Temptation (Journal of the Wolves of Spruce Hollow) (8 page)

I was headed on the fast track to some serious trouble.

My mother was set to lose her freaking mind until the Alpha stepped in and took me to live under his roof with his rules.

I tried to disobey him too but it didn’t work out quite the same way it had with my mother.

For instance, he kicked my ass six ways to Sunday every time I ran away from home. He always found me too; there wasn’t anywhere I could hide from him, like I could with my human mother.

He also got me back into school during the day and in the evenings he would take me out hunting to keep me away from trouble.

On the weekends, he would take me into the woods and let me rage, scream and smash trees. When that still wasn’t enough to calm me inside, he made me chop wood. That first year I chopped the entire pack’s winter wood supply. There must have been 80 cords of wood or more there.

I hated it and would try and run off the minute his back was turned though. So, eventually the Alpha started sitting with me and would watch me while I chopped wood, usually until dark.

He would talk about what it meant to be a Were and told me of the duty and responsibility that every single Were had to the pack.

I tuned him out while I chopped. I didn’t want to be a werewolf. I didn’t want to live in Spruce Hollow. I hated it here. I hated everyone that lived here too. Him. My mother. Everyone.

I just wanted my father back.

I was one angry little boy, but if you could get past that façade and peeled back through the layers of rage and fury, you would find a very sad little boy curled up into the fetal position.

Losing my father had devastated me right to the core of my young being. He had been my entire world and my biggest problem was, I didn’t know how to go on living without him.

One Saturday, on one of our many weekend trips to the woods, the Alpha encouraged me to talk about my father while I was mindlessly snapping sticks.

I turned my back and ignored him while I continued looking for more sticks to snap.

I hadn’t spoken of my father since his death, not with the Alpha, not with anyone, but he didn’t let that deter him and continued to talk, telling me stories from my father’s youth and what an honorable, brave Were he had grown into.

I could feel my rage start to build as I tried to walk away from him. But he followed me still, telling me stories about my dad.

Without warning, something scary and deep inside me snapped.

How dare he speak of my father? He didn’t deserve to talk about him. He didn’t even have the right to speak his name aloud.

It incensed me and I flew into a physical rage, screaming and swinging my closed fists at him.

“Shut up, shut up!! You’re not my father! Stop talking about him! You’re trying to replace him! You’ll never take his place! You’ll never be my father! Never!” I screamed at him.

I was still shaking with the venom of my words when the Alpha started slowly walking towards me, his face an impassive mask.

Inside me, my wolf was saying, “Oh, oh, you’ve really gone too far now. He is going to kick your ass for sure this time.”

But I didn’t care. I was too angry and filled with too much sadness to care. Maybe I would be lucky and the Alpha would kill me and put me out of my misery.

He walked up to me, his dark eyes never leaving my face. And although I should have, I would not submit and look away from him.

Stubborn to the end, I refused to bow my head or avert my gaze.

When he finally stood in front of me, he said, “I know I’m not your father, Roan. No one can ever replace him. He was a good man and a good father and I’m sorry he died. He loved you very much but he would not want you to suffer this way for him though. He would want you, his only child, to live. Not to be filled with such rage and despair at his passing. I know I am not your father, Roan but you are a child of the pack and I am its Alpha. I will not give up on you. Not ever.”

He put his arms around me and held me in a firm hug but I didn’t want him to hug me; I wanted to continue to rage and scream because I felt safer with those emotions.

They were familiar to me.

I squirmed to get away from the Alpha but he held on tightly without speaking. I fought against him but as a full grown, male Were, he was strong, so much stronger than I could ever hope to be.

My resolve began to weaken as I fought against him and struggled until I had nothing left…except the sadness that always filled me.

And then, physically and emotionally exhausted, I slumped into the Alpha’s embrace and started to cry.

I had not cried once since my father’s death. Since I was now the man of the house, it was my duty to be stoic and hold it all inside. Besides, my mother did enough crying for the both of us and if I allowed myself to fall apart too, who was going to take care of the both of us?

But at that moment, standing in the woods embraced by the Alpha’s hug, I knew the answer to that question and great heaving sobs wrenched out of my throat and strangled me. My body shook as I cried into his chest and wailed like a baby. My father was gone. Gone.

He had gone and left me behind with no one to love and care for me the way he did. “Who would call me Roaney Baloney? Who would teach me how to be a responsible Were and a good man? Who would love me now?”

Certainly not my mother.

She had left Spruce Hollow for good once she had unceremoniously dropped me off on the Alpha’s doorstep with a curt “I can’t deal with him anymore, he’s your problem now.”

The sense of loss I felt was enormous. It was bad enough that I had lost my father but I had also lost my mother too.

I was truly alone in the world. I had no family and I cried into the Alpha’s hug until my stomach hurt.

I snapped out of my reverie from the sound of Caver bursting up the driveway and onto the front lawn.

Laughing, I watched as he phased and made his way up the stone walkway. Griff was right behind him, followed by the rest of my brothers.

“Don’t you stand there and look at me with that smug look on your face, you bastard!” he called at me. 

“Caver, you’re such a sore loser,” I laughed as I got up and walked down to meet them.

I knew I’d never hear the end of it, so I clasped his hand and gave him a shoulder bump as I offered words of encouragement.

“Next time. You’ll catch me next time, I know it.” I said laughing, as I clapped him on the back. 

“Yeah right Mr. “I phased at twelve years old”. No one will ever be able to outrun you,” he said sulkily.

I didn’t say it, as he was upset enough and I didn’t want to rub it in, but he was right.

Because I had phased at such an early age, I had years of extra growth on almost every single Were in the pack and even though we were all roughly the same height and weight in our human form, as a Were, I was enormous and intimidating.

What this translated into was that I was faster and stronger in my wolf form than any of them would ever be and it burned Caver to death to know this, as he was just as competitive in his wolf form as he was as a human.

                 ***

E
veryone joked and traded barbs as we headed up the stairs into the house. We entered into the country kitchen and saw the Alpha’s wife, Rose, preparing a snack for us.

“Rosie!” we all shouted in unison as we piled in through the door and crowded into the kitchen. 

“Hello Boys! Everyone is waiting for you downstairs,” Rose called over her shoulder as she checked on a batch of cookies in the oven.

Rose was a little gray haired force to be reckoned with. She had long gray hair that she braided and coiled all the way around her head, like a wreath. Rose and the Alpha were never blessed with any kids of their own and so, over the years, she had served as a surrogate mother for most of the pack’s children at one time or another.

Whether it was cleaning scraped knees, wiping tears or sitting and listening while she plied you with her delicious chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk, she had been there for all of us and was well loved and respected by the entire Pack.

She was especially loved by me and held a special place in my heart.

In my eyes, Rose could do no wrong. She had stepped up without hesitation and treated me as her own blood born son when my own biological mother dumped me off on her doorstep and I considered Rose to be my mother in every sense of the word.

“Hi mom” I said as I walked over to see what she was up to. She looked up at me with her warm amber eyes sparkling full of love for me. 

“Hello darling, give your old mother a kiss, now,” she said as she jutted out her cheek in my direction.

I obliged like a good son and planted a kiss on her soft, wrinkly cheek as I caught her scent in my nose as soon as I bent down. She smelled like apples and daisies. Rose’s smell was always one that brought out sensations of warmth and feelings of being greatly loved.

Everyone in the pack had his or her own individual scent. It was with us from the moment of birth and was a handy tool that we could use to locate one another. No one in a Were pack could hide from one another for very long without being found.

Which probably explained why “Hide and Seek” was not a terribly popular game with the Were children on the acreage, it was just too easy and therefore not very much fun once you factored in our enhanced sight, the ability to phase and superior physical speed and hearing into the mix.

Poor Aspen used to love playing Hide and Seek when she was little, but none of the other kids would play it with her because it took her too long to find them.

“How’s my little Aspen doing, Roan? You tell her to come and visit her grandmother and grandfather, we haven’t seen her in weeks.”

Rose considered Aspen to be her granddaughter, while in reality; she would actually be her daughter in law. But it was hard to feel like a mother in law to a six-year-old child, so Rose became “Nana Rosie” from the time Aspen had arrived in Spruce Hollow.

“Yeah, I’ll bring her over for a visit, maybe this weekend if you guys aren’t busy. She’s mad at me right now, so I’ll wait until she cools off,” I laughed. 

“Oh, what’s Miss Aspen got her tail feathers ruffled about now?” 

“Let’s see, this week it’s the Christmas formal, Justin Myers and I’m a big jerk and she hates me.” 

“Oh, don’t you pay any mind to that, Roan. She’s just growing up and trying to find her own way. Hang on to her as best you can, son. Just a few more years and this will all be over with,” she said gently as she patted me on the back.

We all made small talk for a few minute even though I was anxious to get downstairs and find out what was going on.

“Here, be a dear and grab that for me and bring it downstairs with you,” she said as she gestured towards a plate of warm cookies.

Rose never ceased to amaze me; she could cook up a meal singlehandedly for the entire pack without batting an eyelash.

She was also a delegator extraordinaire and could have led a small expedition through the Alps, I swear. Nothing ever seemed to faze her, she just took life as it came and didn’t worry about things until she had to.

The Big house was comfortable and homey and was decorated in country décor with an extra large dinning room table, capable of holding twenty people, right smack dab in the middle of the enormous kitchen.

As a kid, there was rarely a time when all twenty chairs weren’t filled for breakfast, lunch or supper as Weres were highly social pack animals and were happiest when they were together with their pack mates.

Plus, it didn’t hurt that Rosie was a fantastic cook who always had something delicious coming out of the oven.

As we made our way downstairs, each of us laden down with bowls or plates filled with snacks that Rosie had instructed us to carry for her as we headed downstairs to the meeting room, I could hear my pack brothers and sisters talking and laughing in the large room that served as both a social gathering area and a spot to hold group meetings purely because of it’s size and ability to hold our entire pack if the need arose.

We got down the hall and rounded the corner and were greeted by thirty-three Weres in various stages of dress. Some were in bed when they received the late night call from the Alpha and had rushed over in their pajamas. One was dressed in medical scrubs, having been on her way home from work and another in tactical vest with a side arm strapped to his side.

We had Weres in important vantage points throughout the community so we could monitor and cover the entire town, in one way or another.

The humans would have been fearful had they known how much of the town was run by us, so keeping our secret was vital to all of our survival.

Everyone called out their greetings as we deposited Rosie’s bowls of chips and dip and a plate of fresh cookies on the enormous table. Everyone started digging in as I made my way over to sit at the Alpha’s right hand.

He gave me a knowing look, nodded imperceptibly and started the meeting when I nodded back.

“Thank you everyone for coming and getting here so quickly. I’m afraid we have run into a problem.” My inner wolf and I sat up straighter in our chair and listened intently, wondering what had gone wrong. As the pack’s Beta, I knew I would be called upon in some capacity to deal with whatever had happened.

“I’m afraid we have run into a problem with our new male Were. Roan was supposed to pick him up tomorrow morning at the train station and then bring him directly to the training camp, but unfortunately that plan is not going to work out,” he said as he turned to look at me.

I frowned at him, wondering what had happened.

“It seems the new Were accidentally phased before his parents could get him to the station and load him on the train. Our new Were is presently holed up in the basement of his parent’s home and is stuck in phase and can’t figure out how to change back. So, what we have right now is a starving, angry and frightened new Were imprisoned in the middle of a heavily populated city,” the Alpha said gravely, “It’s a disaster just waiting to spill out into the city.”

As soon as the words were out, everyone started talking at once. Asking questions and voicing opinions on what we should do. The Alpha sat back in his chair, folded his arms and listened for a moment before he turned to me.