Deep down, I still believe it is.
While I might go about it a different way myself, I find myself honoring my sisters today. My mother, my aunts. The newly mated females I see everywhere. All these brave women who understand their duties and have put their very bodies on the line to perform them.
It makes me wonder why all the songs we sing are about the deeds of men.
I know the answer, I decide later. The afternoon wears on, and some of those songs are being sung. Less in the usual celebration of the solstice and the end of our gathering today and more in an obvious bid to do something about the mood in the cavern.
Males need the songs, I decide. They need their bravery to be celebrated. Females celebrate their children instead and raise their babies to be better. We play the long game while the men sing and fight, fuck and die.
I have to hope it’s a game we can all stop playing one day, no matter who sings the loudest.
Either way, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who’s relieved when it’s finally time to leave the cavern and head up to the hilltop to watch the sunset. To bear witness to this long, dark night that must be survived before the light comes back.
It’s supposed to be about hope.
I believe it is—it’s just a different flavor, this time around.
As the sun begins to set, Ty climbs high up on his rock. He doesn’t have to quiet the crowd because they all subside as he stands for all to see. I can’t help but think that he looks like a god up there—a proud, strong werewolf male, seemingly chiseled from the very stone he stands upon.
That he’s beautiful as well as powerful is part of the reason he’s so dazzling. So compelling. I can’t pretend otherwise.
I know I chose my outfit right when people look from him to me and I don’t see too many curled lips or rolled eyes that might indicate they don’t get why he’s mine.
Or maybe they’re as intimidated by me—and Ty—as I feel they should have been all along, the assholes.
“My people,” Ty belts out in greeting, and there are answering howls all around. “Tonight is the last night of our gathering. I’ve spent these days getting time with all of you. Some I already knew. Some strangers I’m now proud to know. But one question has been with me throughout this week.”
He looks around, his dark gaze moving through the crowd until I feel it land on me. I stand a little straighter and put my shoulders back, in case he needs the support.
The way he lifts his chin a little higher, I think maybe he does.
I got you,I think, and maybe he even feels that, too.
It’s a huge crowd, but everyone’s quiet. Everyone’s hanging on Ty’s every word.
He keeps going. “I keep wondering why, when the world is completely different than it was three years ago, we’re all clinging to antiquated, old-ass notions of what a werewolf is. What a werewolf can be. What weare.”
There’s rumbling at that. Good or bad, I can’t tell—and I’m in the middle of it.
Ty seems wholly unconcerned. “The vampires in this valley have bargained to keep the sun away. They walk in daylight. That’s only one example. The Kind have renegotiated their own legacies in the wake of the Reveal, their most sacred myths, and made something new. Even the humans, nothing but prey at the best of times, have managed to carve out their own safe zone here in Jacksonville. In places like Jacksonville all over the country.” He lets that sit for a moment. Then he hits them. “Why is it that wolves think we must live in the exact same way we always have?”
There are shouts from various directions now, but Ty pays no attention to those, either.
“I know that tonight is usually a night for petty challenges,” he says. “But I want to throw out a bigger challenge to all of you. Your packs are struggling. Your packs need direction, and they aren’t finding it in these same old ways that we were forced to follow for ages.” He holds up a hand when the shouts get louder. “It’s not my intention to dishonor the paths that our ancestors took. But I can’t be the only one here who thinks it’s time we modernize.”
He holds out his hands on either side of him then. He looks all around, from hilltop to hilltop. “I put myself forward. Not only asaking of my pack, but astheking of all the packs.”
There are howls now. Loud barks, support and horror at once.
“I’m not a power-hungry asshole,” Ty tells the crowd of wolves. “You might think I am, but that’s because I get results and you probably don’t. I can’t fix that for you. What I can do is fix it forallof us. I think it’s time for us to rise. I know—and you know—that I’m the one who can lead us where we need to go. But, my brothers and sisters, you sure as hell don’t have to take my word for it.”
He leaves his hands stretched out to both sides. And I swear, the way he sweeps his gaze over the crowd, he sees each and every wolf here.
“You don’t like it? You think I’m full of shit?” Ty laughs then, loud. Long. Enough to get the attention of every last pack member, friend and foe alike. “Then fight me. I dare you.”
15.
For a moment, it seems like every wolf in the Jacksonville hills is frozen into place. I tense, sure that I canhearall those minds whirling.Did he say that? Does he mean that?
