Lone Wolf

by Anna Martin

  Well, wasn’t that just the million-dollar question.

  “I don’t think either of us know at this point. I’m just trying not to be a shitty person. Mostly failing.”

  “I never told any of you kids when I found my soul mate.”

  Jackson looked up sharply. His parents were nonmated wolves. It was about as common as mated werewolf partners, but he didn’t know his dad had found a mate. One who wasn’t his mom. “No,” he said carefully. “You didn’t.”

  “It was about… oh, ten, fifteen years ago now. Y’all were still in high school, I know that much.” He moved over to his toolbox, selected a chisel, and went back to the little table.

  “What happened?”

  “Not much,” he said. “We were both at the county clerk’s office. I remember, because I needed to renew my passport before we went on that summer vacation to Alberta.”

  “I remember,” Jackson said.

  “She was just… there. We talked for a few minutes. She had a husband and a daughter about the same age as you. I was obviously married to your mom. It was good to meet her. I’m glad I get to say that about myself. And it was nice too…. She’s a lot like your mom. I got that impression in those few minutes. Me and your mom chose each other, but I chose someone pretty similar to the person the universe picked for me.”

  “Have you seen her again?”

  “Nope,” his dad said, still concentrating on fitting the table legs to the top. “No need to. She wasn’t interested in staying in contact, and neither was I.”

  “But… but why?”

  His dad turned and leaned a hip against the big dresser, folding his arms over his chest. When Jackson was a kid, his dad dressed in sharp suits, and smart casual slacks and a polo shirt on his downtime. There was an image they projected as a family of comfortable wealth and respectability in their community.

  Only when Jackson got older did he realize the image wasn’t for other wolves. It was so his dad could be seen as trustworthy among his human colleagues.

  These days his dad didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought of him and often worked in jeans and T-shirts. He’d always been a big man, imposing, but he’d softened with age. The beard helped, Jackson thought. These days his dad was more friendly lumberjack than imposing businessman.

  “Here’s the thing, Jackson. Now you’ve met him, you’ll never be complete without him. That’s the hard fact of it. If you embrace him, if you let him in, then it’ll be the most incredible, most profound relationship you’ll ever have.”

  “Dad….”

  “Listen for a sec, hmm?”

  Jackson nodded.

  “I had four people at home who I’d already committed my life to. Loving your mother was enough. Loving you kids was enough. I could turn my back on her and know that I had everything I’d ever need.”

  Jackson’s heart clenched. He’d never heard his dad talk like this before.

  “Didn’t it hurt?” Jackson asked.

  “Yeah,” his dad said frankly. “It tore me apart inside. Thing is, kid, him being your soul mate is only one part of the equation. Your relationship will still need work. It’ll need time and effort and commitment from both of you. The stars aligned to give you something special. It’s like… like a seed. That has the potential to grow into something beautiful, but you still need to water it and tend it and care for it. You understand me?”

  “I understand,” Jackson said.

  “You take it for granted, then it could wither and die. So you have a soul mate. So what? You have to want it, Jackson.”

  “Did you ever tell Brandon and Valerie?”

  “Nope.”

  “Oh. Did you tell Mom?”

  His dad gave him a hard look. “Of course.”

  Jackson wasn’t entirely sure what to do with the information. He rolled it around in his head for a few minutes, listening to the soft sounds of his dad as he returned to working on the table.

  “Are you trying to tell me I should not be with Leo and go and find someone else?”

  “I’m not telling you anything.” His dad looked up then, brown eyes so much like Jackson’s own. “Except that you always have a choice. Soul mate or not. It’s your choice.”

  “Okay.”

  That wasn’t—really wasn’t—the conversation Jackson had expected to have. He slipped down from the worktop and headed back into the house to shower.

  THAT NIGHT he went out to a nightclub that was too loud and too full of people, with cousins who were barely old enough to drink, but somehow Jackson was put in charge of. Probably because he was the “sensible one.”

  He loaded most of them into a taxi before midnight and sent them home to their poor mothers, then joined Valerie at the bar for another drink.

  “How’s Leo?” she asked, raising her voice over the noise of the music.

  “He’s good.”

  “Can I meet him yet?”

  Jackson grinned and carefully studied the ice in his glass of whiskey. “No.”

  “Please, Jackson?” she wheedled. “I wanna know what he’s like.”

  “I don’t know, Valerie. We’re still working things out.”

  “But you are working, right? Like, you’re trying to make it work?”

  He understood what she was trying to say. “Yeah. It’s not as weird as I thought it was going to be.”

  “Really? You decided you’re gay after all?”

  He punched her lightly on the arm for that. He could get away with it—she was his sister.

  “I’m not gay. But I do like him.”

  She grinned like he had confessed the secrets of the universe.

  “Now I have to meet him.”

  Jackson laughed and threw back the rest of the whiskey, appreciating how it burned his throat.

  “I’m out.”

  It was cold outside now, and apparently Valerie hadn’t brought a jacket with her. She wrapped her arms around herself, and Jackson sulked as he shrugged out of his own and tucked it over her shoulders. The cold air was making him feel more drunk than the warm, fuzzy atmosphere at the bar.

  A cab pulled up and Jackson went to open the door for Valerie to get in first. She shook her head. “I’m going back inside.”

  “What for?”

  She laughed. “Who for, darling.”

  Jackson pulled a face. He didn’t need to know about his sister’s sex life. Not one bit.

  “I’ll have my jacket, then.”

  She handed it over, leaned up, and kissed him on the cheek, then walked inside without another word.

  On the ride home, Jackson turned his phone over and over in his hands, trying to decide if his instincts were right. They almost never were, and when Leo was involved, he had no idea at all. He was lost at sea without a compass.

  But Leo was his North Star.

  When he got to his parents’, Jackson grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and swayed as he drank it, then stripped off in his bedroom, leaving his clothes wherever they landed. He was naked in his bed less than three minutes after locking the door behind himself.

  Then he dialed Leo’s number. The phone rang three times before he picked up.

  “Hey.” Jackson’s voice sounded gravelly even to his own ears.

  “Hey. Did you mean to call me?”

  “Yes,” Jackson said emphatically.

  “Are you drunk?” Leo sounded amused rather than pissed off.

  “I’m not not drunk.”

  “Is this a booty call?”

  “No,” Jackson said firmly. Then his brain caught up with his mouth. “Not that I wouldn’t booty call you. But we haven’t done the whole”—he made gestures Leo couldn’t see—“booty thing yet. So I wouldn’t do that. Yet.”

  “I understand. For what it’s worth, I think you’re oddly charming, even when you’re clearly drunk.”

  “People don’t normally call me charming.”

  “What do they call you?”

  “Not much.” His stomach lurched,
and he pressed a quelling hand against it, really not wanting to puke. “I don’t talk to people that often. You might have noticed.”

  “You like your own space. I can respect that.”

  “I wouldn’t mind if you were in it more often. My space. You should be in it.”

  “If you’re willing to make space for me….”

  Jackson nodded emphatically. “Yes,” he said, once he realized Leo still couldn’t see him. “I will.”

  “Okay.” Leo’s voice was soft and warm. He yawned, tried to muffle it, but Jackson heard anyway. He glanced at the clock on the wall, which told him it was almost two in the morning. Shit.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have woken you up.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Go back to sleep.”

  “I will. You should come over this week, though. So we can hang out.”

  “Yeah.” That sounded like a good idea. “Okay. Let me know when.”

  “I’ll text you. And Jackson?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Make sure you drink some water and take two Tylenol before you go to bed. You’ll thank me in the morning.”

  “Okay. Good night, Leo.”

  “Good night, Jackson.”

  Chapter Twelve

  THERE WAS something to be said about being from a family of Catholics. Leo didn’t personally identify with any religion, and neither did his father’s family, but his mom’s family? Hoo, boy.

  His mom had always been the odd one out. She had five siblings, and each of them had produced similarly sized families of their own. Being an only child set Leo apart from his dozens of cousins.

  He’d never really gotten a solid answer from his parents about why they’d never had more kids after him. His mom said all sorts of nice things, like how they’d achieved perfection with their first child and how could they possibly follow that? His dad said Leo had been a nightmare baby and that had put them off having any more. He thought the truth might lie somewhere in the middle.

  With that many children, family gatherings got busy real quick. That had always suited Leo just fine. He blended into the background, catching up with the couple of uncles he really liked, occasionally dipping in to entertain the next generation of ankle-biters, and generally didn’t attract attention to himself.

  At his aunt’s annual Friday-after-Thanksgiving wine-and-nibbles evening, he found himself stuck close to his mom.

  “Are you okay?” she asked when he returned with two glasses of warm cider and a slice of pecan pie for them to share. She pushed his hair back and checked his eyes, searching for something.

  “I’m good,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

  That wasn’t going to fly. He let her take the armchair and sat on the floor at her feet, content to rest his head against her knee.

  Leo took after his mom in a lot of ways. His love of music, his empathy, the intense need to care for other people, that all came from her. His father gave Leo his sense of humor and the ability to find fun in life. Fun had always been important in their house growing up.

  “Who is he?” his mom demanded as they settled.

  “A guy,” Leo said with a sigh he didn’t intend to slip out. “Just a fucking guy.”

  She swatted his head for his language, then smoothed his hair out again.

  “I don’t care if you are a grown man who dates other grown men; if someone hurts my baby, I’m going to hurt them right back.”

  Leo laughed at that. Then he sobered. “I don’t think you’re going to like him very much.”

  “Oh, Leo.”

  It was time. She deserved to know.

  “He’s a werewolf. And straight.”

  He turned to rest his chin on her knee so he could look up at the blue eyes he’d inherited.

  This was always going to be the hardest part of his relationship with Jackson, at least from Leo’s side: coming clean to his parents. Back in the eighties, before Leo was born, his father had been part of an antiwerewolf committee at college. That was where he’d met Leo’s mom. Despite werewolf segregation legislation being undone by the government generations earlier, there were still those who advocated for all werewolves to be neutralized as a matter of course.

  Werewolf rights being enshrined in law was still a relatively recent event, with the biggest steps being taken in the time between the Civil Rights Movement and the decriminalization of LGBT people in the Western world. There were still people alive who could recount memories of public werewolf burnings, which was the most popular way of killing wolves back in the day. Pictures of old signs occasionally circulated on social media, reminding people of their very recent history: “No wolves, no Negroes, no Mexicans.”

  Leo had never considered his parents bad people for their opinions. It was a different time, when safe spaces for wolves to run had yet to be implemented across America. With nowhere to go during the full moon, it was inevitable that wolves would encounter humans, and accidents could, and did, happen.

  Things were different now. There was an effective antivenom, which could be administered even hours after a bite and prevent a human from turning. Many wolves still volunteered for the neutralization procedure, especially those who worked with vulnerable people or children. Society had moved on.

  It didn’t change the fact that Leo’s parents had once wanted wolves to be prevented from breeding.

  “He’s straight?” Her raised eyebrow held more question than her words.

  “Yeah,” Leo said and took a deep breath. “I’m his soul mate.”

  “Do you want to tell me about him?” she asked, her voice carefully neutral.

  Leo considered that for a moment. “He’s a quiet sort of person. He lives on his own, way out on the outskirts of Nine Mile Falls. He’s alone a lot of the time, but he seems to prefer it that way. He likes his own space. And his business is out there too; he runs it on his own.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “Taller than me. Kind of average build. Light brown hair, brown eyes. I told Mitch he looks like Ryan Reynolds. Do you know who that is?”

  “I’m not that old,” she said and lightly swatted his head again.

  “I didn’t want to assume.” Leo laughed. “I guess, in my head, I can see how we would work together. It would be good, I think. But I think he’s struggling more than he’s letting on with me being a man. It’s like he’s scared to let himself just be with me.”

  It had never been a big deal to Leo’s parents that he was gay, despite his mom’s Irish Catholic background. His extended family had been surprised, and his dad had fielded plenty of awkward questions about “do you wish you could go back and have more kids” and “do you want to try and get him some therapy to fix it?”

  Leo felt infinitely fortunate that his parents were the sort of people who didn’t care one dot about his sexuality. He was pretty sure their liberal attitudes wouldn’t extend to him being the soul mate of a born wolf.

  “What are you going to do?” his mom asked.

  “We’re working through it. We’ve spent a lot of time together recently. It’s been good… getting to know him as a person. He can be grumpy and withdrawn sometimes, but he’s a sweetheart underneath.”

  His mom wore a pained sort of expression. She wasn’t clutching her pearls… yet.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “You haven’t said anything about him being a wolf,” Leo added, feeling it was best to ask now.

  “Oh, Leo.” She sighed. “It’s not something I would choose for you, I’ll admit. I don’t like the idea that wolves can just claim a soul mate and the person being claimed has so little say in the matter. I try to keep an open mind, but….”

  “It’s not like that, Mom. He doesn’t choose. It just happens.”

  He could tell by the set of her jaw that she didn’t believe him. “Leo.”

  “I’m still learning about them. I mean, now it feels crazy that I didn’t know hardly anything. We should totally be taught abou
t it in school and stuff—”

  “Leo,” she said again, more insistently.

  “What?”

  “Is he… does he tell you to think these things?”

  “No!” Leo exclaimed. “We don’t even really talk about it. I’m spending half my life reading up on stuff because I just don’t know and I sound like an ignorant idiot around him. It’s 2018, Mom; we live with the werewolves in the same communities. But we know almost nothing about them.”

  “The werewolves segregated themselves.”

  “You really think that?”

  “I think there’s a clear delineation between humans and werewolves for a reason.”

  Leo sighed heavily. “Would it help if you met him?”

  His mom stared him down. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

  He shrugged. “He’s a person, Mom. Not a caricature, not a cartoon villain. Just a regular guy.”

  “Has he been neutralized?”

  “I haven’t asked,” he lied.

  “Oh, Leo,” she sighed. “Your dad won’t like it.”

  “He’ll get over it.”

  “Don’t tell him,” she said, her eyes quietly begging. “Not yet. Give him some time.”

  “Fine.”

  She rolled her eyes and shook her head, like he was a rebellious teenager that she could eventually bring back to heel.

  “Oh, I bought you something,” she said, neatly changing the subject as she leaned over to grab her purse. “I was doing some Christmas shopping the other day.”

  The purse was huge, naturally, so it took a moment for her to dig through it. Then she pulled out a little paper bag and handed it over.

  “Sure you don’t want to save it for Santa?” Leo asked.

  “Behave and open it.”

  He did, finding an intricately braided blue cord bracelet inside. It closed with a silver clasp that was delicately engraved.

  “This is nice,” he said, pulling it out and twisting his wrist so he could put it on. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “You’re welcome, honey. You wear a lot of blue, so I thought it would look nice.”

  He leaned over to kiss her on the cheek, then wriggled his wrist to make the bracelet sit properly. The silver was cold against his skin, but he was sure it would soon warm up.