Page 2 of Violet Moon (Pitch Mountain Pack #1)

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While snacking on bits of a leftover pear tartlet she grabbed from the bakery last night, Sera sorted through her sparse wardrobe of mostly neutral colors and threw together a simple outfit of trousers, a button-down, and a plaid vest with minimal effort, savoring these last few peaceful moments as the afternoon sun pierced the clouds and shined through her curtains.

Sera kept typical werewolf hours, starting her day in the afternoon and ending it well into the night. Werewolves could exist in daylight, unlike their vampire neighbors, but it was more draining.

She shuffled around her bedroom in fluffy socks while humming to herself and looking for the watering can and mister she’d left somewhere yesterday afternoon.

She tended to wake up almost too late to water her plants, but it was necessary that she gave her numerous plants the love and attention they deserved.

They dotted every surface in her room and vines were strung across the wall near the ceiling.

Living with all thirteen wolves of the Pitch Mountain Pack, this was her small oasis, and she loved caring for her plant children and getting her hands dirty whenever she needed to repot one or propagate new plants so she could watch them grow, too.

The rest of her room might be a mess with clothes strewn about and too many dusty trinkets collected over the years on every surface that didn’t have something green, but her plants were in pristine condition.

Content that everyone was taken care of, Sera took a second to check her appearance in the mirror, her amber wolf’s eyes staring back at her.

Unlike other werewolves, hers never shifted back to whatever color they had been before her forced change.

It was just another thing she’d lost that she couldn’t remember.

She’d retained a few memories from her former life — her name, some blurry images of her family and home — but most of it was gone.

“You can do this,” she whispered, forming finger guns and pointing them at the mirror, waving them at her own reflection. It wasn’t very convincing and, especially lately, Sera had needed a lot more convincing that she was the Beta Parisa needed at her side.

She opened her bedroom door and immediately wanted to rush back inside.

“It’s not my fault the dishwasher’s broken! I loaded it the same way we all do,” Jo defended, their perpetual mess of bedhead swirling around them.

“You overfilled it.” Billie’s cropped, purple hair framed her typically unimpressed features.

“I wasn’t even the last to load it. When I left — ”

Seraphine ducked her head to avoid making eye contact with her two arguing packmates, especially Jo, and shuffled down the long hallway, but she stopped short of the stairs and spun around. If she didn’t deal with this, Parisa would have to.

“What’s with the dishwasher drama?” As Beta, she existed in some weird space between Alpha and the rest of the pack where she was either vice principal or big sister and she could never tell which one she was supposed to be in the moment.

“It’s broken. Again,” Billie said in her characteristic sharp tone.

Jo seemed more hurt than angry, but brightened the moment they turned their attention to Sera. “Good afternoon, Beta Seraphine! I hope your day is off to a great start! Did Alpha Parisa tell you I might get to start helping Emmaline during the day shift in the bakery?”

Sera shrunk under the unwanted, bubbly attention. She kept her expression neutral even as her chest split open with a wound that never healed. “She hadn’t yet. I think she was going to let you tell me.”

“I’m so excited. It’s not like I don’t enjoy working in the front. I just love the quiet hustle of the back, you know?”

“Wouldn't know. I’m not allowed back there.” She laughed. “So the dishwasher?”

“Is broken and Jo was the last to use it,” Billie finished.

“I didn’t do anything different from what the directions say to do.” Jo crossed their arms in front of their chest. “It just breaks all the time because we go through more plates in a day than a restaurant!”

Hurt welled up in her heart and Sera knew she had to get away from Jo if she didn’t want to be thinking about her past the rest of the day.

She held up a hand and the two stopped speaking.

“Let’s just agree that we all get mad at our appliances and it probably wasn’t anyone’s fault.

I’ll make a call and we’ll have the thing fixed by dinner. ”

As a pack of thirteen hungry werewolves, their industrial dishwasher did its best to keep up, but machines had their limitations. It was the same for all the loose wolf hair and their vacuum and the poor plumbing.

Billie backed down, admitting that she was just tired from the night shift at the bakery and the situation seemed sorted.

Jo turned to talk to Sera, but she pulled her lips in a thin, tight smile, waved, and hurried downstairs, through the hallway that led past the living room, into the kitchen, and out the back door that led to the pack greenhouse.

Filled to the brim with vegetables and flowers, the pack’s greenhouse was one of Sera’s favorite places.

She took her time as she walked through it, skimming her fingers along the beds that held a lively array of flowers.

She paused at the pansies, particularly the purple ones with bright tangerine centers, before moving on to the daisies.

Examining a few up close, she cut a few of the best, bright white and soft yellow, and wrapped the ends in a damp handkerchief before setting it aside so she could get to work.

Others in the pack helped her, but the greenhouse was her contribution to the pack and she liked to care for it herself.

Parisa led them all and started the bakery.

Emmaline, the only one who’d been with Parisa longer than her, was their primary baker.

But, in addition to being a mess of a Beta, Sera was a destructive hurricane in the kitchen.

She could grow food, but she couldn’t make it and she managed to ruin everything sweet or savory she touched in the bakery kitchen.

She avoided baking because she didn’t need one more thing that made her feel like a failure.

She knew she was running late, and she wanted to hurry the way her racing heart was telling her to, but she needed to take her time pruning plants that required it and making sure the vegetables and flowers got equal love and attention or her entire day would be thrown off.

Running into Jo had already set her mind in one direction.

If she wanted to correct it, she needed to lose herself in the task.

She didn’t have a checklist and didn’t move from one space to the next in a logical order.

She hopped around as she remembered things she needed to do.

Satisfied with her work, she washed the dirt from her hands, trying and failing to get it out from under her fingernails, and started back on the path towards the house.

Wrapped daisies in hand, she passed by a few of her packmates on the way to Parisa’s study.

She gave them all a cheerful “good afternoon” as they started their days with a hearty helping of leftovers from the pack kitchen.

Sera knocked on the door to Parisa’s study that was attached to her downstairs suite. “Are you ready for company?”

“If I yelled back that I wasn’t decent yet, would you come in anyway?” Parisa asked with a hearty laugh.

Sera’s cheeks flushed at the suggestion. “Definitely, yes. I don’t have long before my shift at the bakery.”

The door swung open and Parisa greeted her in a dress with a full skirt because, as she had said on more than one occasion, “Pencil skirts are for sticks and I am built like a wolf.” There was, no doubt, a complementary pair of boots or oxfords by the door for later.

For now, Parisa padded around in her bare feet because she hated socks.

She smelled like fresh bread, saffron, and roses.

“You’re late.” Parisa grinned.

“And grass is green.”

Parisa’s gaze drifted to Sera’s hands. “What treats from the greenhouse do we have today?”

“Some humble daisies. A little brightness for the gray afternoon.”

“It is rather dreary out there, isn’t it?” Parisa’s skirt swirled around her legs as she slipped around the edge of her oak desk. “I feel like this autumn has given us a lot of gray days so far. Though, maybe it’s nice — like a bit of nighttime in the day to give us all a break.”

“You sound a bit like our vampire neighbors,” Sera teased.

Parisa clicked her tongue. “A comparison I don’t enjoy.

But I do enjoy these daisies,” she said, placing them in the vase she kept on her desk for Sera’s daily delivery.

“They’ll be the perfect distraction when I’m talking to —” She turned to consult her well-organized planner, a stark contrast to the messy, red binder Sera kept everything in.

“Oh nevermind, my first meeting’s out of the house today. Chamber of Commerce.”

Parisa groaned. “I have to deal with that small group of overly loud humans that think we’re taking over too much of the local businesses.

Perhaps I need to visit Clyde instead. The Alpha issue was important enough for him to reach out and, while he hasn’t followed up with us just yet, I can’t imagine it would be unwelcome.

After all, a serious issue requires a serious response and traditions, which Clyde loves. ”

“And you love,” Sera added.

Parisa shot her a look. “Traditions on this matter are clear: a new Alpha is a potential celebration or threat for every other pack in the region. There are ways to handle this, but we need to strengthen our decades-long bond with the Crooked Creek Pack now more than ever.”

“I could go to your meeting instead,” Sera offered. “I love the gossip I get out of those.”

“You enjoy hearing Clemente drone on and on about the recent financial successes of his vampire coven? He loves the sound of his own voice.”