Now the teenager's angry face did tilt up to mine momentarily before his gaze skittered away. I sighed and ushered the rest of our visitors inside before shutting the door behind them. No need for our neighbors to be privy to this drama. Plus, I hoped that if we all sat down together, then we might find a way to discuss the issue like rational human beings rather than like emotion-wracked shifters.
Sitting didn't appear to be in the cards though.
"Well, if you won't tell them, then I will," Glen spoke up as our visitors continued standing right inside the doorway, glaring at each other and inches away from tearing out throats. "Blaze is missing and this kid was the last person seen talking to him yesterday. So where is he? Did you injure him and drag him off into the woods to die?"
"I think you're forgetting which one of us is a beast," Ethan shot back. In response, Fen lunged forward as if she planned to punch my brother in the face and I moved to stop her, one step behind.
"That's enough," Wolfie said, the verbal alpha punch stilling all combatants in an instant. "Sit down," he continued.
The words might have been a host's invitation coming from any other lips, but from my mate's they were a command that had us all fighting not to drop down onto the floor exactly where we stood. We made it to the array of couches and chairs in the living area instead, but Wolfie's compulsion didn't leave our visitors any energy to grumble over the seating arrangement. Instead, Ethan ended up on the largest sofa, sandwiched between David on one end and me on the other, while Fen perched with vibrating energy on the arm of Glen's chair. Only Wolfie remained standing, his pack-leader dominance weighing us down like a wet blanket.
"This is absurd and you know it," he chided his yahoos. Fen was the angriest of the three, but I could see even her wolf wilting beneath her skin at this admonishment from the alpha she considered both her leader and her mentor. "You do realize that Ethan is a child the same age as Keith, don't you? And that he doesn't even have the ability to call on his inner wolf?"
I looked up abruptly at Wolfie's final sentence, surprised by my mate's wording. I'd just assumed that part-human werewolves weren't able to transform because they had no wolf, not because they were divorced from their wilder half. Could Ethan be as shiftless as I'd forced myself to become after fleeing Haven a decade before?
Cocking my head to one side, I asked my own wolf to expand our vision into the metaphysical realm before sweeping my gaze across the room. My mate's lupine half, of course, was as evident as ever behind the alpha's eyes. Fen's wolf was also rampant, having been awakened by her anger and continuing to stand by just in case the young woman required a speedy shift. Glen's wolf was alert but calmer, while David's was the most relaxed of all, coiled deep within his belly, sound asleep.
But did Ethan host a hidden wolf? Not that I could see. Instead, the boy seated beside me seemed entirely human, the odors rising from his skin non-shifter in origin. So perhaps Wolfie was merely speaking metaphorically.
My mate continued to sooth the tensions out of the room, suggesting that perhaps Blaze had merely chosen to embark on a solitary hunt before promising to look into the matter in the morning. "Do you want to stay here tonight?" he asked Ethan at last. By way of response, my brother shot me the most wounded glance imaginable, as if I'd let him down by promising protection then throwing him right into the middle of this pack of wolves.
But rather than speaking his mind, Ethan just shook his head in negation and filed out with the other young-adult shifters. My brother was all alone here in the middle of a pack, I realized. As alone as I'd ever been when adrift in the human world.
Chapter 5
Even though I'd sidestepped the issue of our claiming moon and Ember continued to be a bone of contention between us, Wolfie and I still operated as a well-oiled team.
"So, we both know the pack will expect you to play mother hen with Ethan while I track down Blaze," Wolfie said the next morning as he slipped into his clothes. I propped myself up on one elbow so I'd get a better view of his bare chest being (sigh) clad in cotton before I embarked on my own morning ablutions.
"Sure," I agreed, doing my best to pay more attention to my mate's words than to the eye candy on display. Unfortunately, he was right. Even though Wolfie and I operated as co-alphas, both his former pack and my old-fashioned relatives were used to me being the den mother while Wolfie brought out the big guns whenever necessary. It was an assumption we were actively trying to subvert.
"So let's turn their expectation on its ear," my mate said, that irresistible smirk spreading across his face. "What if I ride herd on your kid brother today while you get to the bottom of our missing yahoo?"
Which is how Fen and I came to be sniffing around the Barn, hunting for traces of the absent shifter. It should have been a tough job even in lupine form since dozens of people had walked across this ground in the intervening day and a half. But Fen and I were both so familiar with Blaze's brash odor of black pepper and orange peel that we had no problem tracing his path.
After only half an hour of sleuthing, in fact, the picture had become entirely clear. Our missing yahoo had walked out the back door of the Barn, headed toward the parking lot...and then disappeared.
Presumably he'd driven off in the yahoos' shared car since that vehicle was missing from the lot. But it was still within the realm of possibility that someone had attacked the young shifter and spirited him away.
Assuming they'd been able to get him into the car without a struggle and without touching their own feet to the ground, that is. Pretty unlikely.
"I guess I owe Ethan an apology," Fen said, her shift back to two legs nearly as speedy as my own. "I don't smell any intruders, so it looks like Blaze left of his own free will."
"That's the way I read it too," I said, not belaboring the point. Sure, Fen had acted too precipitously the night before, but I could tell she was beating herself up enough for the both of us. Like my mate, I had no wish to further chastise a shifter who was already down. "Do you have any clue where he might have gone?" I asked instead, trying to pull my companion onto a more constructive train of thought.
In reality, it was too soon to be worried. Pack members often took off for a few days or even weeks, and Wolfie and I weren't the kind of alphas who required our shifters to seek permission before going on vacation. So for all we knew, Blaze might have simply gotten a wild hair to run off in lupine form or to head to the beach, then became caught up in his adventures and forgot all about us.
But it was still odd for Fen's friend to leave without telling anyone what he was up to. The yahoos were more than simply part of the pack—they were each others' friends and family. So the missing shifter should have known that Fen, especially, would be worried if he didn't bother to call home.
The young woman in question shook her head, then paused and shrugged. "Well, Blaze didn't actually come out and say anything about it, but he's been acting differently for the past few months. More withdrawn, less prone to stupid antics. I think Sarah running back to her husband hit him pretty hard."
I nodded, recalling how Wolfie's sister-in-law had inserted herself into our pack under false pretenses the previous winter. At the time, Sarah had pretended like she was leaving Justin, but in reality she was simply tricking Dale into assisting at her bloodling daughter's birth. Unfortunately, our pack didn't know any better at the time, so Blaze and David had both fallen for the beautiful pack princess who spent a few weeks housed at Haven. I could see how the former might be young enough to have his idealism shattered when Sarah padded home to the Young compound at Justin's heels.
But there wasn't much more we could do about Blaze at the moment. So I changed gears, unable to resist the opportunity to finally ask Fen about the attraction I'd seen building between her and my cousin over the last few weeks. "David seemed to get over Sarah okay," I prodded.
Yes, David had recovered from his crush in record time, but I was afraid Fen might not do the same if she had her heart similarly broken.
The young woman standing before me possessed the tough exterior you'd expect from someone who'd grown up as a half-werewolf in a traditional clan. But I still wasn't entirely sure she'd be able to handle my cousin's rejection if David turned out to be just as old-fashioned on the halfie issue as the pack she'd left behind.
"We're not serious," Fen said quickly, but her eyes didn't quite meet mine and my werewolf danced beneath my skin at the not-so-subtle clue. My lupine half was a closet romantic and had been thrilled the first time we'd noticed someone taking an interest in the young woman who was as beautiful inside as out. So despite my human half's doubts, my wolf was rooting for Fen and David to mate as thoroughly and as quickly as possible.
"David's a good guy," I said quietly, imbuing my belief into those words. Of all my male relatives, David was one of the few I would willingly place at my back in a dicey situation. But: "Have you talked to him about your potential kids?"
"I said we're not serious," Fen replied so quickly that I knew she hadn't told David that her sons would have a 50/50 chance of coming out fully human. She hadn't told him...and the female shifter was afraid that if she did, my cousin would drop her like a hot potato.
As much as I hated to admit it, Fen might be right in her assessment. But if so, wouldn't it be better to know now rather than later? When her heart was only halfway rather than fully committed to a potential mate?
Werewolves might dabble in casual sex when young, but once they chose a life partner, they were all in. Which made it dicey if one shifter committed while his or her partner was still on the fence.
Sound familiar? my wolf snarked, and I felt a blush rising up my neck. My lupine half thought I was nuts not to jump on Wolfie's offer of a claiming moon, and I realized now that I probably wasn't the right person to be giving Fen advice on relationship issues. So I changed the subject before my wolf could take me any further to task.
"I'm afraid we're going to have to wait and see about Blaze," I said, returning to the business at hand. "But Ethan is another matter. He didn't have an easy life here after he grew old enough to shift and turned out to be incapable of it. I know my brother has a chip the size of Italy on his shoulder, but I was hoping you could take him under your wing the way you do the other kids living at the Barn."
Fen hummed her assent, but I could tell she wasn't entirely sold. So I plowed on. "I've been meaning to tell you that Wolfie and I noticed what a good job you've been doing out there. We really appreciate it too. So what do you think? Would you feel comfortable adding Ethan to your pack of hoodlums?"
It was startling how much taller the yahoo's inner wolf stood at my simple words of praise and I realized that I should have taken the time much sooner to buoy her up. Fen seemed to have it all together, but she evidently needed a bit of positive reinforcement now and then just as much as our less self-assured pack mates did. Luckily, kind words for Fen was a relatively easy task to add to the other alpha duties resting on my shoulders.
And it looked like the female yahoo was willing to relieve me of a different set of worries in exchange. "Sure thing, boss," Fen said, her eyes sparkling in the way that I knew tied David's tongue into knots. "Your little brother is safe with me."
***
Ethan was also, apparently, safe with Wolfie...and with all of my female cousins under the age of eighteen who now crowded into Haven's new computer lab.
The room was currently full to capacity, in fact, which was quite an unusual sight. Ever since our packs merged, I'd accepted the fact that most of my relatives were singularly uninterested in the computer-security gigs that were funding improvements to Haven's village. Like the voluntary community dinners, Wolfie had made no mandatory work requirements. So the shifters who turned up in our lab were generally the same members of Wolfie's pack who had spent time in the previous incarnation of this computing center.
Specifically, I was pretty sure I'd never seen this group of girls at computers before in my life. But now all six of Haven's female tweens and teens were clustered in a semi-circle around my half-brother, their attention riveted on the scene in front of them. Ostensibly, Ethan was showing the girls how to log onto the computer, but I could tell his audience was far more interested in his tats than in his words.
Meanwhile, Wolfie's usual cadre of hacking helpers was hard at work...tossing Ember around the room as if she were an oversized beach ball. "Heads up!" Glen called, and David responded by snagging the wolf pup out of the air and setting her down on his lap before returning his attention to the monitor in front of him. My cousin had barely missed a beat.
I'd watched with heart in throat the first time the pack played Ember ball, but now I just smiled indulgently. It was obvious that our bloodling pup loved the attention, and the game kept fidgety shifters from getting bored at a sedentary pursuit. It was a win-win really.
Ethan, though, was less complacent about the status quo. I would have thought my brother had more pressing issues on his mind, surrounded as he was by his young fans. But the teenager still turned his head in my direction and raised one eyebrow as I entered the room. See the way they treat her like a toy instead of like a kid? he was saying, and it would have been hard to disagree.
Yes, Ember and the yahoos were having the time of their lives...but what little girl would be expected to emulate a soccer ball while being bounced through the air at will? Would my daughter's childhood as a plaything make it that much harder for the pack to take her seriously when she finally shifted into human form?
The pup in question was now busy scampering across the rectangle of tables that filled the room, her little feet raising a chorus of computer beeps and shifter exclamations in her wake. And, at first, I thought the strange expression on Chase's face was merely a response to the bloodling having interrupted his work flow.
But when Wolfie rose from his seat on the other side of the room and walked around to his milk brother's side, I knew something more serious was amiss. My mate snatched up Ember as he passed, absently placing the pup on one shoulder where she proceeded to slobber into his ear. Then he dropped into a crouch beside Chase's chair.
"What's going on, bro?" the alpha asked quietly, and every member of the room stilled in an instant. We could all feel the sudden tension in the air, roiling out of our pack leader and dashing the yahoos' joie de vivre. Even Ember looked mildly chastened as she paused her efforts to remove every ounce of my mate's ear wax.
So we were all paying attention when our usually composed and stolid beta turned a face pale as milk toward his alpha. "It's Sienna," Chase said quietly. "She wants to meet."
Chapter 6
The pack would surely know all the details before nightfall, but Wolfie and I opted to bring Chase home with us to be debriefed in private anyway. Actually, I'd assumed my mate would want to speak to his milk brother entirely alone, but Wolfie seemed nearly as shaken up as Chase was by the realization that the latter's teenage sweetheart had come back into their lives. So I wasn't entirely surprised when Wolfie grabbed my hand as he headed out the door, and I willingly allowed myself to be drawn down the street behind the pair of male shifters.
"I just can't believe it. I haven't heard from her in almost sixteen years," Chase said a few minutes later as I laid out cookies on a serving platter and nudged the food in his general direction. I figured hearing from your long-lost girlfriend was every bit as traumatic as nearly getting run over by a bus, and we all deserved a little morning chocolate.
"Yeah, it's been quite a while since we left Dad's pack," Wolfie rumbled in agreement. "I remember you telling me at the time that Sienna didn't want to come with us. And, as I recall, you were too proud to beg."
I could tell that my mate thought Chase's lack of imploring was a character flaw. Wolfie did tend to be all-in when it came to relationships, but I couldn't imagine even a teenage Chase being much of a playboy either. So perhaps the latter's connection with this Sienna had been serious, even though the two had been barely more than kids at the time.
"That's rough, man," Wolfie said simply. "She was the love of your life."
I smiled as my mate pulled his milk brother into a hug, thinking how good it was to be a werewolf. After all, what human man would use the term "love of your life" in anything other than jest? And embraces among male non-shifters were seldom so extended and heartfelt.
Chase clearly needed the emotional support too because it appeared that my mate's assessment of his friend's feelings was correct. For the first time, I realized that I'd never seen the beta look at a woman with interest in his eyes, not even after we all moved into Haven and he had a larger selection of females to choose from.
Yes, Chase was strong and caring. But he seemed almost asexual when it came to pack princesses...and now I knew why. The beta obviously still carried a torch for his childhood girlfriend. The question became—did Sienna deserve his regard or not?
"You're going to have to meet with her," Wolfie said once the two pulled apart, his words a statement instead of a question.
"Yeah, if you don't need me here," Chase answered, deferring to his alpha even over a matter of such obvious personal importance. "There must be a pressing reason for her to contact me after all these years. So I might be gone for a while, but the pack seems to be in a pretty good place right now."
Alpha Ascendant: A Fantastical Werewolf Adventure (Wolf Rampant Book 3) Page 4