Back at the den, he peels off to confer with scowling males in low tones. I hear one of them say something aboutstealing our shit, but that could mean anything. What’s important, I’m well aware, is that after a show of independence and what will be seen as a bid for power unbecoming of a female—because anything they don’t like is always considered unbecoming of a female—I need to make a show of putting myself back into the domestic sphere.
It’s important to keep the men feeling safe, after all.
The women have gathered up on the open hilltop to lay out food today. Some are cooking over fires, honoring the old ways. Others are hauling in coolers filled with prepared food from elsewhere. Thebittenwomen are up on the hill too, helping where and how they can—but always careful in the presence of thebloodfemales, who have been known to bite them on occasion.
I move around from one group to another, acting like the hostess my mother keeps telling me I am. It doesn’t matter if I’m unofficial. I’m still Ty’s, and that means something.
More to the point, it would be taken as meaning something else if I didn’t.
I low-key expect everyone to be talking about the fact that I dominated in church yesterday, but they’re not, and I know it’s not because they haven’t heard about it. Few people talk shit more than werewolf males. But insteadof sly comments about when I’m planning to ride with the males and what kind of Harley I like—the kind of thing I’m expecting—there’s a lot of muttering that doesn’t seem pointed at me in particular.
I know better than to ask about it directly.
The thing about female wolf spaces is that everyone gossips, everyone pretends that they don’t, and trying to approach these things head-on is the quickest way to learn nothing from anyone.Directis always interpreted asrude.
This is why it takes me nearly to the lunch we’ve been preparing to understand that one of the packs is missing some of their weapons and explosives, which sound like insane things to travel with until you remember that at any moment a person might be called upon to blow up a nest of manticores or a swarm of werebees while moving around the post-Reveal country.
Taking away someone’s ability to protect themselves and their pack is going to lead to a bloody fight right here in the middle of the gathering. Everyone is amped for it. The only question is—with who?
Accusations are flying hard and fast.
Some folks think it’s the Denver pack, who everyone considers untrustworthy since they separated pretty dishonorably from a greater Midwest pack sixty years ago. Others are certain that it’s the New York pack, because everybody lives to hate New Yorkers.
The Denver and New York packs, obviously, vehemently deny the suggestion that they would need shady weapons from a pissant pack that can’t keep track of their own shit.
By the time the men roll in, the women have managed to litigate these issues about a hundred different times, winding everyone up in the process.
I don’t have to tell Ty any of this. He likely knew before I did, if what I overheard earlier was about this. And besides, he takes one look at the crowd and reads the mood.
“I think it’s high time for an update on our mating rituals,” he announces from his favorite ledge, shifting everyone’s focus immediately.
Not just because it’s fun to be a little voyeuristic about other people’s romantic lives, though it is. But also because females leave their packs and go to their mates’ packs, so the rituals will shift pack dynamics. If all my brothers win mates this week, that’s three more females in our pack and more young, swelling our ranks. Some packs will lose their unmated females and have no one to replace them, meaning their future will be dimmer when they leave.
Mating, as I have been told my whole life, has almost nothing at all to do with the individuals involved.
When I think about it that way, it’s no wonder that so many wolves have an issue with me.
I don’t really want to think about that, so I focus on the unmated women as they take their spots on the staging rock. None of them have dropped out—which doesn’t happen very often, butcould. Fewer males step forward to fight for them, however. Every night, when all the packs gather together to eat and drink and talk aboutbrotherhoodandunitydespite their little factions and petty wars, there’s been more fighting.
Every night, only the winners stay in.
My brothers, as expected, remain undefeated.
“Worthy females deserve worthy mates,” Ty intones, the way he always does as he looks down at the males. “Are any of you worthy?”
The fighting begins anew, and the rest of us sit around and watch it like a sporting event. We wince when some males fall and cheer when others prevail. Up on the staging rock, some of the females murmur to each other. Others are laser-focused on specific fighters.
After a little more brawling, Ty calls a halt. “You can fight some more tonight,” he tells them. “Tonight and tomorrow night are all that’s left before Saturday.”
Saturday is the night before the solstice. The night for mating and celebrating before the darkest night of the year when, usually, there aresurprise challenges and political shit to work out—often with claws and teeth.
I study the mating crowd. It looks like there are about two or three males for each female. Everyone else around me is doing the same math, and packs start cheering from their places. Everybody likes it when there’s a fight.
Some gatherings, the couples sort themselves out too neatly. They declare feelings and connection, and everyone feels robbed. My aunt Sigrid pretends to be above the shenanigans but would be the first to complain that it was all too boring if there were no battles.What real woman would accept a man who didn’t bleed for her when asking for her favor?she would sniff.
Now people are talking about the unprecedented midday fight instead of thievery, which was clearly Ty’s intention. I don’t hear another thing about missing weapons all throughout our lunch.
Afterward, some of the queens want to wander around Jacksonville, which the wolves who don’t live here are calling our Human Museum. It reminds them of the days gone by when they used to worry about what humans might do. When we all did. When we had to keep ourselves hidden.
