Innocent Little Runt
Chapter 11

Celeste’s POV

I played with the sleeve of my thin sweater as I waited for Xavier to finish talking to his Beta. Today he wanted to take me around the pack and introduce me to some new people. It scared me, to be honest. I have never really had to meet new people. Every now and then when people would leave us and join a pack I met the Alpha, Beta, or Third-in-command but when I met them they all did the same thing. Look me up and down, sneer in disgust, and turn away.

I stiffened when I smelled Xavier. His scent usually calms me down greatly but right now I just thought about the fact that I will have to meet new people. I feel his hand on my shoulder and the tingles calm me down, despite my worried state.

“Are you ready, little one?”

“No, but I doubt that would make a difference.”

“Now or never, right?” I fumbled with my sleeves again and nodded my head. I glanced up at Xavier to find him smiling down at me with pride. How could anyone have pride for a runt? “Come on, little one.” I nodded and took his outstretched hand. “We can start with the men who are training since they’re closest.”

“Men who are training? What about women? They are allowed to train, aren’t they?” He chuckled and kissed my forehead.

“Of course they are. We usually split the week in three. Mondays and Thursdays are the training for men. Tuesday’s and Friday’s are training for women. Wednesday’s are both. The weekends are an option for everyone except for the warriors who have four hours of required training each day.” I nodded, glad that this pack isn’t one of those packs that don’t let women train. My old pack was like that and look what happened to us.

We walked out of the pack house and went behind where there were a bunch of men a bit of a way off. When we got there, I saw a guy who looked kind of familiar. He had brown hair and light brown eyes. He, like all the other men training, was shirtless. He, however, had a large scar running diagonally across his chest. I felt like I had seen him before, except I hadn’t. At least not like this.

We walked over to him and the man smiled at Xavier.

“Xavier,” he nodded in acknowledgment. My eyes widened when he called Xavier by his name. Not a lot of people are allowed to call Alphas by their first name.

“Jake, how is this morning’s training going?”

“Just fine.”

“Good and where is Josh?”

“You never said he couldn’t train.”

“I just want you two to officially meet someone.” He nodded and walked off into the crowd of men training.

“Who was he?” Xavier didn’t answer me until the man came back with another guy. He also had brown hair but his eyes were dark brown. His skin also wasn’t as tan, which was kind of odd for a werewolf.

“Celeste, this is Josh,” he pointed to the dark eyed one. “And this is Jake,” he pointed to the other one. “They are my third in commands. Josh is my best tracker and Jake is my best warrior. Josh, Jake this is Celeste. She’s my mate and I expect for you two to treat her with respect.” When he said that he looked directly at Jake. My eyebrows furrowed in confusion but I smiled at them nonetheless.

“Hi,” I mumbled and started playing with my sleeves.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Josh said. Jake only nodded in acknowledgment.

“We have to get back to training,” Jake said.

Xavier nodded and smiled down at me. “See,” he said as both of the guys started to walk off. “It wasn’t that bad, was it?” I shook my head.

“But this is only the start, isn’t it?” He chuckled and nodded, pulling me along with him.

For the next three or four hours Xavier and I walked around the pack so I could meet people. A few of them just smiled politely others squealed saying that they were, “so happy to have a new Luna.” There were even a few who pulled me into a bone crushing hug that made Xavier chuckle and made me feel like someone was crushing me. Oh right, it was because people did crush me.

“Are we done yet?” I asked Xavier, whining slightly.

“Almost. I just want you to meet one last person and then we are going to be done.”

“Is it really that important? I feel like my mind is going to explode from all these new faces and names. Is it possible to be socially exhausted? Like, just tired of people? Because this is kind of new for me and I don’t think I’m liking it.” His eyes softened and without warning he scooped me up in his arms bridal style. “I was joking you know, well kind of. This is the first time I have done something like this but I don’t exactly mind it.”

“It’s fine, little one. She doesn’t live too far away.” My thoughts stopped when he said she. Who was this she? Was she better than me? Probably. I doubt that there is anyone who isn’t better than me.

I shook my head. Xavier is my mate. I’ll be fine. Stop thinking about it Celeste! I g*****d and, for the entire way there, I couldn’t get my mind off of this ‘she.’

*~*~*~*

“Celeste, hey. Snap out of it.” I shook my head. At some point I buried my head into Xavier’s chest to try and distract myself. I guess I had gotten lost in my thoughts.

I heard a faint giggling and; a soft voice saying, “She’s so cute. And she’s your mate?” My eyes widened when Xavier chuckled. I quickly pushed myself away from Xavier’s chest, almost falling on my butt. I patted my hair down and straightened my outfit as if I was about to meet the most powerful man in the world.

I looked up to see a tall girl with blonde hair with purple highlights and green eyes. Her skin was a nice tan that could make any man drool and any girl jealous. She was wearing a summer dress despite the fact that it was fall. She had a few piercings and a tattoo on her shoulder that said something in Latin. She smiled sweetly at me, her perfect white teeth only made me more self conscious. She held out her hand to me, “Hi, I’m Lesa. I’m Xavier’s sister.”