The Rise-Book II

Chapter 30: Cinnamon Rolls

"It's alright, everything is alright. Just go home and lock your doors until you hear from us, alright?" The young she-wolf nodded her head to me while her young pup clung to her leg.

"Thank you, Luna," she breathed out to me before she picked her pup up and carried him to her cabin.

I wiped some sweat off my brow while Andrea herded more families toward their homes. We had been directing people to their home and trying to keep our pack calm, which was much easier said than done. The pack was scared to death, to say the least, and they had every right to be.

I would be lying if I said that I wasn't frightened as well, but we had to keep going. We had to come together and push forward even with fear breathing down our necks.

I could feel their anxiety, though. The smoke in the air was a familiar reminder of things; things with blood and ash that forever tainted this pack.

My eyes found the smoke stack over Thomas' cabin over the trees, it was starting to gray which brought me a little relief. We didn't need the fire spreading throughout the pack, there was enough shit to clean up already.

"Char!" Andrea called out. "We should probably head back."

I nodded. "Ok!" I turned to Murphy who was keeping a watchful eye over his squad of warriors as they helped people home. "Murphy, keep at it here. I'll come find you later, ok?"

"You got it, Luna," he replied with a firm nod.

I walked back to Andrea, who rubbed her face with her hands. "This is insane. How did they even get him out?"

"I don't know, hopefully, Levi found him."

Andrea breathed out a laugh as we started to walk back towards the pack house. "Hopefully he didn't kill him."

"Girls!" Caden called out, stopping us in our tracks as he trotted to us. "Jesus, wait for me you two."

I sighed and gave Caden an apologetic smile. He had been running around trying to keep up with Andrea and I for the last hour; mostly trying to pull his hair out while we tried to keep the pack calm as they walked to their houses.

"Sorry Caden," I replied with a tired smile.

"No worries Char, not like you two just almost gave me a heart attack." He smiled and nudged Andrea. "Looks like everyone is tucked in?"

"Almost," she replied.

"We can come back after we check in," I added.

"Good idea," Caden said as we all walked together through the valley.

"It's getting late," I thought out loud. "You all should stay here tonight. We have room. It's a far run back to Lusa and with everything, I feel like it's probably not a good idea to let you guys run back."

"Char will be–" Andrea started to say when I held a hand up to her.

"Andrea save it. You guys can take those extra rooms in the pack house. Is that ok with you Caden?"

"It's a good idea." Caden mused. "Sorry Andrea, I doubt Jaxon will disagree."

"Fine, fine," she grumbled out. "You owe me a bottle Char."

I rolled my eyes. "Alright." Caden chuckled and shook his head while a small coy satisfied smile tugged at Andrea's lips. With my luck, I was going to owe her a whole damn cellar of wine.

Ethan was talking with Jaxon and Billy when we walked in. He flickered his eyes to me and let out a relieved sigh; rushing over to me with a face and torso smudged with ash.