Derek
Derek was assigned a room in the farm’s main building. He had dinner with everyone who lived under that particular roof. It was… well, rough, especially with Kit being there too and clearly eager to find comfort from Derek—the adult he knew best despite it having been years—but also having such fierce loyalty for his father who was a no-show.
Once they’d eaten, Derek retreated to his room. He felt as if he should’ve been out there, looking for Cal, but he also knew that was an impossible feat. Besides, Cal was a survivor, and even if he wasn’t driving, the cat was one.
Just as he’d gotten settled, there was a knock on the door.
“Yeah?”
Anton, the fox as Derek had learned, peeked in. “Sorry to bother you, but the wolf pack would like to meet you too. At their place?”
“Oh… okay….” Derek went with Anton downstairs and pulled on his boots. This was one of those Finnish things he really appreciated, always taking your shoes off when going into someone’s home.
They walked across the yard. Anton had long legs and a rangy build that suited his inner animal. Derek had learned that it went like that most of the time. Like Maxim, who was a Siberian tiger, was a tall, buff man. Cal wasn’t the tallest of men, but he had the sort of body type that screamed he knew what to do with it without being overly bulky. Nobody who saw Cal would think of him as being harmless or weak.
Anton walked into the wolf pack’s house and called, “We’re here!” as he started to kick off his sneakers.
Derek did the same with his boots and left them neatly by the huge collection of shoes
“Anton!” a child’s voice bellowed from somewhere, and then a little girl rounded the corner, collided with Anton and giggled as he picked her up and set her on his hip.
“What’s up, May?”
“I wanna show you—oh!” Her mouth went into an O shape when she spotted Derek.
He thought she’d be timid like most kids, but then he remembered these were wolves.
“Hi,” he said and smiled. “I’m Derek.”
“I’m May and I’m a wolf!” Then, before he could respond, she sniffed the air and said, “And you’re a human! Ooh, what happened to your eye?”
“May, what have we told you about sniffing people and what’s polite to ask?” A man with an obvious alpha air about him came into view and rolled his eyes at the girl. Then he turned to Derek. “Hi, I’m Sean, I’m one of the alphas of the Jarvela pack. Nice to meet you.”
“Hi, Derek Lamont.” They shook hands, and Anton took May somewhere deeper in the house.
“This used to be Mikael’s family home when he was growing up. Then once the shifter sanctuary idea took hold, he had the new house built so we’d have more space.”
“Seems like it’s working,” Derek commented, as his brain finally caught up with Sean’s “one of the alphas” comment. “Wait, more than one alpha?”
Sean chuckled and led him to the living room where a little boy was sat on the floor with a coloring book and a handsome man sat on the couch with Nico, one of the teenagers.
“This is my partner and my co-alpha, Rider. You’ve met Nico. And that there is Jamie, my youngest.”
Derek was introduced to everyone, also June who was the second oldest and Jude, the oldest of Sean’s kids. Then everyone but the adults started the evening routine and Sean, Rider, and Derek were left in the living room.
“So….” Derek prompted. He didn’t feel threatened or uneasy, other than a little confused on why he’d been summoned here.
“I wanted to talk to you, because I’ve been in Italy too, and Nicolas grew up adjacent to the Council,” Rider said evenly.
This was certainly news to Derek. “Oh…?”
“Yes, see, you probably know Anna Estelle?”
Derek got it in one. “She’s his mother?” He chuckled. “It’s been a while since I saw Nicolas so I didn’t recognize him. He must’ve been ten when I last saw him.”
Rider grinned. “Yeah, well, she’s been our ear on the inside since I came to live here.”
“And that’s something that got us thinking,” Sean said thoughtfully. “She had no idea about you and Cal, of course. I guess you kept that part under wraps?”
