They watched the rest of the movie in companionable silence, only interrupted by Leah snacking on the stinky chips. Natania absentmindedly caressed Leah's skin, making sure to keep her hands in safe and respectful locations. Eventually her hip started to cramp, but she ignored it. Unwilling to disturb the girl in her arms.

She felt a fierce protectiveness as she watched Leah, who had her full attention on the screen. Natania was surprised at the force of it. For a moment, Natania was afraid Valerie had been wrong, she would not be able to give up this wolf, not in fifty years, not in three hundred.

As the end credit's started, Leah tensed up suddenly. Natania dragged her focus off of Leah and tried to figure out what had bothered her. She heard it then, the sound of her father's footsteps. Leah ungracefully freed herself and got to her feet, wiping her hands nervously over her clothes.

Natania got up more slowly, then moved so she was between Leah and the still closed door. "It's okay," Natania murmured softly, so her father couldn't hear. "I'm here."

Natania gestured for her to sit, Leah shook her head and remained where she was. A large black snout pushed through the dog door and Natania nodded to her father. "Hey Dad."

Alistair paused halfway through the door as he noticed Leah. "You have company."

Natania shrugged. "We watched a movie." He narrowed his eyes. "In or out dad, you're letting in the cold."

Alistair snapped his teeth at her, before finally entering the house. There wasn't any heat in the motion but Leah flinched anyway. Natania made a mental note to figure out why she was so afraid of him, if it was by reputation or action.

Alistair padded into the living room without shedding his wolf skin and gazed appraisingly at Leah. "Hello," he said.

Leah's eyes widened and she shifted instantly, dropping to the ground a wolf and ensuring her head was lower than his. Natania put a hand on her head. "He won't do anything to you, it's okay." Natania sent the thought privately, pushing a touch of charisma to help calm her down. Leah muttered a stiff greeting.

"It's Leah, yes?" Alistair shot a questioning glance at Natania who nodded.

"Leah has agreed to be my second," Natania said, so her father wouldn't question why the wolf was in their house.

The black wolf raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were going to pick the omega boy."

"Branson," Natania bit out, it irritated her to no end that he refused to use Branson's name, "is my third."

Alistair rolled his eyes, but thankfully didn't comment. Instead he approached Leah, his massive form towering over her. Leah ducked down lower. Alistair sniffed at her, then ran his nose along her left side. Natania tensed a little, hoping he wouldn't notice that she was covered in her scent, and just associate it with being in their house.

Alistair didn't comment on her behaviour. He was used to wolves cowering in his presence. He preferred it that way.

The black wolf stepped back, then nodded with approval. "You seem strong."

"Thank you sir," Leah said quietly.

"She's faster than me," Natania broke in, trying to pull his attention so he would stop staring at Leah, who was getting increasingly afraid, "and she can hold her own quite well. Excellent at hunting."

Alistair shot Natania an amused glance. "You don't need to sell her to me. I trust that you made a good choice." He walked into the kitchen and finally took his human shape. "Is she staying for dinner?" he asked. Natania heard him turn on the oven. Leah, still in wolf form and ducked behind Natania, shook her head vehemently.

Natania didn't want her to be uncomfortable so she replied, "No, I'll walk her home and then come set the table."

Alistair poked his head back into the living room. "You don't have to send her away on my account," he said, "you've never had company before."

"No," Natania agreed, "but it's getting late, and her family will be expecting her home."

"All right," he said. "Dinner will be in an hour."

Natania waved for Leah to go and followed her out, keeping herself between Leah and her father. He wouldn't do anything, but she could tell it made Leah feel better.

Natania leapt off the porch, landing beside Leah in her canine form, then shook out her sand coloured fur. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," Leah replied, but her shoulders were hunched. "Sorry."

Natania nuzzled her. "You did nothing wrong." She paused, then asked, "why are you so afraid of him?"

Leah's ears twitched. "He's not someone you want to piss off."

Natania bumped her shoulder and they started walking in the direction of Leah's house. "Has he hurt you?"

"No, but I've seen the way he treats my parents."

"He's not very kind to Sara either," Natania admitted. "I'm sorry."

Leah shook her head. "You are not him." A long moment of silence, only interrupted by the crackle of leaves under their paws, passed before Leah spoke again. "You call Sara by name."

"To others," Natania agreed. "I call her Ma to her face. He's not pleased that I consider them family, more my family than he is to be honest, but I try not to aim his ire at them. He thinks they made me weak."

"You're not weak," Leah said.

"Soft then. He asked me, when he first took me back, what I thought the alpha's job was." She turned her gaze upwards. "Do you know what answer he wanted?"

Leah shrugged. "To rule?"

She nodded. "To lead, he said."

"What did you answer?"

"To protect the pack." She shot a glance at Leah. "And that is why I picked you." At Leah's confused look she added, "I haven't forgotten that you put yourself between Branson and those that would harm him." Her voice took on a bit of a growl at the memory. "None of the others would have, not if it meant being outnumbered."

Leah shrugged. "I'm not sure I would stand in front of some of them."

"I think you would."

Leah shrugged again then, in a deliberate attempt to change the subject, asked, "what was it like being raised with the omegas?"

Natania frowned. She stayed silent for a long time, trying to think of a response. "The pack treated Sara poorly, and Thomas like he didn't exist. Sometimes we were hungry, and sometimes the power went out, but that house had more love in it than anywhere else in the pack."

"Sara told me that the time she spent nursing me was the only time the pack ever looked at her like an actual person. She was the first to eat after Alistair, they wouldn't risk her not having enough milk for me, and even they couldn't tell her that her own child couldn't eat until I did, so she never went hungry."

Natania heaved a great sigh. "Once I was weaned, they wanted to take me, but I wouldn't go. She was the only mother I'd ever known, and I wailed like a banshee when they tried to separate us. They couldn't handle the screaming so they let me stay, but they stopped treating her like she mattered. They brought food for me and would have left her to rot." She snarled under her breath.

"I didn't know why, they didn't explain what I was until I was older, but I wasn't going to eat if they weren't, so the rest of the pack tried to keep her away from me instead. They ran her ragged with hunting and patrol duties. She would be home at night, so I wouldn't tantrum, but she was burning out. Branson rarely got to see his mother either."

Natania slowed and kicked the ground angrily before walking again. "I wish I had known back then. I wish I could have put a stop to it. She suffered for a year before I was big enough to make a stink about it. I started following after her, and dragging Branson along with me. We almost died trying to follow her on a hunting trip in the snow but Miranda found us. She put a stop to it." Miranda was her father's third, Mason's mother. Sara had told her Miranda was the one who'd brought Natania to her in the first place. Natania liked her well enough, would have liked her more if she'd actually done it for Sara.

"Miranda is usually fair," Leah commented, echoing her thoughts. "But her mate is a menace."

Natania nodded. "So she went back to normal duties. I don't remember much about it. It wasn't until I was five or six that it became a problem again. When they told me that she wasn't my actual mother, and by extension, that my father didn't want me. They were not nice about it."

Lilah, Ezra's mate, had told Natania when she had refused to leave Sara's side during one of her patrols, that Sara wasn't her real mother and wouldn't want her bothering her constantly, that she should leave the adults to their business. Sara had been furious. She hadn't dared attack the second's mate, but she had wanted to.

Natania continued with her story, "She tried to soften the blow as much as she could, but there's only so many ways to tell a kid their father would have left them to die. They tried to get me to leave again, I almost did, but only because I thought Lilah had been right, and I was bothering them by staying."

"Sara loved, loves, you," Leah said.

"She does," Natania agreed. "She almost smacked me for thinking otherwise. She said she wouldn't stop me if I wanted to go, but she would be damned if she let me go because I thought she didn't want me. That I was family and nothing would change that. So I stayed, and they went back to trying to separate us, trying to make me think she was worthless because she was omega."

Natania shook her head. "I told them if my mother was worthless then so was I and closed the door in their face." Natania snorted. "I wasn't very good at comebacks, being six and all. Anyway, I love my foster family, and I would choose them over my father in a heartbeat, but watching them constantly be disrespected and abused, when to me they were my whole world, was awful."

"Sara never said a damn word back to them, she followed orders, took their insults and chose kindness every day. If she didn't have a nice thing to say, she wouldn't speak, then she'd aggressively pluck weeds from her garden or something. She never wanted anyone else to feel like she did. Sara and Thomas loved us, and did their best."

Natania's voice lowered to a growl. "Sara is the reason I will not stand by and watch anyone be treated like dirt. I couldn't protect her as a child, but I damn will now."

Leah brushed against her flank. "She sounds like a good mom."

"The best," Natania agreed. She didn't want to linger on the memory, so she changed the subject. "So tell me, why the races?"

Leah laughed, the grey cloud hanging over her dissipating with the sound. "I wondered how long it would take you to ask again. Apparently not long." In a more serious tone she said, "I guess I wanted to see how serious you were. If you'd keep trying, knowing you would lose, or just get angry and throw your weight around."

"You wanted to see if I thought you were worth swallowing my pride?" Natania snorted.

Leah gave a wolfish grin. "Something like that. Or if you'd be an insufferable loser."

"I can accept that I'm not the best at everything." Natania bumped her good naturedly then raced away. Alistair would complain if she wasn't back within the hour. It only took a second for Leah to take off after her.

They weren't too far from Leah's house and Natania skidded to a stop, slipping a bit on the leaves. Leah crashed into her again, like she had during their last race, and the two wrestled playfully. Natania was breathing hard by the time she got Leah pinned and let out a breathless laugh. The door to the girl's house opened and Naomi approached, keeping her pace slow. "Is there a problem?"

Natania glanced up at her and Leah took the chance to gain the upper hand, shoving upwards. Natania stumbled back and Leah pounced. "It's okay Mom," Leah panted as she pinned the honey wolf beneath her. Leah held her teeth against the fur at Natania's throat.

Natania tilted her head in submission and let herself go limp. Leah playfully nipped her exposed neck then stepped back to let her up.

Naomi frowned at them as Natania rolled to her feet with a snicker. "It's okay Naomi," Natania assured her, then shook the leaves out of her fur. At least it wasn't mud, dried mud was a pain to get out of her pelt, and it was often muddy in the mountains thanks to all the rain they had.

"Are you going to tell her?" Leah asked.

Natania twitched her ears. "Don't you want to?"

"It'd mean more coming from you."

Natania raised an eyebrow at the blue wolf, who nodded. With a shrug, she padded over to Naomi. The woman took a step back and wouldn't meet her gaze so Natania gave her space before announcing, "Leah has agreed to be my second."

Naomi's head shot up so fast Natania was worried she would hurt something. Shock flared across her face. "Second?" she said it like she didn't believe it, so Natania nodded.

Leah brushed up against her side. "I was surprised too," she admitted.

"Oh honey, I'm so proud of you." Naomi wrapped her arms around Leah's canine head and kissed her nose.

Natania dipped her head and started backing away, but Naomi held out a cautious hand to her, so she padded back to them and pressed her nose against the outstretched hand. Naomi stroked her muzzle gently, though Natania heard her heartbeat pickup.

"Thank you, for saving me. And for protecting my daughter."

"Just doing my job." Natania moved so the top of her head pressed against Naomi's hand and rumbled with content when she scratched behind her ears. Leah snorted beside her. Natania ran her nose along Leah's cheek affectionately. "I have to go now. Have a good night," she told them before finally turning towards home.