by JJ King
“Katherine, ma fille, what can I give you today? The world on a silver platter, the keys to eternity, or just an old man’s love?”
Katherine grinned widely at her father and stepped forward into his arms. She loved his scent so much, it was like pine, and leather, and family wrapped in one. She looked deep into his eyes and noted the tiredness that seemed to have sprung up out of nowhere, embellishing the fine lines around his eyes and mouth that just one year ago had been smooth. My father is aging, she amazed and then banished the thought from her mind. He was Alpha and strong as an ox, fit as a fiddle and filled every other colloquialism that she could think of. She drew back from his embrace and held him at arm’s length, “I want nothing more than a kiss from the world’s most handsome man.” With that, she leaned up and smacked her lips loudly against his.
“Look out my dear,” he warned, his eyes flashing with a hint of laughter, “my wife might have a few words to say about me kissing beautiful young women.”
A graceful woman with glossy auburn hair and icy blue eyes glided into the room with a serene smile on her lips. “How can I fault a man for kissing one so amazingly beautiful?” She kissed her daughter on both cheeks and held her face in her hands to look long and deep. Seeing only happiness Sylvie LaFlamme gathered her first born close and breathed in her fresh scent. “How have you been, ma petite? It has been far too long since you’ve graced us with your presence.”
“Can’t a girl just want to see her parents?” Katherine breathed in the scent of her mother, a subtle Chanel so feminine in contrast to her father. Inwardly she cringed because she knew just how long it had been since she had visited casually or for any other reason. Two years of working too hard and playing even harder with the lack of opportunity to visit the family home located three hour drive North of Montreal.
Built in 1803 by her father and his brothers, Wild River rested on a sprawling piece of land where her kindred ran and played freely with no fear of poachers or law enforcement. She had lived on the Wild River reserve until the tender age of 208 and Katherine felt a connection to this land and the home that she had never really felt in France, her birthplace. No, Wild River is where her real home was, and where most of her good memories and not so good ones were centered.
Despite that connection, she had always felt the pull of the human world on her and had never been content to simply remain in the home and follow the old ways as some among her family did adamantly. While she had been taught from a young age that remaining true to her heritage and spirit were integral to her health and wellbeing, she was also shown the world outside of the forest. Like her, Pierre and Sylvie chose to follow the human way of life, for the most part, living as human and forging their fortune as part of the human world. Unlike her, they made changing and being wolf a part of their everyday lives as well. Daytime was for humanity and nighttime was for basic nature.
Up until 1939, Katherine lived her life exactly as her parents did, living as both wolf and human. Then she had an epiphany and decided to give living as a human a try before she turned 300 and was expected to settle down to build a nice wolf family. Since then, she hadn’t wavered in her decision at all and, as her 300th birthday approached, she relished the experiences she’d had as part of what would make her an exceptional wolf once she came home.
It wasn’t a permanent living condition, a fact that kept her parents from being angry over her decision, but for the moment it was exactly what she wanted and needed. She had left home with anticipation of a new experience and had moved directly to Vancouver and her pretty little house. It hadn’t been hard to get a job as a single attractive woman, though the income wasn’t exactly easy to adjust to. Her parents were extremely wealthy so the move from opulence to frugality took a bit of fortitude to get used to. Of course, she wasn’t exactly cut off from the family and she did enjoy some of the perks of being a LaFlamme.
She usually came home for Christmas or other celebrations but, for the most part, Katherine kept her life as a human intact. When she decided to attend the University of Toronto’s Law program, she chose to live as a human for the entirety of the program. The only exception was the one time she had visited home to find her brother’s fighting over a girl that they all apparently found attractive. She had changed then just to beat their asses and teach them a lesson about family.
Since becoming a lawyer, Katherine found that keeping up the charade was even harder than usual. She failed to age while her colleagues around her popped fresh wrinkles and gray hairs every day. There was an art to remaining a part of the human world, one which she took very seriously and one which her own mother had taught her; carefully drawn lines around the eyes and mouth after years of working in one office, subtle gray highlights around the temples. Katherine was careful to maintain her humanity around the world outside of her own. Katherine was working now in her third Law office. This time, she was young again, and enjoying the single youthful Vancouver scene.
Sylvie motioned for her daughter to take a seat in the ancient leather chairs that made the seating area of her father’s office so inviting. Within moments of settling into her oversized overstuffed chair, the door to the office opened and a young woman came in with a tray filled with comfits and a teapot. Katherine smiled at her mother’s keen ability to communicate with her household staff. As Chatelaine of the keep, Sylvie ran a smooth operation and always kept an eye and ear out for problems. Katherine prided herself on being independent but never thought for a moment that she could equal her mother’s ability to be self-reliant. As the wife of the Alpha, Sylvie kept up a standard and Katherine understood that role. She would be expected to play the role someday or something like it at least.
A silence filled the office as all three Laflammes sized one another up. Katherine noticed her mother’s new diamond earrings, probably a gift from her father, and her father’s unruly hair, probably a point of contention between her parents. She also made note of the tension around her mother’s eyes and mouth and the slight puffiness that indicated she had been sleeping poorly lately. Her father’s face was slightly rigid and his eyes, too, betrayed recent sleepless nights.
Her mother and father silently appraised her in return, taking in her long hair, manicured nails, flawless makeup, and stiletto heels. She was a much more sophisticated version of the ironically nicknamed Kitty Kat they had known so many years ago. Back then, during her “pre-teen” years from age 100 to 148, she had sported a short boy cut and declined any of the times fashions for daring futuristic garb. She had the nerve to wear pants in public as the 18th century became the 19th, but then, of course, she did resemble a boy at the time so it hadn’t caused too much embarrassment. Back then they had lived in the south of France, just before her father had been appointed Alpha of the Americas.
Her mother was the first to break the silence. There was tradition to uphold.
“Katherine darling, you look amazing. I just love your highlights and those shoes! Ils sont trop magnifique! You’ve turned out to be quite the young woman, haven’t you?”
Katherine silently counted to three.
“So, when do you think you’ll be coming home to us so you can find yourself a nice young man?”
A knock at the door interrupted Katherine’s sigh and the resulting debate that it would have instigated, and a stylish young man with curly chocolate colored hair stepped into the room. Katherine forgot her refined look and threw herself body and soul into her brother’s arms.
“Ronan!”
“Hey, gorgeous, nice to have you home. Got yourself a man yet?”
Katherine held nothing back when she punched his bicep, a bicep that had gotten surprisingly larger since the last time she had punched it, and narrowed her eyes at Ronan.
“Ass.”
A tut-tut sound came from the corner where her mother sat but, with a glance, Katherine knew it was only halfhearted and that the sly smile on her mother’s face meant that Katherine was the obvious loser in this particular d
ebate.
♀♀♀
Her mother flat out refused to allow any sort of family meeting to occur before she had a chance to gather her children together for a feast. She’d had a small staff of three working since the day before to prepare a meal that was, at present, creating a mouthwatering aroma that couldn’t be contained within the walls of the large kitchen.
A small part of Katherine resented that she would be forced to wait several more hours before being brought up to date with the family crisis but she had to admit that the smell of the meal was beginning to gnaw at her stomach. It had been hours since she had snuck downstairs this morning to demolish a quarter of the leftovers she had found in the snack fridge. There were three fridges in Sylvie’s kitchen. Her family had large appetites.
They ate in the formal dining room on the formal plates with the good non-silver utensils and the crystal glassware. Sylvie believed that beautiful things were pointless if they weren’t used in moments of happiness to make special moments more special.
Pierre sat at the head of the table as always and viciously attacked first a giant roast, then a turkey, and finally a ham with a giant carving knife. Side dishes ranging from sweet potato pie to homemade figgy duff sat in sparking bowls that invited growling stomachs to dive in.
After saying grace with hands held around the table forming one united circle, Pierre picked up his wine glass and toasted his family.
“To my beautiful wife and children, all of whom hold my heart now and for eternity. In this moment all is good, we leave the bad for later. Salut!”
A cheer rose from the table.
“Salut!”
A cacophony erupted from the table as fingers reached for bowls and stories were exchanged amidst laughter and back slapping.
Katherine took a moment to sit back and let her eyes wander over her loved ones. What she saw was a family who loved each other with abandon and fierce loyalty. As she drank in the sight she saw Sylvie’s eyes glistening and looking right back at her. Smiling, Katherine shared a moment of true happiness with her mother and then set to satisfying her appetite.
The meal lasted all of forty-five minutes. By the end, there was little to nothing left of the bird, the cow or the pig and the side dishes were scrapping bottom. Empty bottles of rich red wine had been discarded as toast after toast was called out by her brothers and even by herself.
When the table was cleared and their miniature china cups filled with heartwarming tea, the wait staff brought out desert to a round of applause. A flaming baked Alaska amidst a tumble of ripe raspberries delighted all and made Katherine’s mouth water.
It was nice to be able to really eat for a change.
The demolition of the desert took mere minutes and was completed with the joy and abandon usually relegated to children’s birthday cakes. Katherine sat back against her chair and wondered why she had ever wanted to leave home for even one day let alone the last seventy years. She missed this, she missed her family, and she was happy to be home now despite the reasons behind her visit.
Reminded of her reason for visiting Wild River, Katherine looked to her father to gauge how long she would have to wait to finally get the scoop. He was watching her, almost with precognition, waiting for the completion of this wonderful family memory before stepping back into the role of Alpha.
That time has come.
Pierre laid his hands on the table and rose in one powerful motion, his chair scraping back behind him. The table fell silent.
“It’s time. Sylvie chere, this was wonderful, merci. Boys, Katherine, please meet your mother and me in my study in half an hour. That should give us all time to wash up and prepare. It’s time we get down to business.”
Chapter Seven
It didn’t take very long to assemble the major players in her father’s study but to Katherine the minutes ticked by like hours. She was well aware of the fact that everyone in the room but her knew exactly what was going on and that it was due to her choice of lifestyles that she was still in the dark. As the Alpha’s firstborn she should have been among the very first to hear of any news pertaining to her father’s territory, but she had stepped away from pack life for what seemed to her a very short time and now her choice was coming back to bite her in the ass.
Her parents took their places; her father in the giant chair he’d sat in earlier, now dragged over near the roaring fireplace and her mother in a more feminine chair by his side.
Katherine couldn’t help but compare this gathering to others that had been held here over the years. Comfortable family times when stories would be shared and laughter would ring in the air. Every gathering would begin with a retelling of her family’s relocation to Canada and Katherine felt that this story on this night would reveal more to her than it ever had before.
The LaFlamme family had immigrated to Canada in 1803 during the great exploration of the west. Men like Alexander Mackenzie and David Thompson were aggressively charting the wild nature of Canada. Choosing to settle down in Quebec was an easy decision on Pierre’s part, his French tongue and customs were accepted far more in that area of Canada than they would be elsewhere. Having the blessing of the local Jesuits also helped smooth out the family’s relocation.
Katherine had known the story of her father’s appointment as Alpha of Canada since she was a small child. It was as much a part of wolf history as any other tale and so she heard about it in her studies as well as around the fireplace during quiet evenings with her father and mother; quiet evenings that had held none of the urgency that this one nearly hummed with. Her father’s voice was low when he spoke.
“The year was 1803 and a great conclave of Alphas was called concerning a new territory that was uncharted and unsettled by our kind. The Americas were another continent that we had long been hearing about but had yet to spread our influence over. Scouting expeditions sent overseas with various explorers sent back news that this new land was beautiful beyond compare and that there was no sign anywhere of any beings like us.
The conclave lasted two whole months. The elders debated long and hard about who they could possibly send to this wild new land to settle it and bring its vastness under the protection and rule of the pack.
I was a young wolf then, married with two young children and so proud of my position of Alpha of France. It was my birthplace after all. I aspired to no more than that and so it was with great surprise and anxiety that I received not one, not two, but five nominations to be Alpha of this new territory. France was such a small territory that the thought of watching such a large area filled me with fear like I had never known before. The entire conclave must have been repulsed by the scent of my emotions.
Finally, after endless interviews, debates and trials, the conclave concluded that I would be appointed Alpha of the Northern most regions of this unfounded land but only on a trial basis. My progress would be assessed yearly and my leadership of such a large expanse of land would remain so only if the population of the pack remained manageable. After all, Europe itself is small and it has five Alphas, and that doesn’t even take into account the Alphas located in Asia and other regions.”
At this point, Pierre stopped speaking and took a long drink from the crystal glass he held in his large hands. He breathed deeply and raised his head, his eyes gazing directly at his only daughter.
Katherine met her father’s eye and it all clicked into place for her. Her mind whirled a million miles an hour as she quickly processed the new information and gathered her thoughts. She had been wrong before when she assumed that her father’s leadership of Canada had been cemented and that the threat of his losing the position of Alpha was the central issue.
Loathe to interrupt the story but certain that her father was awaiting her question, Katherine put it out there.
“Does this mean that the elders have finally decided to break up your territory and appoint another Alpha in Canada? Is that what’s happened, Dad?”
Her father sighed and took a sip of
his whiskey. “It’s a little more complicated than that sweetie. You know how I always taught all of you that there were no wolves here when the council sent over their scouts?”
She nodded.
“Well, they were wrong. We were wrong. It turns out that there was a pack already in existence when the council appointed me Alpha of this territory. We just didn’t know that they were here.”
“Already here? In Canada? How did the council miss that?” Her mind reeled as she tried to figure out what that might mean to her father’s rule. Her usually quick mind failed her as it overfilled with new information that she couldn’t seem to puzzle out. She began to feel panicked. She hadn’t even factored in the idea that there could have been a pre-existing claim to the Alphaship of Canada.