Trevor’s sigh was more like a gust. He sank back into his chair again, but Ezra knew his brother’s fists were clenched, out of sight under the table.
“I’ve got to prove myself to them,” Ezra said. He straightened a little, drew a deep breath, focused on strategy as the last of his hurt trickled away. “I’ve got to show them I’m safe and good, that they can trust me with Willow.”
Dad gave a low growl and shook his head. “I don’t want you going down that road, Bob.”
Dad had started with the nickname the day Ezra was born, as Mom told it. As the third Robert Ezra Sterling, Ezra had always thought of his name as a symbol and a legacy, passed from Granddad to Dad and now to him. When he was a pup, he imagined receiving Dad and Granddad’s strength as wolves along with their name, took it as a reason to hope he would prove to be a wolf too. He couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t been “Bob” to his dad—and only to his dad.
The prized nickname reminded him now as it had so many times before. He was strong. He was loved and supported in this family, in this pack. And he was ready now to do what he needed to, to fight for the best strategy he could come up with, despite his dad’s frown.
“The truth is,” Dad said, “with some people you’ll never prove yourself safe. They don’t want to see it.”
“But it’s up to me to try,” Ezra said.
“No. It’s up to them to give you the same chance they’d give anyone else until you do something unsafe. And they’re choosing not to.”
Ezra stared down at the table. It couldn’t be as hopeless as all that. Scents shifted around the table—Dad’s resisting, Mom’s persuading, reaching out to her mate. Ezra looked up. A classic Sterling moment: his parents communicating with silent eye contact.
“What?” Trevor blurted when the moment stretched on.
“We’d decided never to tell y’all,” Mom said. “But you know the tension that hung around whenever my daddy and mama came to visit. You were old enough before your granny passed, I know you saw it.”
Ezra and Trevor nodded, then met each other’s eyes across the table. Trevor arched his eyebrows in a dramaticwhat on earth is thisexpression.
“Well, I’m sorry to say it, but it’s time to say it. Your granny never got over my marriage to a wolf. Didn’t matter how good your father was to us all. Didn’t matter how safe and restrained a man he is. He’s a wolf, and for Mama that canceled out any good thing about him.”
“Whoa,” Trevor whispered. “That’s why it was…like it was?”
Dad nodded, then turned to Ezra. “Took me too many years to see it wasn’t my fault, son. You’ve got to go forward with Willow knowing from the start—their hatred isn’t your fault.”
Slowly Ezra nodded. He tried to process this new piece of his family history, Granny’s rejection of Dad. In some ways a whole lot of things finally made sense, things he hadn’t known he’d wondered about. He still wanted to find the right piece of information to share with Brandon and Lisa Fitzgerald, the thing that would convince them to accept him into their lives. But as he’d told Willow, not many people based their decisions on objective information. Far more people based them on feelings, personal experiences…and prejudice.
“Okay,” he said. He wasn’t giving up though. He would heed Dad’s encouragement, remind himself whenever he needed to that he wasn’t to blame for human prejudice. And he’d find a way to show his mate’s parents that he was safe.
Dad nodded. “Anytime you need to talk through it, you can come to me.”
“I will.” But he’d talked all he could tonight. He lowered his face to his hands and sighed. “Wow, I’m tired.”
“Go on home and get some sleep,” Mom said. “We’ll take good care of your mate.”
“I know you will.”
His family walked him to the door. Trevor half-smiled and bumped a fist into his shoulder.
“Trev,” Ezra said. “Promise you won’t retaliate. Not in any way, okay?”
Trevor’s face crinkled up like crushed paper. He shook his head hard, then slowly, slowly nodded, chin bumping his chest as he tucked it in. Ezra knew what his brother needed most. He stepped forward and grabbed hold of Trevor, a brother’s hug, a wolf’s hug. Trevor’s arms came around him instantly, clasping tight.
“You smell better, not so hurt,” Trevor said. He held onto Ezra as if they were pups again, as if Ezra had just hauled him away from that dubious cliff-edge.
“I am better,” Ezra said. He pounded his brother’s back. “Let it go, Trev.”
“Will you?”
“Huh?”
Trevor didn’t release him, not even to meet his eyes. “Will you let it go that you didn’t know I was fading?”
Oh, that. Shoot. Ezra growled.
