Page 29 of Pack: Posy 3
"I wonder how far away it is from Bora Bora."
"I don't know, but we can look it up later if you want. Why?"
"Because Mason said we could go to Bora Bora sometime and if it's close enough to Samoa, why not stop there, too?" She bounced in her seat as her thoughts whirled. "Do you think any of her family still lives there?"
"Again, I don't know, and I wouldn't even know how to find out. A lot of that information was lost when Dark Woods fell."
"That's when you went to live with Jayden, right?"
"Yeah. His dad, Jay, was my mom's brother.”
"That’s right!” she chirped. "Peri told me and Ariel that you and Jayden are cousins!”
"Mm-hmm. Uncle Jay and another one of my dad's allies, Shawn Black of River Rapids, got the call when the hunters attacked, but by the time they got there, nearly all of my pack was dead. Of course, they had slaughtered a lot of the hunters, too, so it was kind of a clean up and salvage mission from that point on."
"Shawn Black was Wyatt's dad."
"Yep. We'll get to that part of the story in a minute." I flipped the page to show the photo of Jay and Denise Carson. "So Uncle Jay and Aunt Denise adopted me and folded the survivors of Dark Woods into their pack, Moonset. Since the two packs share a border, it was easy to do. They buried the dead and life went on."
"Do you know how your mom died?"
I knew why she was asking. It was unusual for a luna to be on the front lines and not in the safe room with the pups and other vulnerable pack members.
"Uncle Jay found her a few feet from my dad. She was quite a warrior, one of the best in Dark Woods, actually." I chuckled. "Uncle Jay used to take credit for that, saying he was the one who taught her everything she knew about fighting."
"Wyatt said he'd teach me some self-defense. I haven't brought it up again because you seemed against it, but I would like to be able to take care of myself."
"I know, and I thought about it since we had that conversation, and he's right. You never know what situation might crop up, and you should haveoptions, as Peri likes to say." I pecked her forehead. "And it's just smart."
"Thank you. I have no desire to be a warrior, if that eases your mind. In fact, I'm not even sure I'd make it through a single session of fighter practice. But yes, I'd like options in case I ever find myself alone in a bad situation."
"Then we'll make that happen." Looking back at the photo album, I turned the page to show five boys and one girl climbing a tree. "Here's all of us with Mason's twin, Willow. He told you about her, didn't he?"
She nodded as she studied the picture, and I continued telling the story.
"Uncle Jay was best friends with the three alphas whose territory bordered Moonset. Royal Price, Mason's dad, Shawn Black, Wyatt's dad, and Nathan Barlow, Cole's dad. After I went to live with Uncle Jay and Aunt Denise, we always were at one of their places or they were over at ours. That's how we boys became such close friends, along with Willow, and our dads encouraged it."
"Did they know then?" She looked up at me with curious blue eyes. "Did they know that their packs would one day merge into one?"
"No. Not then." I turned the page to show her Royal and Julia Price with Mason and Willow the year before the sickness hit. "Poor Willow died in the first wave of the sickness, then Nathan's wife, Kelly."
"She's Cole, Peri, and Archer's mom?"
"Yeah." Going to the next page, I showed her the Barlow family. "She was a great lady. Very independent. Very strong. Of course, that's the memory of a twelve-year-old Ash."
"Ah. I see she’s the one who Cole gets his darker skin tone from.”
"Her dad was Maori, one the aboriginal peoples of New Zealand, and her mom was from the Haida tribe in Alaska,” I explained. "Cole and Archer got Nathan’s green eyes, but all three of them got their mom’s dark hair and brown skin, and Peri got her brown eyes.”
"Wait. Peri has blonde hair.” Posy tilted her head as she looked at me.
"She dyes it, baby.”
"Oh!” She blinked, then looked back at the photos. "It's so sad to see their smiling faces in these photos and know that they were gone less than a year later."
"I know." Draping my arm around her shoulders, I pulled her into my side. "You want to keep looking or stop here for now?"
"I'd like to go on. Is it too hard and sad for you?" She turned her earnest face up to me, and I smiled down at her.
