She didn’t remark so he continued. “Dad was never very wonderful to me. The pack, however, loved him. We grew strong and prosperous. One day he met up with this man named Claudius. We’re not sure exactly what happened except that Kendrick—Dad—and Claudius hatched this plan to turn us over for scientific testing. Dad thought he could create an army of mindless wolves that he could control based on us. Somehow, he thought this would let us come out of hiding.”
And you’ve already told me the Alpha’s world is law.
She sounded so forlorn; he smiled and ruffled her fur. “There is a way to disobey the Alpha. You can challenge him for leadership. Only problem? Westervelt has to be led by a Kane. We’re magic controllers, meaning we’re strong in it, even if we’re men and can’t use it because only the women control magic. But male strength, specifically Kane strength, makes the whole pack better. So one of dad’s brothers, my uncle, was going to challenge him.”
Obviously he didn’t win or you wouldn’t all still be talking about your Dad.
“He never got the chance. Dad went and found a witch—”
She interrupted. A witch?
He raised an eyebrow. She was too cute. “I admire your skepticism. However, I have to point out that you’re trapped in the body of a wolf. You want to argue about the existence of witches?”
Good point. He heard the amusement in her voice.
“So I don’t know where he found the witch—turns out there are a lot of them—but he found one willing to place a curse on us. All mated men were cursed to kill their mates, the women they loved. You see, mating is a little complicated for a wolf shifter. Once we mate, we mate for eternity. When one dies, the other is driven to die too through a process of ritual suicide. We simply cannot live without the other one.”
No second marriages, then?
He shook his head. “No, it’s a onetime shot, this life and the next one. To not follow your partner is akin to living a half-life; evidently it’s all but unbearable. Again, I don’t know how it works. It’s magic.” If there was disdain in his voice when he said the last word he couldn’t help it. “The idea my Dad had was that he would have the men kill their women and then be driven to end their own lives. The pack would be left with unmated men, always considered the most volatile and weakest members. Plus, he’d be able to hold our unmated future brides over our heads to make us behave.”
And this happened? Her voice held so much horror in its intonation he wished he could lie to her.
“Almost.” He took a deep breath. Images passed in front of his eyes. Another day like this one. He’d awoken to the screams. Women were dying all over the islands and not just dying, gods, it was so brutal. The men they loved, trusted with their very existence, the fathers of their children were murdering them. He’d tried to help. He reached up with his left hand to stroke the side of his face that still held the scar from his last attempt at stopping a man he’d looked up to his entire life from murdering his own wife. Hell, the man had once taught him Latin and Greek. In that moment, he’d been a wild, murdering beast.
Az?
Leah’s voice broke him out of his memories of the past. Why was that happening so frequently? Usually, he was really good at keeping the past where it belonged: hidden.
“Sorry, she-wolf, I went away for a minute.” He shook his head not wanting her to ask him any questions. “Um, Mom got wind of what was happening. There wasn’t much time and she knew if Kendrick caught her she’d be dead so she did the best she could and got the unmated women off the island. Casting a spell to hide them from us until it was safe for them to return, we saw no other females—save our widowed aunts who endured the half-life to keep the magic alive on Westervelt—we waited helplessly for thirty years. Drifting might be a better description than waiting. We drifted for thirty years.”
Ah…how is that possible? You look all of thirty.
“I’m eighty years old, next week I will turn eighty-one. We stop aging, physically, at thirty until we are mated or commit ritual suicide, except for the Alpha. He and his mate stop at the age at which he became Alpha. So Ashlee will always look twenty-two even though she is twenty-seven now and Tristan will always look thirty even though he is over one hundred years old until he steps down or is challenged and killed.”
She was silent and he thought perhaps he’d finally scared her off with too much information. Are his eyes always like that?
“Like a wolf? Yes, that’s another Alpha trait.”
Okay this is a lot to digest. I’m still trying to figure out how I could fit in. I have a father who is a senator so I’m obviously not one of your missing women…
“No, but you could be the daughter of one of the missing women, like both Ash and Summer. Or you could be human. We do mate humans.” As soon as he said the words he wished he could take them back. He hadn’t told her they were mates; he was sure she’d heard it earlier but still you didn’t just launch that information on someone—especially if they were a human ‘someone’ and not used to the idea that their love was predestined for them. Az swallowed a lump of anxiety. What if she wasn’t attracted to him? Could that happen? The woman in the picture was a goddess and he was…well…out of all of his brothers he was the shortest.
And you spend so much time in that stupid lab you look paler than the snow that’s melting on the ground.
Leave it to his wolf to know just what to say to make him feel even worse.
They arrived on the east lawn behind the others. Tristan stood in the center of the circle. Ashlee and Summer stood on both sides of him, Jana was positioned behind and Faith was moving to a position near his front. Three other newly mated women—Claire, Moira, and Tatiana formed a triangle on the outside of the first four women.
Upon their approach, Tristan raised his hand and beckoned them to the center of the circle with his index finger. It was an annoying trait his brother had picked up since becoming a father but there was no way in hell he was going to tell the Alpha of their pack that he found that mannerism to be appalling.
“Place her here, Az.” Tristan stepped out of the way indicating that Az should put Leah down where he had been standing. Gently, Az leaned down and placed Leah’s wolf form on the ground. As her paws connected with the earth, she started to shake.
Oh wow, Az, I’m really afraid.
He wanted to tell her that they didn’t need to do it, that they’d be okay if they didn’t but he couldn’t. She had to go through the ceremony. There was no moving forward if she didn’t and he wasn’t even thinking of their mating—well not entirely about it. Leah needed to be human so they could find out what happened to her, so they could learn what she knew about the process their father used to turn ordinary people into wolves who only lived a few months. She had to return to her original state so they could contact her father. There was no other choice.
“I’m going to be there.” He pointed to an open spot in the circle. “That’s the Kane position in the power circles. We’ll all be lined up there.”
Leah let out a nervous giggle. I learned something else to put in my pretend ‘all about me’ book.
“What’s that?”
I don’t do well in stressful situations.
His heart shattered into a million pieces. He scratched the top of her head because it was all he could do. “You’re doing fine. This will all seem like a memory soon.”