by J. L. Wilder
The kitchen was quiet.
The kitchen had never been quiet when Evelyn had lived there. Her many brothers and sisters had constantly been parading through, grabbing snacks from the refrigerator, calling out to one another in different parts of the house.
But they had been gone for a long time. They were all adults now. They’d all moved out and found places of their own.
This home was a very different place from the one Evelyn had left.
She heard the sound of approaching footsteps and sat up a little straighter. A moment later, her father came into the room.
Like her mother, his aging was apparent. He was clean-shaven now—he’d always worn a beard before. He had put on a bit of weight, lost a bit of muscle. He seemed shorter, somehow, as though the years had diminished him.
He did not run to embrace her, as her mother had. Instead, he stopped several yards away, his back resting up against the refrigerator.
“So you’re back,” he said.
She nodded. “Yes, Dad.”
“Need money?”
“I need a place to stay,” she said. “I don’t want to take any money from you, but I need a roof over my head until I can get a job and rent my own apartment. That’s all.”
He nodded slowly. “And the wolf?”
“Marty’s history,” Evelyn said. She took a deep breath, knowing that the only way to earn her father’s forgiveness was to eat humble pie. “You were right about him, Dad. I should have listened to you all those years ago. He was never any good. You knew what you were talking about.”
Her father nodded again. “This is permanent?” he asked. “You leaving him, I mean? I don’t want to move you back into your old room here just to have you running back to him and breaking your mother’s heart all over again next week.”
“No, Dad,” she assured him. “I’m never going back to him. I’m going to arrange a divorce as soon as I can.” She didn’t know how she would get Marty to sign divorce papers, but she would figure it out. She wasn’t going to spend another minute of her life tied to that man.
“All right,” her father said. “Then you’re welcome to move back into your room, as long as you’re trying to find a job. I hope you’ll have the sense to stay near the rest of the den this time and not go gallivanting all over the country. I hope this has taught you some kind of lesson.”
He turned and left the room.
Evelyn let out a shuddery breath. That could have gone worse.
Her mother removed the water from the stove and set about preparing the tea. “Don’t misunderstand your father,” she said quietly. “He’s thrilled you’re home, Evelyn. He just doesn’t know exactly how to show it.”
Evelyn nodded her understanding. Her father had never been an emotionally demonstrative man. As a child, she’d been more likely to get a firm pat on the shoulder than a hug from him. Of course he didn’t know what to say to her under the current circumstances.
Her mother poured two cups of tea, handed one to Evelyn, and sat down opposite her. “Tell me what happened,” she urged. “What finally convinced you to leave him?”
“We got in a fight.” Evelyn’s eyes unfocused slightly as she remembered that last night they had been together.
“Did he hurt you?” her mother asked, reaching out and covering Evelyn’s hand with her own.
“No,” Evelyn said. “He’s never hurt me. Not physically. He saw that I had been saving some money, and he tried to take it from me. He was forceful about that. Physical. But...I don’t think he would have hurt me.”
I hurt him, she remembered, with a mix of satisfaction and guilt. It had been good—powerful—to find that she was capable of overcoming Marty. But it had been conflicting, too. He had been cruel to her for years, but she had loved him once. That was a hard thing to let go of.
Her mother was quiet for a moment. “What was your marriage like before that fight?” she asked. “I always worried. Wolves can be so savage. I always longed to call you, to talk to you and make sure you were all right. But I didn’t know how to reach you.”
Evelyn nodded. “There were lots of times I wanted to reach out too,” she said.
“Why didn’t you?” her mother asked.
Evelyn shifted uncomfortably, wrapping her hands around her mug. “Partly because of what Dad said when I was leaving,” she said. “I was afraid that if I tried to call, you would hang up on me, and I didn’t think I could take it.”
“We wouldn’t have done that,” her mother said quietly.
“Marty also didn’t want me to call,” Evelyn said. “He paid for my phone plan, and he reviewed the bill every month. He kept me on limited minutes—he said I didn’t need to be calling anybody—and if there had been a long call to a number he didn’t know on the bill, he would have gotten angry.”
Her mother looked horrified. “You said he never hurt you.”
“He didn’t,” Evelyn said. “But he would have found other ways to punish me for something like that. He would have made me take extra shifts at work to pay off the bill, and he probably would have canceled my phone plan altogether and told me I wasn’t responsible enough to have it.” She sipped her tea slowly. “He was very controlling,” she said.
“That sounds like an understatement,” her mother said, shivering slightly.
“I think that’s why he was so upset to learn that I had been saving money,” Evelyn said. “It meant that I was doing something outside his control. It wasn’t the money itself that he wanted, not really. He was just horrified and offended that I would dare to do something for myself without letting him in on it. That was threatening to him.”
“Well, he was right to feel threatened,” Evelyn’s mother said. “Because you ended up using that money to leave him, didn’t you?”
Evelyn stared into her cup of tea and said nothing. All Marty would have had to do was be kind to her. She really had loved him when she was young. He had killed that.
“Your father and I are having dinner with the neighbors tonight,” her mother said, perhaps sensing Evelyn’s sudden emotional turmoil. “Do you remember the O’Neals? You were friends with their son, Brady, when you were a kid.”
Evelyn nodded. She hadn’t thought of the O’Neals in years. “Sure,” she said. “They were a nice family.”
“We still have dinner together from time to time,” her mother said. “Would you like to join us tonight? I’m sure they’d like to see you again. If you’re not feeling up to it, you don’t have to, but it might be better for you than just sitting around the house and wallowing.”
Though Evelyn sort of felt like wallowing might be the best thing for her, she knew her mother had a point. “Sure,” she said. “I’d be happy to go along. It’ll be nice to see them again.”
She was grateful she had stopped to buy a new dress that morning. At least she would have something to wear.
Chapter Eight
BRADY
“Listen up, everyone,” Steve said.
Brady looked up from the hunk of wood he had been whittling. He had arrived at the alpha’s quarters, the largest house on Beech Street, at four-thirty on the dot, as he had been ordered to do. He and the rest of the den had been sitting around on the porch for the past half hour waiting for Steve to join them.
Steve, as usual, had been late. Nobody was surprised by it at this point. Everybody knew that this was what Steve did. In Brady’s opinion, it was just another power game, a way of making the rest of the den feel like they were less important than their alpha.
It wasn’t working on Brady. Not this time.
He didn’t know exactly how it had happened, but something about the failed conference had empowered him after all. He might not have gained any status or respect in the eyes of his denmates, but somehow he had left feeling stronger and surer of himself all the same.
If Steve wanted to make everyone wait around for him, that was fine with Brady. It was a stupid and obvious manipulation, and in Brady’s opinion, it m
ade Steve look weaker, not stronger.
Now Steve was leaning against the post that held up the extension of the roof that covered the porch, looking careless and sure of himself. Brady actually felt an urge to laugh at the affected pose.
“We’re going out for a run tonight,” Steve said. “The whole den. We’re going north of the city. Go home and get ready, and we’ll meet back here in twenty minutes. You’ll want to bring a bag so you can hang your clothes in the woods when you shift.”
As though we haven’t done this a thousand times. Brady had a dozen hang-bags at home that he used for that exact purpose. The idea that Steve still felt like he had to tell them was laughable.
But that wasn’t the fight he wanted to focus on tonight.
“I can’t go,” he said.
Steve’s head turned toward him slowly, his face incredulous. “I beg your pardon?”
“I have plans,” Brady said. “I’m having dinner with my parents tonight. I can’t go on a run.”
“You’ll obey your alpha,” Steve snapped.
“Is it an order, sir?” Brady knew he was pressing his luck—if Steve gave an order, the force of his will might compel Brady’s obedience. But he didn’t think Steve would be willing to take the risk. For all his bluster and cockiness, Steve’s orders had always been weak, and as he’d realized that, he’d started relying on them less and less. If he gave an order in front of the rest of the den and Brady wasn’t bound by it, he would be humiliated. Steve wouldn’t want to risk that.
“I shouldn’t have to give you an order about something like this,” Steve said. “This is why you’re such a failure, Brady. You don’t recognize what’s important for your own success. You have an opportunity to do something with our den, to be one of us, and show us that you value the group. That’s what a leader would do. And instead, you’re prioritizing yourself. Your own needs and desires. That’s not what a team player does. It’s the same mistake you made at the conference. You never learn.”
“I don’t know,” Brady said. “I think a real leader wouldn’t ask a man to stand his parents up if he had a choice.”
Someone inhaled sharply.
Steve’s eyes narrowed. “You saying I’m not a real leader?”
“You’re a great leader,” Brady said. “That’s why I was so confident you’d be able to accommodate my need to see my parents, Steve. You’re always so good at making sure every member of this den has what they need.”
He waited, knowing he had won. There was no way Steve could argue against that without demeaning himself, and Steve was far too proud to ever do such a thing.
Anger and frustration flashed across Steve’s face as he realized how he had been cornered.
“Fine,” he snapped at last. “You’ll go with your parents tonight. I respect them too much to deny them. And tomorrow, you’ll make your absence up to the rest of the den.”
“I’m sure I will,” Brady said. Whatever Steve had planned for him tomorrow would be designed to wear him down. But it also didn’t matter. He knew, and Steve knew, that the real battle had been about tonight, and that Brady had won.
Steve turned and stalked off the porch. “Twenty minutes,” he called over his shoulder to the rest of the den.
Slowly, the group dispersed, some of them casting glances at Brady as they went, others very pointedly not doing so.
Danny came up to him. “That was intense,” he said quietly.
Brady shrugged, doing his best to appear nonchalant, even though Danny was right. “I just didn’t want to stand my parents up,” he said. “My mother looks forward to having dinner with me, and I don’t want to let her down.”
Danny nodded. “I get that,” he said. “I think you were right. There’s nothing special about a run. Steve just wanted to boss you around.”
Brady held Danny’s gaze for a moment. “I’m glad you can see that,” he said. He had always thought the kid was perceptive. “You’d better go get ready. He’s not going to want anyone else challenging him tonight. That would end badly.”
Danny nodded and ran off, joining two other young men who had apparently been waiting for him. Brady watched as the three of them disappeared into one of the houses across the street. They were roommates, he knew, but he didn’t know much else about them.
Maybe Steve has a point about me needing to mingle more with my den. As hard as it was to admit to Steve having a point about anything, it was true that if he was going to lead people, he would have to know them well.
And was that a look of respect he had seen from one of Danny’s friends? He couldn’t be sure, but it had definitely seemed respectful.
He glanced at his watch. He was running late for dinner already, and he didn’t want to make his mother worry that he wasn’t going to be there.
He hurried down the porch steps and cut across the lawn to his own home, which was next door to the alpha property. He had hated this house for a long time—had hated the fact that he had been forced to move out of the alpha house that should have been his, that he had come home from rehab to a home that felt like it belonged to a stranger.
But it was his place now, a place he loved. He had made it his own, filled it with furniture he had chosen and his favorite books, stocked the refrigerator with his favorite foods and the closet with the clothes he loved to wear. Coming there was coming home. The alpha house was the place he felt uncomfortable now.
He had wondered whether, if he were to assume the alpha role, he would actually want the house back.
Not that he would have a choice, necessarily. The alpha lived in the alpha house. That was the way things were. It was the biggest and newest house on Beech Street, and even though the South Side Bears owned the whole block, the alpha always lived in the same place. The beta men lived on Beech Street, the beta women on Linden, and the married couples on Briar and Harlowe
Harlowe Street was where Brady’s parents lived, and where he was going tonight. I was where he grew up and he always loved going back.
He dressed quickly, pulling dress pants and a button-down shirt out of his closet. It was the last fancy outfit he had after the ones he had worn to the conference had been sent out for dry cleaning. He examined himself in the mirror, and then, satisfied with his appearance, headed out.
He decided to walk down Linden instead of Briar to reach his parents’ house, even though the journey was a little bit longer going that way, because doing so meant that he wouldn’t have to pass the alpha house again. There were a few unoccupied houses on Linden—it was clear by the darkened windows—and Brady wondered whether Steve would bother trying to expand the den, to bring in more women since they clearly had the room. It was what Brady would have done if he was the alpha.
But Steve doesn’t have plans. Steve doesn’t try to move the den forward. He only worries about keeping control of everyone. That’s all he knows how to do.
He turned off of Linden and onto Harlowe. He made his way down to the home he had grown up in and knocked on the door.
It was his mother who answered. She greeted him with a hug, pulling him inside. “You made it,” she said. “I was beginning to wonder about you, Brady O’Neal.”
“Drama with the guys,” Brady said by way of explanation.
His mother frowned. “Is Steve trying to bait you into drinking again?”
“I told you, Ma, you don’t need to worry about that,” Brady said. “There’s nothing he could do that would get me to drink again.”
He felt a pang of guilt as he said it. After all, he’d had that close call at the hotel bar during the conference. He had almost ordered himself a drink that night.
But he hadn’t. He had stayed strong, and that was what mattered. There was no need to confess a sin that had never taken place.
His mother nodded. “I know you’re taking care of yourself,” she said. “I trust you, Brady. I just hate to think of that man bullying you like that. I know he’s your alpha, but really, there’s no excuse for it.”
> “It’s all right, Ma,” Brady said. “Steve can’t do anything to me.” He cracked a smile. “He was trying to convince me not to come over here tonight, actually.”
“What! Why would he do that?”
“Just to flex. But it doesn’t matter. I’m tougher than he is, and he knows it. I think he might actually be terrified of me.”
Brady’s mother laughed. “That’s my boy,” she said. “All right. You get yourself in there and greet our company.”
“Company?”
She frowned. “I told you the Matthews were joining us for dinner, didn’t I?”
Brady shrugged. “You might’ve.” Mr. and Mrs. Matthews were his parents’ closest friends, so it was no great surprise that they were there. They came to dinner often. It changed the vibe of the evening a little bit—Brady knew he wouldn’t vent about Steve’s tactics in front of anyone other than family—but it would still be nice to see them.
“They brought their daughter along,” his mother said. “You remember her?”
“Their daughter? Which daughter?” There had been five or six Matthews children, and Brady hadn’t seen any of them in years.
“Evelyn,” his mother said. “The youngest. I’m sure you remember. She was a few years younger than you. The two of you used to hang out when you were kids.”
“Seriously?” That was a surprise. Evelyn Matthews had run off half a lifetime ago with some wolf who’d been passing through. She was a cautionary tale now. Brady had never expected to see her again.
“They’re in the living room,” his mother said. “Go say hello.”
Brady nodded and went through into the living room. Three people were seated on the couch. He smiled at the familiar faces of Mr. and Mrs. Matthews before turning to the woman sitting between them.
He did a double-take.
He couldn’t believe who is eyes were seeing.
Chapter Nine
EVELYN
Evelyn felt as if she could have been knocked over with a feather.