And, still without looking me in my face, my father strode out of the room and out of my life. That morning, I hitched a ride to another state, found a forest large enough to hide my wolf, and set into action the chain of events that led to mauling that poor little girl ten years ago...and to saving Melony today. I was packless by choice.
***
The memory had pulled me so deep into the past that I felt like I was wakening from a dream when I opened my eyes back onto the camping scene in front of me. I wasn't sure how much time had passed, but the bond that held the human family together was even clearer than before. Mr. Carr stroked his wife's damp hair, Melony nestled down into the cavity between the two parental bodies, and Mrs. Carr sat up enough to open her air passages and sing a quiet lullaby, her hand circling over her daughter to embrace both husband and child. As I stood in the chilly drizzle, I could imagine the emotional and physical warmth of the family's hug, but after remembering both the seductive embrace and the strict rules of my own pack, the vision only made me feel colder.
Behind me, I could hear car doors banging shut as my co-workers finally headed home. A screech owl called mournfully in the woods, and I thought the rain had begun to fall harder, then I realized the water dripping down my face was tears.
With twenty-twenty hindsight, I now wished I'd put up with the status quo and stayed in Haven. I wished I'd agreed to marry young and turn into a baby machine, to bow my head when my husband entered the room and to forget my big dreams of finding my own way in the world. I hadn't known then that the outside world was so cold and lonely. I hadn't known anyone without a wolf clawing at their insides would inevitably stay a stranger.
But my vision at seventeen had been clouded by youth, and I'd chosen to leave the only pack I could ever belong to. As my stepmother would say, I'd made my bed, and now I had to lie in it. With one final sigh, I turned away from the lantern-lit scene to head home to my empty cabin and my cold quilt.
I dreamed about Wolfie. He was chasing me through the woods, and I should have been terrified of the huge alpha wolf on my trail. Instead, my dream self was playful and laughing as she eluded the canine, pausing once to rub up against his side and lick his face. Perhaps because of the confusing dream, I woke to an even worse ache in my stomach and to one word on my mind.
Packless.
I couldn't miss work since I'd already taken the previous morning off, but a little luck was waiting for me at the nature center. At our morning staff meeting, I learned that one of the back-country cabins an eight hour hike into the wilderness area needed repairs, and I quickly volunteered to do the honors. Carrying fifty pounds of camping gear and tools down the trail wasn't necessarily my idea of fun, but the task meant I could spend three days away from civilization: three days when I wouldn't have to look over my shoulder fearing that Wolfie had tracked me down, three days when I wouldn't have to make inane conversation with my co-workers and pretend to be human, three days to think.
And, at first, the choice seemed to have been a good one. The straps of my pack creaked like the lines on a sailboat as the bulky parcel swayed with my steps, lulling me into a meditative state. Meanwhile, the sun was out and the scent of fallen leaves underfoot reminded me of simpler years. By the time I'd turned twelve, life in our werewolf pack was difficult, but childhood as a wolfling was bliss. I wasn't able to shift forms at that age, but my mind was more than half wolf as I stalked prey in the woods above our settlement. My sister Brooke and I played for hours, only coming home when our mother yelled up the hillside toward us that dinner was ready.
But then Mom had died giving birth to our little brother, a bloodling who had emerged in wolf form and had torn our mother apart from the inside out. My father drowned the tiny wolf in the duck pond, and before long, I had a stepmother, a little brother, and a father who treated me to birthday-morning orders that sucked every ounce of freedom out of my life.
I shook the unwanted memories away and tried to pay attention to my surroundings. I'd already crested the ridge that marked the halfway point between the nature center and the cabin, and now I was following a boulder-lined stream that filled the air with the sound of running water. As I looked down the trail, appreciating the fall colors, I paused at the sight of a man's form resting on a log by the side of the path. Although the human seemed to be napping with his broad-brimmed hat pulled down over his face, the unmistakable scent of wolf drifted into my nose from all sides, and I could feel my adrenaline kick back in. I was as distant from my wolf brain as was possible at that moment, so such strong odors meant there were several wolves around and that they were close by. Trouble.
"Don't you want to say hello to your old man?" the figure called without looking up. I should have been relieved that this was a family reunion, not the ambush by Wolfie's pack that I'd been expecting ever since my trip to the city the day before. But, if anything, the sight of my father was even less welcome than an invasion by Wolfie's pack would have been. I unclasped the waist buckle of my backpack and let the mass fall to the trail so I'd be ready to run, but the Chief had anticipated my retreat. A dozen wolves stepped out of the trees behind me and advanced, herding me toward the father I'd escaped ten years before.
Father had straightened to a sit by the time I reached him, and he patted the log in invitation, but merely shrugged when I chose to remain standing. He looked exactly the same as he had ten years ago, and his commanding presence wasn't dimmed in the slightest by the fact that his face was a foot lower than mine as I stood over him. I trembled as the breath of a wolf blew hot against the back of my legs, then almost laughed when I realized that I was terrified, for once, of someone else's wolf rather than of my own. Another stray thought reminded me that Wolfie, despite his strangeness, had been a perfect gentleman the day before. In contrast, the alpha who was my father preferred fear tactics over subtlety.
"Father," I acknowledged once I had gathered myself enough to speak. Even though I had safely yelled at the pack leader as a teenager, I had a feeling that any lack of respect now would be met with harsh repercussions, so I bowed my head even though I felt anything but submissive. I could tell my father liked the gesture even more because of my resentment, and his eyes took on the mischievous sparkle that I understood most women in our pack found irresistible. I detested it.
"Little Terra, all grown up," the Chief said pleasantly, once my single word had been allowed to sit in the autumn air long enough to be swallowed up by the rushing water of the creek. "I've missed you," he continued flatly.
I couldn't prevent myself from sending my father a shocked look in response to that profession of affection. Was I misremembering the Chief's farewell warning a decade ago? I'd thoroughly believed then that the alpha was willing to kill his own daughter if she made his life difficult, and I saw no reason to change my mind now. So why would my father want to pretend to have missed me?
Even though the memory only took seconds to rush through my mind, my father was apparently bored with my reverie, so he continued without waiting for a reply. "You've had enough running around time," he intoned, making me wonder if perhaps today was my birthday and I'd somehow missed the date. This forced meeting and command felt like those other birthday ambushes, and the similarity was only accentuated when the Chief continued to speak. "It's time to come home," he proclaimed, and I could instantly feel my limbs moving to obey his thinly veiled command. The alpha smirked at the agonized expression on my face, then he added, "Unless...."
I took a deep breath to calm my stuttering heart, then drew my father out the way he clearly intended for me to do. "What do you need from me?" I asked.
"Well, since you're offering," my father began, "An old man like me needs an heir."
***
So we're back on the grandchildren train,
I couldn't help thinking, before blurting out,
"What about Ethan?" By the time I'd left home, my spoiled-rotten half-brother had been good for only one thing, in my opinion—to keep Father's attention safely away from me and Brooke. Ethan had been four years old at the time, and the little despot already seemed to be growing into his future role as alpha. Now he'd be...I added up the years in my mind...fourteen. Just old enough to shift into wolf form and make everyone else's lives miserable with those teen-wolf temper tantrums. Unless.... "Cricket isn't a halfie!" I exclaimed.
If I hadn't been so focused on surviving, I would have been proud of the way my words broke through my father's cold exterior. His reaction was just an angry twitch in one cheek, but it was there. "Your stepmother, unfortunately, does not appear to have come from the quality bloodlines we'd once thought," the Chief confirmed. "Ethan is no use to me as meat."
The words were like a slap. Yes, the kid was annoying, but using the slur "meat" for the son of a werewolf, even if he would never shift, was extreme. Somewhere beneath his alpha exterior, I'd always assumed my father harbored an ounce of compassion for his favorite child, if not for the rest of us. It seemed I'd been wrong about a lot of things.
I would have to worry about Ethan later, though. If my stepmother was a half-breed descendant of a werewolf and a human, that meant any other sons she'd borne would have a 50% chance of being "meat," while 50% of her daughters would be halfies like herself with the same tendency to produce human sons. I had no clue if I had other little half-siblings running around, but from my father's expression, it was clear none of them would make the cut as his precious heir.
My mother, on the other hand, could have traced her werewolf bloodlines back to the Mayflower. Any hypothetical sons I had would be just what my father was looking for, and I cringed at the thought. This had been my worst nightmare ever since I wrapped my mind around werewolf succession and my father's plans for the pack. I was pretty sure I didn't want children at all, if only because 10% of werewolves were born as bloodlings, which produced tough odds for werewolf mothers. But if I ever did reproduce, I definitely didn't want my sons to be raised in their grandfather's image. Who wants to be the mother of Genghis Khan?
While I worked my way through that train of thought, my father had risen, a smirk on his face. I wasn't a small woman, but he towered over me, his human form more daunting than the wolves at my back. Despite my fear, though, I could tell the alpha was playing cat and mouse, which gave me a perverse sense of hope. If my father just wanted to drag me back to Haven and marry me off to someone with good bloodlines, there would have been no reason for this manipulative chat. So he still needed something. But what?
"You know, your sister had a son," Father continued conversationally. I
did
know, because Brooke had sent my father a few letters after she left Haven and before I followed suit. She'd fled at an even younger age than I had, then ended up marrying a guy in medical school who was thrilled when he found out his girlfriend was pregnant. But Brooke didn't invite me to the wedding, never offered to have me come meet Dale or their son Keith. I hadn't heard from her after I left home.
Wait, had my father just referred to Brooke in the past tense?
"The silly girl died a few years ago," my father confirmed, and shock made me miss his next few sentences. I'd felt abandoned by Brooke, but had never imagined she'd be permanently gone before I could forgive her. I sank down onto the log my father had risen from, my throat closing up as tears tried to force their way out of my eyes, but pretty soon my sense of self-preservation kicked back in. I could mourn Brooke later. Right now, I had to figure out what my father wanted, and how to get it for him so I could escape from this mess.
Then the pieces clicked together. "You want Keith to be your heir," I mused out loud, not bothering to look into my father's eyes since I was suddenly sure I'd figured out the alpha's plan.
"You always were a clever girl," my father confirmed. "A grandson is as good as a son, as long as he's a wolf and in Haven. That's your choice—teach the boy to shift and bring him to me willingly, or we'll have to go back to plan B."
I took a deep breath. This was my way out, as unsavory as it seemed. I didn't even know the kid, but chances are that if he had my father's blood running through his veins, he was an arrogant alpha and would be thrilled to follow in his grandfather's footsteps. "Just so we're clear," I said, raising my voice to make sure the wolves behind me heard the deal being struck, "what you're saying is that if I can talk Keith into being your heir, I'm off the hook. You'll leave me alone. No more surprise visits."
"I'll be glad to see the back of you," my father agreed, the words echoing his dismissal a decade before. Then he pushed his hat back down over his hair, whistled to his wolves as if they were hunting dogs, and brushed past me up the trail.
"One month," he called back without turning. Within seconds, my father was out of sight, but the scent of wolves lingered in my memory for the rest of the day.
My boss tried to talk me into simply taking a leave of absence, but I knew I wouldn't be coming back. During the five years I'd worked for the park, I'd merely been marking time, and I realized now that I'd never so much as gone out for drinks after work, let alone made any deeper connections. There was no one here who I would miss. I might send Maddie a postcard once this whole mess had been sorted out, but that was about it.
As I drove my ancient Toyota back to my cabin to pack my sparse possessions, though, I realized I had no idea where I was going. How long ago had my sister died? Did Dale know his wife and son were werewolves? As much as I would have loved to use the absence of information as an excuse to malinger, my father was efficient in getting what he wanted, so I wasn't surprised to find a dossier waiting on my kitchen table, even though the cabin door was just as firmly locked as when I'd left. I suspected there was an equally thick file on me floating around the Chief's office—just how a daughter hopes for her father to remember her, with a sea of facts in case she can someday be of use.
The contents of Brooke's file hit me hard. I had to sit down to keep from falling when I saw her young face in the top photograph, tilted up to smile at the lanky man beside her. That had to be Dale, and I could tell even from the photo that he was the furthest you could get from an alpha werewolf. My brother-in-law was skinny and unimposing despite his height, the kind of man you might call cute instead of handsome. Just the type of husband my loving and lovable sister would have gravitated toward.
More photos slipped out of the folder, but Brooke didn't get much older. By the time her curly-haired son was three years old, the family was short a mother. My sister had died before I even left Haven.
Although the reality of my sister's early death was shocking, the true surprise came when I flipped to the end of Brooke's folder. The last item was an unopened envelope, addressed to me in my sister's looping hand. Peering at the postmark, I saw that Brooke had mailed it months before I fled Haven, but our father had clearly deemed the letter not worthy of my young eyes. Yet he'd kept it and added the envelope to Brooke's file.
Probably after steaming open and resealing the flap in order to decide whether the contents would be an appropriate bait to add to my trap
, I thought sarcastically.
Even though I was itching to know what Brooke had wanted to say to me, I stilled my fingers before they could open the envelope. The letter inside was from my sister, but I knew the real message came from my father, and I'd been manipulated enough for one day. So I tucked the unopened missive back into Brooke's file and got to work packing up the few possessions I wanted to keep. Once again, my father's actions were forcing me away from my home.
***
As I crunched up the winding gravel driveway from the country highway to Dale's house the next day, I realized my brother-in-law was wealthy. Yes, the rundown nature of the yard gave the residence a homey and lived-in look, but the sheer size of the house at the top of the hill made it clear I was outclassed. I pulled to a stop beside a brand-new minivan, and even the soccer balls and scratched bike in the yard weren't enough to keep me from cringing at the comparison between my rusty vehicle and my brother-in-law's van. I knew without turning around that the garbage bags of clothes and cardboard boxes of books in my backseat went even further toward giving me the illusion of being a vagrant. Heck, who was I kidding—I
was
homeless at the moment.
During the two-hour drive to Dale's house, I'd mostly worried over the issue of how to tackle Dale and Keith's ignorance. My father made it clear in his file that my sister hadn't spilled the beans about our genealogy to her family, so Dale was to be kept in the dark. Keith, obviously, would have to be told since I needed to help him learn to shift, but how would a hormone-addled teenage werewolf take the news? Looking at their house, though, I now realized those problems were secondary to my first big hurdle—insinuating my way into my sister's family. What would prevent Dale from assuming I was some kind of gold-digger, then sending me packing before I even got in the door?
The front porch was bigger than my entire cabin back at the park, and the structure was imposing in its sheer size. I was intimidated enough to try to walk lightly, but my hiking boots were still loud on the boards as I made my way to the glass-paneled door. Cupping my hands around my face, I peered inside, where a beautifully modern kitchen sparkled with cleanliness. My imagination could easily place Brooke in the scene, pulling homemade cookies out of the oven. The role of a fifties-era housewife would have been the perfect fit for her cuddly personality, and it broke my heart to think she'd escaped Haven only to die of cancer four years into her perfect life.
"Can I help you?" I turned so quickly at the words that I nearly twisted my ankle, slipping and having to catch myself on the side of the house to keep from falling.
Yep, this is the exact kind of first impression I'd hoped to make
, I thought, taking in the form of my brother-in-law in front of me. Dale was older than he'd been in the last photo, but he still exuded the air of kindliness that I'm sure had attracted my sister in the first place. Even when startling an intruder, the doctor couldn't quite make his face look stern.
"This is so embarrassing," I said, trying to figure out where to start with my explanation. Despite Dale's gentle nature, a tall male figure catching me in his territory was enough to set my senses on high alert, and I had to struggle against an urge to jump back into my car and spin out of the driveway. Only the knowledge that my father would track me down and drag me back to Haven if I failed kept my feet rooted to the spot as I tried out a shaky smile.
But then Dale surprised me with my own name. "I can't believe it! Terra?" he asked...then pulled me into a bear hug.
I couldn't remember the last time I'd been hugged, and my body stiffened in response, then slowly relaxed as Dale's brotherly affection washed over me. What kind of man would recognize on sight the sister-in-law he'd never met? Would catch her snooping, but assume her intentions were pure? My sister had clearly found a winner—too bad I was here to turn this kind-hearted man's son into a psychopath.
"And you're Dale," I responded once he released me from the hug. I could just make out the hint of a tear welling up in one of my brother-in-law's eyes, probably because my sister and I had a strong family resemblance. Just thinking about Brooke made my own eyes tear up, so I swiped at them as I turned a more honest smile on Dale. "I only just heard about Brooke," I continued, "and I couldn't stop myself from coming right away to meet you and Keith."
Clearly I'd said the wrong thing. For the first time, Dale's face became shadowed, and he paused for a minute before giving me the brushoff I'd been expecting, but for a different reason. "I'm not sure now's a good time," Dale said, and I realized the unhappiness on my brother-in-law's face was for his son, not for the wife he'd lost a decade ago. Unlike me, Dale would have had plenty of time to put Brooke's death behind him, but the inevitable changes in Keith as he approached his first shift would be worrisome to a human father. Unfortunately, those changes were only going to get worse.
"You're worried about Keith," I said, hoping to get Dale talking while I figured out how to approach the issue. Since my brother-in-law was a medical doctor, I'd be hard-pressed to pretend Keith had any kind of physical disease, but what about a hereditary mental illness? Something very vague and rare...and easily overcome with the proper therapy.
As I worked through the intricacies of a lie about my private therapy practice, Dale was spilling his worries that his son had fallen into a bad crowd in school, had started experimenting with drugs. "There's a major problem in our area with young people abusing prescription drugs," my brother-in-law told me earnestly, and I almost rolled my eyes at him. I had a feeling Keith was as straight as an arrow just like his father, and I was 99% sure any behavioral changes Dale noticed were due to his son's approaching change. "I don't want my son to make a bad first impression on his only aunt," Dale finished. "Maybe you could come back in a few weeks?"
"Actually, I'm really glad I came when I did," I told my brother-in-law, putting on my best pseudo-professional manner. "Did Brooke ever tell you about the...um...mental instability in our family?" Dale paled a bit, and I spun my tale as best I could. Good thing my brother-in-law was an easy mark since my abilities as a con artist left something to be desired. Between Dale's gullibility, though, and facts pulled from his dossier, I was soon being shown through the house and into Keith's bedroom. Where it became obvious from scent alone that the boy had already reached the bone-melting phase of a shift.
"Could you leave us alone for a moment?" I asked Dale calmly, then I quickly shut and locked the door behind him.
***
"Who are you?" the kid grunted from the bed. The curtains were drawn and the lights were off, so the room was dim, but I could feel the imminent shift pushing into my bones. Keith's pheromones were drawing out my own wolf, but I had a plan to use that effect to my advantage. My nephew would have to help me, though, and there was no time to explain what we were doing. I needed to get him to shift back to human, and fast. Now was neither the time nor the place for his first change.
"I'm your aunt Terra," I told Keith soothingly, coming to sit on the edge of the bed. "Brooke was my sister."
"I heard you telling Dad you're a shrink," Brooke's son said, turning to face me with piercing brown eyes just like my own. "He thinks I'm on drugs, but I swear I just tried pot that one time...." He stopped speaking abruptly, twitching involuntarily as the pain hit, and I reached down to take his hand.
"I believe you, Keith, but I need you to trust me for a minute," I said gently. "Can you match your breathing to mine? And keep looking into my eyes." Keith's attention had turned inward when the ache hit, but he clearly had some of his grandfather's iron will because the boy was able to obey my request. I slowed my own breathing to lead Keith into a calmer place, then reached for my wolf brain.
What I was planning to do would be tricky, partly because I had such iron control over my wolf nowadays that I couldn't seem to let her out when I wanted to. But also because I needed to be able to pull my wolf brain out far enough to yank Keith back to full humanity when I stopped my own shift...without letting my wolf escape all the way. Since a younger werewolf like my nephew would mirror any shift of an adult in close physical proximity, I figured my wolf and I could easily shut his wolf down, but only if my own darker half cooperated. It had been so long since I'd let her out that I was afraid my wolf wouldn't go back to sleep willingly.
It was worth the risk, though, because it looked like Keith was going to change all the way if he didn't get a little help. I couldn't imagine how terrifying it would be to perform your first shift without understanding what you were, and the kid's father might get torn apart in the process. I wasn't sure if I owed Brooke anything after the way she had abandoned me to our father's tender mercies, but Dale and Keith didn't deserve to pay for her desertion.
My nephew's breathing had slowed, but I could feel his wolf just out of sight, waiting to return to the surface. Meanwhile, I calmed my own mind enough to let my wolf up out of her cell, and she rose gently, not in the snarling rush I'd expected. I felt the tickling of hairs pushing out of my body, but there was little pain as my senses became more acute. I could smell Dale in the kitchen, pouring a cup of afternoon coffee, could almost catch a confusing hint of wolf scent outside the house. But I'd have to think about that later. Right now, I needed to turn off this shift.
Down!
I ordered my wolf, and as I'd expected, she growled at me, pain running up my arms as my fingers curled into claws. But, surprisingly, my wolf didn't put up a fight. Instead, in rare human words, my wolf gave me an ultimatum—
I'll go to sleep now, but in five minutes, we're all wolf
.
Shit. This wasn't good at all, but I had no choice except to agree. I could feel my wolf and Keith's both descending deep into our subconscious, and my nephew looked up at me with suddenly clear eyes. "Wow, I feel a lot better!" he exclaimed. "That really helped. Thanks, Aunt Terra!"
I didn't have time to answer, though. My wolf was inching her way back up that dark staircase in my mind, and I needed to be far away from father and son's sight before my change hit. I tore through the living room and kitchen like my pants were on fire, and was out the door before Dale could even ask what was wrong. I was shifting by the time I hit the tree line, my clothes ripping off my back as my wolf form howled in triumph. Then she ran.