Chapter 182: Come Back With More Meat (bonus)

Moments later, Calis found himself in a discussion between Bessier and Olaf. The males had for some reason, come to pester him when he had decided to pause and sit at his spot against a tree.

Though calling it a discussion was generous.

"—and I am telling you, the left one was bigger," Bessier was saying with the conviction of a male defending a matter of life and death.

"They were the same size," Olaf said.

"They were NOT the same size. The left one was fatter. It had a lump."

"It did not have a lump."

"It had a DISTINCT lump, Olaf. On the side. Near the bottom. How did you not see the lump?"

Calis had no idea what they were talking about. He had been sitting quietly against his tree when the two males had wandered over and planted themselves beside him as though they had been personally invited.

They had not been invited.

"Even Tera said the left one was bigger," Bessier pressed.

"Leader Tera said they were fine."

"She said ’this one is a bit rounder’ while pointing at the LEFT one. That means it was bigger."

"Rounder is not bigger."

"ROUNDER IS LITERALLY BIGGER! What else would rounder mean?!"

Olaf’s expression remained perfectly flat. "It means rounder."

Bessier looked like he was about to burst a vein. He took a sharp breath, glanced at Calis, and immediately forced his face into something dignified.

"Sorry, Alpha." He frowned at Olaf. "Behave yourself. You are in front of another leader."

Olaf straightened his back and folded his hands in his lap. "We were simply having a calm exchange of observations regarding the animals in your pen."

Bessier also adjusted his posture, giving Calis a respectful nod. "Yes, yes."

A full second of composed silence passed.

"The lump was there," Bessier whispered.

"There was no lump."

"I will drag you back to that pen and SHOW you the lump—"

"You will show me nothing because it does not exist—"

"Compose yourself!" Bessier hissed, jerking his chin toward Calis. "We are in front of the leader of another pack!"

"YOU compose yourself! You are the one whispering about lumps!"

"Because you refuse to acknowledge the lump!"

"BECAUSE THERE IS NO LUMP!"

Bessier threw his hands up. "When that animal trips and falls over because of its lump, I will be sure to tell everyone that Olaf said it was not a big lump!"

"It IS not that BIG!"

"It has a LUMP!"

Calis’ forehead creased with a worried frown, his crimson eyes moving from one male to the other like a wolf watching a ball being thrown back and forth.

He was astounded.

In his pack, conversations had purpose. They were brief, direct, and ended when the information had been exchanged. Two wolves would never even have the audacity to sit beside their alpha and argue about whether an animal had a lump on its body with the escalating passion of males debating the fate of their species.

And yet neither Bessier nor Olaf seemed remotely embarrassed. They kept snapping at each other, then catching themselves, then straightening up with solemn faces, then immediately crumbling back into the argument as if the lump was a personal offence that could not go unaddressed.

Was this normal in Tera’s clan?

Calis would have walked away, but his gaze had already drifted past the two bickering males, across the clearing to find Tera.

He wasn’t thinking about the curves his mind had traced before, but he noticed the smaller things he hadn’t constantly been aware of.

She did look well rested. Her eyes were light, and her face carried a softness that came from proper sleep. Her hair, which she liked to tie up most of the time, fell across her shoulders in loose strands that looked very soft.

Calis realised he hadn’t really touched her hair before.

Her face from last night flashed through his mind. The way she had looked lying on the bank, her parted lips, and the heat in her eyes when she had looked at him in the stream made his chest tighten.

But this time, he didn’t fight the thought as hard as he would have.

He was growing tired of fighting it.

Her eyes were very pretty, and the warmth in them as she eyed the females of his pack was similar to how she would look at her clan members whenever she checked up on them.

And there was this usual sharpness in them that startled him at times, leaving him with the vague feeling that she could somehow see straight through him.

She tilted her head at something one of the females said, and a strand of hair fell across her cheek. She pushed it back absently, still focused on the conversation, and the movement exposed the line of her neck.

Calis looked away.

His gaze landed on the females sitting around Tera instead, and for the second time that morning, he focused on them.

They were lean. Their bodies carried more muscle than softness, the same way the rest of the wolves did. Only Calis and a few other wolves were well built, but the raw meat had mostly been helping, even though they didn’t eat as much.

But Calis hadn’t stopped to consider if it was fine for the pregnant females to look this way.

He had felt the lean, muscular frame was peak efficiency the way it was for the rest of the males, only for Calis to catch himself when he realised males could not grow cubs in their bellies.

He remembered the Dow clan females and how they looked refreshed and not as lean.

Were his females not healthy?

The question sat in his chest like a stone, and Tera’s words from last night pressed against it.

"In your bid to repopulate the world with wolves like you, you have been destroying the very females you need to do it."

Calis’ jaw tightened, and he wrenched his attention back to the ground in front of him.

A cub toddled past his line of sight, and Faelynn’s voice excitedly rose from the group.

"Come back with more meat, please? The ones with the smoke fire taste in it."

"Yes. Yes!" the other females chimed in while Tera laughed in response, standing up.

Calis was confused. What did they mean by ’come back’?

He turned to Bessier and Olaf. "Are you all leaving?"