yet to master the curse who cavorted themselves in this way and he had yet to approve of what these girls were wearing. In his day the unmated females didn’t go out at all, let alone give a display of casual flesh to outsiders.

He thanked the Old Ones that he didn’t have daughters of his own, but there were many sent from other packs or the near grown offspring of his old brothers in his charge.

That was another thing. He alone of all his brothers and sisters had been blessed with three sons. In the last century nearly two females had been born for every male and still the lesser packs sent their daughters to be trained.

Trained, he snorted, more like fed and housed. He and Augusta couldn’t train them all. The older women were almost as bad as the youths these days and there was no respect for the old ways. At least his sons did their part with the men, but with Sundance there were four of them to lead the fewer young men who needed guidance.

So far he had resisted the pressure to let the unbloodied from mating, not that they didn’t couple off in the woods when it suited them. Garrick tolerated because it kept the pack distracted. It irked him that the twins had yet to take mates even though they had been bloodied for over a decade. But he couldn’t argue that as a distraction for the unmated females they served him well.

He laughed, well aware of his double-standards here. Then he frowned again, knowing that soon they would mate and their previous dalliances would seek mates of their own. Some of the Bloods, both male and female were even urging him to allow the men to take more than one mate.

Garrick sighed. In his day only the Alpha and his immediate cadre took more than one mate. But that had been the days when sometimes the sub-Alpha females had more than one male consort. Times had changed.

He didn’t care really and sighed again. Now was now. He just wanted respect. He had only taken a second mate for form’s sake. Augusta had made him, but at least she and her sister-wife Clarice were close.

He was still mulling this over when he caught a scent. Two men not of the pack were near. Very young he guessed and not easy on their feet. The two with them were more subtle, two of his. He could not tell yet which of his errant youngsters they were; their store-bought perfume masked them. Then he heard voices.

“When can we see you again?” the boy’s words were loud in the night.

“Shssssh,” he was girlishly soothed, “They will hear us.”

Lana, Garrick thought, and the other will be Keri. She had kept her voice low and she was a good 100 yards away still, but these youngsters had no idea what an old grey like him was capable of.

There was some kissing and Garrick caught a scent of sex. Damn these kids. They were barely a year out of high school and with outsiders yet. He waited.

It wasn’t until the two boys were gone that he showed himself.

“Garrick,” Lana said breathlessly, an embarrassed smile playing out on her face.

“Hello Sir,” Keri said meekly. Her smile was more nervous.

They were both wearing cut-off denims and store-bought singlets that he believed were known as T-shirts these days. There was a gap between their midriffs and the low slung shorts. Keri, the smaller of the two, was a dark unenhanced blonde with a pony tail. The more Latina heritage Lana had her dark hair to one side and hanging over her ample right breast.

“Didn’t Augusta set you a curfew?” he said with a stern easiness.

Keri looked sideways at Lana who crossed her lips while her brain considered a lie; she ruled it out. “Busted,” Lana said airily.

Keri winced, all hope now gone.

“Well the night is young… oh that’s right, it isn’t,” Garrick said pleasantly as he glanced at a watch-less wrist.

“Can we do this now?” Lana said hesitantly, one finger held aloft as if in school.

“Now and then nose to the barn wall until breakfast… or after breakfast?” Garrick threw out as if it was of no importance to him.

“Barn wall ‘til dawn,” Lana reluctantly proffered; her wheedling face still held some attitude.

No doubt the public shaming element was what she was striving to avoid. Garrick smiled at the audacity that he was to be bargained with. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

After breakfast some of the night hunters went back to bed and some of them had to rush off to jobs, Lana thought. There would be fewer people around, she adjudged. A breakfast show would be for just about everyone. “Tomorrow then,” she said with a forced pleasantness.

“Tomorrow,” Garrick growled, “Goodnight ladies.”

*

Jared Stone stretched himself languidly on the bed, allowing his powerful arms to reach up to support his head as he yawned. As the Hunt Master and Garrick’s eldest he set his own agenda, but still it did not do to set a bad example to the others. Besides he was hungry and he could already smell the bacon in the pan.

He was a big man, bigger even than his father. Outwardly he appeared as a well-kept 40-year-old and the mane of dark hair still looked good on him. His piercing eyes had such dark irises that they blended with his pupils, an almost demonic look that was completed by a slightly crooked nose and a ragged scar under his right eye.

Rain eyed her sister-wife’s amusing predicament for a second longer and then rolled over to paw at her husband’s broad hirsute chest, she was happy for once to have him all to herself. Not that Melanie wasn’t fun too sometimes, she was, but one-on-one was a rare pleasure.

Unlike the local girls, Rain was slender and dark, with small breasts and pert high set buttocks that became lost in ill-fitting clothes. Standing up this subtle beauty was covered by the clean sheen of long straight jet-black, an asset that now draped itself like a dark shadow across Jared’s naked form.

He reached now and pawed her smooth bottom as he contemplated one last tryst. Then he looked across to Melanie standing naked and facing the wall. Her well-toned back funnelled down to the flare of her hips and the full circle of her fulsome bottom. This morning it was stained red from a good spanking not 30 minutes before, a top-up correction for an ongoing punishment.

Up until the day before her luscious long blonde hair had hung to the base of her spine, but then she had cut it page boy style. Jared was not best pleased. He eyed Rain as if to say if she ever did such a thing…

Rain smiled and followed his gaze back to Melanie’s tender tail.

“How long are you going to be mad at her?” she said, kissing his chest.

“Until it grows back,” Jared growled.

Even Rain gaped. “And you’ll spank her every day until then?”

“I might,” he growled, directing his remark to a passive Melanie unmoving amid her corner time. “I just might.”

*

Augusta confronted her morning visage in the mirror and considered changing her war paint. She had never been much one for vanity, but sometimes it was expected. Besides she had time. These days Clarice supervised the work in the kitchen and others would clear away. Sometimes it was nice to be Queen of the May and Alpha bitch supreme. Not that the role suited her. She was Garrick’s and she would have had him even if he had been a humble blood.

She was 30 years his junior, however old that was, certainly not young. Not that it showed much. Most were surprised that she was Jared’s mother, but then all of her kind readily stayed in shape. Only her neck, the hint of crinkle eye and a few strands of grey in her hair hinted at her true age.

Clarice was younger of course, much younger, but no kid. She barely looked 30 and around town most figured the twins, John and Adam, were Augusta’s sons, a fiction it served the pack well to maintain. After all they both really were a little over 30 and looked younger.

There had been another, but she was gone now. They didn’t talk about her, although not a day went by that Augusta did not mourn her absence.

The Alpha female shook off the bad memories and returned to her lipstick. Her eyes met those in the mirror. No, she thought, the hint of eye shadow is enough, time for breakfast.

To be continued.