by Tarrah Betts
Truth is, I didn’t think my mother ever really liked living within the confines of the pack because Spruce Hollow was pretty secluded and cut off from the rest of the world. The closest city was almost three hours away.
For a human that type of life might not sound great but for a Were, it was ideal.
Chapter 6
***
Arriving at the Big house first, I sat at the bottom of the stone steps leading up to the front entryway.
I could hear my brothers off in the distance, jockeying for position. They would be here soon.
I sniffed the air and inhaled the familiar scents of my wolf pack members. I could sense that most of the others had arrived before us and were already inside waiting for us to arrive.
The Alpha must have sensed my arrival too, as he opened the door shortly after I sat down on the front steps and looked at me quizzically.
“Where are the others?” he said in his deep, easy drawl.
“They’re coming,” I looked up at him and grinned.
“Left them behind in the dust did you?”
“Yep.”
“Caver is going to be pretty upset, as you well know. He’s got a hot head that boy. I worry about him,” he said thoughtfully.
“Don’t worry, I’ll look out for him,” I said as I looked out towards the woods.
“I know you will son. Roan?”
“Hm?”
“You’re a good man and a strong leader. Don’t ever forget that.”
“Thank you Alpha,” I said as I smiled off into the darkness.
I had so much respect and admiration for this man. He had taken me in when I had no one else and I would always be loyal to him.
“Come inside after you’re done gloating. We’ll be in the downstairs meeting area. Everyone else has arrived already. We have much to talk about.”
“Will do.”
I heard Griff and Caver burst out of the woods before I saw them. They were neck and neck and running like their tails were on fire. I knew whoever got here first between the two of them would be ribbing the other for at least the next week.
For a second, I almost hoped it was Caver, just to spare me having to listen to him all week at work if he lost. Caver and Griff both worked for me, at my auto body repair shop. My Dad had been a mechanic and had opened Sabre’s Auto body back when he had first settled in Spruce Hollow, well before I was born.
When he died, he left the shop to me in his will, but I was only a kid at the time. So, the building was held in trust for me until I was old enough to decide what I wanted to do with it. There was never any doubt in my mind and as soon as I turned nineteen and was considered an adult, I set up the shop again, just as my father had done.
There was no way I’d let his dream die.
My parents had made an odd pair and it was almost laughable that my father had managed to woo my beautiful, delicate, French blooded mother in the first place and then drag her back here to the seclusion of Spruce Hollow. My mother had looked like she belonged in a salon, getting a pedicure, while reading a high fashion, magazine.
They met one day, during a visit to the big city. My father had gone with several unmated Weres for a long weekend of drinking and debauchery and apparently he had caught sight of my mother as he and the other guys were in the hotel parking lot, getting into my Dad’s truck.
I guess he saw her on the sidewalk, walking by and that was it. My dad told me something about her had completely bowled him over and that he just had to know her. He said his senses were humming with the scent and sight of her.
“My father jumped over the parking barrier and followed her for six blocks, just watching her and committing her delectable scent to memory so he would then be able to find her again, anywhere in the city, but he didn’t need to because he physically followed her all the way back to her apartment building.
My dad stalked her for days, following her around, learning about her and her habits. He knew she was human and human/Were mate pairings were inherently difficult in the beginning stages because the human doesn’t feel the connection to the extent that the Were does.
Humans tended to develop their feelings over time, whereas Weres would be on fire with lust and longing for their mate.
It was overwhelming for the human and difficult to control for the Were.
Eventually, my dad got fed up of waiting around and managed to bump into my mother “by accident” as she was carrying groceries home in the rain one day. He zipped right in front of her on the sidewalk. She didn’t even have time to see him and she crashed right into him, sending groceries flying everywhere.
My father, ever the gallant hero (snicker) accepted her repeated apologies of “I’m so sorry, I didn’t even see you there. Are you sure you’re okay?” and helped her pick up all the groceries and walked her back to her apartment. When they got there, she invited him in to dry off and the rest is history. They were married within six months and I arrived almost 9 months to the day later.”
I had a lot of great memories of my dad but my most favorite ones were of the times we used to spend together at the auto body shop.
I remembered going to work with my father from the time I was a little kid. He would wake me up early in the morning, his baritone voice booming as he came into my bedroom.
“Roaney Baloney, do you want to come to work with me today?” he’d say and I would jump off my bed and launch myself at him and whoop out an enthusiastic “Yes!! Can we go right now?”
Then he’d laugh and sling me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carry me downstairs to eat breakfast with him.
I loved the auto body shop; it was more than the business I now owned. It was a tangible piece of my father and the only physical part of him that I had left.
From the pungent smells of gas and oil to the touch of cold, hard steel, my father was present everywhere in the shop and had taught me everything I knew about cars.
I could change out tie rod ends by myself by the time I was ten years old.
Thinking about my father was like picking at a bloody scab. I missed him every single day since the day he’d died. I thought the sun rose and set on him when I was a kid.
I still did. He was an honorable man and a wonderful father.
When he died in a car accident, I was only twelve years old and had just come into my wolf form. I lacked proper emotional discipline and was overwhelmed by the changes in my body because twelve years old is much too young to have your Were gene activate.
But my father was a Were, as was my grandfather and great grandfather. The closer together the affected generations were, the younger you went through the transformation and after my dad was taken away from me so suddenly, I became one poorly controlled, angry young werewolf.
I picked fights with older, bigger Weres and frequently got my ass handed back to me but I never backed down.
Not once.
I would go home, bloodied and bruised from fighting and my mother would scream at me and give me hell. Then, I would run away from home and vandalize pack property to appease the rage boiling inside me.
I hung out with the older teenage Weres, since there was no one my own age in the pack that understood what it was to be a werewolf. I got into a lot of trouble with the older Weres too. A typical weekend with them always involved drinking, smoking dope and having sex with older girls from the pack or in town.
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 awa
y 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.
Chapter 7
***
Everyone 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.
