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“Three hundred and eleven,” he answered at my pause. “Add one hundred to your own future time, and you might consider that I’m much too old for you.”
“Maybe a bit. Wow, I’ll have to think this through. They always say that age is just a number, but I never imagined such a huge one. So you could actually be Alice’s several, several times great-grandfather just like you said.”
“A figure of speech to her, if you were listening closely, which you shouldn’t have been, wicked girl. And doubtful, since I’ve never wed or had any children.”
I was going to challenge him on the very likely potential of that last part, since I doubted that he remained chaste throughout the last three-and-half centuries of his life. Perhaps there were a few mini-Bryants he unknowingly sired whose family lines continued to this day. And into the future—my present. Or future.
It was enough to make my head spin.
“Okay, here’s another question...”
* * *
“Your family is really your wolf pack then,” I commented during breakfast the next morning.
With all the secretive walls down between us, Bryant openly shared his werewolf existence and history, never keeping anything back. It probably helped that I was more interested than terrified by his startling realities. Even then at some points he would share something that would stop me for a few seconds.
“That’s a little more difficult to explain,” he said, offering me one of his cold ham slices.
I waved it off, still feeling a bit queasy from all the startling revelations of late, then began to nibble at my toasted brown bread.
“Most wolves—werewolves—are born into a community of other wolves.”
“So a pack.”
“Similar. Everypackhas its own hierarchy with various rankings and responsibilities. Everyone has their part and purpose, and we all contribute to the whole.”
“Like an alpha and beta and omega,” I posed.
Bryant hiked his brows. “For someone who never knew the existence of our kind, you seem to know a great deal about us.”
“Just from the Discovery channel,” I said with a dismissive wave. “A new channel for television shows. They have lessons on animal wolves, the normal four-legged kind. I assume your pack/community are similar in structure.”
“We are, to a certain extent,” he said with a hint of irritation. “But yes, we have a high alpha who is in authority over the rest of us. The complication begins when our pack continues to grow beyond the ability to manage and care for all of its members properly.”
“I can see where that would be a problem.”
“Natural alphas emerge from such large numbers,” he continued. “My father, Rufus Bryant, was one of them. Power struggles arise, loyalties shift, people choose up sides.”
“Ah. So the King Alpha—”
“High Alpha,” Bryant corrected me.
“High Alpha and your father had some sort of internal battle for authority, and your family was booted from the pack.”
“He was, and we were,” he said. “The High Alpha held differing views from my father for the future of our people. Resolution couldn’t be achieved, so my father took his leave, and several families who shared his vision traveled with us to America to form a new pack in this new world.”
“Where they landed in North Carolina and are awaiting news from you for the location of your new...lair?”
“Den,” he corrected. “Which is nothing more than a secured community to protect the pack’s High Alpha, his Direct Heir, and their families.”
“Since you’re the eldest son of Rufus Bryant, you must be his heir in line for succession to High Alpha then.”
Bryant’s jaw muscles bunched. “It does. And not a prospect I look forward to.”
“Yes, I remember you sharing that with me, but now I have a better prospective as to why you don’t want the position.”
I leaned forward, grasping his hand that was fisted on the table, adding, “But your father remarried and had another son who could take up the mantle as heir though, right?”
