‘Me too,’ Liam offered.
‘Greg, you've had a busy day. Just patrol until 10pm. Liam, you do 10pm until 4am. Archie, you do 4am until 8am. None of you will be alone – Ares is out there patrolling, too. Archie, Liam, grab a few zzzs now. I'm going to watch a movie and pretend everything is ok.’
We headed in together as Greg started removing his clothes. I swear I didn’t linger longer than necessary to catch a glimpse of his abs. Esme snickered in my mind.
The pack’s lounge was full, the fire was roaring and the gargantuan TV was on. We slipped in discreetly, but all eyes still turned to us. I gave a big smile to the room. Nothing to see here – yeah, right.
I slid down to the floor and grabbed an unoccupied beanbag. I smiled to the wolf pup next to me, Bobby. He was snuggled up to his mum, young enough not to be embarrassed by cuddling her in front of the pack. Oh to be young and wholly unselfconscious again. Old or not, I still liked snuggling my mum too, and I made a mental note to visit her soon. Plus, I missed Dad’s baking. He makes better biscuits than me.
‘If there’s an intruder, I’d rip his throat out –ifI were allowed to be in my wolf form early,’ Bobby said to me confidently. I looked at the eager eight year old and slid a glance at his mother, who was looking at him with an expression that was equal parts affectionate and exasperated.
Sonia directed a hard look at her son. ‘There’s no intruder. And I told you that at a convenient time we would ask the alpha if we could bring forward the time of your first change. This isnota convenient time.’ She nodded at the pack members slumped around us, most of whom were directing amused looks towards Bobby.
‘I’m just saying that I would be an asset to the packalready. I’m eight, not four. I’m sure my wolf and I could slay all of our enemies.’
I gave Bobby a wry look. ‘I’ve no doubt you could but, as your mother said, there isn’t an intruder just now. And this isn’t the best forum for us to discuss bringing your change forward. How about you come to my office tomorrow?’
He puffed out his little chest importantly. ‘That sounds fine.’ He dropped his mum a gloating glance, settled down on his beanbag and cuddled back into her to watch the movie.
Suddenly he turned around and farted loudly on his mum’s leg. He burst out into laughter, giggling infectiously over the sound of the trump. I heard Sonia sigh. ‘Say “excuse me” after you’ve tooted,’ she instructed, her tone indicating she’d offered this advice many times.
‘’Scuse me!’ he piped up loudly to the room in general.
He started munching on his popcorn, waited until he thought his mum was watching the movie, then threw a piece of popcorn at Clayton, one of the older pups. Sonia had eyes in the back of her head and she moved the popcorn away from him. ‘If you can’t eat it nicely, you won’t have it at all.’
‘Aw, Muuuuum. I was just messing. I won’t throw any more.’
‘If you do, that’s it. No more for you. It’s not fair to make Mrs Dawes clean up your mess.’ Sonia passed the popcorn back with a warning glare. Bobby threw more popcorn, this time into his mouth.
With his attention finally fixed elsewhere, his mother looked to me and mouthed a thank you. I gave a wink and a nod. I could see that I’d been made the bad guy here; it would be up to me to lay down the law that there was no way Bobby was transforming for his first shift until he was at least thirteen years old, the same as the rest of the pack.
Sonia has been single-parenting almost since Bobby was born. His father had been missing, presumed dead, for nearly eight years. I hadn’t quite gotten down to the nitty-gritty of what had happened or where he’d gone, and it never seemed like an opportune time to bring it up.
Most of the pack took turns acting as a father figure to Bobby, who was rambunctious, outspoken and widely adored. He was spoilt rotten but none of us really minded. Life had already dealt him some blows and the pack was keen to make sure he didn’t suffer any more.
Werewolves tend to suffer a lot of miscarriages when trying to expand the pack. Unfortunately Bobby doesn’t have any other pack mates of his age to play with; the older children play with him with their eyes rolling.
I studied him from the corner of my eye. His sandy-brown hair flopped over his freckled skin and his perma-smile was still present. Our pack movie night was in full swing; we were watching the most recent kid-friendly Disney offering. Soon we would put the pups to bed and put on an action movie with enough blood and gore to satisfy the more bloodthirsty members of my pack. I found myself distinctly less eager for blood after the mangled mess that I’d seen on my lawn.
I’d found, much to my amusement, that even the toughest burliest members of my pack, including Greg, tended to enjoy the first half of film night as much as the second – not that they would ever admit to it. Strangely, they all seemed to find the time to be there for the whole film session.
Things had improved since I’d tracked down and eliminated Mark’s killer, but I still wasn’t greeted with kittens and songs everywhere I went. I was tolerated, but I still wasn’t exactly popular. I was working on that, and part of that plan for tonight had included baking a huge number of cookies.
The cookies were being gobbled down, which I took as a positive sign but I also saw a lot of people sliding appreciative glances towards Mrs Dawes, thinking that she had been the cookie supplier. Dammit, I knew I should have written a note to set next to them.
I don’t understand the need for so much singing,Esme commented on the movie.
Humans like singing, it’s uplifting.I wondered if my birth mum ever sang to me. Probably, I decided. Most mums did. I couldn’t remember it, though. I couldn’t remember a damn thing about my birth family, despite being adopted at three years old. You’d think I’d remembersomething.
Nothing is more uplifting than a successful hunt,Esme disagreed.Killing something really brings home how alive you are. Maybe we should bring some small animals to the next movie night which we can kill. That will make everyone feel uplifted.
I had visions of Esme attacking cages of guinea pigs and hamsters. Little Bobby might well prefer her version of entertainment, though I’d be scarred for life. My mum had always raised me with pets – the first was a guinea pig when I was four. I adored the little squeakers. We’d always got them in pairs, one for me and one for Ben.
We’ll see,I countered, using my mum’s code which meant ‘never’.
The rest of the movie night was a success. No one spoke to me much, but the hostility was certainly dialling down – with the notable exception of Tristan, who still made it his life’s mission to send me a certain number of glares per hour. He wanted to make it clear to me that, although he knelt to me and I had his allegiance, I didn’t have his respect. That was okay; he didn’t have mine, either.
Chapter 3