Once school ends my friends and I made it to the school cafeteria. They were letting us use the cafeteria since it was the only place within the pack boundaries that could make food for the capacity for well over 12,000 people.

Onyx was pacing back and forth as the male wolves were carrying in the meat and ingredients for the meal tomorrow evening. I could tell that Onyx was anxious about the volume of stuff we had to do and the amount that needed to be made. Raven and Ella were having a small argument amongst themselves.

I put my backpack up against the wall and grabbed an apron out of the pile that was on top of the table. Once I have the apron secured on me, I pull my phone out of my pockets and text my mom, I’ll be at Ella’s for the weekend. I also explained that I would be attending the full moon celebration this weekend. Walking up to Onyx, ready to dive into cooking, she turns to me looking like a deer caught in headlights.

“I’m ready to start. What do you need help making?” I ask her, she then starts cracking under the pressure.

“I have no absolute clue on what we’re going to prepare. I don’t know what I’m doing at all.” The nerves clearly eating her alive.

“How about I help you get a plan going? Make it easier, efficient, and smooth.” I grabbed her shoulders trying to keep her grounded.

“What if the elders find out I wasn’t able to do it myself?” She puts her hand up to her mouth and starts chewing on her fingernails. I grabbed the hand and looked her in the eyes.

“What Luna doesn’t get help from someone? I’m pretty sure Luna Graciella has help every full moon. If they have anything to say they can shove it.” I said to her trying to calm her nerves. I look around me, I see Alexandre and his friends carrying tubs of meat and they were taking them into the kitchen area. “What kind of meat did they supply you with?” I ask.

“I think they gave me deer? I didn’t ask, but it smells kind of sweet.” She stated.

“Alright, so tomorrow night it’s supposed to be kind of cold. We can make a deer meat chili, it looks like they’ve given you tomatoes and I’m sure they have spices in the kitchen we’ll make it work. Now breathe.” I say breathing in deeply wanting her to mock my breathing.

“What about dessert?” She looks at me in wonder.

“Easy peasy, cookies. Look, if anyone judges you for not having the most extravagant dinner they can kindly fuck off. We’re going to prepare the food so, all you have to do tomorrow is get someone to come in and help you heat the food up. We can have 10 or so people make the cookies, and we can have 30 people preparing the Chili.” She blinks processing what I said.

“How are you so calm?” Her eyes were in wonder.

“I have anxiety myself and I hate seeing others fall into the same impending doom of an attack.” I smile. “That and I’m not the one being tested here. Now, let’s start getting ingredients prepared. Do you think everyone’s here?” I glance over my shoulder and see a small army of people here to help. “You’re managing everyone and what they’re doing, don’t worry about helping with the physical work.”

“Thank you so much August!” She hugged me.

“Let's show them, elders, you’re ready for this!” I tightened the hug before letting her go. I joined my friends who had stopped arguing with each other and were staring me down for leaving them.

“Good afternoon everyone, thank you for helping me with such little notice. I’m super appreciative of you all. I think the boys have almost gotten everything inside. So we’re making a deer chili for dinner and cookies as the dessert. I know it’s not ideal but it’s the best option with the amount of time I’ve been given. I need 5 people who are good with cutting meat from the bone, please raise your hand if you’re good at doing that. The meat needs to be diced up as well.” I raise my hand along with 8 other people. She chooses 5 people. “Once the meat is prepped I need around 20 people to man 40 big pots of the Chili.” A lot more hands go up in the air, she chooses 20 people. “I need help with opening the cans and prepping the spices.”

She makes her way down the list of things that needed people, till it was just me by myself waiting to be assigned a task. People start getting to their positions and start working.

“I’m sorry I didn’t choose you for the smaller tasks, you’ll help me with making sure everything goes over smoothly. I think that task will be the hardest one of all.”

---

We were through prepping the food. We were having the boys help us get the big pots of stew into the fridge, we also covered the abundance of cookies as well to keep the moisture. Once we were fully done we shut the lights off in the kitchen, the only people who were left inside of the cafeteria were my friends and Onyx’s friends.

She gave me a hug and held onto me tightly. “Thank you so much for helping me organize my thoughts. I don’t think we would be done right now if you weren’t here.” She says into my shoulder.

“It’s honestly no problem, they shouldn’t have thrown this pressure on your shoulders today,” I state pulling away from her grasp. The doors open to the cafeteria and Alexandre walks in holding his hands up, keys in his hand.

“My sweet, are you finished here? We need to be getting to my parent's house because we’re supposed to have a pre-ceremony dinner with the elders.” Onyx takes a deep breath. I assume that this was news to her, she looks like she was going to crack under pressure again.

“Yeah, she’s almost done here, she just needs to help me get something out of the back,” I said grabbing her hand and I pulled her through the cafeteria and made it into the kitchen area. The low glow of the emergency lights being the only lighting inside of the room.

“I didn’t know we were supposed to do this today.” She breathes out as soon as the door closes. “What am I going to do, I feel gross after all of the stuff we did.”

“Don’t worry about appearances, if they have anything to say about that just say that you were working hard to make magic happen.” I grabbed her shoulders, although she was a good three inches taller than me, I could tell that she felt small. Her confidence was wavering and the pressure on her shoulders was practically visible to any and everyone.

“I feel like the elders hate me or something, this is a double whammy, they’re putting me through the wringer.” She puts her hands up to her face cupping her cheeks in frustration.

“They’re testing you, it's a few months until Alpha Alexandre takes over the pack in his hands. You need to remember to keep your chin up.” I tried giving her a pep talk. “Look anyone would crack under this type of pressure. Don’t think it’s just you hun’ you’re doing a great job. I’m excited you’ll be our next Luna.”

“August, how have I gone this long without you?” She asks, her eyes had visible tears pooling in them like the ocean was about to crash its waves out of her eyes.

“Dunno, but do you feel a little better now?” I asked her, getting a nod in response. She brings her hands to her eyes, flicking the tears away.

We exited the kitchen and made our way back to our friends who were waiting for us. Onyx dashes into Alexandre’s arms. He pecks her lips and embraces her tightly.

“Are you ready to go now love?” He looked her in the eyes. She smiled and nodded her head.

“Thank you guys, I’ll see y’all at 3 in the afternoon to heat the food up?” She looked at all of us with pleading eyes.

“We sure will,” one of her friends Katie replies.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you. Especially thank you August.” She grinned at me, showing all of her teeth.

“Not a problem.” I grinned back at her.