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“Gods, I don’t want to be paired up at all.” He threw a pinch. Reedys dodged it but not my follow up. He cuffed his cheek and Reedys grunted.
“What do you want?” he asked. “Ain’t wolves supposed to want a family, a good wife and partner?”
Kent lifted a shoulder, returning to the flats of his feet. “You’re a wolf,” he said. “What doyouwant?”
“Right now, I want a cigarette,” he said.
The two stopped fighting, their brows drenched in sweat.
“Why don’t you like this girl?” Reedys asked after they caught their breath. “‘Sides the fact that she’s human. She ain’t actually your daughter.”
“No, and thank the gods for that,” Kent snapped. “She’s infuriatingly antagonistic and she asks too many questions.” He shook his head. “If I were to ever procreate, I would expect any offspring to be respectful.”
Reedys smirked. “You don’t know shit about kids, do you?” he asked. “Especially pups.”
Kent gave him a look.
“You gotta assert your dominance, but in a way that commands respect,” Reedys said. That might have been the longest sentence Kent heard him speak in the entire time they’d known each other. “And the thing about respect is, you gotta give it to get it. This whole thing where people think they can instill fear which translates to respect? It’s bullshit. I know…let’s just say I know.” A dark look crossed his eyes but it vanished as quickly as it came. “If you want her to obey you, you gotta give her a reason to. Especially since she wasn’t raised a pup, she doesn’t know our culture. And, quite honestly, she doesn’t owe us anything. You’ve got to earn that right. It’s not just you being a captain or an Alpha. She has to want to respect you as a person. The way everyone else here does.”
Kent opened his mouth, prepared to respond, but stopped himself. He shut his jaw and turned away from Reedys. Instead, his eyes looked at the trees. Patches of blue peeked through the thin, brittle branches. It was a crisp day, the perfect kind to train in. Everything was silent. Everything was peaceful.
And whether he wanted to admit it or not, Reedys was right.
“I didn’t think it was possible for you to talk that much in one sitting,” Kent said.
Reedys shrugged, grunting in response. His dark, auburn hair fell into his face but he snapped his head once, twice, to get rid of it. It didn’t do anything but he wasn’t going to reach up and brush the hair away himself. It would have admitted a vulnerability, and Reedys wasn’t the sort to be vulnerable about anything.
“Can I ask you something?” He began to unwrap his own bandages from his hands. “This Marriage Law. If the Headmaster is right, and it does become a law, what then?”
Kent glanced over at him. “Are you concerned?”
Reedys lifted a shoulder, his face still void of any telling wrinkles.
Kent looked down, hair falling in his face. He clenched his jaw before looking up.
“You?” he asked.
The Alpha looked back up at the sky. “I don’t know,” he said.
Reedys grunted, picking at one of his scars. “It’s not like we gotta choice, if our names get drawn,” he said.
“Well,” Kent said. “If we married someone before the law goes into effect, that would automatically disqualify us from eligibility.”
“I’m not sure I’m that desperate,” he muttered. “Maybe you should just marry your ward and get out of it that way.”
Kent glared. “She’s a child,” he said.
“Sorry, brother, but eighteen ain’t a child,” Reedys said. “And if you’re picked, you might be marrying someone her age anyway.”
Kent snapped the tape off his hands. He didn’t want to think of marriage or wards or anything. There was a full moon tonight, and they still had to prepare.
Adrya
“We shall discuss this more during the full moon.”
I nodded at Matthyw, unable to take my eyes off of him even though Rianne was standing beside me and, judging by her tone, seemed serious about whatever it was that we needed to discuss. Something must have been bothering her. I could tell by the urgency in her tone.
“Oh,” Rianne said, looking between me and Matthyw. “Sorry, I didn’t realize —“
