“Your dad’s right, Gigi. I’m very hungry.”
The little girl swung her legs as Jeremy bounced her once on his arm. She fought her giggles as though offended by her daddy’s ability to distract her. “Play later.”
“We will,” Malachi said.
“How later?”
“Much later,” Jeremy said. “Don’t pester Malpha.”
He deposited her in front of the game, which the other pups hadn’t paused in her absence, and Gigi resumed tossing beanbags.
When Malachi finished his cobbler, he stood up from the table and called, “Gigi, would you like a tall ride?”
Gigi tossed a beanbag into the air and ran to him. “Yes please!” As he hoisted her up, she giggled. “Daddy said ‘much later’ but it’s not.”
“I ate my lunch faster than your dad expected,” Malachi said with a tug on her ankles, and she giggled again.
He loped across the yard while Gigi laughed in delight and patted her open palms on the top of his head. April forgot her dessert as she watched him taking care of the smallest of his pack, going out of his way to make a toddler happy.
“That’s our alpha,” Arlo said quietly, then took Rebecca’s hand. “We’re proud of who our pup grew up to be, but we don’t take credit. Malachi came to us with a good heart.”
“But you made him safe,” April said. “I need to thank you for that.”
Both elders nodded and took a moment to study her. Rebecca said, “He told you. I don’t knowwhathe told you, because he was never able to tell us. But I can see it on your face—you know his past.”
“Yes.”
“Well, good,” Rebecca whispered as if that might keep Malachi from overhearing. “He’s needed to tell someone for the last twenty years.”
“Not because he doesn’t trust you. He does. He respects and loves you both so much. But I guess you know that too.”
“Never a doubt,” Arlo said.
“He must have been so serious as a pup.” She was suddenly ravenous for stories of her wolf. She could picture him, rusty-blond hair and golden eyes, observing and thinking all the time.
“Oh, he was that.” Rebecca huffed a laugh. “And a leader from the day he came. So young, but his nature was so strong already. But he was never haughty about it, you know? He tried to learn all he could, especially from William, our alpha at the time.”
“Did William know what he was?”
Arlo nodded. “The day he came to us, William knew. I remember him telling both of us, ‘He’s going to be very strong.’ He kept Malachi’s alpha nature to himself for a little while though.”
Rebecca leaned forward in her chair, her eyes sparkling with the stories April hungered for. Oh, this conversation would not be finished today. April would invite them over and make tea, coffee, whatever the dear elders preferred.
“I remember one time,” Rebecca said, a smile adding to the crinkles on her face, “Jeremy, Aaron, and Trevor decided to see how far they could range from home without being missed. They’d invited Ezra, but he’d turned them down, I think without realizing just how far they intended to go. Well, he didn’t want to get his brother and his friends in trouble, but when he realized they’d actually taken off, he felt wrong about no one knowing. He thought a good compromise would be to tell Malachi.”
April could imagine where this was going, but she relished the account from an eye witness of her wolf’s early leadership.
“Malachi took Ezra with him and tracked them down himself. I asked him later why he hadn’t told me or Arlo, Robert or Ann about it, whether Ezra had asked him not to tell. He looked so surprised. He said, ‘I never thought to tell anyone. I only thought to bring my pack home.’”
“And how old was he?” April said.
“Oh, twelve, I think. I remember he was extra concerned for little Trevor, who would’ve been nine at the time. He told me, ‘That pup could have been hurt.’”
“There was never any concept in young Malachi that he was also just a pup,” Arlo said.
April nodded. It fit with everything she knew of her wolf.
The elders were deep into their reminisces now, bouncing stories one off another. Rebecca said, “One night about a year after he came to us—I don’t remember what was said—he started shaking. Not with fear. His whole body was just vibrating with this sort of intensity. I’d never seen anything like it. I said, ‘Son, what is it?’ and he said, ‘Rebecca, I’m alpha.’ I went to William straightaway and said, ‘Can you please set my pup straight? He thinks he’s got to become alpha someday,’ and William said, ‘He’s right, and he’s going to be the strongest alpha in generations.’”
