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Chapter 8
Dorian
Nathan threw a cushion right at my face. “Stop moping on the sofa and help me walk the dogs.”
“Why is it always me?”
“Because you do great work,” Nathan replied without hesitation. “Hurry up. I want to get dinner started before Perdita gets back from her dad’s. And you need to cheer up before she sees your miserable face.”
We gathered a bunch of dogs together and then set out on our walk.
“Come on then,” Nathan said. “Spill. What happened between you and Margo?”
I let out a sound of frustration. “I don’t know. We just argued about stuff, and now I don’t know how to let it go or whatever.”
“Talking to her might help.”
“Or make things worse.” I made a face. “She thinks I’m trying to boss her around, so I feel like I should give her space, but then what if she takes that as the wrong kind of sign, and then I’m left with—”
“Christ.” Nathan huffed out a laugh. “Sometimes I forget how young you are. Send her a message and ask her if she wants to talk. If she wants to talk, she’ll let you know. Either way, you’ll know for sure.”
“But what if she doesn’t get the message? Or she replies, and I don’t get the message.” I looked away so I couldn’t see if he was laughing at me. “Why am I like this?”
“Because you like her, and you’re afraid of messing up, but you can’t keep taking the blame for everything that goes wrong,” he said. “Relax. You and Margo like each other. One fight isn’t going to change that.”
“It was about the pack, too. It was a pretty nasty fight. She seemed so angry about everything. She even made some comment about not being an obedient soulmate, and she made it sound like that’s what I want, when that’s not even how it works!”
“People say a lot of things they don’t mean when they’re stressed and upset.” His expression was grim. “We’ve all been through a lot. That takes its toll. I don’t like making excuses for people, but the things that have happened recently have been heavy for all of us. Do you have any idea what actually started the argument? What really upset her?”
“I suppose she didn’t like the idea we talked about her at the pack meeting. I didn’t get a chance to explain that the whole meeting wasn’t actually about her, but you know, damage done.”
Nathan fell silent. “It’s hard for people who didn’t grow up around this stuff to understand. You have to be patient and let them process it all.”
I glanced at him. “Was it hard for Perdita when she found out about you?”
“It was probably harder for me to deal with in some ways,” he admitted. “I’d worked so hard to keep things separate, but nothing could stop fate. Before the curse broke, there was always that question of how real our feelings were.” He brightened. “But it’s different for you and Margo. You both have something special about you. You both have the right to decide for yourselves what you want to do and how you want to live. You both chose each other. That means something.”
“I still have to obey pack rules though. Whether we mean it to or not, that affects Margo, too.”
He considered that for a long moment. “It’s not like the pack is overly strict or unreasonable, is it? I mean, Byron’s pretty open and relaxed these days. He doesn’t want public violence is all.”
“I’m the lowest member of the pack,” I reminded him. “Byron’s not the only one who gets to boss me around. You’ll never experience that. You’re top of the food chain, no matter what.”
“I have to follow Byron, and when Jeremy takes over, I’ll have to follow him if I want to stay in the pack. It isn’t easy for anyone, not even Byron, but we get by, and you will, too.”
A touch of panic rushed through me at the thought of a new alpha.
Nathan slowed to a stop, hushing the dogs, and looked directly at me. “There’s no need for you to worry about Jeremy. I would never let you be forced to do anything that goes against what we believe in. Our way of life only exists as long as we want it to, and we can change that at any time. When I was about your age, I went against my alpha. It was hard, but I knew it was the right thing to do. You can do that, too. We can rely on and blame alphas all we want, but deep down, we still have free will, and we all have to take responsibility for our actions.”
There was so much I wanted to ask him. “Do you ever regret how things ended up? The pack used to be just your family. Do you ever wish it was still that way?”
“We’re still our own pack,” he said. “Yeah, there’s a large pack here, but within that pack are mini-packs, and we’re one of them. You teens make up one. You, me, and Perdita are another. Then there’s my family. We’re all part of different systems that work together and help the entire pack to function. Most of us don’t need the whole pack or even Byron around us, and that’s the way it should be. Even so, these relationships can be a source of strength. A community can achieve a lot together, but we still have to trust ourselves.”
His words reassured me, but at the same time, I wasn’t confident I could exist outside of the pack.
“When you’re old enough, you might decide to leave us. Alone, with Margo, with others, who knows? But the choice is there, and it’s yours to make. It won’t lessen anything we have together. You don’t have to choose between us. We’ll always be your family, your safe space, but you won’t always need us, and that’s how it’s supposed to work.”
He always knew how to calm the frantic thoughts in my head. “If I wasn’t so tangled up in dogs, I’d hug you right now.”
