Chapter 59

At the barest hint of a growl emerging from the mouth of the uber-alpha, both my wolf and my mate's wolf had the same immediate instinct—to tear free of our human forms and protect our daughter from the dangerous invader standing a mere five feet away. But before we could act on our shared impulse, the Tribunal member instead pulled himself upward onto two feet, fangs and claws receding to leave behind only naked human skin that held no menace for a young bloodling.

"Please, comfort the little girl first," the uber-alpha rumbled, raising both hands in a gesture of surrender as he took a step back. Not toward the door, though. Our visitor clearly wasn't willing to let his business be completely derailed by Ember's dramatic entrance even if he was ceding the floor to our adopted daughter.

"Ember, shhh," I soothed. "How about you let Fen take you outside for a while and we can talk about this at lunchtime?"

Unfortunately, my previous tendency to spoil the wolfling now flew back in my face as she stamped one bare foot, a fire much like Wolfie's flashing behind her blue eyes. "No!" Next, she shot a glance over at the uber-alpha, assessing his ability to solve her problem. When the unknown element only raised one eyebrow in reply before shaking his head slightly, Ember pursed her lips and turned her gaze toward my mate.

Even though he'd seemed on edge all day long, our daughter's presence immediately returned Wolfie to his usual centered condition. So I watched as his inner wolf assessed and dismissed the danger of the visiting uber-alpha before turning his entire attention to our bloodling child. Finally, kneeling down so he could hold Ember's shoulders gently in his hands, my mate asked quietly: "What's up, Buttercup?"

"Being a little girl is boring," Ember began, then embarked on a rambling tale of pain and woe that only a cosseted child could create. Apparently, Cricket had required her step-granddaughter to don clothes that morning—apparel that was only partially present at the current moment—and had then expected Ember to consume orange juice with her breakfast.

"Vegetables!" the little girl proclaimed, wrinkling up her nose in disgust and proving that we hadn't quite managed to teach our daughter as much about the natural world as we'd thought.

After that traumatic beginning to the day, Ember had begun her usual rounds, visiting household after household in search of a caress or a treat. But half of the shifters hadn't known who she was without prompting, none had felt as comfortable pulling the girl into their warm laps as they had been when she wore fur, and the village's children had acted standoffish and far less friendly than usual.

Wolfie and I exchanged glances as the story progressed. On the one hand, I should have felt vindicated upon learning that the transformation from wolf to girl was giving our daughter trouble already. Her experience suggested that I might have made the right decision after all when I'd forced her to shift prematurely. Perhaps now our daughter would find a way to integrate into our pack before she was even more set in her wolfling ways.

But how could I crow about having chosen correctly when Ember was clearly too young to handle the repercussions of her current differences? On that front, my mate appeared to have been entirely correct in his assessment of the situation.

"I want to go back to being a wolf, Daddy," Ember said at last. By this point, Wolfie had sunken down to sit cross-legged on the floor so he could cuddle the little bloodling into his arms, and I was crouched by their side, teasing the tangles out of the girl's flaxen hair in an effort to further sooth her wounded feelings.

Wolfie and I were able to fully focus on the matter at hand because Fen had engaged the uber-alpha in a whispered conversation on the other side of the room. But now I felt the Tribunal member's gaze arrowing in on Ember, so I tilted my body to shield our daughter from view. It was imperative that Ember not spill the beans about F2F and our recent trickery in front of a member of the Tribunal, but my motion was much less consciously driven than that statement would imply. Instead, I simply didn't want my bloodling daughter exposed to our visitor's predatory presence.

"Cupcake, this is one of those issues where your mother and I have to discuss it on our own before we can make a decision," Wolfie answered soothingly. Honestly, I would have gone along with whatever solution my mate thought best at this point, but I appreciated being included in the decision-making process. By way of thanks, I rested an encouraging hand on my mate's shoulder in silent approbation.

"We'll get back to you on it soon," Wolfie continued solemnly, speaking as if our daughter was a petitioner who we weren't quite ready to respond to at the current moment. As usual, my mate was managing to treat the youngster with the same patience and understanding that he showed toward adult members of our pack, proving that Wolfie, at least, had no problem with the bloodling's abrupt change of form.

Unfortunately, Ember was less easily swayed than the average pack member. Her smooth little brow furrowed as she considered her adopted father's answer, and after a moment she shook her head resolutely. "No, I want to be a wolf now," she said.

I couldn't resist smiling at our daughter's decisiveness. Her words would have come across as petulance in a less sunny child, but Ember wasn't throwing a tantrum or bursting back into tears. She was simply stating the facts and standing behind her stance, something I could imagine my own mate doing at her current age.

"Well," I began. But before I could finish my thought, the young bloodling had scrunched up her face in intense concentration. Then the air shimmered as our little wolf pup—who shouldn't have been able to change forms unaided for another fourteen years—fell back down onto four paws, tail wagging madly at her own accomplishment.

Well, that's a surprise, I thought. In response, my wolf rolled her eyes as if I should have known that a relative of Wolfie's would be able to accomplish whatever she put her mind to. Understanding what a shift felt like due to the recent effects of F2F probably helped too.

Even as these thoughts were running through my mind, Ember was springing back into action. The wolfing first reached up to lick my and Wolfie's faces, then she made a mad leap into the uber-alpha's arms so she could moisten his cheeks as well. Finally, she jumped back down and scampered gaily out the door.

So it appeared that whatever decision Wolfie and I would make about Ember's future was now moot. Our pampered wolfling knew what she wanted, and what she wanted was to be a wolf.

***

"She's a handful, isn't she?" the Tribunal member offered once Ember was safely out of earshot. I'd followed in her footsteps long enough to close the door and prevent additional uninvited visitors, which meant it was finally time to deal with our sassafras-scented visitor.

A visitor who had shown much more patience than I'd expected, but whose words now made me disinclined to offer him a seat. How could he pass judgment on our darling daughter?

Not that the uber-alpha appeared prone to take a chair even if one had been offered. Instead, he vibrated with wolfishness, his lupine half reminding me of my own mate on steroids. Rather than settling in any one portion of the room, in fact, the Tribunal member seemed to require constant motion in order to deal with being boxed up within walls.

As I watched, our guest paused his pacing by the open window, his nostrils flaring as he took in what must have been the scents of dozens of nearby shifters. As polite as he was being, the uber-alpha clearly wasn't willing to relax his vigilance for even a moment.

And yet, despite his deep-seated animal nature, the Tribunal member seemed able to handle human conversation better than my mate often did. Wolfie had growled in annoyance at the stranger's assessment of our daughter, but the other alpha only laughed and backpedaled. "Being a handful is a good thing," he assured us.

Then, the social niceties taken care of, the uber-alpha got down to business. In near synchrony, he and Wolfie each cocked their heads to one side and gazed just beyond the other's eyes, the room seeming to lose volume with each passing moment as the two wolves' dominance rose to fill the air.

The pair weren't actually challenging each other, it seemed, or the room would have erupted into flying fur and gnashing teeth within moments. Instead, I thought each alpha might be assessing the other's strength.

Fen drifted closer to me as the standoff continued, her own inner wolf seeming yet more shaken up than I would have expected from being asked to babysit one of the world's strongest shifters. "Do you know him?" she breathed, clearly not wanting to interrupt whatever was going on but equally clearly unable to restrain her curiosity.

I spared a glance at the younger woman and was surprised to see that the pall of sorrow no longer hovered over her wolf. Had David finally made up for his prejudice and found a way back into Fen's good graces? While I would have heartily approved of such an action, I doubted it—after all, the gossip mill tended to inform me of similar events within moments of each occurrence. So I had to assume that Fen's better cheer came from a different source.

But now wasn't the time to trade girl talk. Not when two strong alphas were beginning to growl very quietly, the rumble an auditory symbol of the test of wills currently under way.

"Not really," I answered, keeping most of my attention trained on my mate. Given how erratic Wolfie had been acting lately, I didn't entirely trust him not to take the current contest to the next level, perhaps whipping out his grandfather's sword and challenging the uber-alpha to a duel.

Still, Fen's quick wits and loyalty meant she deserved a share of what little information I had. "He's one of the Tribunal members," I elaborated.

"Hmmm," Fen hummed. Immediately, the uber-alpha's lips quirked ever so slightly as if in response. The Tribunal member appeared to be doing the impossible—not only challenging Wolfie without quite allowing the test to come to blows, but also tuning into Fen's and my muttered conversation at the same time.

Yes, the stranger's alpha powers had been breathtaking at the peacekeeping grounds and they were no less awe-inspiring now despite being so closely veiled that none of us were forced down onto our knees. In fact, given his apparent ability to multi-task, I half expected the uber-alpha to offer his name and lineage in response to Fen's question, perhaps engaging her in courtly conversation while he completed his current task. After all, a nearly visible spark glistened between the two unintroduced werewolves. Perhaps that was the reason Fen's inner wolf looked more chipper than usual this morning?

But the Tribunal member instead ignored his female audience beyond a slight twitch in one cheek. And after several long moments of gazing into Wolfie's face, our visitor merely shrugged and turned on his heel, walking to the exit as if he'd never planned to talk to us in the first place.

The stranger was already halfway out the door before I realized what was happening, Fen shadowing his steps to ensure he headed directly to our boundaries and left other pack members alone. I was dying to pick Wolfie's brain about the unexplained contest of wills, but I ended up not having to wait.

Almost as if he heard the questions running over themselves inside my brain, the uber-alpha turned around after stepping through the door, while standing in the line of sight of half a dozen shifters. Meeting Wolfie's gaze completely now for the first time, the Tribunal member spoke in a pitying voice.

"I'd come to offer Wolfie Young a place on the Tribunal," he explained. "But it appears his powers have faded significantly over the last twenty-four hours. As he is no longer strong enough to hold his own among the top wolves of the southeast, the offer has been preemptively rescinded."