Seeing Leo fully shifted was jarring. He was jet black, with fluffy fur, much larger than I expected him to be.
“They’re so cute,” I said aloud.
“I have to agree. And that’s good for her,” Jasper said. “She should learn to run with other wolves. One day, she’ll need to run in a pack.”
Pack. Right. The conversation we had yesterday came back to me. This seemed like a good pack for her to grow up in, and not only that, but I could see this being our future.
Ari caught my eye and stopped, causing Leo to roll through the grass to avoid running into him.
“Hi Mom!” she called. “Leo made breakfast, and now we're playing wolves.”
I wouldn’t say they wereplayingwolves, more that theywerewolves, but she was having fun. “I see. I’m glad you’re having fun.”
“Breakfast is inside. Ari, why don’t we shift back and play inside for a little while?”
“Kay.” She paused and seemed to be repeating the steps Hawthorne taught her yesterday.
“You got this, Ari,” Jasper said.
She started morphing, her body changing back. Everything shifted save for her ears and the tail I saw swishing behind her. They were still pointed and sticking out from the sides of her head.
“It’s not working,” she said, sounding frustrated.
“That’s okay,” Hawthorne assured her. “It takes practice. One day, you’ll be really good at it.”
She sighed. “Okay.”
“And you look cute with the ears,” I told her.
Her frown turned up a bit. “Really?”
“Really.” And she was. “Why don’t we go inside have another pancake?” I asked.
“Yes!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
HAWTHORNE
As much as I wished to stay home Monday morning, I had to go to the pack house and get a bit of work done. I dropped Jasper off at the clinic before heading over.
Everything went as normal. I spent most of the day going through requests of pack management, which was what I typically spent most of my Mondays doing.
Right before I planned to leave for the day, Amir walked into my office. “Pack Alpha Hawthorne,” he greeted, oddly formal. “We have a problem.”
“What’s going on?”
“Remember last week, I told you we got correspondence from the Mislulu pack?”
“Yes, I recall.” I was going to read the note…eventually. I wasn’t the best at checking them, and had forgotten until now.
“Apparently, it was one of the leaders from that pack coming to speak to you about something they found.”
“What did they find?” Without an alpha to lead, the Mislulu pack had a congregation of leaders, though that wasn’t ideal for them. Packs had alphas to lead as a show of strength, andwithout one, they could look vulnerable to other packs who wanted to encroach onto their territory.
“They claim there was an alpha in the database who had an exam conducted here, and they claim it’s theirs.”
My blood ran cold. “What?”
