“Uh yeah, actually. Big truck just pulled up with some visitors that asked to talk to the alphas. Your mom said it’s something about needing permission to cross territory?”
“Huh, they must be real out-of-towners,” I said, handing my tongs over to Chris. While it was a tradition to request an alpha if one was going to stay in their territory for a while, as far as I knew, Sal and I were lenient about that, as most travelers stayed in the city and we were in the country. But oh well, if passersby wanted to ask permission-and most likely were hoping for an invitation to the shindig-I was fine granting it.
It was a bit of a walk from where we had the grill set up this time, as we’d expanded the area for the party far beyond our usual reunion field. We had a run area set up in the woods with scent markers to help the exploring Ramirez wolves find points of interest on our shared land, one grilling area that was all propane and another farther away that was all either charcoal or wood, since some of the little ones who hadn’t shifted yet were sensitive to dust and smoke. We had one play area that was full of frisbees, balls, toys, and other things new wolves would love to mess around with, then another for the young ones in their human form, and yet another for a bounce house. I didn’t really get what was with the Ramirez pack and bounce houses, but after seeing the kids play on it, I decided it would be a fixture for all our future parties as well.
That wasn’t all. There was a dancing area set up with much nicer speakers than my pack usually used-thanks to Sal-and three full tents for people to sit and enjoy the wealth of food that both our packs had whipped up.
And of course, some custom desserts from Felicia. I knew she was probably going to get approximately eleventy billion different jokes about it having iron in it, but so far she was being a good sport about it.
A beautiful, incredible, good sport.
God, I loved that woman.
I hadn’t known it was possible to have such intense feelings for someone I’d known less than a year, but that really was the long and short of it. Her smile could make my day, and her touch never failed to make my entire body simmer in response. I loved learning from her-and frankly there was always something to be learned-loved talking to her, loved laughing and goofing off with her.
I loved the kindness that radiated from her, and I could rest easy knowing, as an alpha, that she would truly do whatever she had to in order to protect our people.
Our pack. If she were a shifter, she’d definitely be an alpha.
“Hey there, Sal,” I said, giving the man a nod as our paths converged. “Going to see these travelers?”
“Yep. Heard they were asking for an alpha. Which one do you suppose they were expecting?”
“Way I figure it, doesn’t matter. Both of us have the office here, so we might as well both greet them.”
“Makes sense to me, but in the future we should probably be a little more organized about it. Maybe take turns.”
“Eh, put it on the list for us to figure out.”
“Ha, that’s a long list.”
I cracked him a grin. While Sal and I weren’t the best friends in the world, most of the tension between us had vanished. Sure, we still clashed heads sometimes, but that was only to be expected with two alphas planning something that had really never been done in shifter history as far as I was aware. It helped that he was a good guy. If his brother had been in charge, the bake-off never would have happened, which would have been a damn shame because it was probably the best thing to happen to our packs in generations-even more than my father becoming alpha.
“Hey there,” I said, waving to a U-haul sitting on the dirt road right next to our parking area. Well, one of our parking areas. That too had to be expanded considering the sheer number of shifters we had around. Even with about half of the Ramirez clan deciding to traverse their new lands on foot, the other half had a whole lot of supplies that required a vehicle. “Heard you were asking for the alpha?”
A small, slightly nerdy man leaned his head out of the window, giving both of us a look. “Ah oui!
Which one of you is it?”
“It’s both of us,” Sal answered simply. And damn if that wasn’t good to hear him say so casually. Sometimes I wondered if I was pushing for things a little too much with the whole unification while also not giving enough, but it made me feel a whole lot better that Sal was right in step with me.
“These are Ramirez and McCallister pack lands,” I explained. “We’re, uh…” What word could I use for something that was almost unheard of? “Co-facilitatin’ the land.”
“I see,” the man said, his accent thick enough that I worried maybe he didn’t understand my improvised term. “Well, ah, my family and I have moved to your city due to, uh… disagreements with the new alpha from our own clave. We were hoping to find a new home here in the land of opportunity. We heard whispers that this city is, uh, different? That our kind would be welcome here.”
Their kind? I took a deep breath and realized that they weren’t wolves. “We ain’t got any prejudice around any folks around here as long as you don’t go waving contracts in our face,” I said after a beat, although I was puzzled.
“And don’t try to hurt anyone purposefully. Y’all…” Sal took a deep breath as well. “Whatever you are.”
Oh, so he was mystified too? Well, that made me feel better.
“My family and I are matagots.” He said it nervously, and I abruptly understood why he was so nervous and had insisted on meeting the alpha. While I wasn’t overly familiar with matagots, they were an especially ancient shifter species that hadn’t really transitioned to the modern world that well. As far as I knew, there were less than a couple thousand in the entire world. It was sad. So much history lost just because they tended to be on the smaller side compared to most shifters and only resorted to violence as a last measure.
And also because they were rodent shifters, and many other bigoted Wild Folk used to accuse them of carrying plague-one of the few diseases that could take down older shifters of any species.
“You don’t have to worry about anyone bringing harm to your family because of that,” I said, my speech a whole lot less casual than it had just been. “In fact, my own mate is a human.”
“Un homme?”
“A woman, but yeah.”
“In fact,” Sal said from beside me and I got the feeling that he’d already caught on. “We’re having a bit of a celebration right now. Why don’t you ‘n’ your family join us. It would be a good opportunity to meet people. Make connections locally. I bet it’s gotta be a bit lonely leaving your clave, even if you had good reason.”
The man’s eyes went wide, and I scented a heavy mix of both anxiety and relief from him. “You are, uh, sure? We wouldn’t be imposing?”
“Not at all,” I answered with a shake of my head. “We’d be happy to have you. All of you.”
“No matagot that I know of would turn down such delicious aromas,” he said happily, mood visibly lifted. And I couldn’t help but think that this was what it was all about. Those damn contracts and living in constant fear of violating some fairy rule or flying under their radar had stolen so much community from us. It was going to take a whole lot of work, but I was eager to get it back and find out who we shifters could be without a bunch of legalese deciding our rate. “I park over there?”
“Sure do,” I answered, nodding at his pointed finger. “Food’s still cooking, but we’ve got some snacks out and plenty of drinks. Your kiddos would probably love the bounce house we got set up.”
“Bounce house?”
“You’ll know it when you see it.”
With that handled, Sal and I headed back to our tasks. I wished I could say the day’s pace stayed as leisurely and sedate, but that was not the way of being an alpha. I ended up being called over to help change out a propane tank, to solve an argument between two teens, both being my pack, and then three teens being split between our packs. I also saw Sal carrying a kid to my mother’s house who was bawling with a bloody nose, and then carrying a wheelbarrow full of dirt to who-knew-where another time. It made me chuckle, in a way, to know that even though we lived completely different lives with completely different packs, some things were just universal to being an alpha.
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