At dinner with the loners, Fox sat in his spot at the end, and Star sat beside him. Seb sat down across from Fox again, and Fox tried his best to ignore him.

Dinner was similar to the food they ate yesterday. A mix of not-so-great greens, leftover bits of meat from rotisserie chicken, and overcooked corn on the cob. Star gave Fox her corn, and Fox gave Star his kale.

“Star,” Fox whispered, after they exchanged desired foods. “Do you know what happens to the lone wolves who die here?”

Star frowned and gave him a slightly disapproving look, an expression of “why would you ask that over dinner?” and Fox morphed his visage to one of apology. 

“Sorry, I just want to know,” he added. What he was truly searching for were any hints that Anodyne wasn’t a secret. Star sighed and picked the meat off a chicken bone. 

“I heard that we are taken somewhere outside the pack. Hung up in a tree not too far from the border, as a sign to ward off any other lone wolves who might be thinking of trespassing,” she said.

“I heard the pack eats us,” Seb chimed in. Star glared at him.

“They’re not cannibals, you fucking idiot,” Star told him. Fox’s eyebrows rose in mild surprise at her vulgarity. 

“You’ve never wondered what’s in the mystery meatloaf?” Seb retorted. 

“It’s beef, Seb. We’ve been over this a hundred times at this point,” the lone wolf woman with the shaved head said from beside him. 

“That’s what they want you to think,” Seb countered, pointing his fork at her. There was a collective groan and more than a few eye rolls all down the table. 

“It tastes like beef!” Warren said, exasperated. He was seated a few werewolves down from Seb, thankfully. Fox didn’t want to watch another fight over an extra handful of food.

“Who’s to say we don’t taste like beef?” Seb asked. 

“Seb,” the older gray-haired wolf said. “We don’t taste like beef.”

He said it so matter of factly that the table all grew silent and tense. Fox felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He’d bitten a number of werewolves before, but only enough to taste the grime of their skin and the tang of their blood. You’d have to rip out a chunk of flesh and really chew it to get a good idea of what the muscle tasted like.

Fox glanced at Star, who glanced back. It was a shared look of acknowledging a threat. The old loner didn’t appear to be one, with his age and indifferent demeanor, but his statement alone alerted them that he had probably done something sinister before his time here at Lily of the Valley Pack. Fox now knew not to spend time alone with him.

Seb shut up after that. Fox decided that none of the lone wolves knew what fate awaited them when they died here, which probably meant that no one knew about the naga at all. Given how secluded the conservatory was from the rest of the pack sectors, Fox wondered if anyone besides the Alphas knew about Anodyne. 

And considering what he’d just learned about one of the loners, he didn’t think he should go telling any of them about him. 

~~~

The next day, Fox finished his shadowing of the Alphas with Leyra. Because he was immediately accompanying her on her duties, he was allowed to eat breakfast with them. 

Breakfast consisted of fresh fruit and warm buttered biscuits. Fox ate his fill of four biscuits and whatever fruit the other two women didn’t eat, which amounted to a full bowl. The permission had been given by Sunshine, and thus also permitted by Leyra. Fox duly noted that he would need to find a way to thank Sunshine for her continued kindness. 

After breakfast, Fox followed Leyra outside. She did his tour first, showing him the remaining sectors he’d yet to see. She showed him the entrance to the hunting grounds, which took up a good chunk of land and extended out past their territory. Because of that, it was off limits to him unless he was with an Alpha. She then took him to an area somewhat close to town and the housing sector, which had a recreation center and a communal cafeteria, where the pack could come and eat meals together, sharing food and ensuring everyone had enough. Fox discovered that this was where the leftovers and scraps came from, which were collected at the end of each mealtime and carted over to their bunkers. In addition to that, there was also a waste sector, which was just their term for the pack’s dump. It was fenced off completely on the outside, and had more fences within it that sectioned off specific areas from each other. One section was a junkyard, one was for recyclable waste, and one was for general garbage that would be packed up and hauled away to some other official dump where it would be disposed of properly. 

Then, Leyra took him to the farming sector, where another large chunk of land was dedicated to growing their own food. There were orchards for fruit trees, greenhouses for plants that needed more controlled environments, rows of potatoes, lettuce, wheat, corn, and other vegetables, and also a section for berry bushes. 

When they reached this sector, Fox was instructed to help Leyra do an inventory check. He followed the Alpha around and took notes on the things she instructed him to write down. His time with Leyra was uneventful, and she was neither harsh with him like Evander had been, nor as friendly like Ahren, but she paid attention to him and made sure he didn’t wander off. When he was done with her work, he helped prune some tomato vines and washed the day’s pickings with a couple pack members. 

Fox was more than grateful to return that evening to a warm shower. Dinner was only leftover chili and cornbread, and yet another fight broke out between Warren and some other lone wolf that Fox hadn’t learned the name of. Fox hoped he would be able to keep his spot at the very end of the table, with a Beta posted a few feet behind him.

~~~

The next day after breakfast, Fox hadn’t been given orders on where to go, so he thought today was his day off. He made his way back to Leyra’s house, but he didn’t want to head back inside right away. He paused out front, gazing up at the sky. 

When he woke that morning, there had been a few gray clouds in the distance, but everywhere else had been fairly clear and sunny. Now, though, over the course of the last couple hours, those clouds had darkened and grew larger, and a wind had picked up, hard enough to cause his clothes to billow against his torso and legs. The sky was quickly growing overcast, and Fox knew a rainstorm was on the way.

He worried about Anodyne. Did he fare well in weather like this? Did the thunder and rain beating on the glass walls and ceiling make him anxious or scared? The conservatory seemed sturdy enough, but Fox couldn’t help but wonder if its abandoned state made some parts of its structure unstable. He thought about finding a blanket and maybe a lantern for the naga, in case of power outages. 

As Fox pondered the worsening weather, he heard someone walking across the dirt street.

“Hey, armadillo,” a male voice called. Fox looked down from the sky and spotted Alpha Evander striding towards him. Fox looked around him for evidence of an actual armadillo, wondering how a little creature like that had wandered all the way out here. But when he found no sign of one, and Evander snickered, Fox realized that the Alpha had been calling him armadillo. 

Fox frowned. The Alpha beckoned for Fox to follow him. “You’re with me today,” he said. Disappointment and dread sank low in Fox’s gut at those words. His plans to see Anodyne were now out the window. On top of that, his bruises still hadn’t faded all the way, and his shoulder and chest were still healing.

“What are we doing?” Fox asked with hesitance, trailing after the Alpha as he continued walking towards the path that led to the training sector. 

“Last day of evaluations for the new recruits. Afterwards, we’re going to sit down and go over everyone’s notes to see who will fit better where, or who didn’t make the cut at all,” Evander told him. 

“Am… am I going to have to fight again?” Fox asked quietly. Evander looked back at him, surveying the state of Fox’s healing progress. 

“No, you won’t have to fight. What I had you do before was only to give you an idea of your rank here in this pack,” Evander replied. Relief loosened Fox’s tense shoulders. He felt better about following him, and kept up with his long strides, even as the wind blew hard against their sides.

At the training sector, a medium-sized cargo truck was parked by the snack shack. The field laid empty of any recruits, unlike Fox’s last visit here. It was just him and Evander, and the driver of the truck who was lounging on one of the picnic benches. 

Evander went up to the back of the truck and hauled open the gate. Inside laid different weight lifting equipment. 

“Start unloading all this and placing them in specific sections. It doesn’t matter where, just as long as everyone has enough room to move around without hurting each other,” Evander told him. 

Fox was hesitant to carry around so much equipment, but he responded with a “Yes, sir,” and approached the truck. He began unloading piece after piece, picking out spots in the open field to place them. Wherever he placed the pieces, Evander began to assemble them. 

Fox had to ask at one point. “Is there no gym here?” 

“No indoors one. We used to have one, but the enclosed building filled with sweating werewolves caused a den of pheromones, which led to problems of aggressive competitiveness, both physical and sexual. When it caused an Omega’s heat to come early and endangering his well-being, we had to shut it down. Now we utilize open outdoor spaces and monitor them. Usually it’s here, sometimes it gets moved to the field by the recreation center, sometimes it’s borrowed by homeowners to use in their own private spaces,” Evander said. 

“Oh,” Fox replied as he set down another piece of the equipment Evander was putting together. He didn’t think about gyms being problems for werewolves, and he grimaced at the image of a bunch of hormonal men and women going at each other, in various ways.

Without much additional chitchat, Fox continued his task. After moving out all the pieces, he then had to move out the weights themselves. They started off light and easy, ranging from dumbbells to rubber plates to sand-filled balls. Fox struggled with some of the heavier ones, but he didn’t want to appear weak and useless, so he dug up his inner strength and carried what he could to the field. He did well, lifting with his legs and pausing when he felt his muscles giving out.

The problem came when he went to lift a large tire, suited for intense squatting-and-tossing exercises. It was nearly as big as him, but Fox figured that if he could get it out of the truck and upright, he could roll it out to the field. It was currently on its side in the truck, so Fox knelt down behind it and attempted to push it towards the end of the truck bed. 

Doing that proved to be difficult. Fox’s shoes slid across the truck floor, the tire not budging. Fox shifted his footing and tried again, managing to shove the tire a few inches. He tried this a few more times until his shoes slid out from underneath him again. He grunted and winced as his knee hit the hard metal flooring.

He groaned and took a moment to let the sharp pain rise and ebb into a dull ache. Yet another bruise for him to expect. Fox sighed and climbed out of the truck. He’d managed to push the tire within reach, so he leaned forward and tugged the tire closer, yanking it towards him repeatedly in quick short succession. 

Eventually, he managed to pull it all the way out, sending it down to the grass with a loud thud. Fox made sure to jump away as it fell so that his feet wouldn’t get crushed under it. He knelt down and attempted to pull it upright, but he could barely lift it a few inches off the ground. Fox tried again. And again. He adjusted his stance and grip and tried again. 

How heavy was this thing? Fox didn’t want to be embarrassed, accused of being weak over something he should be able to lift. He had a feeling Evander wouldn’t let him live it down, his failure serving as fuel for entertainment. 

Fox gritted his teeth and yanked it up, then crouched down and propped his shoulder underneath it. He strained under its weight, holding his breath as he tried pushing it up.

“Fox, stop, stop,” Evander said, the Alpha quickly approaching him. “You don’t need to carry this, it’s nearly five hundred pounds.” 

The Alpha knelt down and tucked his arms under the tire ring. Thick muscled bicep, deltoid, and pectoral filled Fox’s field of view, and then the heavy weight was lifted off him. He sucked in a relieved breath and watched as arm and chest moved to show him an equally muscled back, strong and firm. 

Evander lifted that tire up like it only weighed two hundred pounds. He set it upright and kept a hand on it to keep it steady. “Ask for help next time,” he told Fox, and he rolled it towards the field.