Luna strode into the Lyall family cabin, trying to force herself to feel more confident than she did. It was never an easy thing to break bad news to Artemis Lyall, even if you were her firstborn daughter like Luna was. Luna found her mother stark naked in her wolfwoman form in the kitchen, sharpening her fierce-looking claws on a whetstone. Artemis Lyall regarded her daughter appraisingly. "I assume you have news about the new recruits, Luna?" she asked.
"Yeah," Luna said, suppressing a shiver and forcing her tail out from between her legs. She glanced down at her furry pussy, hoping it didn't reek too much of the sex she and Lucy had just enjoyed. "You know those sorority girls I recruited?"
Artemis nodded her red-furred head. "Yes. There were nine of them, as I recall."
Luna's ears went flat with nerves. "Yes, well... uhhh... it's actually eight now. Crystal Colton dropped out." A lupine whimper escaped her muzzle as she spoke. Was this how it felt to be Selena?
"She what?!" Artemis snarled, baring her knife-like teeth. "For Lady Moon's sake, why?!"
"She grew up on a horse ranch," Luna hastily explained, her furry tail sinking back between her legs. Even a werewolf like her could be nervous in the presence of a larger, beefier werewolf like her mother... especially when that brawnier werewolf was clearly pissed off. "I swear, it was nothing I said or did! Her entire life revolves around horses, and you know how easily horses spook around us. And then there's the incidents some of our teenage wolves have had, like that time Dawn Connors got into that farm pasture and killed a cow. It would just be too much of an adjustment for Crystal to join our pack."
Artemis narrowed her eyes sternly. "She could have managed. I can control myself around livestock. Your father can. Lucy Littlewolf and her mother can, For Moon's sake, you can! It's just a matter of discipline and impulse control. As for spooking, any good horse can be trained to be comfortable around dogs or even wolves and werewolves. My old pack actually kept a small stable of horses on the homestead because the alpha didn't trust cars. You and Diana obviously did a shit job of reassuring her!" Artemis buried her red-furred head in her clawed hands, her furry hackles rising in frustration. "Honestly, you're going to have to do better if you're going to be the great alpha I know you could be! Oh well, I suppose what's done is done. You did bring in eight straight and bi young women to fight and birth cubs for our pack, as well as two males as a bonus. So, I assume you've disposed of Crystal?"
"Umm... what?!" Luna's jaw fell open in shock, her canine tongue lolling out.
"Disposed of her," Artemis casually repeated, nonchalantly going back to sharpening her claws on the whetstone. "You let this Crystal girl know our pack's secret. We can't have word getting out to the government, the police, the Church, the 'monster' hunters, or even our own neighbors. We'd be hounded out of town, carted off to a secret lab to be experimented on, or just plain murdered. If Crystal isn't joining, the smart thing would be to kill her to shut her up forever. Blabbing humans in the know are a risk we can't take. Not when we have our lives and the lives of our cubs at stake." Artemis studied her eldest daughter's face for a moment before sighing in exasperation. "You didn't kill her, did you?"
"No, I didn't," Luna confessed, reflexively assuming a battle stance in case things turned ugly. "But I'm sure we can trust her. She may not be becoming a werewolf, but that doesn't mean she's staying human much longer."
Artemis growled venomously, scraping her long claws hard against her whetstone. "I swear, if that bitch is joining those motherfucking bloodsuckers at Karnstein Manor..."
"She isn't!" Luna hastily cut in, eager to end that dangerous train of thought. "Horses are even more uncomfortable around vampires than werebeasts. She'd never do that! She's thinking about going pooka."
"Those shapeshifting faeries?" Artemis asked, putting down the whetstone and idly flicking her exposed nipples as she pondered. "I suppose that's... acceptable. Faeries make for, ahem, unpredictable neighbors, but it beats another leech added to Carmilla von Karnstein's undead brood, or even another recruit for that mysterious werehyena pack whose stink has been wafting through our territory lately."
Luna felt her ears go flat at the mention of her mother's animosity toward Selena's werehyena pack. To her humiliation, she also felt her nipples hardening as her mind drifted to Selena's gorgeous werehyena muscle and hir scrumptious cock. Luna pushed those uncomfortably incestuous thoughts from her head and focused on the immediate danger. At least her mother didn't know that Selena was this mysterious werehyena alpha. "Yeah, that werehyena business is weird. I've never seen one around, despite the scent." It was a lie, but maybe it would help downplay the idea that the werehyenas were some kind of threat.
"Neither have I," Artemis snorted. "Suspicious. I'd wager anything that cunt Carmilla and her clan of fangs have something to do with it. Smuggling in allies for a war to exterminate us, no doubt!"
If Luna hadn't learned better lately, she'd have nodded along. It wasn't easy to overcome the prejudice against vampires that Artemis had raised her with, but she knew she had to try for Selena's sake. After all, one of Selena's mates was the vampire girl Tatiana von Karnstein. Luna couldn't imagine a werebeast having the nerve to take a vampire (the enemy, the leech) as a permanent mate, but somehow Selena had found the balls to go for it. Did growing literal balls give hir figurative balls, too?
"Still anticipating a war, huh?" Luna said out loud.
"Of course," Artemis nodded. "That's why I'm glad there's some decent fighters among your recruits. You say Erika's something of a vicious beast already?"
"Yeah, she's always picking physical fights," Luna nodded. "She's nearly been kicked out of our college sorority six times for damaging its image with all her violent stunts, and she's been arrested twice. She's serving community service as we speak!"
"My kind of girl!" Artemis grinned. "We're a race of savage warriors after all. We can't afford to get all soft and 'civilized' just because the humans are closing in around us. We are tooth and claw, the very soul of the wilderness! Remember that." She critically eyed a tube of lipstick that Luna had left on the kitchen table. "You belong to the world of werewolves, Luna Artemis Lyall. Their ways are not your ways. Not at heart."
"I did quit shaving my body hair, you know," Luna grumbled. "Doesn't that make up for me liking makeup and believing in the value of shampoo? We're primal, not barbaric."
"Perhaps," Artemis shrugged skeptically. "You certainly have the dominant instinct of an alpha, as any daughter of mine should. Not like your sisters. Diana's admittedly a great athlete and fighter, but she had no head for strategy or command. She doesn't have the ruthlessness for the job either. As for Selena..." Artemis just made a scoffing noise. That said all she needed to say on the subject of her non-werewolf daughter.
Luna couldn't hold it in. "If you think I'd make such a great alpha, why are you so supportive of Lauren Frost challenging my claim? I'm your freaking daughter! She's a stranger!"
"Like I said," Artemis responded, "a leader must be ruthless. I may not be an alpha, but I'm an alpha's mate. I share the responsibility for guiding and defending our pack. As such, I need to be sure that the most worthy werewolf succeeds your father. If it's you, great. I'll be very honored. If it's Lauren, then so be it. All that matters is that the pack gets the leader it deserves. It's all I can ever afford to care about. As a mother, I may not like it, but that's the price I pay for being in a position of responsibility for our pack. I cannot let the Stokerville pack suffer the same fate as my birth pack, slaughtered by vampires like livestock!"
"I guess I understand..." Luna sighed, "but I WILL prove that I'm the wolf for the job! By the time Dad steps down, Lauren will be food for the crows!"
"That's the spirit!" Artemis grinned wolfishly. "That attitude makes future alphas. Lauren will have to be something incredible to overcome it, let me tell you! Now you'd better call up your remaining recruits. Tell them to drive down here as soon as they can. I want to transform them before the next dawn breaks." She patted the jar containing the transformation salve that Morgana had sold her.
"Gotcha, Mom," Luna nodded. "I'll got make the call."
As Luna left the kitchen and took out her iPhone, her head filled with fantasies of Selena's cock again. Ugh, she thought. Why did Mom have to bring up the damn werehyenas? Now she's got me thinking of Selena's dick again! Why did it have to be my sister?! Why HIR dick?! Hmm, maybe it doesn't HAVE to be HIR dick. I bet that cock would look just as good on Lucy... or on ME. I'm going to have to talk to Lucy about one of us growing one. I'm sure Morgana would help... but would Mom EVER be REMOTELY okay with that?! Well, it WOULD help repopulate the pack...
Luna shook her head to clear it of her musings and dialed Brooke's number. "Hey, Brooke? Gather the girls and bring them all down to my family's cabin at the homestead. Mom's ready to transform you all into werewolves. Got it? Okay, bye."
Shen then punched in Dylan Clancy's number. "Hey, Dylan! It's Luna. You know, your werewolf one-night stand from Vodka Voodoo Bar & Grill? Mom's ready to induct you and Jake into the pack. Get you and your brother over the the homestead on the edge of town. Our cabin's the big one in the middle. Excited? Good. Bye!"
Well, that was that. Luna silently congratulated herself on a good job well done and headed over to the bathroom for one of those warm showers her mother scorned so much. Wolfy or not, it was exactly what she needed after an exhausting day like this.