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Dara is full of excitement that Freya’s mother agreed the girls could be friends. I don’t want the fancy brat around for I have gotten in enough trouble today due to her. My sister skips inside to tell our mother that Freya will visit again as I help my father put the saddle and tack away.
“You will need to keep an eye on them while they are playing,” my father says.
“Huh?” I nearly drop the saddle I am lugging over to stow. “Why do I need to keep an eye on them?”
My father’s eyes narrow as I more carefully set the saddle in place. “You are the oldest. Your mother has the babe to watch, and I need to work. A man should protect those younger than him and not make reckless decisions that might endanger them.”
So we are going there again. My questioning of his decision has opened the door to a further dressing down.
I am eight years old. Danger and reckless decisions are not always apparent to me in the heat of the moment. Also, I admit that sometimes I am persuaded to do reckless things lest I risk losing face.
“What do you think might have happened if she were hurt on the way over?” he asks.
I shrug.
“There would have been consequences, not only for you as the oldest among them but for the whole clan.”
I may be only eight, but everybody says I will become an alpha. I have a good sense of danger. “I had my spear with me.”
“It is a small spear suited to your size and catching small game,” my father points out bluntly. “You should not have been taking your sister so far, never mind bringing lasses from another country and people, who might bring the full wrath of their king on our clan, for all we know.”
My ears heat. “I will do better.”
He nods approvingly. “One day, you will be an alpha. You must learn to carry yourself as such. An alpha defends his family and clan, and even strange lasses as visit us from other places. Many people beyond the clans have poor views of us and our ways. We are the closest clan to the border. We, above other clans, must show them, through our actions, that they are wrong.”
His words are complex, and I grapple to take them in. It upsets me that others might have a poor view of us because we dress differently and have different ways, but I also must do my part and be the kind of alpha who would make him proud.
I am still stinging from the talk when we sit at the table for supper. But I’m also hungry and so I focus on dunking a piece of fresh bread into the vegetable stew.
“Aston says he’s going to marry Freya when she grows up,” Dara blurts, grinning smugly at me.
I pause, the dunked bread halfway to my mouth.
My father’s poorly smothered chuckle does not help. Worse, my mother’s face softens in a way that tells me she also thinks I am foolish.
“I never said that,” I deny stridently, glaring at Dara.
“You did, too,” Dara sing-songs back. “He said she looked like a princess.”
“She had a fancy dress, is all,” I say. “Like one of them lasses in your storybooks.”
I know I have fucked up as the words leave my mouth. I hate my sister. Now I am lumbered with watching her and her new friend.
After my father’s talk about alphas and how one should behave, I feel bad about taunting Freya about her short legs, which is not even her fault when she is only a little girl. “She has little legs and a heavy dress,” I say gruffly, “and still walked here without complaint.”
“The lass is very brave,” my father agrees. “But, son, you know you will become an alpha and not marry. The lass and her family would be shocked at our ways, especially by those alphas who take more than one mate.”
“Why would that be odd?” I ask, confused. “What if an alpha loves two lasses, and they both love him?”
“Well, it is just not done in Hydornia,” my mother says.
“That sounds stupid if you ask me,” I say.
“Do you have another lass you were considering as a mate, son?”
I think my father is teasing me, but I’m not sure.
“No,” I say. “I don’t even want this one. I only said she looked like a princess.”
