Contessa's Outfit

Tag: @alexander

by my own hand i shall make my way

Asking to meet with Alex was not something that Tess thought that she would have done if she hadn't have been the alpha, but she was. She wanted to do what was best for her pack, and that meant that it was necessary to talk to Alex. She didn't want to fight, she never wanted to fight, and the relative peace that they seemed to have established was something that she wanted to continue. She had come to his territory, she wanted to make sure that he knew that she wasn't trying to challenge anything. All she wanted was to talk, and to try and work out what it was that maybe made them so different to begin with. Protection was her number one goal, and she knew that they could be better protected in a pack, but she wasn't convinced that bigger was always better. She wasn't convinced that drawing that much attention to one pack was a good idea either. Not that anyone was hunting them, or anything anymore, but not being a part of something like that was okay by her as well. If she was going to be a form of anything that had to do with any kind of rebellion, she wasn't going to fight like that.  Tess was not as controlled as she wanted people to believe, but she did have a decent enough handle on her emotions. She was good at keeping herself in check, and she thought that it was necessary to try and make sure that whatever she did, it wasn't going to be able to be taken in ways that she didn't mean. If she was aggressive, and angry, you were going to know it. There were no guessing games in her life, there were two halves to herself, and she thought that it was necessary to make sure that no one questioned her. If she was going to be a good leader, she was going to have to try and make sure that she was taking care of them to the best of her ability. She was going to have to make sure that she herself was above reproach, that she followed all of the rules that she set for them. Tess didn't know what would happen if this meeting went badly, but she didn't think that it was going to. She just wanted to know if they were still okay.  All she knew was that she was not as experienced at this as he was, and she could use some sort of nod to make sure that she wasn't picking fights with anyone that she couldn't protect them from in the end. She wasn't worried about having to protect them from Alex, but she was worried about who it was that she was going to have to protect them from in the end. Whomever it ended up being, she wanted to know if they were all on the same page, or if they were going to be turning on one another. Because the wolves couldn't turn on one another, even if they didn't share a pack. Not when the whole world would so easily turn on them if they were given a chance. That would never do. She had to be careful, they all had to be careful, and they had to learn to play their cards right.  Tess wanted to make a difference. She wanted to make something of herself, and make the world just that much more accepting of them. Because they weren't monsters. They weren't, no matter what everyone tried to make them believe, and Tess wouldn't have it. Not when so much more could have been said for all of them. They were more than just wolves. They were more than all fo that, and one day, she wanted people to see that. To believe that. It was a long road until then though, and she knew that it was very possible that she would never really get it done, but it was something that she wanted to consider as a future anyway. Some sort of peace amongst them all. Knocking on the door to the shop she waited patiently to see if it would open for her.

Alex had gotten word of a new pack in his territory. It wasn’t something he was surprised to hear, of course, considering he covered a hell of a lot of territory with his pack and the rebellion. He had wolves all around the United Kingdom. Eyes everywhere was what he had always wanted, especially back when Durant had been in power. It had certainly been helpful in bringing people in, especially in the most desperate of times. The more spread out they were, the less concentrated they were, and that drew much less attention, and that had been absolutely necessary when Durant had been in charge.

Their pack was quiet. It was only known among other werewolves and, of course, June. Alex had made sure of that, and he personally had taken care of the few occasions where the word...travelled just a bit too far. He knew it was under wraps pretty well. Luckily, they were able to breathe a little more freely now. But he still kept it as quiet as possible.

Now that they didn’t have to look wherever they stepped, Alex was able to make allies a little better. June had proven to be a good one so far. They had kept each other in the know thus far. He knew she wasn’t crazy about his species by any stretch of the imagination, but she had come to her senses realizing they could be useful to each other. He had known about her little casino on the edge of town, but he had never risked going in there until after Durant was killed, and now that he was dead and June had an open mind, it was going well.

The rebellion was dormant for now, and their pack got a chance to be more of a pack. They were a family. They looked out for each other, and that was a lot easier now than it had ever been before. Alex knew that there were werewolves around who weren’t a part of his pack, be it because he hadn’t gotten to them yet or because they had something else going for themselves. He had been contacted by one, the alpha of her own pack, to talk to him. He figured it had something to do with the fact that she was in his territory. He had told her to meet him today, so he hoped she would show.

Alex was tying up a few loose ends in the shop when he heard a knock at the door. He had just sent off Valentine to take care of some affairs down the Alley, so the door was unlocked. He hadn’t needed to pull the chains off the door to open it at the knock. “Ms. West,” Alex said with a slight nod in her direction. He stepped back and held the door open for her to come in. “Please, come in.” Once she stepped in he shut the door behind her. “You can head towards the back.” Larissa was out right now, so it was just the two of them She had insisted on being here, but Alex told her he would rather handle it himself. In the backroom, he had set the table with tea and biscuits. “Have a seat. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

by my own hand

i will make my way

in the world all around me

Tess knew that she had come to England with one purpose and ended up with another. A small pack that looked to her for guidance, and stability, was not what she had had in mind when she had left America. But that was what she had found. And her pups relied on her. She wasn’t going to let them down. They were as much a part of her life as she was theirs. She was mother, sister, friend. She was everything that she could be for them, and she thought that that was something that they needed. Something that they all needed. A sense of family where there wasn’t one. And Tess could provide that. She could give them a home. She could give them somewhere to come to, to know that they were safe, and protected. And it wasn’t just because they were wolves. It was because they were souls that were lost, and in need. It was because they were the type of people that she wanted to be around.

Good people. Honest people. And as much as she figured that there would be those that were going to argue with her about something like that, she believed it. Tess would always believe that there was something that they were going to need to do. Something that they were going to need to work on. And if she could help them learn, and grow, then that was who she wanted to be. She wanted to care for them, and to love them. But also, she knew that her role was more than that. She was protector, and she was not going to take that lightly either. Protecting her pups was important, and it didn’t matter to her how old they were, if they were older than her to start with, she was the alpha, and she was going to protect them from what was to come.

They were pack creatures. They needed that sense of a family. And she knew that. Tess had spent several years after she had been bitten on her own. She knew that the pull to remove yourself from everyone that you loved would always be there. But what she knew better, was that you needed those people around you. You needed people that would not judge, and only understand. Those were the people that she was focused on pulling together. On forming, almost a community with. And she knew that not everyone saw it that way. But there was a werewolf pack in London that was bigger than she would have thought possible. Tess wasn’t honestly sure what to think of it, and sometimes she questioned who was really in charge, but she knew that Alex was. That he was the one that made the decisions in the end. Even if sometimes she thought that Cass was calling some of them too.

Still, keeping the peace was important, and if they were all going to meet with Juniper. If they were going to start working together, all of them, they needed to make sure that the alliance between wolves was holding. Tess didn’t think that anyone had angered anyone else. But she wanted to be sure that Alex felt the same way. They were not friends. Not in the sense that she thought that you could really be friends when you lead two different packs. But she thought that they could have been. Under different circumstances. She could have seen them being friends. Right now, they were allies. And that was how she intended to keep it.

She looked up when the door opened and nodded back to him in greeting. “Mr. McHalen.” She had come to talk to him, and he knew it. There was no surprise in this surprise visit. If they had all been in contact with the same vampire, then they all knew the basis of what was going on in the world around them. “Thank you.” Her manners had gotten better since she had come to England. They didn’t tolerate the manners that she had been raised with, American… Though, her own manners were rooted in the traditions of her people. And Tess had had to learn to separate the two in order to navigate the world here. “I have a meeting with Juniper Prufrock later on. And I was told that you had met with her too.”

@ alex • 730 • contessa's outfit

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