Page 20 of Her Wolf Protector

"I remember a time when my patients were respectful. Doing what I told them, instead of ignoring my advice. Be it on your own head, Gordan. If you are done with me, then I most certainly am finished with you. Take my advice or don't. I'm too busy for time wasting fools. Others have need of my time. Like young Tate, here." Ylva gave an approving nod. "Mate trouble, is it?"

Even in his parents' kitchen, Tate opened his mouth to spill everything to Ylva.

"So the boy might not be such a disappointment after all. Claim her, bind her to you, then put a baby in her belly before she can blink. Then challenge that foolish Shaw boy and take your rightful place as pack alpha, as I was." Father nodded, then slurped a cup of the tea Mother had hastily poured for him. A second passed before he spat it out. "Bitter as sin, and overbrewed, as always. Are you trying to poison me, woman? I should have you arrested for attempted murder. Call yourself my wife..."

Ylva rolled her eyes. "I'll go put the kettle on at my place for you, Tate. I'll have a fresh batch of amanita cupcakes waiting for you, too."

Sienna's signature dish. "I'll be there soon," Tate promised.

Ylva swept out of the room, power trailing behind her like an almost visible cape. His father truly was a fool if he couldn't see it.

Tate drained his tea and rose to follow.

Father glared at him. "What are you doing, boy? You sit down and wait until I'm finished. This is still my house and you will show me respect. You will call out that Shaw boy today, and challenge him. I will stand witness as you fight him, and the pack will finally have a proper leader again. None of this co-leader nonsense. Your mother knew who was in charge when I was the alpha. That Shaw boy would have been killed as the runt of the litter, if I'd had any say in it. After Aspasia and that tree-hugger she married, that boy is the worst leader the pack has ever seen. It's nothing but weak women with even weaker children. When you're alpha, I expect you to cast out all the weaklings preying on the pack, and make Wuffingas strong again. With our blood, not the blood of weaklings."

"Like you wanted Helena Rubens to kill her daughter, Sienna, before she was born? Ylva's right about you. You are a fool. Sure, Lowell Shaw might not be the best leader the Wuffingas Pack has ever had, but Sienna Rubens is the best thing that ever happened to this pack, and I'm not stupid enough to challenge her. That's right. The girl you wanted aborted is leading the Wuffingas Pack now, and you know what? I think if I was stupid enough to challenge her, she'd win. But I won't. I'll stand beside her, just like Lowell Shaw will, and everyone else in the pack. A leader protects the pack, ably assisted by the pack enforcers. The strong protect the weak. As I will protect my mate. Unlike you. It's Mum who protects and takes care of you, and she always has. Without her, you'd have nothing. No home, nothing to live on. Nothing. You know what? I'm done here. Bye, Mum." He kissed her cheek. "You know you're always welcome up at the main house. Especially at Christmas."

Tate marched out, and closed the door behind him. His father shouted something, but Tate couldn't hear it. And he found he no longer cared, either.

Arwen was who mattered.

SEVENTEEN

Ylva's wagon was parked out of sight by the time Tate pulled up outside her home, one of the largest in the pack village. Not because Ylva wanted a grand home, but because more than half of it was taken up by her clinic. She had another, larger clinic with a big VETERINARIAN sign in town, where she mostly saw to the health of humans' pets, but most of her work was done here, in her private clinic for shifters.

Ylva specialised in wolf shifters, of course, but her clinic was open to all shifter species. Shaw's sister, Carmen, had been working in the clinic as a volunteer when she'd met Tihannah, the lyrebird shifter who was now her mate. Both women were currently in London, working on the female-only production of Pirates of Penzance, where Tihannah was the Pirate Queen and Carmen was the apprentice conductor. The show season ran until just after Hogmanay, and he'd hoped to get a chance to go down to London to see it. Perhaps he could get tickets for his mate for Christmas. If Ylva could help her transform back into human, of course.

Tate ignored the front door to the clinic, and headed through the gate marked PRIVATE to the back entrance, through the kitchen. One nod from Ylva, visible through the window, and Tate stepped inside. He might feel like a stranger in his parents' cottage, the place where he'd grown up, but Ylva's kitchen was as much a home to him as the pack house.

"I thought you looked a wee bit worried, so I made a pot of my special brew. You'll have to wait a moment until it's done steeping, but that might be enough for me to ease your mind a little. If it's Gordan Mortimer you're worried about, the man has cancer. A tumour he ignored for so long it was nearly too late, but I removed it, once he finally agreed to it, but the damn fool refused to have any chemotherapy afterwards. Nothing Adelaide or I could say would budge him. So the damn thing came back, and it grew, spreading through his whole body, while he didn't say a word until it was too late. Now he expects me to perform some sort of magical miracle, when my advice hasn't changed. If he does a course of chemotherapy, he might have a few extra months, but if he does nothing, he will not see the new year. I'm sorry, Tate. I know he's your father and things have never been easy between you two, but if there's anyone he might listen to, it's you."

It took Tate a moment to understand what Ylva was asking. "You want me to try and talk that stubborn arse into getting chemotherapy? He won't listen to me, Ylva. He never has. He might lie and pretend to agree to get treatment, but only if I challenge Shaw or Sienna for leadership of the pack. He wants me to fight Shaw to the death. Or maybe Sienna. And for what? So he can have a few more months of life, making everyone around him miserable? No. I think I'll give him the dignity of going to his death as stubbornly, as selfishly as he lived. And maybe he'll finally set Mum free. The greatest gift he could ever give her or me. I've tried to persuade her to leave him for years, but she won't budge. She doesn't love him. I doubt she ever did. But there's something keeping her there, with him. It can't be guilt. She'd given him everything he ever asked for..."

Ylva set down her teapot, pushing a cup of shimmering tea across the table toward Tate. "Oh, but it is. Adelaide feels partially responsible for the death of Sienna's mother, and for the damage Gordan did to the pack during his short stint as leader. If she hadn't married him, he never would have become pack leader. Aspasia and I think Gordan has threatened her with something. That if she ever leaves him, he'll tell the pack something terrible that will get her cast out of the pack entirely, like he will be, when he's no longer married to her. Aspasia swears that she would never cast out her own sister, even if they aren't bound by blood, no matter what lies Gordan spreads, but Adelaide is so isolated out there. The only people Gordan will allow into the house are you and me, so it's just him filling her head with his threats and who knows what else. Well, you know, but you were only a teenager when you left. She's lived her whole adult life with him, and that kind of constant abuse..." Ylva shook her head. "When he passes, please be kind to her, Tate. She'll need your help, and help from all of us."

Tate grinned. "Oh, don't you worry, Ylva. I'll drop her in Narine's lap. Narine won't let up until she has Mum dancing naked around a bonfire on Dad's grave. With all three of Narine's girls stoking the fire and howling at the moon, I'm sure." He sobered. "Cancer. I thought he'd hang around forever. Normally, I'd say that disease sucks, but in this case...it couldn't have happened to a better person." Somehow, Tate's heart felt lighter. Not what one was supposed to feel, hearing the news that your father was destined to die very soon, and likely in pain, but it did seem fitting. For all the pain his father had caused in his life, fate was evening the score.

"So it's not your father you came to see me about, what is troubling you?" Ylva blew on her tea. The steam curled into a question mark as she sipped.

Oh, this was definitely one of her special brews, all right. There wasn't any particular recipe – she just took a pinch of this and that, combining it all as the mood took her. There was magic in Ylva's blood, for there was a witch somewhere in her ancestry, to make her both a shifter and a shaman. One of the most powerful in Scotland, if not all of Europe, Tate suspected. Not that Ylva would ever admit it. She would say her power was enough for her needs, and when it was not...that was simply fate, and something she needed to accept.

Tate gulped down a big mouthful, trying not to taste it. Some of Ylva's brews were sweet and floral, but the bitterness in his mouth at his father's fate would only be mirrored by today's tea, he was sure of it.

"No, I didn't come to talk about my father. I came to ask your help with my mate." A lump formed in his throat. "There's something wrong with her..."

The whole story spilled out of him, in between further gulps of the scalding tea, until nothing remained but the leaves in the bottom of the cup.

"And so I don't know what to do. She's stuck as a wolf, and she's gone into heat like some sort of animal. If you would come up to the cabin with me, and make a house call, so you can examine her, and tell me what to do, I'd be forever in your debt," Tate finished, reaching out to set his cup down on the saucer.

"Give me that cup," Ylva ordered.

Tate surrendered it immediately.

"You are pulled in so many different directions, Enforcer. You are a son, who hopes against hope that your father might be saved, even at the end, though you know it would take a miracle. You wish to support your mother, though she did not have the strength to save herself, and it will be a long road back for her. One that you will only make harder. Then there is the pack, led by your friend and your sister, who know you are our most devoted enforcer. But there is also your mate, the one fate has given you, against all odds. Fate would cast you to the four winds, but you may only choose one if you wish to remain whole. Who will you choose to protect, Tate?"

Duty told him to pick family, or his pack. Both, ideally. Until he'd found Arwen, he would have chosen the pack. But now he had her...nothing else mattered.

"My mate. You must help me save my mate." The moments the words were out of his mouth, he knew they were the right ones.