Secret Worlds (136 page)

“Don’t you want to say hello to your old man?” the figure called without looking up. I should have been relieved that this was a family reunion, not the ambush by Wolfie’s pack that I’d been expecting ever since my trip to the city the day before. But, if anything, the sight of my father was even less welcome than an invasion by Wolfie’s pack would have been. I unclasped the waist buckle of my backpack and let the mass fall to the trail so I’d be ready to run, but the Chief had anticipated my retreat. A dozen wolves stepped out of the trees behind me and advanced, herding me toward the father I’d escaped ten years before.

Father had straightened to a sit by the time I reached him, and he patted the log in invitation, but merely shrugged when I chose to remain standing. He looked exactly the same as he had ten years ago, and his commanding presence wasn’t dimmed in the slightest by the fact that his face was a foot lower than mine as I stood over him. I trembled as the breath of a wolf blew hot against the back of my legs, then almost laughed when I realized that I was terrified, for once, of someone else’s wolf rather than of my own. Another stray thought reminded me that Wolfie, despite his strangeness, had been a perfect gentleman the day before. In contrast, the alpha who was my father preferred fear tactics over subtlety.

“Father,” I acknowledged once I had gathered myself enough to speak. Even though I had safely yelled at the pack leader as a teenager, I had a feeling that any lack of respect now would be met with harsh repercussions, so I bowed my head even though I felt anything but submissive. I could tell my father liked the gesture even more because of my resentment, and his eyes took on the mischievous sparkle that I understood most women in our pack found irresistible. I detested it.

“Little Terra, all grown up,” the Chief said pleasantly, once my single word had been allowed to sit in the autumn air long enough to be swallowed up by the rushing water of the creek. “I’ve missed you,” he continued flatly.

I couldn’t prevent myself from sending my father a shocked look in response to that profession of affection. Was I misremembering the Chief’s farewell warning a decade ago? I’d thoroughly believed then that the alpha was willing to kill his own daughter if she made his life difficult, and I saw no reason to change my mind now. So why would my father want to pretend to have missed me?

Even though the memory only took seconds to rush through my mind, my father was apparently bored with my reverie, so he continued without waiting for a reply. “You’ve had enough running around time,” he intoned, making me wonder if perhaps today was my birthday and I’d somehow missed the date. This forced meeting and command felt like those other birthday ambushes, and the similarity was only accentuated when the Chief continued to speak. “It’s time to come home,” he proclaimed, and I could instantly feel my limbs moving to obey his thinly veiled command. The alpha smirked at the agonized expression on my face, then he added, “Unless … .”

I took a deep breath to calm my stuttering heart, then drew my father out the way he clearly intended for me to do. “What do you need from me?” I asked.

“Well, since you’re offering,” my father began, “An old man like me needs an heir.”

***

So we’re back on the grandchildren train,
I couldn’t help thinking, before blurting out, “What about Ethan?” By the time I’d left home, my spoiled-rotten half-brother had been good for only one thing, in my opinion—to keep Father’s attention safely away from me and Brooke. Ethan had been four years old at the time, and the little despot already seemed to be growing into his future role as alpha. Now he’d be … I added up the years in my mind … fourteen. Just old enough to shift into wolf form and make everyone else’s lives miserable with those teen-wolf temper tantrums. Unless … . “Cricket isn’t a halfie!” I exclaimed.

If I hadn’t been so focused on surviving, I would have been proud of the way my words broke through my father’s cold exterior. His reaction was just an angry twitch in one cheek, but it was there. “Your stepmother, unfortunately, does not appear to have come from the quality bloodlines we’d once thought,” the Chief confirmed. “Ethan is no use to me as meat.”

The words were like a slap. Yes, the kid was annoying, but using the slur “meat” for the son of a werewolf, even if he would never shift, was extreme. Somewhere beneath his alpha exterior, I’d always assumed my father harbored an ounce of compassion for his favorite child, if not for the rest of us. It seemed I’d been wrong about a lot of things.

I would have to worry about Ethan later, though. If my stepmother was a half-breed descendant of a werewolf and a human, that meant any other sons she’d borne would have a 50% chance of being “meat,” while 50% of her daughters would be halfies like herself with the same tendency to produce human sons. I had no clue if I had other little half-siblings running around, but from my father’s expression, it was clear none of them would make the cut as his precious heir.

My mother, on the other hand, could have traced her werewolf bloodlines back to the Mayflower. Any hypothetical sons I had would be just what my father was looking for, and I cringed at the thought. This had been my worst nightmare ever since I wrapped my mind around werewolf succession and my father’s plans for the pack. I was pretty sure I didn’t want children at all, if only because 10% of werewolves were born as bloodlings, which produced tough odds for werewolf mothers. But if I ever did reproduce, I definitely didn’t want my sons to be raised in their grandfather’s image. Who wants to be the mother of Genghis Khan?

While I worked my way through that train of thought, my father had risen, a smirk on his face. I wasn’t a small woman, but he towered over me, his human form more daunting than the wolves at my back. Despite my fear, though, I could tell the alpha was playing cat and mouse, which gave me a perverse sense of hope. If my father just wanted to drag me back to Haven and marry me off to someone with good bloodlines, there would have been no reason for this manipulative chat. So he still needed something. But what?

“You know, your sister had a son,” Father continued conversationally. I
did
know, because Brooke had sent my father a few letters after she left Haven and before I followed suit. She’d fled at an even younger age than I had, then ended up marrying a guy in medical school who was thrilled when he found out his girlfriend was pregnant. But Brooke didn’t invite me to the wedding, never offered to have me come meet Dale or their son Keith. I hadn’t heard from her after I left home.

Wait, had my father just referred to Brooke in the past tense?

“The silly girl died a few years ago,” my father confirmed, and shock made me miss his next few sentences. I’d felt abandoned by Brooke, but had never imagined she’d be permanently gone before I could forgive her. I sank down onto the log my father had risen from, my throat closing up as tears tried to force their way out of my eyes, but pretty soon my sense of self-preservation kicked back in. I could mourn Brooke later. Right now, I had to figure out what my father wanted, and how to get it for him so I could escape from this mess.

Then the pieces clicked together. “You want Keith to be your heir,” I mused out loud, not bothering to look into my father’s eyes since I was suddenly sure I’d figured out the alpha’s plan.

“You always were a clever girl,” my father confirmed. “A grandson is as good as a son, as long as he’s a wolf and in Haven. That’s your choice—teach the boy to shift and bring him to me willingly, or we’ll have to go back to plan B.”

I took a deep breath. This was my way out, as unsavory as it seemed. I didn’t even know the kid, but chances are that if he had my father’s blood running through his veins, he was an arrogant alpha and would be thrilled to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps. “Just so we’re clear,” I said, raising my voice to make sure the wolves behind me heard the deal being struck, “what you’re saying is that if I can talk Keith into being your heir, I’m off the hook. You’ll leave me alone. No more surprise visits.”

“I’ll be glad to see the back of you,” my father agreed, the words echoing his dismissal a decade before. Then he pushed his hat back down over his hair, whistled to his wolves as if they were hunting dogs, and brushed past me up the trail.

“One month,” he called back without turning. Within seconds, my father was out of sight, but the scent of wolves lingered in my memory for the rest of the day.

My boss tried to talk me into simply taking a leave of absence, but I knew I wouldn’t be coming back. During the five years I’d worked for the park, I’d merely been marking time, and I realized now that I’d never so much as gone out for drinks after work, let alone made any deeper connections. There was no one here who I would miss. I might send Maddie a postcard once this whole mess had been sorted out, but that was about it.

As I drove my ancient Toyota back to my cabin to pack my sparse possessions, though, I realized I had no idea where I was going. How long ago had my sister died? Did Dale know his wife and son were werewolves? As much as I would have loved to use the absence of information as an excuse to malinger, my father was efficient in getting what he wanted, so I wasn’t surprised to find a dossier waiting on my kitchen table, even though the cabin door was just as firmly locked as when I’d left. I suspected there was an equally thick file on me floating around the Chief’s office—just how a daughter hopes for her father to remember her, with a sea of facts in case she can someday be of use.

The contents of Brooke’s file hit me hard. I had to sit down to keep from falling when I saw her young face in the top photograph, tilted up to smile at the lanky man beside her. That had to be Dale, and I could tell even from the photo that he was the furthest you could get from an alpha werewolf. My brother-in-law was skinny and unimposing despite his height, the kind of man you might call cute instead of handsome. Just the type of husband my loving and lovable sister would have gravitated toward.

More photos slipped out of the folder, but Brooke didn’t get much older. By the time her curly-haired son was three years old, the family was short a mother. My sister had died before I even left Haven.

Although the reality of my sister’s early death was shocking, the true surprise came when I flipped to the end of Brooke’s folder. The last item was an unopened envelope, addressed to me in my sister’s looping hand. Peering at the postmark, I saw that Brooke had mailed it months before I fled Haven, but our father had clearly deemed the letter not worthy of my young eyes. Yet he’d kept it and added the envelope to Brooke’s file.
Probably after steaming open and resealing the flap in order to decide whether the contents would be an appropriate bait to add to my trap
, I thought sarcastically.

Even though I was itching to know what Brooke had wanted to say to me, I stilled my fingers before they could open the envelope. The letter inside was from my sister, but I knew the real message came from my father, and I’d been manipulated enough for one day. So I tucked the unopened missive back into Brooke’s file and got to work packing up the few possessions I wanted to keep. Once again, my father’s actions were forcing me away from my home.

***

As I crunched up the winding gravel driveway from the country highway to Dale’s house the next day, I realized my brother-in-law was wealthy. Yes, the rundown nature of the yard gave the residence a homey and lived-in look, but the sheer size of the house at the top of the hill made it clear I was outclassed. I pulled to a stop beside a brand-new minivan, and even the soccer balls and scratched bike in the yard weren’t enough to keep me from cringing at the comparison between my rusty vehicle and my brother-in-law’s van. I knew without turning around that the garbage bags of clothes and cardboard boxes of books in my backseat went even further toward giving me the illusion of being a vagrant. Heck, who was I kidding—I
was
homeless at the moment.

During the two-hour drive to Dale’s house, I’d mostly worried over the issue of how to tackle Dale and Keith’s ignorance. My father made it clear in his file that my sister hadn’t spilled the beans about our genealogy to her family, so Dale was to be kept in the dark. Keith, obviously, would have to be told since I needed to help him learn to shift, but how would a hormone-addled teenage werewolf take the news? Looking at their house, though, I now realized those problems were secondary to my first big hurdle—insinuating my way into my sister’s family. What would prevent Dale from assuming I was some kind of gold-digger, then sending me packing before I even got in the door?

The front porch was bigger than my entire cabin back at the park, and the structure was imposing in its sheer size. I was intimidated enough to try to walk lightly, but my hiking boots were still loud on the boards as I made my way to the glass-paneled door. Cupping my hands around my face, I peered inside, where a beautifully modern kitchen sparkled with cleanliness. My imagination could easily place Brooke in the scene, pulling homemade cookies out of the oven. The role of a fifties-era housewife would have been the perfect fit for her cuddly personality, and it broke my heart to think she’d escaped Haven only to die of cancer four years into her perfect life.

“Can I help you?” I turned so quickly at the words that I nearly twisted my ankle, slipping and having to catch myself on the side of the house to keep from falling.
Yep, this is the exact kind of first impression I’d hoped to make
, I thought, taking in the form of my brother-in-law in front of me. Dale was older than he’d been in the last photo, but he still exuded the air of kindliness that I’m sure had attracted my sister in the first place. Even when startling an intruder, the doctor couldn’t quite make his face look stern.

“This is so embarrassing,” I said, trying to figure out where to start with my explanation. Despite Dale’s gentle nature, a tall male figure catching me in his territory was enough to set my senses on high alert, and I had to struggle against an urge to jump back into my car and spin out of the driveway. Only the knowledge that my father would track me down and drag me back to Haven if I failed kept my feet rooted to the spot as I tried out a shaky smile.