“Go home?!” Glen asked from the bed of the pickup truck, our voices having pulled him out of his light slumber. “No way are we going home without you and Wolfie.” A murmur of assent proved that the other yahoos had woken and were in accord.
Chase and I exchanged glances, and in that moment I knew the two of us were on the same page, just as we had been about my betrayal the last time Wolfie’s pack had come to Haven. Whatever was holding Wolfie up couldn’t be good, and we both knew there was no reason to risk the rest of the pack by sending them in after their leader. If my father had won the challenge, it was better for Wolfie’s pack to go home and regroup without me, and I knew the pack’s beta would make that happen. I nodded my thanks to my mate’s milk brother, and he bowed his head in acquiescence.
“At least put on some clothes,” said Galena quietly, handing over a t-shirt and jogging pants. As much as I hated to waste time by walking back to the village in human form, I had to admit that she was right—running around naked was a bit of a juvenile thing to do even in a werewolf village, and I needed all the gravitas I could muster if I wanted to get Wolfie out of whatever hot water he was in. I just hoped my mate was alive and waiting for me.
“Thanks,” I said quietly, pulling on the clothes Galena had given me.
Keith got to his feet and began to follow as I turned away from the pack, so I figured I might as well start using my new-found alpha status now rather than later. “Stay,” I told the young wolf, putting the full force of command beneath my voice, and my nephew plopped down onto his tail so fast I was a bit concerned he might never move again. Well, that worked better than I’d thought it would. Deciding to take my nephew’s unusual obedience as a good sign, I broke into a run up the dark gravel road leading to my family home.
Chapter 22
As soon as I reached the village green, I could hear the raised voices pouring out the windows of my father’s house. I couldn’t make out the words, but the tone was angry, and my wolf extended our senses out to their limits, seeking clues about the situation we were walking into. Leaf mold and pine needles entered our nose, with no hint of the blood I’d been secretly expecting—Wolfie was alive. Although my new alpha leanings tried to make me care about the health of the Haven pack as well, if I was honest, Wolfie was all I’d really thought about for the last half hour, so the knowledge that he was unharmed gave me strength to enter what seemed poised to turn into a riot.
“Haven’s been led by a Wilder for three generations,” one of my uncles roared as I pushed open the back door and slipped into the heart of the pack. It seemed as if every man and half the women who lived in Haven had crammed themselves into my family home, and although the house wasn’t small, it definitely wasn’t big enough to host a town meeting. I began to push my way through the crowd, but the werewolves parted to let me through before I could shove anyone aside, creating a clear path leading toward the heart of the conflict. Sooner than I really wanted, I was standing in the open doorway of the pool room.
The scene inside wasn’t at all what I had expected. Yes, my bulkier male cousins were clad in fur, menacing Wolfie, who remained in human form. My mate stood with his back against the wall, his cue stick held lightly, the tip slowly moving to face each verbal attacker. None of that was a big surprise. What was unusual was the fact that my father stood in front of Wolfie in canine form, the Chief’s teeth bared as he growled at his own pack.
Or, rather, at Wolfie’s pack, as the young alpha’s next words made abundantly clear. “Is that a challenge?” Wolfie ground out, and my overbearing uncle ducked his head despite himself, one step away from prostrating his whole body on the ground. A wave of submissive gestures wound around the room, spurred on by the tone of Wolfie’s voice, and I could see now why Wolfie hadn’t been torn apart by Haven’s angry wolves—no member of my family was able to disobey their new pack leader’s commands.
Only when every Haven werewolf’s eyes were safely on the ground did Wolfie look across the room at me and allow his face to melt into the sweetest smile imaginable. I grinned back despite myself, feeling more lucky than ever that Wolfie was mine. Ours, my wolf corrected indulgently, before drifting back to sleep. I would have thought she would be pushing against my skin, itching to protect me from the dangers of the current situation, but with Wolfie present, my own wolf clearly thought everything was under control.
I wished I could be that complacent. But I figured if Wolfie had been holding off my uncles and cousins for what must have been hours, he probably had another ace up his sleeve and was waiting for me to put in an appearance to set his plan in motion. Instinctively, I walked toward my mate, letting my hands trail across the heads of my wolf cousins as I passed. “Down,” I said to them quietly, volume not necessary to push through commands that had to be obeyed. I didn’t look behind me, but could hear cousins who I’d been afraid of all my life dropping like flies at my feet.
“Keith all right?” Wolfie asked me when I reached his side, the younger alpha’s poker face back in place but a sparkle behind his eyes letting me know that all was well.
I nodded silently, then added, “Chase expects a status report within twenty minutes.” I’d taken the private drive off the highway at a run despite my human form, so we had a bit of time to spare before Wolfie’s pack would leave us in the lurch. Still, I wanted Wolfie to be aware of the deadline, even though no real harm would come from his pack going home...except for a lack of an exit strategy for the two of us. And it was clear that Wolfie did still need an exit strategy.
“I see you defeated the Chief,” I said, making conversation in order to give myself time to figure out Wolfie’s plan, but also wanting my words to carry throughout the house, making the conclusion of the challenge clear to every Haven werewolf. I looked down, expecting my father to bristle at my words, since I’d always assumed he’d be the last one to willingly give up his power over our little community. But my father’s wolf instead seemed as content as my own wolf was to let me and Wolfie hash out the situation. With a huffing sigh, the older canine dropped to the ground and closed his eyes, either falling instantly asleep or doing a pretty good imitation of slumber. “I guess we should let sleeping dogs lie,” I added, and was relieved to feel the mood of the gathering shift from edgy and dangerous over into something that approached contented and amused.
Wolfie smiled down at me, wolf and man united in their appreciation of my mild witticism, and I couldn’t resist reaching up to kiss Haven’s new pack leader, despite the family members pressing in on us from all sides.
“Go home,” Wolfie said to the gathering once I gave him back possession of his lips, and my extended family instantly moved to obey. “My pack will spend the night here, and we’ll all talk like human beings in the morning.” Then, content that everyone would do exactly as he said, Wolfie pulled off his shirt, slipped out of his pants, and was running for the highway in wolf form before we even had time to parse the shift.
***
“Haven isn’t going to be ready for big changes right away,” I told Wolfie a couple of hours later, once Cricket had pulled out sofas and unrolled mats to give each member of Wolfie’s pack a place to sleep inside our family home. My stepmother had offered the two of us her room since my father had taken to the woods in canine form and seemed bound to stay gone for a good long time. But I’d felt weird about sleeping in my parents’ bed and had instead pushed the two twin beds in my attic room together to give me and Wolfie a spot to sleep. It wasn’t entirely comfortable to span the crack, but lying in Wolfie’s arms felt good no matter what surface we were supported by.
“I think I should go home for a while,” Wolfie rumbled softly, and my body tensed up. Yes, I knew that Haven’s pack was going to have a hard time accepting Wolfie, but surely they’d have just as hard of a time taking orders from a woman. Plus, it felt like eons since Wolfie and I had been able to just laugh together, and I didn’t relish the idea of spending more time apart.
As usual, Wol
fie read between the lines and understood everything I didn’t say, as well as what I did. “Crazy Wilder’s daughter will be easier to stomach as the new pack leader than an out-of-pack bloodling would be,” he murmured. “The separation won’t last forever, but I think you’ll be a better alpha for Haven than I would during the transitional period. Don’t worry, though. I’ll take the troublemakers home with me and leave you some of our pack in exchange.”
“The troublemakers?” I said, Wolfie’s words making me laugh despite myself. It was hard to imagine blood-thirsty werewolves like Milo being described by such a childish term. “Hit man” would be more appropriate, or maybe “murderer in training.” On the other hand, I did see Wolfie’s point, which had been aptly illustrated by the dissipation of tension within the pool room once I made my way home.
“How about this?” Wolfie bargained. “I take everyone from Haven between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, and you get the yahoos in exchange.”
“Kids? Seriously? You want me to run this pack of wolves with the help of kids?” I retorted, only half kidding.
“You don’t need any help at all, sweetheart,” Wolfie answered, his mind clearly beginning to turn to other topics as his hands made their way over my body. “I’m leaving you with the yahoos because I’m sick of them.”
“Some alpha you are,” I growled, but the heat in my words had less to do with Wolfie’s bargain and more to do with his hands, which made me shiver as they slipped over my skin and, yup, slid down below the waist. My wolf and I arched into his touch, and this time I really do think we purred.
Epilogue
I half expected the Haven werewolves to rise up in revolt after Wolfie and the majority of his pack hit the road with Haven’s young adults in tow, but the remainder of the community instead came to me with heads bowed starting that first morning. They needed advice on this problem, help with that problem, and I found my hands full just getting the village back into shape.
In an effort to keep the yahoos out of trouble (and to lighten my own load), I kept Wolfie’s loaned helpers running so ragged with errands from the first day that they didn’t have time to get into mischief. Cricket fed their voluminous appetites, which seemed to give my stepmother something to worry about other than the fact that her husband’s wolf appeared to have completely taken over his human side. My father spent most of his time hunting rabbits in the woods now, and when he came to the back door to check on his mate, I couldn’t see any hint of the man I’d known in the canine’s eyes. But that absence was almost a blessing—it seemed that the ruthlessness of Crazy Wilder had been within the man, not in the wolf.
Like the yahoos, I stayed too busy to worry over anything that wasn’t directly in front of me over the next few weeks. Despite my full hours, I expected the ache in my stomach to reappear when Wolfie slammed his pickup truck door and sped off, but I seemed to have finally accepted that the young alpha wasn’t walking out of my life permanently—he was just living somewhere else for a while. It also helped that my wolf and I were able to trade off responsibilities, and I often let her simple canine brain take over when exhaustion was threatening to turn me melancholy.
On one crisp winter day, the wolf had treated us to a run on four paws, and I was smiling when I stepped back into my clothes in the foyer of my family home, smelling stew bubbling in the kitchen and hearing the yahoos chattering away at the kitchen table. But I smelled something else too—leaf mold and pine needles and a hint of peppermint....
I whirled, hoping that the scent meant Wolfie had come to visit, even though I knew that wasn’t true. Instead of my mate, a young woman in her late teens stood uncomfortably in the formal sitting room that no one ever used. I couldn’t quite imagine Cricket parking a visitor there, but my wolf could see that the stranger’s canine half was skittish and ready to bolt, so I immediately understood how this girl might feel more comfortable alone than in the midst of the revelry clamoring forth from the kitchen.
The girl looked me up and down, sniffing the air with a human nose much like I would in wolf form, then she silently extended the hands that had been hugging a book to her chest. Her offering was the new Patricia Briggs novel that I’d left in that bookstore so long ago, and even without bringing the paper to my nose, I knew the pages smelled of Wolfie. Although I should have been welcoming my visitor, I couldn’t resist opening the cover of the book instead to see if my mate had written anything inside.
He had. “The whole pack misses you, but I miss you more,” Wolfie had penned with a firm hand, then he’d signed his name with a muddy paw print. “P.S.,” the inscription continued. “I’m sending you trouble. But you can handle it.”
The leaf mold and pine needle aroma was strong on the pages of the book, but that wasn’t the primary source of the odor I’d picked up on as soon as I came in the door. My wolf pushed to the fore and reported that the young woman smelled nearly identical to our mate, with the addition of a minty overtone. Did that mean she was Wolfie’s relative? Heaven forbid—his daughter?
I looked back up at the young woman, who seemed to be restraining herself from bolting with an effort. “I’m the trouble,” she admitted, her eyes on her feet, which were already turned toward the door. Despite her submissive gesture, I had a feeling she was right about her self assessment, and I already had plenty of problems to contend with. But Wolfie had sent her, and my heart went out to the skittish young werewolf, so I put out my hands to capture hers before she could flee.
“Welcome, Trouble,” I greeted her. “I’m Terra.”
***
I hope you enjoyed Shiftless! If so, don't stop there --- Terra's adventure continues with Pack Princess and Alpha Ascendant.
Meanwhile, you can also learn more about Wolfie's side of the story in The Complete Bloodling Serial, which you can download for free when you sign up for my email list.
Thank you so much for reading and for spreading the word! You are why I write.
Shiftless: A Fantastical Werewolf Adventure Page 15