by Lena Austin
Duke stood behind his desk, and his smile dripped with menace. “So you wouldn’t mind if your children were made with another mutt?”
Corbin and Roni both looked at each other, dumbfounded. What had he just said? Roni wanted to hold Corbin. He’d told her how proud Duke was of being a pure. Had Duke or Corbin’s mother deceived the whole pack? Why?
Corbin let go of her hand and took a few steps toward his father. “I’m sorry, I must have missed that last part. What was that?”
Duke sighed and fiddled with one of the golden pens on his desk. He looked pained. “Corbin, I should have told you sooner. Maybe it would explain why I am so hesitant to allow you to marry someone who is not purebred.” Duke looked at his son, and his stare never faltered. “We are not pure. Your mother was but I am not. My mother was a Labrador and German Shepherd mix. That’s why I can pass as a black werewolf.”
Roni closed her mouth with a snap and promised herself to shut up unless Corbin needed backup. This was between them right now.
Duke didn’t spare her a glance. “Son, it’s hell being a mutt. I’m lucky. I look like a wolf even if my mother wasn’t pure. To hide what she was her parents even had her ears bobbed so they stood up like a proper wolf’s.”
Roni winced, and Corbin’s face reflected her disgust. Hadn’t those ancient disfigurements died out when humans almost did? Most werefolk considered such practices torture unless for health reasons. In fact such surgery was considered illegal except in rare cases.
Duke’s son leaned over the monumental desk separating them. “We’re not purebred, and you had the audacity to tell me that Roni is not good enough for me because she is not a pure breed?”
“I do apologize, Corbin, I really do, but this girl is not good enough for you.” Duke turned his stare to Roni. “I mean, look at her. She is glued to the spot because I said we are not pure.”
Corbin glanced at Roni. “She is glued to the spot in shock, Dad. She can’t believe it just as I can’t.”
Roni folded her arms. Her voice dripped with contempt for his prejudices. “I’m trying to stay out of your family issues. I’m sorry you have a problem with mixed breeds.” She deliberately ignored the accusation that she wanted to marry Corbin because he was pure and a pack leader’s son. She wouldn’t even take notice of such a charge.
Duke’s voice boomed through the room. “I do not want you marrying a mutt!”
Corbin looked like he would explode at the insulting change in decibel level. His face was red and his teeth sharpened to a fine point. He was halfway to full lupine and ready to spring.
Duke’s lip curled. His eyes turned golden, and his skin sprouted a fine dusting of night-black fur.
Roni stepped back warily. Two Alphas going at it in a small room meant all noncombatants were in grave danger. Still, she wouldn’t hesitate to defend Corbin if she felt it necessary. She swallowed hard. Interference on her part would destroy Corbin’s pride. She vowed to do so only in defense of his life.
At the last moment Corbin mastered his temper. “I don’t give a fuck! I am going to marry the girl I love, and if you don’t like it you can just die and stay out of my life.” Corbin turned and grabbed Roni’s hand and pulled her to the door. He turned back to his father. “Don’t bother coming to the uniting ceremony. I won’t stand for it.”
Roni looked back over her shoulder just before Corbin pulled her out of sight.
Duke had a calculating smile on his face. He raised his glass and his lips moved.
Had she heard his whisper right? “Let the games begin?”
* * *
Roni sat behind a tree in her lupine form and smiled to herself. She sat downwind and out of sight. The Chase was always the best part of a Uniting. She’d make it difficult for Corbin to catch her, at least at first. The point was to be caught eventually, after all.
Corbin struggled to find her location. He sniffed in the right direction and looked around. The chase before the uniting ceremony proved that a united couple would be able to find each other no matter what.
Roni stood up to move to another tree. A branch broke beneath her paw. She didn’t wait for Corbin’s howl of triumph. She exploded out of her hiding spot and ran for a stream to wet her paws so he’d lose her trail.
He ran around in front of Roni to cut her off, but came to a sudden halt. He spun around into a defensive posture. Roni almost ran into his backside before she scrabbled to a stop. She looked up over his tail.
A black wolf and Corbin growled softly to one another. The strange wolf made no other threatening moves, but his presence at a uniting was at best impolite.
Then the black fur registered in Roni’s brain. Silently, in the way of her mother’s breed, she took off around Corbin and sank her teeth into the foreleg of the wolf. Huskies for centuries had used their lightning speed to break the legs of their opponents using that fighting trick, and Roni employed it now with no regret. The sickening crunch echoed through the forest.
The new wolf howled in pain and shifted back to human. It was Duke.
Corbin and Roni shifted simultaneously. Corbin stood protectively in front of her to hide her naked body. “Don’t you dare come here causing trouble,” Roni barked over Corbin’s shoulder.
“This ceremony, from what I’m hearing, should not be taking place. You don’t have an Alpha Male overseeing it.” Duke rubbed his arm gingerly.
“My father is here to oversee the ceremony. As far as I’m concerned, Alpha Male is a title to be earned, not achieved through lies and deceit. Mutt.” Roni snarled the last word.
“My kind of bitch. A bark as sharp as her bite.” Duke smiled. “I would love to oversee the ceremony if you would have me.”
Roni stared at him in confusion. “Huh?”
Corbin took a step forward. “This was all a test, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, son. I needed to know that you were the Alpha Male I knew you could be, and I needed to know that you had found the Alpha Bitch I always thought you deserved.” Duke turned his attention to Roni. “Welcome to the Thornburn pack.”
Corbin, his head high, shook Duke’s uninjured hand. “It would be an honor, Father, for you to oversee the ceremony if Roni’s father will step aside. If not, you’ll have to share with Eduardo Engelmann.”
Duke licked his lips and smiled. “Eduardo and I may be rivals for territory now, but in college we were roommates. He married the sexiest…” Duke cleared his throat. “How is Katriena these days?”
Roni snorted. “Mom’s fine. She’s waiting with Dad. You can go wait with them at the clubhouse.” Deliberately she permitted herself to begin shifting to canine. “I don’t like being deceived, and you have a lot of trust to regain, but I appreciate the welcome.” She turned, her tail sashaying behind her. She looked over her shoulder at Corbin, wagged her tail. “Don’t we have a chase to finish?” She took off into the woods with a howl.
“Excuse me, Father. I have a bitch to catch.” Corbin shifted and, with a howl, ran after her.
* * *
“We now pronounce you wolf and mate.” Eduardo and Duke shut the huge tome on the stand between them and shook hands with one another.
The roar of approval and applause from both packs and their guests shook the rafters of the warehouse-sized clubhouse.
Roni and Corbin, now dressed in white, led the procession to the reception hall for the celebration. The full moon clearly lit their way on the short walk through the trees in the midst of the Engelmann Pack lands.
Behind them, Eduardo and Duke talked about their old college days and acted like a pair of college kids on spring break. Katriena, Ana, and Jon tagged along behind, content to be out of the order of precedence.
Corbin proudly stood next to Roni on the dais and held her as if he’d never let go. The guests filed by, one by one. The rest danced and ate.
Jon and Ana raced up first. Jon pulled aside the collar of his shirt to show Corbin and Roni his bite. “Whew, am I glad I awakened — er, arose? —
in time.”
Ana smiled indulgently at her new husband. “Rose, darling. Just rose or risen.” She leaned toward Roni and winked. “He didn’t even get sick at his first goblet of blood.”
Jon sniffed and pretended to be offended. “As if I would. I’m a surgeon. I never get sick at the sight of blood. What took me so long was convincing my oh-so-stubborn love that turning me solved everything. We’ll just adopt if we get the urge to hear ‘Whyyy?’ a million times and want our stuff destroyed.”
Ana playfully slapped him on the arm. “Who neglected to tell me he wanted a literal eternity in my arms, hmm? C’mon, feather brain, let’s boogie!”
“Boogie? Is that a particular set of steps, like the Electric Slide you taught me last week?” Jon swung Ana out on the dance floor with his elegant white wings tucked close to his body.
Katriena mounted the dais, looking elegant and cool in gray silk. She accepted as her due Eduardo and Duke’s howls and whistles. She hugged both Corbin and Roni. “When do I get grandpups to spoil, hmm?”
All Roni did was smile. “Sooner than you think, Mom. I had my implants removed the week after Corbin revealed who he was to you.”
Katriena tilted her head in Roni’s direction. “Any offspring you have are going to be a pack of trouble. I can’t wait.”
Epilogue
Duke and Eduardo stood over the box bed, grinning as proudly as if they’d fathered the litter squirming on the padding themselves.
Eduardo nudged his old friend and bounced on his toes. “Those are some great-looking puppies. My daughter did very well for her first litter.”
Duke looked at Eduardo sideways and folded his arms across his chest. “You mean cubs, and my son provided the seed.”
Roni sighed inwardly. Werewolves called their young “cubs” to differentiate from the weredog “pups.” Once again, the ugly prejudices could arise to bite them all over nothing. She jiggled the baby in her arms and he rewarded her with a burp.
“They are puppies,” Eduardo corrected, his large brown eyes twinkling.
“Cubs.” Duke stared him down, his lips twitching with humor.
“Would you two stop it?” Katriena hissed from her position comfortably curled up in the oversized chair and returned to her knitting of the sixth blanket.
Both pack leaders bowed in unison. “Yes, our beloved Alpha Bitch.”
Jon and Ana laughed and applauded from their position at the music keyboard, where they took turns playing winter holiday music for the assembled grandparents.
Corbin silently squeezed Roni’s shoulders. “I’ll get them some punch.” He sauntered off to the kitchen, whistling in time to the music Ana picked out on the keyboard.
Eduardo leaned down and straightened the fur on one of the smaller Chihuahua blends. He laughed when the feisty little fellow bit his finger.
“How about we just call them grandcubs?” Duke suggested and nuzzled a black lab blend.
Eduardo looked at Duke and smiled. “Done.”
Roni tried not to laugh at their antics from her makeshift throne on the couch. She was exhausted but she was not going to deny the grandparents their bragging rights.
Eduardo looked at his daughter and pointed to the infant in her arms. “Roni, honey, why hasn’t that one shifted?” Eduardo looked concerned.
“This is Luciano. We’ll nickname him Lucky. It seems he is unable to shift.” Roni tickled the chin of her son, and was rewarded with a baby sigh and smile.
Duke shook his head sadly. “Oh, no. We have a Faux Paws. I know the pain of being different. He’s got a life of hell ahead of him.”
Jon turned from the keyboard and winked. “Only if he doesn’t find a guardian angel.”
Lena Austin
Truth is often stranger than fiction, and Lena’s experiences gave her a wide range of material to write about. Someone cursed her with “may you have a life so full you’ll have many tales to tell your grandchildren.” Hey, why waste these stories on kids who won’t listen anyway? Writing them down is a nice way to spend her retirement. What? You expected an ex-BDSM Mistress to take up crocheting or something? See all her books at http://www.LenaAustin.com or write her at [email protected].
Tuesday Richards
Tuesday Richards is in the home stretch of college classes, working toward a business management degree. In her free time she works as a marketing coordinator and spends time with her kids. As for her name? No, her parents were not high or drunk — she was named after “Tuesday’s Gone” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Visit her at www.tuesdayrichards.literalseduction.net. Must Love Dogs is Tuesday’s first book for Changeling Press.
