“My mother has some friends down there and one went over with a casserole and a fake story to check on her.” Because my mother’s friends were all just as nosy as she was. “That was when Macy finally realized we have Emeric.”
“Lord.” Dorian shook his head. “That would’ve been so scary.”
“She left about an hour ago and is confused but safe.” And still didn’t seem to understand how much danger she’d been in. “She’ll probably get here mid-day tomorrow but I don’t know when exactly.”
Dorian was trying to project calm but he just looked constipated. “That’s good.”
My scoff had him glaring at me. “I’m trying to be an adult about this.”
“I’m not. I’m the Alpha.” In this situation it meant I was going to be a pain in the ass. “Emeric isn’t going anywhere until I know he’s safe and I know what happened. All Macy was able to tell me before she started the drive back—still without a cell phone—was that Emeric’s mother left his father last month.”
Dorian blinked. “Do we believe that either?”
“Nope because we’re not a twenty-two-year-old baby of the family.” One that it seems like I should’ve kept a better eye on. “We’ll figure it out when she comes back, but as of now there isn’t a good adult to keep Emeric, so we will.”
Looking slightly steadier, Dorian inched closer again. “And you can just do that? Declare it?”
“I’m not quite the unquestionable lord of my own kingdom but the magic that makes me Alpha, and not just another wolf, seems to have been created to make me lord of my own kingdom.” There was no good way to explain that to a human without it coming across badly. “That’s kind of the simplistic way to explain it.”
I needed to work on how to explain this to a human.
“Alphas are blessed with the ability to sense their pack. We feel what they’re feeling and our abilities are designed to protect the pack. Sometimes that means protecting it from outsiders and sometimes that means keeping wolves in line.” I shrugged when Dorian raised one eyebrow. “We’re not human and when we…let’s call it when we have mental health issues things go very badly.”
Like ending up as the Big Bad Wolf in fairy tales bad.
“Ah.” Nodding slowly, he seemed to understand. “Between the strength and the magic, I can imagine how that could go.”
Probably not, but we could do a creepy history lesson later.
“Nothing like that has happened in my lifetime as far as I know. We’ve had one-offs that needed the authorities to step in and handle specific situations, but nothing on a large scale.” So this situation seemed odd to me. “In a healthy pack, the constant happy feedback and stability the Alpha receives from the packkeeps them healthy and stable. I can’t imagine what led to the issues that Emeric’s old pack seems to have.”
“Do you think the person Emeric sensed earlier was here to take him back to their pack because he was technically a runaway?” Dorian didn’t sound like he believed the idea, but it wasn’t unreasonable.
“No. That’s not how things like that are handled.” But that fucking pack hadn’t done anything normal. “Every council in this half of the country should’ve been notified that Emeric was missing after his father’saccident.”
My doubts about that label were clear in my voice.
“If there was some kind of pack challenge there should’ve also been notifications and basically magical procedures that needed to be followed.” We didn’t just off one another and hide it with a car accident even if Emeric’s father had been crazy. “None of this sounds reasonable even for an accident.”
“Keeping Emeric here and his aunt coming back safe is our primary concern.” Since he just seemed to be repeating that to make himself feel better, I nodded and kissed his head. He let out a long breath and pressed his arm against mine. “There isn’t anything we can do about that pack, is there?”
“If they come here there is, but as long as they stay away, I’ve done all I can.” I hoped I had. “I’ve contacted all the councils in this region and even put in some calls to our version of the police.”
I wasn’t sure what they’d do or what had actually happened but the ball was rolling and hopefully we’d get some answers. They weren’t exactly the chatty type so all I’d gotten were some questions and a few grunts.
“So we wait?” Dorian’s use of we made me want to smile even though I wasn’t sure he would’ve understood it.
“Yes, but I’m going to have the wards around the pack land strengthened and I’ve warned the pack members about the full situation.” It didn’t seem like much. “In the old days we would’ve had…let’s call it more physical ways of handling this but that’s frowned upon.”
A lot.
“You kind of sound disappointed about that.” Dorian wasn’t going to let that slip past us. “Do you realize that?”
“Okay, the human-looking me that doesn’t want to end up on the internet or in serious trouble has enough common sense to understand this is a reasonable way to handle the situation.” There were only so many ways shifters who’d gone wrong could be handled and I wasn’t looking for that permanent of a solution for any impulse-control issues on my part. “My wolf side would love nothing more than to tear into that asshole wannabe Alpha.”
“Okay, I can understand that.” Still looking thoughtful as he watched the woods around us, he didn’t seem upset with me or my answer. “How do you keep those instincts under control?”
“Magic.” I knew I had to explain more than that even before he blinked at me. “Honestly. There’s science involved but basically what’s been passed down is that we were originally a separate species of human like most paranormal groups.”
