My brother-in-law paused, waiting for our reactions, and I immediately obliged. "You could prompt an unborn bloodling to shift back into human form and save the mother," I mused aloud. "Or you could expedite a teenager's first transformation if he was having trouble." The possibilities were endless.
And also potentially hazardous. In Dale's hands, this miracle drug would undoubtedly save lives. But in the grasp of a less scrupulous shifter, the hormones could instead become both trap and punishment. I was quite positive that Justin, for example, would have been able to turn Dale's miracle cure into a scourge used to vanquish any shifters who dared to stand against his pack.
I shared another glance with Wolfie, knowing that my mate's quick brain would have picked up on the same potential negative side effects of the drug that mine had. But the other alpha simply shrugged off the danger, assuming that he'd be able to keep a lid on the cocktail and ensure it never left our own pack.
Given my mate's powerful alpha dominance—and the fact that there were no other trained medical doctors allied with werewolves—chances were good that Wolfie was right.
"The drug is untested?" my mate said instead of running through any of the potential downsides of Dale's brainchild.
"That's the rub," my brother-in-law agreed. "The yahoos were willing to let me shoot them up, but I felt like that was more your decision to make than mine."
The doctor's eyes sought out my own, opening up the responsibility to include me as well as my mate, and I appreciated his thoughtfulness. Still, my own gaze immediately returned to Wolfie, hoping he'd make the choice that I didn't feel qualified to place upon my more slender shoulders.
"I'm glad you asked," Wolfie said simply. Unlike me, the other alpha felt no compunction against deciding thorny issues on the fly. In fact, he immediately held out his right arm and continued: "Because, if anyone's going to be your guinea pig, it should be me."
My heart swelled with pride for the alpha who was always willing to stand between his pack and danger. But before Dale could uncap his rubbing alcohol, I had another thought.
"So, you could transform Ember into a little girl right now?" I said, my words rising at the end into a question. "She wouldn't have to grow up different from everyone else. She could just be another kid running around Haven, getting into mischief the same way my cousins do."
Now Dale finally looked a bit uncomfortable. "Well, I wouldn't want to do that in the near future. The drug should be tested on adults first, then I'd need to calculate dosages...."
"But, eventually, you could," I persisted, thinking of how adamant Ethan had been about the impropriety of raising a future human like an animal. "Assuming everything goes well with the testing?"
The truth was that the more I'd mulled over my brother's words, the more I thought he was right. But I'd quickly realized that it would be next to impossible to talk the pack out of treating Ember like a pet, not when she was soft and fuzzy and looked like an adorable puppy dog.
On the other hand, if our charge lost her snout and walked on two legs, then everyone would know that Ember was as human as anyone else. She'd be able to slip into a more normal role in our pack and wouldn't be faced with traumatic life changes during her tumultuous teenage years. My favorite niece would be safer as a girl, and happier too.
"Yes, eventually," Dale agreed, reaching once again for the supplies to clean Wolfie's skin prior to needle insertion.
But now it was my mate's turn to halt the doctor, slamming one hard hand abruptly onto the other's arm. "No," he said simply, and I shivered at the alpha dominance that imbued my usually gentle mate's words. Even though Dale didn't have an inner wolf to be affected by the pack leader's command, the doctor's shoulders bowed down in response and the piece of gauze in his hand fluttered to the floor.
Before I could ask what was wrong, Wolfie turned to meet my eyes, his wolf even more present than usual beneath his human skin. "Why would you want to deny Ember the opportunity to enjoy her puppyhood?" he asked, his words much colder than I'd ever heard them when aimed in my direction before. In fact, the alpha now sounded very much like he was facing down an opposing pack leader, not talking to the woman who humans would have called his common-law wife.
A huge pit opened up in my stomach and I found myself barely able to speak. Only after averting my eyes and feeling my inner wolf roll over to show her belly was I able to get an answer out. "For her own good," I managed at last. "So she can have a normal childhood."
"You still think being a bloodling is abnormal," my mate said coldly, and I understood at last where this uncharacteristic rage was coming from. Wolfie thought I was judging his own upbringing when I spoke. So how could he not feel hurt?
And the truth was that, after spending his first fourteen years as a wolf pup much like Ember, Wolfie never would be a run-of-the-mill shifter. Chase once told me that my mate used to have difficulty paying attention to human speech, that he'd spent years preferring fur to his human form.
But, in the end, those same differences had made Wolfie stronger and more powerful. In fact, my mate's bloodling knowledge now improved the lives of our entire pack. Using his own experiences as a template, Wolfie had taught the yahoos to shift much more quickly than the average werewolf, and my mate had shown me how to partner with my lupine half in a way I'd never before believed possible.
So, yes, I understood that being a bloodling wasn't entirely a curse. But it wasn't an easy path, either. And I loved Ember enough that I wanted to make her path through life easy.
I had a feeling Wolfie was too angry to hear my explanation right now, though. So I simply drooped beneath his domineering gaze, resolving to hash out what seemed to be our first real disagreement at a later date when we didn't have a worried audience standing by.
And when Wolfie seemed more like my mate and less like a terrifying alpha that I wanted nothing to do with.
At last, I felt rather than saw Wolfie's attention return to the doctor. "Go for it," he said simply, some of the cold alpha tonality still present in his voice even though I could tell my mate was doing his best to tamp down his temper for the sake of the human in the room.
"You'll want to relax," Dale said after a pause, his voice significantly more feeble than before. But he stood up under Wolfie's shifter nature just as well as he'd faced down angry werewolves in the past. "And if it works and you shift to wolf form, I have another cocktail prepared to transform you back."
"That won't be necessary," my mate said simply. "I think, at the moment, I'd prefer to stay wolf."
I finally raised my eyes from the floor just in time to catch Wolfie's grim face eying the long needle that stabbed into the inside of his elbow. I'd hoped my mate would look over and meet my gaze next. But, instead, he simply stood, tall and stoic, and waited to see if the doctor's drug would be a blessing or a curse.
Dale took a deep breath and depressed the plunger...then the needle clattered to the floor at the feet of a tremendous wolf.
The experiment had been a success.
Chapter 4
That night, Wolfie and I both apologized. My mate knew how sensitive I was to being lashed out at by an alpha werewolf, my father's firm hand having often chastened me during my childhood. And I now knew that Wolfie wasn't quite so serene in the acceptance of his bloodling nature as he'd once appeared either.
So we came to an understanding...but we didn't resolve the issue. Because we both felt strongly about Ember's future. And our beliefs, for the first time in our shared history, were diametrically opposed.
"But don't you think it's wrong to treat Ember like a pet instead of like a child?" I asked Wolfie once our respective lupine halves had soothed the raw emotions that coursed between us. We were snuggling together in our bed, the peace of this home that we'd built for ourselves working wonders to resolve the tension that had been vibrating between us all day.
But our bond still didn't feel quite right.
Perhaps the honeymoon period is finally over, I c
ouldn't help thinking. Was the relationship I thought Wolfie and I shared only present in my own mind, the reality far more ordinary and fraught with typical werewolf dominance struggles? Would my mate morph into my father over time, the shifter's need to lead coming across as alpha set downs and barked commands?
Wolfie cocked his head, clearly attempting to make out the varied expressions that flitted across my face. But his words answered the question I'd asked rather than digging deeper into my insecurities the way he usually would have. "Of course it's wrong to treat Ember like a pet," he agreed. "I would never pretend she's anything less than our adopted daughter."
Despite my confused emotions, my mate's words tugged a smile onto my lips. I hated to admit it, but Wolfie was right. While the rest of the pack doted upon Ember, stroking her and cuddling her and speaking largely in baby talk or over her head, Wolfie allowed the young bloodling to tag along at his heels every day of the week. My mate always took time to explain what he was doing, and the two seemed able to communicate wordlessly with the simple cock of a head or twitch of a nostril.
No, Wolfie didn't assume Ember was just a puppy incapable of understanding his human words, nor did he seem to resent the way she slowed him down. In fact, just last week, I'd caught my mate in the computer lab with our charge, her tail wagging like crazy while the biggest smile possible lit up the former's face. The alpha was deep in an explanation of the intricacies of programming, and Ember had seemed riveted by the lesson even though she would have been hard-pressed to so much as type her own name.
Which didn't change the fact that Wolfie was the only member of our clan who currently treated Ember as a human being. Personally, I had to struggle to make my mind accept Ember's humanity in the face of her perky ears and wriggling body.
"But I was still wrong to pull rank on you," Wolfie continued. "And I apologize again. We're an equal partnership. And whether or not my wolf can bark yours into line, I don't plan to let it happen again."
My mate was being kind with his wording and we both knew it. There was no question that his alpha dominance vastly exceeded my own, just as it exceeded the power of any other werewolf I'd ever met. The only question was why Wolfie was willing to share leadership of this pack with me when my own lupine partner wasn't nearly strong enough to hold our ground in the typical alpha stare down.
Instead of delving deeper into that issue, though, I accepted Wolfie's apology in the manner in which it had been intended. "It's a touchy topic," I said, curling into his side and allowing his wolf's warm energy to lull my overactive worries back to sleep. "And so is the issue of bloodlings. I hurt you by saying what I did this afternoon. I really didn't mean to though. I hope you know I love you just as much because you're a bloodling as in spite of it."
"My wolf is just insecure," Wolfie replied, pulling me up on top of him so he could nuzzle his human nose beneath my jaw in a wolf-like manner that sent excited tremors running down to my toes. Abruptly, I was far less interested in finishing this conversation than I was in letting my own lupine half rise up to share in the overwhelming sensation elicited by Wolfie's skin rubbing against mine.
"Insecure?" I asked a bit breathlessly.
"Because you won't take our partnership to the next level," my mate growled. And I could hear his lupine nature behind the words.
I wasn't surprised to notice the interest of Wolfie's animal half, of course. After all, most shifters' wolves rose up behind their human eyes whenever they experienced heightened emotions such as anger, fear, or arousal. And I sure hoped Wolfie was as stimulated by my presence as I was by his.
Plus, my mate had allied with his wolf to such an extent that the pair were generally seen together on all days ending in y. However, in this case, I had a feeling that the wolf's sudden appearance meant something else entirely.
So I pulled out of my mate's arms in order to get a better look at his face, and to my surprise I saw that he really wasn't joking about feeling insecure. No, Wolfie's lupine half thought I was holding back some important aspect of myself, although I couldn't quite figure out what he believed I was refusing to bestow.
After all, I'd moved into this cottage with my mate as soon as our two packs had merged, and we happily shared the same bed every evening (and morning and afternoon, if we could keep the pesky villagers at bay). I told my mate every single thought that filtered through my brain...probably in far too great detail, although Wolfie never complained.
What else could my mate's lupine half possibly want from me?
"Is your wolf waiting for a human wedding ceremony?" I asked, reaching down to unbutton his shirt as I spoke. The request seemed out of character, but I wasn't averse to the idea. Whatever it took to keep this powerful and enticing shifter by my side was fine by me, and a human wedding was just a visible expression of shared feelings that I thought we'd already admitted to.
On the other hand, it seemed my mate had something else entirely in mind. "Don't be silly," he replied, rolling us over in one fell swoop so I lay cradled beneath his much larger bulk. "We're not interested in human hogwash," he elaborated, leaning on his elbows so he could use his hands to rub the tension out of my neck before sliding his palms lower. "No, what we want is a claiming moon."
"Hmmm." My murmur was more a reaction to the bloodling's earth-shattering touch than to his words. There was something about the warmth of Wolfie's broad palms and strong fingers that turned me to jelly in an instant, and I was having a hard time focusing on our verbal conversation when the nonverbal one was so intriguing.
"You and me, four weeks alone in the woods, climbing Mount Asher, hunting for our dinners, building a bond that's unbreakable."
My mate's words washed over my mind the same way his fingers brushed over my skin. And before long, I was floating in a sea of bliss, imagining the caress of the summer sunshine on our lupine fur while our human minds had no responsibilities to pin us down. After months of never-ending pack management, a vacation of any sort sounded like paradise.
Unfortunately, a claiming moon was much more serious than an until-death-do-us-part vow. In a human marriage, the specter of divorce always promised an escape hatch should either partner need a way out.
But once a shifter fully claimed a mate, there was no going back. Instead, divorced or widowed werewolves would always feel that hole in their hearts where their partner used to lie, all efforts to fill the chasm as vain as their bleak outlook on life.
So even though I adored the bloodling currently rousing my flesh to unimaginable peaks of pleasure, something held me back from accepting his requested level of commitment.
Okay, I was lying to myself. I knew exactly what my reservation was. The fact that Wolfie was able to command me to obey his will at every turn was daunting. And even though the other alpha promised not to do so, this morning's episode was proof enough that promises can and always will be broken. Did I really want to turn into Cricket, hopelessly devoted to an overbearing alpha who thought nothing of twisting his mate's will with a word?
So I stayed silent and let my hands provide the answer...until a pounding on our front door threw a bucket of ice water over my surging libido.
***
The reality of being an alpha was that all and sundry turned to you for aid at the worst possible moments. And as much as I didn't like being overcome by Wolfie's dominance, I had to admit that the responsibilities stemming from my own alpha powers weren't nearly as charming as they'd at first appeared. Tonight, for example, I would have quite gladly passed the mantle over to someone else.
"Not all it's cracked up to be, huh?" Wolfie said, mirroring my thoughts in his usual uncanny manner while treating me to the crooked grin I found so irresistible. "Should I go be big and surly and scare them away?"
"No, we'll see what's wrong together," I decided, buttoning my shirt and running a hand through my hair in hopes it wouldn't look like I'd just been groped by a randy werewolf. Not that I'd be fooling anyone. The yahoos, bless their annoying little hea
rts, had taken turns knocking on our door at all hours of the evening those first few weeks after Wolfie and I had moved in together, their "visits" a clear effort to catch us with our pants down. It wasn't quite the honeymoon most girls imagined, and I was glad when the young shifters grew bored with the joke and moved on to unrelated pranks.
Unfortunately, that meant our current night-time callers were probably in actual need of pack-leader assistance. Sure enough, the door opened onto a familiar trio of young-adult faces, but this time the yahoos weren't joking around. Instead, Fen clutched the back of my half-brother's shirt in a rough grip and nearly threw him into our entranceway as soon as the door opened.
"Ask him where Blaze is," the female yahoo demanded, her voice rougher than I'd ever heard it. I immediately ran my eyes over the shifters behind her and saw that only Glen and David were guarding her back, not Blaze. Her third habitual companion's absence wasn't entirely unusual, but I still felt a tremor of alarm widening my senses and pulling my wolf to the fore.
"So, where is Blaze?" I obliged. But I didn't push any alpha compulsion into my voice. Instead, I kept my tone calm and curious, hoping to lull the temper of all and sundry.
Whatever Ethan had gotten up to during his second day back home, he looked far worse for wear now. Dirt was smeared across his shirt and arms, and I had a sinking suspicion someone had taken the time to rough up my kid brother before bringing the supposed offender to the alpha's cottage.
It was hard not to feel sorry for the teenager, no matter what he'd done. After all, I knew that Fen's valiant wolf would have had no problem taking a human boy down. I was just glad not to see any blood or obvious bruises. Still, I didn't let him off the hook, as interested as Fen was in the answer to her question.
"I don't know," my brother replied at last, his gaze firmly focused on his boots but his voice just as angry as the female yahoo's had been. "I'm not even sure which one Blaze is. I've only been here for forty-eight hours, remember?"
Alpha Ascendant: A Fantastical Werewolf Adventure (Wolf Rampant Book 3) Page 3