Chapter 4

That night, Wolfie and I both apologized. My mate knew how sensitive I was to being lashed out at by an alpha werewolf, my father's firm hand having often chastened me during my childhood. And I now knew that Wolfie wasn't quite so serene in the acceptance of his bloodling nature as he'd once appeared either.

So we came to an understanding...but we didn't resolve the issue. Because we both felt strongly about Ember's future. And our beliefs, for the first time in our shared history, were diametrically opposed.

"But don't you think it's wrong to treat Ember like a pet instead of like a child?" I asked Wolfie once our respective lupine halves had soothed the raw emotions that coursed between us. We were snuggling together in our bed, the peace of this home that we'd built for ourselves working wonders to resolve the tension that had been vibrating between us all day.

But our bond still didn't feel quite right.

Perhaps the honeymoon period is finally over, I couldn't help thinking. Was the relationship I thought Wolfie and I shared only present in my own mind, the reality far more ordinary and fraught with typical werewolf dominance struggles? Would my mate morph into my father over time, the shifter's need to lead coming across as alpha set downs and barked commands?

Wolfie cocked his head, clearly attempting to make out the varied expressions that flitted across my face. But his words answered the question I'd asked rather than digging deeper into my insecurities the way he usually would have. "Of course it's wrong to treat Ember like a pet," he agreed. "I would never pretend she's anything less than our adopted daughter."

Despite my confused emotions, my mate's words tugged a smile onto my lips. I hated to admit it, but Wolfie was right. While the rest of the pack doted upon Ember, stroking her and cuddling her and speaking largely in baby talk or over her head, Wolfie allowed the young bloodling to tag along at his heels every day of the week. My mate always took time to explain what he was doing, and the two seemed able to communicate wordlessly with the simple cock of a head or twitch of a nostril.

No, Wolfie didn't assume Ember was just a puppy incapable of understanding his human words, nor did he seem to resent the way she slowed him down. In fact, just last week, I'd caught my mate in the computer lab with our charge, her tail wagging like crazy while the biggest smile possible lit up the former's face. The alpha was deep in an explanation of the intricacies of programming, and Ember had seemed riveted by the lesson even though she would have been hard-pressed to so much as type her own name.

Which didn't change the fact that Wolfie was the only member of our clan who currently treated Ember as a human being. Personally, I had to struggle to make my mind accept Ember's humanity in the face of her perky ears and wriggling body.

"But I was still wrong to pull rank on you," Wolfie continued. "And I apologize again. We're an equal partnership. And whether or not my wolf can bark yours into line, I don't plan to let it happen again."

My mate was being kind with his wording and we both knew it. There was no question that his alpha dominance vastly exceeded my own, just as it exceeded the power of any other werewolf I'd ever met. The only question was why Wolfie was willing to share leadership of this pack with me when my own lupine partner wasn't nearly strong enough to hold our ground in the typical alpha stare down.

Instead of delving deeper into that issue, though, I accepted Wolfie's apology in the manner in which it had been intended. "It's a touchy topic," I said, curling into his side and allowing his wolf's warm energy to lull my overactive worries back to sleep. "And so is the issue of bloodlings. I hurt you by saying what I did this afternoon. I really didn't mean to though. I hope you know I love you just as much because you're a bloodling as in spite of it."

"My wolf is just insecure," Wolfie replied, pulling me up on top of him so he could nuzzle his human nose beneath my jaw in a wolf-like manner that sent excited tremors running down to my toes. Abruptly, I was far less interested in finishing this conversation than I was in letting my own lupine half rise up to share in the overwhelming sensation elicited by Wolfie's skin rubbing against mine.

"Insecure?" I asked a bit breathlessly.

"Because you won't take our partnership to the next level," my mate growled. And I could hear his lupine nature behind the words.

I wasn't surprised to notice the interest of Wolfie's animal half, of course. After all, most shifters' wolves rose up behind their human eyes whenever they experienced heightened emotions such as anger, fear, or arousal. And I sure hoped Wolfie was as stimulated by my presence as I was by his.

Plus, my mate had allied with his wolf to such an extent that the pair were generally seen together on all days ending in y. However, in this case, I had a feeling that the wolf's sudden appearance meant something else entirely.

So I pulled out of my mate's arms in order to get a better look at his face, and to my surprise I saw that he really wasn't joking about feeling insecure. No, Wolfie's lupine half thought I was holding back some important aspect of myself, although I couldn't quite figure out what he believed I was refusing to bestow.

After all, I'd moved into this cottage with my mate as soon as our two packs had merged, and we happily shared the same bed every evening (and morning and afternoon, if we could keep the pesky villagers at bay). I told my mate every single thought that filtered through my brain...probably in far too great detail, although Wolfie never complained.

What else could my mate's lupine half possibly want from me?

"Is your wolf waiting for a human wedding ceremony?" I asked, reaching down to unbutton his shirt as I spoke. The request seemed out of character, but I wasn't averse to the idea. Whatever it took to keep this powerful and enticing shifter by my side was fine by me, and a human wedding was just a visible expression of shared feelings that I thought we'd already admitted to.

On the other hand, it seemed my mate had something else entirely in mind. "Don't be silly," he replied, rolling us over in one fell swoop so I lay cradled beneath his much larger bulk. "We're not interested in human hogwash," he elaborated, leaning on his elbows so he could use his hands to rub the tension out of my neck before sliding his palms lower. "No, what we want is a claiming moon."

"Hmmm." My murmur was more a reaction to the bloodling's earth-shattering touch than to his words. There was something about the warmth of Wolfie's broad palms and strong fingers that turned me to jelly in an instant, and I was having a hard time focusing on our verbal conversation when the nonverbal one was so intriguing.

"You and me, four weeks alone in the woods, climbing Mount Asher, hunting for our dinners, building a bond that's unbreakable."

My mate's words washed over my mind the same way his fingers brushed over my skin. And before long, I was floating in a sea of bliss, imagining the caress of the summer sunshine on our lupine fur while our human minds had no responsibilities to pin us down. After months of never-ending pack management, a vacation of any sort sounded like paradise.

Unfortunately, a claiming moon was much more serious than an until-death-do-us-part vow. In a human marriage, the specter of divorce always promised an escape hatch should either partner need a way out.

But once a shifter fully claimed a mate, there was no going back. Instead, divorced or widowed werewolves would always feel that hole in their hearts where their partner used to lie, all efforts to fill the chasm as vain as their bleak outlook on life.

So even though I adored the bloodling currently rousing my flesh to unimaginable peaks of pleasure, something held me back from accepting his requested level of commitment.

Okay, I was lying to myself. I knew exactly what my reservation was. The fact that Wolfie was able to command me to obey his will at every turn was daunting. And even though the other alpha promised not to do so, this morning's episode was proof enough that promises can and always will be broken. Did I really want to turn into Cricket, hopelessly devoted to an overbearing alpha who thought nothing of twisting his mate's will with a word?

So I stayed silent and let my hands provide the answer...until a pounding on our front door threw a bucket of ice water over my surging libido.

***

The reality of being an alpha was that all and sundry turned to you for aid at the worst possible moments. And as much as I didn't like being overcome by Wolfie's dominance, I had to admit that the responsibilities stemming from my own alpha powers weren't nearly as charming as they'd at first appeared. Tonight, for example, I would have quite gladly passed the mantle over to someone else.

"Not all it's cracked up to be, huh?" Wolfie said, mirroring my thoughts in his usual uncanny manner while treating me to the crooked grin I found so irresistible. "Should I go be big and surly and scare them away?"

"No, we'll see what's wrong together," I decided, buttoning my shirt and running a hand through my hair in hopes it wouldn't look like I'd just been groped by a randy werewolf. Not that I'd be fooling anyone. The yahoos, bless their annoying little hearts, had taken turns knocking on our door at all hours of the evening those first few weeks after Wolfie and I had moved in together, their "visits" a clear effort to catch us with our pants down. It wasn't quite the honeymoon most girls imagined, and I was glad when the young shifters grew bored with the joke and moved on to unrelated pranks.

Unfortunately, that meant our current night-time callers were probably in actual need of pack-leader assistance. Sure enough, the door opened onto a familiar trio of young-adult faces, but this time the yahoos weren't joking around. Instead, Fen clutched the back of my half-brother's shirt in a rough grip and nearly threw him into our entranceway as soon as the door opened.

"Ask him where Blaze is," the female yahoo demanded, her voice rougher than I'd ever heard it. I immediately ran my eyes over the shifters behind her and saw that only Glen and David were guarding her back, not Blaze. Her third habitual companion's absence wasn't entirely unusual, but I still felt a tremor of alarm widening my senses and pulling my wolf to the fore.

"So, where is Blaze?" I obliged. But I didn't push any alpha compulsion into my voice. Instead, I kept my tone calm and curious, hoping to lull the temper of all and sundry.

Whatever Ethan had gotten up to during his second day back home, he looked far worse for wear now. Dirt was smeared across his shirt and arms, and I had a sinking suspicion someone had taken the time to rough up my kid brother before bringing the supposed offender to the alpha's cottage.

It was hard not to feel sorry for the teenager, no matter what he'd done. After all, I knew that Fen's valiant wolf would have had no problem taking a human boy down. I was just glad not to see any blood or obvious bruises. Still, I didn't let him off the hook, as interested as Fen was in the answer to her question.

"I don't know," my brother replied at last, his gaze firmly focused on his boots but his voice just as angry as the female yahoo's had been. "I'm not even sure which one Blaze is. I've only been here for forty-eight hours, remember?"

Now the teenager's angry face did tilt up to mine momentarily before his gaze skittered away. I sighed and ushered the rest of our visitors inside before shutting the door behind them. No need for our neighbors to be privy to this drama. Plus, I hoped that if we all sat down together, then we might find a way to discuss the issue like rational human beings rather than like emotion-wracked shifters.

Sitting didn't appear to be in the cards though.

"Well, if you won't tell them, then I will," Glen spoke up as our visitors continued standing right inside the doorway, glaring at each other and inches away from tearing out throats. "Blaze is missing and this kid was the last person seen talking to him yesterday. So where is he? Did you injure him and drag him off into the woods to die?"

"I think you're forgetting which one of us is a beast," Ethan shot back. In response, Fen lunged forward as if she planned to punch my brother in the face and I moved to stop her, one step behind.

"That's enough," Wolfie said, the verbal alpha punch stilling all combatants in an instant. "Sit down," he continued.

The words might have been a host's invitation coming from any other lips, but from my mate's they were a command that had us all fighting not to drop down onto the floor exactly where we stood. We made it to the array of couches and chairs in the living area instead, but Wolfie's compulsion didn't leave our visitors any energy to grumble over the seating arrangement. Instead, Ethan ended up on the largest sofa, sandwiched between David on one end and me on the other, while Fen perched with vibrating energy on the arm of Glen's chair. Only Wolfie remained standing, his pack-leader dominance weighing us down like a wet blanket.

"This is absurd and you know it," he chided his yahoos. Fen was the angriest of the three, but I could see even her wolf wilting beneath her skin at this admonishment from the alpha she considered both her leader and her mentor. "You do realize that Ethan is a child the same age as Keith, don't you? And that he doesn't even have the ability to call on his inner wolf?"

I looked up abruptly at Wolfie's final sentence, surprised by my mate's wording. I'd just assumed that part-human werewolves weren't able to transform because they had no wolf, not because they were divorced from their wilder half. Could Ethan be as shiftless as I'd forced myself to become after fleeing Haven a decade before?

Cocking my head to one side, I asked my own wolf to expand our vision into the metaphysical realm before sweeping my gaze across the room. My mate's lupine half, of course, was as evident as ever behind the alpha's eyes. Fen's wolf was also rampant, having been awakened by her anger and continuing to stand by just in case the young woman required a speedy shift. Glen's wolf was alert but calmer, while David's was the most relaxed of all, coiled deep within his belly, sound asleep.

But did Ethan host a hidden wolf? Not that I could see. Instead, the boy seated beside me seemed entirely human, the odors rising from his skin non-shifter in origin. So perhaps Wolfie was merely speaking metaphorically.

My mate continued to sooth the tensions out of the room, suggesting that perhaps Blaze had merely chosen to embark on a solitary hunt before promising to look into the matter in the morning. "Do you want to stay here tonight?" he asked Ethan at last. By way of response, my brother shot me the most wounded glance imaginable, as if I'd let him down by promising protection then throwing him right into the middle of this pack of wolves.

But rather than speaking his mind, Ethan just shook his head in negation and filed out with the other young-adult shifters. My brother was all alone here in the middle of a pack, I realized. As alone as I'd ever been when adrift in the human world.