A compound that Justin had burnt to the ground just a few months earlier. Wolfie couldn't have forgotten the affront, but he shrugged off the memory and instead opened the metal container to reveal a time-tarnished but obviously well-cared-for sword.
Although we were living in the twenty-first century, I wasn't entirely surprised to have a bladed weapon turn up in my mate's possession. After all, werewolves tended to be hidebound and stuck in the past, so it hadn't been terribly long ago that our ancestors had all worn swords at their hips like nineteenth-century dandies.
The weapons would have appeared dangerous to our human counterparts, but shifters knew that the blades were actually meant to keep us all safe rather than to put us further in danger. At their hearts, werewolves loved to fight, and it was often simpler to hold ourselves back from inflicting mortal wounds when walking two-legged rather than when fully consumed by the brains of our wolves. Thus the swords—a dueling weapon that allowed shifters to fight to the first blood rather than risking tearing out an opponent's throat with our fangs in the heat of battle.
Remembering my own recent experience with ripping into another wolf's jugular made me shiver and miss a few of the sentences exchanged between my mate and his visitors. It seemed so strange to be surrounded by a simple human living room when I knew that my wolf and each beast inside the shifters currently present were all blood-thirsty beasts willing to snuff another being's life at the first hint of danger.
Not at a hint of danger, my wolf chided me. We kill only when necessary. To feed our families. To protect our pack. You had just cause.
And of course she was right. Still, the sword that now lay atop Thomas' cupped hands looked ominous against the flowered wallpaper that Cricket had chosen for our walls. So even though the weapon was clearly important to my mate, I was glad he had kept the sword locked away until now.
"...I remember," Wolfie was saying when my lupine half finally nudged our attention back toward the conversation at hand. "When you gave me this sword, you told me that it was a symbol of my duties. As youngest son of the alpha, I was to protect my leader from dangers both inside and outside the clan. Just as there are two edges, I was to keep my attention trained on those two enemies in order to promote the greater good of our pack."
My mate rarely spoke about his family, but I could tell that the remembered experience had been a life-altering one. Given the stories I'd heard about the elder Young alpha, chances were good that Thomas passing on this sword had been one of the few times Wolfie had felt a part of his pack during his childhood. No wonder my mate had taken the time to pick back through the burnt-out timbers of his former home to track the memento down.
Knowing that Thomas had likely passed on the weapon and duty behind his alpha's back made me smile at the older shifter...only to have the approbation wiped off my face at his next words.
"So you must understand why I'm asking for it back now," Thomas continued after one last glance at his own pack leader. "You're no longer a member of our family, Wolfie, so the sword should return to its rightful clan."
***
"I'll give Justin this much credit," Wolfie growled an hour later after our visitors had been hustled off Haven grounds. "He's got balls to waltz in here and ask for my sword back. Even if he did hide behind our uncle to do the asking."
My mate was angrier than I'd expected, all of his usual calm in the face of adversity having flown out the window in light of his uncle's request. And I definitely understood how childhood slights have a way of snowballing over time, so I'd accepted Wolfie's rage and merely done the best I could to keep him calm until Justin took his leave. After all, once my mate got over his frustration, I knew he'd agree that it wasn't worth creating an inter-pack incident over Justin's need to tweak his brother's tail.
But I also couldn't help thinking that my brother-in-law had looked much more smug than he had any right to be as he was summarily dismissed from our home. Sure, Wolfie's annoyance was a satisfying revenge that counteracted our own recent triumph in front of the Tribunal. But Justin had seen me setting up a box fan in the window even as he left our house with chin raised victoriously, so he must have known I'd air the visitors' scents out of the room and their irritating words out of my mate's heart in short order. Sure enough, Wolfie was already calming down, even if he wasn't quite back on his usual even keel.
So given the fleeting nature of my brother-in-law's revenge, had it really been worth the drive and the risk simply to rile his sibling momentarily about a long-dead issue? Justin hadn't even taken the family heirloom home with him since Wolfie had curtly refused his uncle's request. Instead, their ancestor's weapon was now locked away once again in the gun safe behind the false back of our closet.
"Perhaps we should have just let them take the sword," I pondered aloud. After all, that gleam in Justin's eyes as he left our home had me concerned that I might be missing something. My brother-in-law clearly thought he'd won whatever battle of wits or wills we'd just taken part in, and a not-quite-fully-formed thought niggling at the back of my mind promised that there was an issue here my mate and I should be dealing with.
But I immediately wished I hadn't voiced my doubts aloud when the lupine spirit behind Wolfie's eyes flared into life with an intensity that made me shiver.
"The sword is mine."
The sentence emerged from my mate's human lips, but the sentiment seemed to have come from his inner beast. Once again, my wolf danced beneath my skin, begging for the opportunity to soothe our mate's temper. But for a second time that day, we were interrupted by an unexpected source.
I'd left the front door ajar at the same time I opened all the windows, hoping to flush Justin's scent out of the air (and his memory out of our minds) as quickly as possible. So Fen was able to enter now without knocking. And as she did so, one of the young woman's arms stretched behind her out the door as if she were dragging along a recalcitrant child, making me expect to see one of the pack's young troublemakers dogging her heels as the female yahoo continued into the room.
I couldn't have been more wrong. Instead of bringing a recalcitrant child to our attention, Fen was gripping the ruff of a strange wolf in one strong fist. And even though I'd never seen the wolf before in my life, his scent was immediately familiar.
The air filled with an almost choking aroma of sassafras and tooth-chilling spring water—the signature scent of the youngest uber-alpha from the Tribunal. I still didn't know the shifter's name, but the intensity of his odor proved that he was one of the most dangerous beings I'd ever met. So his presence in my living room set my teeth on edge at the same time that his willingness to be dragged around by a young woman in human form added to my confusion.
But before Wolfie or I could decide how to handle this new invasion, our adopted daughter ran through the still-open door and into my arms at top speed. I'd checked in with Ember that morning, so I wasn't entirely surprised that she was now steady on her feet and seemed as able to scamper about two-legged as any other human child. But her tear-stained cheeks proved that everything wasn't quite as it should be in my daughter's world.
Luckily, the girl didn't leave us dangling. Completely ignoring the menacing wolf by Fen's side, my bloodling daughter sniffled into my shoulder for a moment. Then she pulled away and looked directly up at Wolfie.
"I'm sick of being a human," Ember said. "Turn me back into a wolf!"
Chapter 16
At the barest hint of a growl emerging from the mouth of the uber-alpha, both my wolf and my mate's wolf had the same immediate instinct—to tear free of our human forms and protect our daughter from the dangerous invader standing a mere five feet away. But before we could act on our shared impulse, the Tribunal member instead pulled himself upward onto two feet, fangs and claws receding to leave behind only naked human skin that held no menace for a young bloodling.
"Please, comfort the little girl first," the uber-alpha rumbled, raising both hands in a gesture of surrender as he took a step back.
Not toward the door, though. Our visitor clearly wasn't willing to let his business be completely derailed by Ember's dramatic entrance even if he was ceding the floor to our adopted daughter.
"Ember, shhh," I soothed. "How about you let Fen take you outside for a while and we can talk about this at lunchtime?"
Unfortunately, my previous tendency to spoil the wolfling now flew back in my face as she stamped one bare foot, a fire much like Wolfie's flashing behind her blue eyes. "No!" Next, she shot a glance over at the uber-alpha, assessing his ability to solve her problem. When the unknown element only raised one eyebrow in reply before shaking his head slightly, Ember pursed her lips and turned her gaze toward my mate.
Even though he'd seemed on edge all day long, our daughter's presence immediately returned Wolfie to his usual centered condition. So I watched as his inner wolf assessed and dismissed the danger of the visiting uber-alpha before turning his entire attention to our bloodling child. Finally, kneeling down so he could hold Ember's shoulders gently in his hands, my mate asked quietly: "What's up, Buttercup?"
"Being a little girl is boring," Ember began, then embarked on a rambling tale of pain and woe that only a cosseted child could create. Apparently, Cricket had required her step-granddaughter to don clothes that morning—apparel that was only partially present at the current moment—and had then expected Ember to consume orange juice with her breakfast.
"Vegetables!" the little girl proclaimed, wrinkling up her nose in disgust and proving that we hadn't quite managed to teach our daughter as much about the natural world as we'd thought.
After that traumatic beginning to the day, Ember had begun her usual rounds, visiting household after household in search of a caress or a treat. But half of the shifters hadn't known who she was without prompting, none had felt as comfortable pulling the girl into their warm laps as they had been when she wore fur, and the village's children had acted standoffish and far less friendly than usual.
Wolfie and I exchanged glances as the story progressed. On the one hand, I should have felt vindicated upon learning that the transformation from wolf to girl was giving our daughter trouble already. Her experience suggested that I might have made the right decision after all when I'd forced her to shift prematurely. Perhaps now our daughter would find a way to integrate into our pack before she was even more set in her wolfling ways.
But how could I crow about having chosen correctly when Ember was clearly too young to handle the repercussions of her current differences? On that front, my mate appeared to have been entirely correct in his assessment of the situation.
"I want to go back to being a wolf, Daddy," Ember said at last. By this point, Wolfie had sunken down to sit cross-legged on the floor so he could cuddle the little bloodling into his arms, and I was crouched by their side, teasing the tangles out of the girl's flaxen hair in an effort to further sooth her wounded feelings.
Wolfie and I were able to fully focus on the matter at hand because Fen had engaged the uber-alpha in a whispered conversation on the other side of the room. But now I felt the Tribunal member's gaze arrowing in on Ember, so I tilted my body to shield our daughter from view. It was imperative that Ember not spill the beans about F2F and our recent trickery in front of a member of the Tribunal, but my motion was much less consciously driven than that statement would imply. Instead, I simply didn't want my bloodling daughter exposed to our visitor's predatory presence.
"Cupcake, this is one of those issues where your mother and I have to discuss it on our own before we can make a decision," Wolfie answered soothingly. Honestly, I would have gone along with whatever solution my mate thought best at this point, but I appreciated being included in the decision-making process. By way of thanks, I rested an encouraging hand on my mate's shoulder in silent approbation.
"We'll get back to you on it soon," Wolfie continued solemnly, speaking as if our daughter was a petitioner who we weren't quite ready to respond to at the current moment. As usual, my mate was managing to treat the youngster with the same patience and understanding that he showed toward adult members of our pack, proving that Wolfie, at least, had no problem with the bloodling's abrupt change of form.
Unfortunately, Ember was less easily swayed than the average pack member. Her smooth little brow furrowed as she considered her adopted father's answer, and after a moment she shook her head resolutely. "No, I want to be a wolf now," she said.
I couldn't resist smiling at our daughter's decisiveness. Her words would have come across as petulance in a less sunny child, but Ember wasn't throwing a tantrum or bursting back into tears. She was simply stating the facts and standing behind her stance, something I could imagine my own mate doing at her current age.
"Well," I began. But before I could finish my thought, the young bloodling had scrunched up her face in intense concentration. Then the air shimmered as our little wolf pup—who shouldn't have been able to change forms unaided for another fourteen years—fell back down onto four paws, tail wagging madly at her own accomplishment.
Well, that's a surprise, I thought. In response, my wolf rolled her eyes as if I should have known that a relative of Wolfie's would be able to accomplish whatever she put her mind to. Understanding what a shift felt like due to the recent effects of F2F probably helped too.
Even as these thoughts were running through my mind, Ember was springing back into action. The wolfing first reached up to lick my and Wolfie's faces, then she made a mad leap into the uber-alpha's arms so she could moisten his cheeks as well. Finally, she jumped back down and scampered gaily out the door.
So it appeared that whatever decision Wolfie and I would make about Ember's future was now moot. Our pampered wolfling knew what she wanted, and what she wanted was to be a wolf.
***
"She's a handful, isn't she?" the Tribunal member offered once Ember was safely out of earshot. I'd followed in her footsteps long enough to close the door and prevent additional uninvited visitors, which meant it was finally time to deal with our sassafras-scented visitor.
A visitor who had shown much more patience than I'd expected, but whose words now made me disinclined to offer him a seat. How could he pass judgment on our darling daughter?
Not that the uber-alpha appeared prone to take a chair even if one had been offered. Instead, he vibrated with wolfishness, his lupine half reminding me of my own mate on steroids. Rather than settling in any one portion of the room, in fact, the Tribunal member seemed to require constant motion in order to deal with being boxed up within walls.
As I watched, our guest paused his pacing by the open window, his nostrils flaring as he took in what must have been the scents of dozens of nearby shifters. As polite as he was being, the uber-alpha clearly wasn't willing to relax his vigilance for even a moment.
And yet, despite his deep-seated animal nature, the Tribunal member seemed able to handle human conversation better than my mate often did. Wolfie had growled in annoyance at the stranger's assessment of our daughter, but the other alpha only laughed and backpedaled. "Being a handful is a good thing," he assured us.
Then, the social niceties taken care of, the uber-alpha got down to business. In near synchrony, he and Wolfie each cocked their heads to one side and gazed just beyond the other's eyes, the room seeming to lose volume with each passing moment as the two wolves' dominance rose to fill the air.
The pair weren't actually challenging each other, it seemed, or the room would have erupted into flying fur and gnashing teeth within moments. Instead, I thought each alpha might be assessing the other's strength.
Fen drifted closer to me as the standoff continued, her own inner wolf seeming yet more shaken up than I would have expected from being asked to babysit one of the world's strongest shifters. "Do you know him?" she breathed, clearly not wanting to interrupt whatever was going on but equally clearly unable to restrain her curiosity.
I spared a glance at the younger woman and was surprised to see that the pall of sorrow no longer hovered
over her wolf. Had David finally made up for his prejudice and found a way back into Fen's good graces? While I would have heartily approved of such an action, I doubted it—after all, the gossip mill tended to inform me of similar events within moments of each occurrence. So I had to assume that Fen's better cheer came from a different source.
But now wasn't the time to trade girl talk. Not when two strong alphas were beginning to growl very quietly, the rumble an auditory symbol of the test of wills currently under way.
"Not really," I answered, keeping most of my attention trained on my mate. Given how erratic Wolfie had been acting lately, I didn't entirely trust him not to take the current contest to the next level, perhaps whipping out his grandfather's sword and challenging the uber-alpha to a duel.
Still, Fen's quick wits and loyalty meant she deserved a share of what little information I had. "He's one of the Tribunal members," I elaborated.
"Hmmm," Fen hummed. Immediately, the uber-alpha's lips quirked ever so slightly as if in response. The Tribunal member appeared to be doing the impossible—not only challenging Wolfie without quite allowing the test to come to blows, but also tuning into Fen's and my muttered conversation at the same time.
Yes, the stranger's alpha powers had been breathtaking at the peacekeeping grounds and they were no less awe-inspiring now despite being so closely veiled that none of us were forced down onto our knees. In fact, given his apparent ability to multi-task, I half expected the uber-alpha to offer his name and lineage in response to Fen's question, perhaps engaging her in courtly conversation while he completed his current task. After all, a nearly visible spark glistened between the two unintroduced werewolves. Perhaps that was the reason Fen's inner wolf looked more chipper than usual this morning?
Alpha Ascendant: A Fantastical Werewolf Adventure (Wolf Rampant Book 3) Page 11