His mother would always be his mother, never subservient no matter his position. Yet… “I need you to make arrangements for sleeping arrangements. Take over the two local hotels, charge it to the pack, but make sure we have rooms for everyone, then get on the phone and make calls. I want no one pretending they didn’t get the message.” It had happened a few times and he’d let it slide. A mistake. One he would rectify now.
“Absolutely.” In the background his father chuckled, and he could almost imagine the looks his parents shared at his expense. “Anything else, Alpha?”
“Yes, on a personal note, and not for sharing with anyone…” The last he reinforced with a hint of command. His mother always meant well. Her motivations were above reproach. But she was his mom, and she loved to brag about him.
“Of course.” Irritation bubbled in those two words, but Brett didn’t let it go.
“Mom, I’m serious. This isn’t just about Alpha, this is your son needing to know you won’t gossip or reveal anything until I have.”
“Brett, I’m teasing you. You do need to learn how to take that again.” Reprimand couched in love. Yes, he could live with that response.
“Thank you. Colby may be a latent wolf.” He gave them a moment to let the information sink in. “Have either of you ever heard of the condition?”
“Years ago,” his father answered. “I was a kid though, fifteen or sixteen. I sat in one of Dad’s meetings with a family whose youngest child didn’t shift. At all. She was the product of wolves on both sides, full bloods, not turned. Hatcher said she was healthy…”
“I remember that,” his mother’s voice rose an octave. “Bree? Brea? Bren? Something with a B.”
“Bethany,” Charles spoke again.
“That’s it.” Mom snapped her fingers. “Now my dad did an exam and he’d even delivered, if I remember the story right. Nothing was wrong with her that he could detect. She was healthy, strong, capable…”
“She was healthy, and stronger than an average, faster, and she had a really sharp nose, but she was limited in other ways. She couldn’t run as fast as a wolf, didn’t have night vision—her hearing was limited.”
“Oh yeah, and her scent was…well, the polite word is different.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” Charles argued.
“It was. Whenever she became deeply stressed or upset, it—altered. Especially after puberty.”
Back and forth they went until Brett cleared his throat. “So, Bethany was a latent?”
“That was the determination, but it was 1955, Brett. It’s been a while. Her parents wanted Dad to Call her wolf.” His father’s voice sobered and something indefinable stirred beneath what he wasn’t saying.
An Alpha could Call his wolves, summon them to him, and in an individual they could force a shift. He’d done it to Luc and had to other wolves when they needed it. “And?” Impatience crept through him. “Was he able to?” No Bethany lived within Hudson River, that much he did know. Yet, it didn’t mean anything. She could have mated into a different pack. It happened.
They didn’t answer immediately, and his gut clenched. “Initially, he was against the idea.” His father spoke slowly. “Hatcher agreed with him. She was healthy and showed no signs of distress outside of feeling a little different. Dad encouraged her family to embrace her for who she was and let her be human.”
It didn’t end there.
Another moment of silence, then a door closed in the background. “Your mother is taking a walk,” Charles said. “She was younger than I at the time, and not privy to the full conversation. Dad didn’t think calling Bethany’s wolf would help. Latents are latent for a reason. They’re rare. I think it’s what we’d call recessive genes now. No one understood it, but he told them to let her be human even if she wasn’t.”
“Let her be human…he released her from the pack.” Son of a bitch. Brett understood his grandfather well enough to recognize he would have chosen pack over one girl. Hudson River wasn’t Willow Bend. They had human allies, but no human pack members. His grandfather hadn’t allowed it.
“Yes,” Charles sighed. “It devastated her family, but Bethany seemed to do well.”
“But…?” He didn’t bother to stifle the growl. A girl grew up in their pack, one of them, and then one day she simply wasn’t.
“She was young Brett.”
“Don’t sugarcoat the shit, Dad.” He could curse at his father. “What happened?”