"Are you serious?" I asked the next evening when I came down for dinner.
The Chief had remained absent for most of the day, and I considered taking the opportunity to debrief Cricket. But, really, my stepmother's note and Brooke's letter said it all. Plus, the people of Haven who I saw scurrying around whenever I went outdoors backed up my hypothesis—my father was disintegrating and his pack was falling into shambles around him. There wasn't much I could do until the Chief showed back up, so I waited as patiently as I could until he was ready to put in an appearance.
I hadn't decided what I was going to do about Haven and my father yet, but that larger issue flew out of my mind when I walked into the dining room and saw my father and Cricket waiting for me at the table...along with the saddest set of suitors I'd ever seen. Okay, yes, my girl cousins were right—the potential mates my father had picked out for me were handsome enough. And the men sitting at our table
were
mostly the right age, although one was old enough to be my father and another looked like he might still be coming to terms with adulthood. But ever since my wolf and I had made up, we'd been sharing the same mind-space, and her senses told me that none of the four were even as alpha as Brooke had been. My older sister had enjoyed many good attributes, but she was
not
an alpha werewolf, and strong leadership is what Haven needed if it was going to pull itself back together. What was my father thinking?
As if to confirm my analysis, all four suitors bowed their heads at my tone of voice, and despite my concern over the situation, their reaction almost made me laugh.
That
was certainly a first in Haven—male werewolves submitting to a woman. Or maybe they just wanted to say grace?
The humor fled, though, when my wolf and I took in my father's canine counterpart. This was the first time in a decade that I'd seen Father while my wolf was wide awake, and she growled deep in her throat at the sight. The Chief's wolf looked rabid under his skin, twitching and baring its teeth, clearly begging to be let loose. For the first time in years, I felt real respect for my father, who was able to keep such a dominant wolf under control, even though the two sides of his personality seemed to be butting heads rather than working together.
And now that I knew where to look, I could see the strain produced by that internal battle. My father's face was lined, his jaw clenched, and the piercing eyes that I'd once thought could force me to do anything now seemed almost weak. Crazy Wilder was fighting the wolf...and losing. I spent a second wondering if this was how Brooke had looked during her final days, then I forced myself to focus on the more pressing problem right in front of me.
My father allowed the silence that followed my words to extend out until it was becoming painful, then he finally broke eye contact with me. If it hadn't been such a crazy concept, I would have almost thought the alpha was deflecting his gaze the way a submissive wolf might after trying to stare down the pack leader, but
that
idea was too ludicrous to hold onto. Instead, my father merely turned to scrutinize my four suitors, then quietly dismissed them from our presence. "You can go now, boys," he said abruptly, and as one, the male werewolves got to their feet, put their napkins on the table, and filed out the door.
Well, that was...unexpected. "I wasn't reneging on our deal..."I started, but the Chief talked right over me, any hint of submission long forgotten.
"I see you're finally ready to take on the job I've been grooming you for," my father intoned. But I didn't get to learn what job Father was referring to because a formidable knock on the front door stopped our conversation in its tracks.
"Right on time," the Chief said, taking a sip of water before leisurely rising from the table and leading our little family down the hall. His wolf looked quieter than it had a few minutes before, and the canine now seemed amused, as if we were all on stage, acting out a drama that the Chief had written. I wanted to hold onto that clue, but my breath caught in my throat and all other thoughts fled as the door was flung open and a non-Haven werewolf walked in. My knight in shining armor had arrived.
***
"Rude" didn't even begin to describe the act of one pack leader barging into another's home uninvited. In fact, Wolfie's behavior was tantamount to an act of war, but I couldn't avoid the silly grin that spread itself across my face when my favorite wolf stepped over the threshold. My canine half and I could smell his scent—like leaf mold and pine needles—and I realized we were leaning forward as if the young alpha was a huge magnet and our combined wolf and human brains were a pile of iron filings. If the stakes hadn't been so high and my father hadn't been present, I don't think anything could have stopped me from falling into Wolfie's arms.
And I was now sure that his wolf side, at least, would have caught me as I fell, quite gladly. The younger alpha's face was grim, but with my new wolf sense, I could see his canine half dancing in circles behind his eyes, as excited as I was to be back together. All at once, the last ache in my stomach faded away as I realized that Wolfie really had known I was acting, as Quetzalli's presence had suggested, even though I'd been loathe to believe a bloodling could be so poker-faced. Wolfie hadn't taken my words to heart or held them against me, and he was here now to back me up and to help solve the problem with my father.
As we stood in silence, I could almost feel our canine halves communing without words.
What took you so long?,
my wolf was saying, and his wolf was laughing at our impatience.
As impetuous as a human
, he was probably teasing.
The man was a little less sure of himself than the wolf, though. Ignoring Chief Wilder, Wolfie cocked his head and asked me, "Which one did you pick?" It took me a minute to realize the younger alpha was asking about the suitors, then my wolf and I huffed our amusement out through our nose. I couldn't believe it—Wolfie was jealous.
"Is that why you're here?" I answered, trying to get Wolfie back on track. Surely, hopefully, he had some kind of plan, not just a possessive urge to come and take me home before I could marry another man. Not that I minded a bit of alpha behavior in this context, but there were larger issues at play.
The young pack leader shook his head, not in negation, but as if trying to force water out of his ears, and I saw the wolf rise up behind his eyes to take command of the conversation. Wolfie's voice sounded the same, but his energy was more focused when he spoke again. "No, I'm here because your nephew, and your grandson," he said, turning to face my father at last, "has gone missing. Keith wasn't pleased when Quetzalli came home without you yesterday, and we now know he hitchhiked all the way to Haven after he found out Terra wasn't coming back."
To Haven? Soppy romantic notions were pushed to the back burner as I parsed Wolfie's words. I was positive I would have known if Keith was kicking around the village, which meant the boy hadn't arrived. But where could he get sidetracked between the highway and our cluster of houses? Nowhere—unless Keith's first shift came upon him unaware, in which case the teen werewolf could be running around the woods four-footed and confused.
"And you want permission to go hunt for the boy in my woods," the Chief said, his words coldly amused as the pack leader's wolf peered through my father's eyes to focus on the younger alpha. If Wolfie had the bad sense to request permission, it was obvious the answer would be no, so I figured I'd better derail this standoff before it could go any further.
"Can I speak with you for a moment, Wolfie?" I asked. Ignoring my father, I continued: "Alone."
***
Even though I had left my childhood behind years ago, I couldn't help feeling a frisson of forbidden pleasure when Wolfie followed me up the stairs and into my loft. The male werewolf was almost too big for the space, his head bowing down so it didn't graze the ceiling as he moved to the center of the room—the one spot where he could stand erect. Despite the awkwardness of the low ceiling, though, I could see the tension ease from Wolfie's shoulders at this brief reprieve from the Chief's presence, and my wolf and I felt the same way. As we came into the room behind him, we immediately rushed to Wolfie's side and let the young alpha enfold us in his arms, then we pulled his head down to join us in a hungry kiss.
I would have liked to submerge myself in our shared passion forever, but I knew my father's patience was very limited, so I pulled back far enough that we could speak, although I didn't try to wriggle out of Wolfie's arms. "You forgave me," I said, smiling up into my mate's sparkling eyes.
"So I
am
man enough for you," he rumbled in reply, the words ironic because the wolf had the upper hand as the alpha spoke.
"Definitely," I answered, then I had to rein in my own wolf who thought now might be a good time to run our hand down Wolfie's firm jaw.
Focus
, I reminded her, and I felt my canine half settle. "I'm sorry it's taken so long," I continued. "At first I just wanted to protect you, but the longer I stayed here, the more I realized Haven was falling apart. I didn't want to leave them in the lurch."
"The pack needs a new alpha," Wolfie said, having understood a situation in two heartbeats that had taken me several days to untangle. "Your father's wolf is eating him alive."
"And we need to find Keith," I added. "That part's true, right? My nephew
is
missing? Has he changed forms?"
"We were waiting for you," the young alpha responded, and his words warmed me from head to toe. Not only had Wolfie believed I really would be coming back, he'd continued to abide by my wishes that I be the one to help Keith learn to shift. Unfortunately, that seemed to have been a poor decision on my part given my nephew's rash behavior.
"My father's too territorial to let you wander around in Haven's woods," I thought aloud. "And I don't know how we can challenge him here without having the pack tear the challenger apart. Did you bring anyone with you?"
"Out at the highway," Wolfie answered, then cut right to the chase in typical wolf fashion. "Do you want to challenge Chief Wilder or should I?"
Neither
, I wanted to say, but I knew that answer wasn't going to hold water. It almost felt like my father had set me up to take over his leadership, but I couldn't quite believe it—I'd never heard of a female pack leader, and Haven was far too hidebound to allow one. Plus, was I really alpha material?
"You know you're an alpha," Wolfie said quietly, rubbing my back in the same gentle circles my sister had once used, but with far more interesting effects on my nerve endings. "Remember how you ignored me the second time I commanded you to stop running away in the city?"
It was true that I'd been able to pull away from Wolfie's bark, but I'd thought my reaction was only possible because Wolfie hadn't been my pack leader. That issue was academic at the moment, though, because
who
would challenge the Chief didn't seem as important an issue at the moment as
how
that challenger would win. "I don't want to kill my father," I whispered into Wolfie's shoulder, hoping the fabric would muffle my words. How's that for proof I wasn't pack leader material? The Chief wouldn't have spared a thought for the casualties that stood in the way of achieving his goal.
"No one is going to die," Wolfie said as if stating fact, putting one finger under my chin to tilt my face back up toward his and brushing a gentle kiss across my lips. "What do you think I spent the last few days doing while you were living here in the lap of luxury? I was working on my pool."
Tearing myself away from Wolfie—again—was one of the hardest things I'd ever done. But I could just imagine my nephew's terror since the boy hadn't grown up among werewolves and was now facing his first shift alone and in a strange place. My urge to protect Keith was nearly as strong as my yearning to take Wolfie and run away from Haven as fast as I could, especially when I considered the fact that my nephew might even now be caught midshift. Or perhaps Keith's wolf brain had completely taken control of their shared body and was heading past Haven's boundaries and toward the normal human population. I'd do just about anything to prevent Keith from having to live with the same guilt I bore due to my wolf's actions during our shared teen years.
But hunting down a confused teenage werewolf seemed easy in comparison to the task Wolfie faced. The young alpha seemed confident in his ability to beat my father at pool, and my father had agreed to the proposed challenge, albeit with a mocking laugh, so the winner
would
be Haven's leader
. But Crazy Wilder had filled the pool room with my most scary-looking male cousins, and Wolfie had no one to back him up. Plus, my father had won 95% of the games I'd seen him play during my childhood, and I couldn't quite imagine how Wolfie could have honed his skills enough during the last week to provide any kind of competition for the billiards master. It was traditional to put the losing werewolf in a pack-leader challenge to death, and the notion of returning from my own hunt to a world lacking Wolfie's calm presence made me shiver. Still, this was the best plan we'd been able to come up with, and the only one that could possibly result in everyone leaving the room alive...assuming Wolfie's skills were up to par.
"Trust me," the younger alpha said quietly as he walked past my dithering form and into the pool room. Wolfie had gone outside a minute earlier to pick up the cue stick he'd left on the doorstep, proof that his challenge hadn't been a spur-of-the-moment decision, and now he was screwing together the two halves of his stick even as he strode toward my father. Looking over Wolfie's shoulder, I could see the Chief frown slightly, aware that he'd lost one of his home-court advantages—knowledge of which cue sticks were perfect and which had just enough of a warp to send a ball swirling off in the wrong direction.
"Best two games out of three?" Wolfie asked, the phrase nearly a command instead of a question, and I saw the wolf behind my father's eyes snarl as the Chief nodded without thinking. As hard as it was to believe since I'd seen my father dominate everyone in his path for my entire lifetime, Wolfie was the more alpha of the two. But my father was far from whipped.
"As the challenged party, I assume I go first?" he asked, and I could tell that the Chief's words were meant to make Wolfie echo my father's earlier unconscious agreement. But, instead, my favorite alpha pursed his lips and shook his head slowly.
"I thought we'd go traditional and lag," rumbled his wolf.
I wanted to stay and watch, but I knew Keith was waiting, and there was nothing I could do now that the challenge was underway. So I turned away, the sound of pool balls on the sidewall echoing in my mind as I walked past my cousins and out the door.
***
I assumed it would be a struggle to shift, but as soon as I stepped out of my clothes on the back stoop, my wolf surged to the forefront and we became canine so easily I didn't even notice the change occurring. After fighting against the shift and then fighting to force the shift for so long, it felt strange to realize that I was now able to change forms as seamlessly as Wolfie did. But I didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I just relaxed into the transformation.
That thought reminded me of the competition going on inside, though, and my wolf and I scented the air, feeling my father's annoyance and Wolfie's elation as the younger alpha won the right to go first. A good sign. Let's hope Wolfie could keep up his lead while I was gone.
Before the two of us had descended from the loft a few minutes earlier, Wolfie told me that the rest of his pack was waiting along the highway at the location where Keith had left the road and cut into the woods. The younger alpha had given his pack instructions not to leave the vehicles, knowing that my father had wolves patrolling Haven's perimeter, and that those wolves would attack first and ask questions later. I, on the other hand, could come and go as I pleased, so the plan was for me to meet up with Wolfie's pack and then to follow my nephew's trail wherever it led.
I could smell the anxiety, but also the cohesiveness, of Wolfie's crew before I rounded the bend and padded to a stop beside their cars. The yahoos were in wolf form while the older adults sported their human bodies, ensuring cool heads all around due to Wolfie's calming effect on the wolves in his pack. As soon as I came into sight, Wade and Fen trotted up to greet me, licking under my chin, and I was so gratified by their acceptance that I shifted back to human form so I could take them into my arms like a pair of lap dogs.
"Not quite what a passing motorist should see," Chase said gruffly, interrupting our greeting and tossing an oversized t-shirt into my arms so I could shield my nudity from non-werewolf observers. Despite his tone, though, I could tell that even the pack's beta had forgiven my betrayal of his milk brother. Then Chase went a step further, dipping his head to me as if I were his alpha's permanent mate, and I couldn't prevent the blush that snuck up my neck at the gesture. Imagining what it would be like to act as Wolfie's mate was tantalizing, but I needed to keep my focus on Keith, so I was glad when Galena pulled me into a simple hug and cut off that train of thought.
"So, what's the plan?" Quetzalli asked, her words abrupt but her body language telling me that Galena's partner was as glad to see me as everyone else was. She dipped her head slightly as she met my eyes, and I couldn't really believe the pack had forgiven me so easily. I was sure there would be some lingering issues, but now was not the time to deal with hurt feelings.
"Wolfie challenged my father to a game of pool," I said, and nods all around suggested the pack had known that was their alpha's goal from the beginning. The werewolves kept their eyes trained on me for orders, though, so I continued talking. "Until that ends, it's not safe for any of you to go looking for Keith, so I'm going to try to track him from here."
A whine from Blaze brought my eyes around to the young werewolf, and my wolf had no difficulty parsing his complaint. "I know you want to come," I answered, "but we can't risk it. If Wolfie loses the challenge, I'm going to have a hard enough time getting Keith past the border patrol and back to you—it would just be that much harder if any non-Haven wolves came with me."
The pack was silent for a minute as we each imagined what would happen if Wolfie did lose the game of pool. But the werewolves' calm energy didn't falter, quite a tribute to their absent pack leader. "He won't lose," Chase said at last, and I nodded, looking both ways to make sure no cars were coming, then slipping off my t-shirt and regaining my fur. The hunt was on.
***
The last time I'd tracked a child through the woods, I'd been too scared to let my wolf loose, and even though I now realized my canine half had done her best to help me at the time, she had been virtually blindfolded by my distrust during that earlier hunt. Now, the wolf and I acted in harmony, my human mind suggesting what Keith might have been thinking at the same time as the wolf used her superior senses to pick up the teenager's fading trail. The scents proved that Keith had come this way several hours earlier, probably arriving in the wee hours of the morning and cutting into the woods as soon as the day was bright enough to let him see where he placed his feet. Since my nephew had such a long head start, my wolf and I both knew that the sooner we found him, the better.
Despite the solemnity of the occasion, though, I couldn't help enjoying the way my wolf's muscles were able to stretch and push us through the forest at a trot. Dew was already coating the ground as a sunny autumn day turned into a chilly evening, and the water moistened our pads, helping us feel each imperfection of the ground beneath our feet. With the toughness of canine foot leather, acorns and twigs gently massaged our skin rather than causing pain, and we sidestepped a leafy area in favor of a patch of rounded pebbles to enhance the sensation.
Then all enjoyment receded into the background as Keith's scent abruptly mutated just as we ran upon a pile of rags that had once been a t-shirt and pair of boxer shorts. The teenager had clearly felt the shift coming early enough to pull off his shoes and jeans, which was a plus since denim can make a change of form extraordinarily difficult, but Keith hadn't had time to remove the rest of his apparel. I felt guilty, knowing I'd made my nephew wait too long for his first shift, and now he'd been forced to change into wolf form alone in the woods, with no pack around him.
Focus
, my wolf reminded me, throwing back the same words I'd sent her no more than an hour previously. The wolf was right to stay calm, not just because there was no point in panicking, but also because we were still in the heart of Haven's forest, so Keith's wolf would have had nothing nearby to harm...as long as he didn't run too far in any direction.
Sucking in a deep breath through our nose, the wolf and I noted that Keith had turned up the mountain rather than down toward civilization, a perk given the unpredictable nature of a wolf on its first shift. We put our nose to the ground and began to run faster.