“Aww, are you sure? We just wanna help.”
“I ‘preciate that, but if you wanna help, why don’t y’all head to Mama’s kitchen and see if anyone needs extra hands hauling stuff out after you show me where this nest is?”
“All right…”
They sounded disappointed, but considering neither of them had gone through their first shift yet, they would thank me later. Because while I had accelerated healing thanks to my inner wolf, they very much did not.
I was grateful that they’d come to me, however, because when they led me to the nest, it was definitely close enough that it was at risk of getting trampled during our happy event. And sure, while it would only be an annoyance to the majority of the adults, the youngest and oldest of the pack could have a very hard time.
Thankfully, it didn’t take long for Chris and me to handle the nest, and finally, it was looking like I’d get a chance to go take a shower. I’d gone for a run in the woods beyond our pack’s land just before the sun had risen, expecting I’d be able to wash up and eat a hearty breakfast before I needed to help start setting up for the reunion, but that hadn’t happened. Pretty much as soon as I’d run up to my cabin, someone had been waiting there to ask for my help.
“Been a day already, hasn’t it?” Chris mused as we put the gasoline and blowtorch away. Not exactly the safest method of wasp removal, but with our accelerated healing, we could afford to take a few risks. “First party of spring is always a bit rowdier than the rest of the year.”
“You’re right about that,” I said with a chuckle. And sure, I supposed we could just not have the massive cookout for the whole pack-it would save a whole lot of time and money-but sometimes a shifter needed to throw down and have a grand ol’ time with their pack. For bonding’s sake. Or at least that was my belief. And as the alpha of our pack, I was dedicated to making sure everyone had a blast. “We’ll have earned our plates once we get them.”
“From your mouth to Fenrir’s ears. What have you got the biggest hankering for?”
I paused, giving serious thought to his question. There was so much to look forward to-devilled eggs, smoked meats, the ribs smothered in BBQ sauce, the pies, cobbler, and jams. And did I mention the smoked meats?
Our pack loved smoked meats.
“I’d have to say the cake,” I said with a nod. The cakes made for our parties weren’t those specialty cakes with edible glitter and immaculate sculptures made out of fondant, but they were light and fluffy, and usually had a jam or cream filling. Personally, I was looking forward to the vanilla cake with cream cheese frosting, and a layer of tart rhubarb jam and sweet cream.
Dee
-licious!
“Hah! You’ve always had a sweet tooth, haven’t ya? I swear, if you weren’t the alpha, Auntie Letitia would have you fully recruited to the kitchens.”
“You think so?”
“Oh yeah, I know so.”
I smiled at the thought. Although I was proud to uphold the lineage my father had established, it was nice to daydream about what my life might have been like if I weren’t destined to lead our mid-sized pack.
Auntie Letitia was in charge of the cakes, and my two nieces, Melodie and Saoirse, were helping her. She had been in charge of it for at least fifteen years, ever since Great-Auntie Beverly and her husband Jeb had handed the responsibility over to her after they’d handled it for fifty years. She’d taken on Melodie when the girl was five and showed an interest in baking, always demanding to help whoever was making desserts-even when her head didn’t quite reach the counter. Melodie was fifteen now and would be going off to college in two years, so the slightly younger Saoirse had been recruited when she started hanging around the kitchen.
It was one of the many things I loved about our pack. Despite everything we’d been through-especially with Alpha Barris gambling away so much of our land-we kept our tradition of passing down knowledge from generation to generation without compelling anyone to do anything they didn’t want to do. We were lucky to have enough young ones that some could focus on hunting, some on farming, some on being warriors, and some on more traditional skills. Then there were those who went off to pursue more schooling or even just traveled the world. I’d never really gotten a chance to do that, what with being alpha and all, so I cherished it deeply for all those coming up after me. While we weren’t the wealthiest by far, it certainly made me feel so very rich.
“I told you, I had it first!”
“Yeah, and I called cap!”
The angry shouts drifted over the field to Chris and me, interrupting our first calm moment of the day. Chris was my beta and right-hand man, which meant he cleaned up all the messes I was too busy to get to. He was my consultant and my confidant. Unlike me, he was a father, which gave me a vital perspective that I didn’t naturally have. Sure, I loved all the kids in our pack, but it didn’t beat Chris’s lived experience.
“I’ll go handle that.” I sighed. While our pack generally got along, there were bound to be little spats here and there due to the general coexistence amongst shifters. I did my best to resolve them without much drama. “You go check in with Bethany to see if she needs anything.”
“Ach, you’re crazy if you don’t think Bethany’s not already setting up all the tables, the tent, and the play areas for the kids,” Chris said with a wide smile. “She’s been counting down the days to this since the last frost of the year.”
I couldn’t help but grin. Unlike my relationship with my high-school girlfriend, Chris and Bethany had gone the distance. They got married a year after graduating, then had my niece Arietty. At thirteen, she was a precocious kid, and in a couple of years when she went through her first shift, she was guaranteed to be even more of a handful. I adored her, naturally, and was looking forward to taking her on her first run in her wolf form.
“Dude, you’re in your twenties! Don’t use words like cap!
It’s cringe!”
“Yeah, well, you saying ‘cringe’ is hella cringe!”
I sighed again and shot Chris a knowing look before trotting off. I could tell the voices were male, and I couldn’t say I was surprised when I came across a cluster of young men ranging from seventeen to thirty-three all gathered around the grills that were spaced throughout our cooking area.
No wonder there was already an argument.
Some old-fashioned shifters liked to excuse poor behavior and say that male shifters were naturally more volatile, but that was complete bullshit. However, what was true was that male shifters did tend to have to work through more aggression in their first few years of shifting due to the increased levels of testosterone in their systems.
That was the interesting thing about being a wolf. As far as I knew, we were the latest of all the shifters, with our children ostensibly being born “human” and only gaining their animal form a few years after the start of puberty, meaning most girls went through their first shift around fourteen or fifteen, while the boys were sixteen to seventeen. Bear shifters could shift within months after birth, and wild cats sometime after their first steps. I couldn’t imagine trying to keep track of a toddler who could randomly turn into an animal, so I much preferred our late transformations-even if it did technically mean Puberty Part Two: Electric Boogaloo.
“What’s going on here?” I asked, trying to keep my tone genial. I had no issue using my alpha voice when I needed to, but only when I needed to. Alpha Barris had been known to abuse the skill and compel the pack to give him money or things he could sell to fairies. He was a prime example of a great leader succumbing to a horrible disease that our accelerated healing couldn’t handle. His addiction had consumed him so much that he’d abandoned his responsibility to his people and turned into their abuser instead. I’d cut off my right hand before stumbling down that path.
“Cas!” one of the young men cried-Seamus, a recently graduated young one who was taking a gap year. While I didn’t know everything about every pack member, I tried to be generally informed about their lives. “Glad you’re here. I reserved this grill with Uncle Lazar so I could make this pork butt. It needs six hours, so I made sure I signed up for it last week.”
“I checked that same list, and this grill was free,” the other man, Archie, objected. He had a mechanic apprenticeship in the city with a human shop. That in particular had taken a great deal of effort to arrange, considering the auto shop was in the Ramirez pack’s territory, but after some fierce negotiations with the fairies who monitored the city to make sure we shifters didn’t go to war with each other, our packs had managed to get permission for all our members under twenty-five to be able to travel freely between territories for educational purposes.
“Looks like there might have been a clerical error here, folks. What did you wanna cook, Archie? If you have similar temps, perhaps you could share the grill? It’s got two racks in there.”
Before either of them could answer, a terrible crashing sound filled the air, followed by an alarmed howl. There was a beat of silence, then pure pandemonium broke out.
Uh-oh.
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