Morning Light's packhouse was rather different from the one at Night Leaf.
Unlike Night Leaf, where the packhouse was one large twelve-story building in the center of the pack town, Morning Light's packhouse consisted of several two- to three-story buildings in different colors, spread out across a compound.
It was situated nearest to the borders at Lullaby Route, and the buildings were allocated for different purposes. The main packhouse building had a lobby and a pack meeting hall on the first floor, followed by offices and smaller meeting rooms on the second floor.
Next to it was the brick shed, which functioned as the Warrior checkpoint as well as a kitchen and dining house. The Destitute House was a stone's throw away.
There was also a building for the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma families, a recreational building with a swimming pool and theater, warrior barracks, an emergency medical center, etc.
The town was mostly residential in nature, with some of the homes being huge mansions. They had basic amenities like a supermarket and shops, but most of the wolves in Morning Light would patronize the businesses in Night Leaf Town or else go directly to Gate City, which was just another 30-minute drive out. New Leaf Academy was smack in the center of both our towns.
Harvey brought us to the lobby of the main packhouse, which had various sets of sofas grouped around coffee tables. By now, Killion had pretty much fallen asleep standing up, and Harvey had fireman-lifted him over to the nearest sofa.
I sat in an adjacent seat. Ben plopped down next to me and promptly fell asleep. Jonah, Harvey, and Nix also sat down.
We left Hank to put up with Gamma Endo's company.
"Ben's huge," Jonah said. "I wonder who has the biggest wolf?"
"Dad," I answered automatically.
"I meant among our generation," Jonah said.
Me. I wanted to say, but my good beta beat me to it.
"Our Luna Bell," Harvey answered. "He might be even larger than Alpha."
Bell was Lorent... Oh wait, we were merging. Still, no way Bell could be bigger than Dad. Dad is the biggest!
"No way!" I said. "Bell only looks bigger because of all that fluff, and black is deceptively slimming."
"Are you sure, Princess?" Harvey looked terribly amused. "Because I've run with them both, and although it's very close, I think Luna might be the larger wolf."
I paused to give it some thought. I've also run with them. I had even pounced on them both before in wolf form.
"Maybe it's a tie," I allowed grudgingly.
"So our Luna Bell is larger than our Alpha Princess?" Nix asked.
"That's because Sam's a girl. If she were a boy, her wolf would probably be double the size it is now," Jonah said.
I laughed at that. "I'll be the size of an elephant!"
"You'd probably mow down all the trees," Jonah said.
We all laughed at that, waking Ben. He opened one eye and then turned to face the other way. "Shut up. It's noisy."
We quieted down for a moment, but I was still grinning. I wondered what kind of prank we could pull on Ben, because we all knew that was just how my unique and genius Wolfie mind was programmed.
My unique and genius Wolfie mind was also very easily distracted, so it didn't take much to divert my attention.
All it took was one question from Jonah. "Hey Nix, wanna bet which of us would be the smallest wolf?"
"I don't know... you guys still owe me for the last bet," Nix said.
As in the Alpha Duties?
It was probably my fault for calling out the kids from the warlock forest and getting Ben shot. Oops.
I wondered if Harvey knew about these kids. They didn't smell rogue. Were they free wolves?
"Since it seemed that Ben and you couldn't even finish the route with the Princess, I would say Harv and I won this one," Nix concluded.
"We can't say for sure," Harvey said. "Not until the debrief. I understand that the elders would like a debrief meeting after these first two sessions. I'll text you when I have more details."
"Yes!" Jonah rejoiced at the slight chance they might win.
I thought about both patrols. I would say Harvey and Nix got it in the bag. We finished checking all three traps. We even fixed a couple of them. As Nix had pointed out, Ben, Jonah, and I didn't even complete the Lullaby Route for our patrol.
"You're still gonna lose. Waiting for the elders' verdict is just delaying the inevitable," Nix shrugged.
"It's okay." Jonah brushed it off. "I'm very patient."
"Right, and you feel sure that your wolf would be larger than mine?" Nix challenged.
"Yeah," Jonah said.
Nix took offense to that. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"I wonder what makes one wolf bigger than the other," I said aloud without thinking. "I've always wondered, what made me the Alpha and not the Omega?"
Harvey blinked at the question.
"You're the Alpha because you were born the Alpha," Nix said. "And we're the Beta and Gamma because we were born that way. It's hardwired in us. There is no changing it."
"It's not that simple," Harvey said, his voice quiet as if he was speaking from deep in thought. "Even the power of the bloodline we inherit is affected by our gender, order of birth, and our parents' compatibility. So in theory, the firstborn male of two wolves who are soul mates would most likely inherit the largest wolf possible from his bloodline."
"It still boils down to the bloodline, Harv," Nix said.
Yeah. I was the Alpha. I was born with the Alpha wolf. I had thought about this over and over. I had read about this in Lycan Studies. Nix was right (again? Who knew we could agree?). We were born with our wolves.
But Harvey obviously thought otherwise.
"My late grandmother believed there was another factor. I used to think it was one of those fables told to young pups, but..."
Harvey looked at me before continuing. "Now I think I see convincing proof."
"You mean there's a way to make my wolf bigger?" Jonah asked.
"It's just an old wives' tale to get pups to behave themselves," Nix snorted.
Harvey seemed to have more faith in the truth of his grandmother's words than I did in my Grandpa Alpha's. That much was for sure.
"The size of our wolves is also affected by the strength of our hearts," Harvey said. "The Moon Goddess made it so that our wolf would be big enough to protect what was important to us."
But how do you measure the strength of one's heart? What the hell was that?
"During puphood, your wolf is still growing inside you. During this time, if you always run with a heart that is pure, loyal, faithful, and courageous, your wolf will grow large enough for you to be strong enough to remain that way all your life," Harvey explained.
Yeah, actually that did sound like something parents would tell their young pups. It's the same way Mum told me that if I don't go to sleep, my body wouldn't have time to grow taller, or if I didn't brush my teeth, they would all fall out...
"Purity, Loyalty, Faithfulness, and Courage." Jonah took out his phone to note them down.
"Oh, please!" Nix scoffed. "They just tell us that to keep us out of trouble."
"It explains Princess' wolf," Harvey said so quietly I almost didn't hear it.
"That's why Sam is so big even though she is a girl!" Jonah exclaimed.
No, it's because I inherited my Grandma Luna's Female Alpha Wolf + Dad's Black Wolf Bloodline + Dream Wolf Blood. (Wait, where did the Dream Traveling bit come from?)
Jonah nodded. "Yeah, Sam is that kind of wolf."
Then he looked at Ben sleeping next to me. "Uh, I guess Ben scored really high in loyalty and courage."
The guys all paused to consider this and burst out laughing.
All right, so now we know the formula for a big wolf. Could someone tell me the formula for a smarter Wolfie?