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As much as I didn’t want to do it—as much as I didn’t want to be there—I knew I didn’t have a choice. I had always stepped to my father’s tune, and that moment was no different. While I couldn't foresee myself being the pack alpha for the rest of my life, it was clear from how out of control those men had seemed that they needed one. Badly. Their powers were devouring them alive, and the last thing I needed on my conscience was more hurt and more pain simply because I existed.
Or, in this case, refused to exist.
“All right,” I said as I turned to head back down the stairs. “Let’s do this, then.”
And as I headed toward the bag that I had dropped to the floor by the door, I started into the living room. Because while the bedroom upstairs had once been mine, it didn’t seem like mine any longer. None of this seemed like mine.
So, I relegated myself to the couch for the night.
* * *
“You sure about this?” Brody murmured.
I rolled my eyes. “You spent all yesterday trying to convince me to do this, and now you’re having second thoughts?”
He shook his head out of the corner of my vision. “I’m just trying to make sure this is really what you want.”
“None of this is what I ever wanted, Brody,” I spat as I tossed him an apathetic glance. “I didn’t want my parents divorcing. I didn’t want to leave my family. I didn’t want to be abandoned by my father and my pack. But it is what it is, and it’s clear that you guys need someone to help you hold things down until a rightful alpha can be picked. So, here I am. I’m here to help until we figure out an alternative plan.”
“Then,” he said as he turned his gaze back toward the gaggle of chalets that were lined up down the block like some cookie-cutter suburban neighborhood, “there are some things you’ll need to know. First of all, your powers will surface in ways that will seem uncontrollable. Once you step into that role—”
I was tired of being lectured. None of what he had to say to me would stop what also had to happen. I pulled away from him, walking down the road as I took stock of the houses that hadn’t once changed since I had been gone. Open fields stretched for miles, surrounded by thick forestry that blocked the little slice of paradise away from prying human eyes. Shifters with their children stepped out onto their front porches, probably sensing my presence as I eased on down the middle of the road. Electricity sizzled through my muscles. My bones tickled the underside of my skin. I smelled everything. Saw everything. Felt everything at once as the wind kicked up and the sun beat against my shoulders and an ant crawled across my boot.
I felt a fucking ant cross my goddamn boot.
A low, gravelly growl came from my left and I turned to see a man I didn’t recognize snarling at me. He held his wife and his three children behind him, as if to protect them from me, and all at once my anger mounted. With every chalet I passed, the shifters glared at me. People that actually wanted me to consider them family gnashed their teeth at me as if I were some kind of predator that had come to drag their children off in the middle of the night.
I had been rejected by them once, and for the sake of my father’s legacy, it was happening again.
Which only fueled the anger that had already filled my gut.
“Who the fuck is this!?” someone called out.
A woman craned her neck up toward the sky and let out a piercing howl that brought everyone else out onto their porches. With Brody at my side, I watched as Hudson, Levi, and Dean came out to the sidewalk. They stared me down, almost as if they were trying to figure out why the hell I was really there. Why the hell I had really chosen to stay.
And about halfway down the road, a shifter leapt in front of me.
“Mark,” Brody warned, “stand down.”
The man’s intense gaze held my stare before he leaned in and sniffed. “So, it’s true.”
I tilted my head. “What’s true?”
He ignored me and looked over at Brody. “She’s really half-human, come to claim her rightful place among a pack she doesn’t belong to?”
My cousin quickly slipped in front of me. “Know your place, Mark. Get back on your porch.”
The man straightened his back, towering over me by at least seven inches. “She holds no place here. She’ll never be our alpha.”
I shrugged. “Maybe so, and that’s okay. But right now, this pack is on the verge of collapse because there’s no alpha to ground anyone’s powers. I’m only here to keep everyone grounded until a new pack alpha—a rightful one—is chosen.”
“Has she ever even shifted!?” someone called out.
Murmurs rose from the crowd gathering on either side of the street.
“Everyone, listen up!” Brody bellowed.
But I simply patted his back and shook my head. “No. I haven’t shifted yet.”
