Prologue
Gabe sat on the grass and watched the kids playing. He’d thought about joining them, but that wasn’t his way. He was more likely to wait for one of them to get hurt, because someone always did. He was going to be a doctor when he grew up, he was sure of it. But at sixteen, he knew he had a long way to go until that happened.
Gabe glanced over when he felt someone near, and smiled at Tyler. Tyler would be the person to join the kids, so Gabe was surprised when he didn’t.
“Maggie Morehouse, do you know her?” Gabe said that he only knew her by name. “She was killed yesterday. Some idiot pulled her into the woods and killed her. I heard Mom and Dad talking about it this morning.”
“Do they know who did it?” Tyler shrugged and Gabe turned to look at the kids in the pond. “I keep waiting on one of them to fall off the big rock and bash their head. I don’t know why humans are so dumb when it comes to checking things out before they leap.”
“Do you suppose that they have any idea that there are a couple of wolves watching them, a bear, and a cat? Or that any or all of them could run them down, kill them, then run off so’s no one will ever find them?” Gabe said he doubted that they even knew they were trespassing. “Mr. Cartwright, he’d sure be all over them if he knew they were here.”
Gabe pointed to the line of trees just in front of them. “He’s been sitting there watching them since I came up here. I think he just likes watching them have fun. Or like me, he’s waiting for one of them to be hurt.”
“He told me last week that you were going to amount to something. I told him that I’d already figured that out on my own.” Gabe thanked his little brother. “You’re welcome. Do you think I might too? Amount to something, I mean?”
“I don’t see why not. I mean, we all have to go to college. Don’t know how Mom and Dad are going to manage that, but they sure are pushing us. You should think on it now what you want to be. So when the times comes for you to go, you’ll have a better idea.” Tyler nodded. “Do you know what it is you want to be?”
“Yes, I was thinking on being a cop.” Gabe nodded. He’d be a good cop, the way he seemed to be able to read people. “Or a lawyer. I don’t know about that so much. Mom and Dad sure think they’re an odd bunch.”
“You have some time. Just figure it out, like I said, and you’ll be good at whatever it is.” He looked at the kids again when he heard screaming. He knew someone was in pain, but he wasn’t going to save them, not from their own parents. The switch going through the air and smacking hard against their bare skin was funny. “Tyler, someday I’d like to be able to find me a mate, and make her the happiest person in all the world. I talked to Mr. Cartwright about how to make a mate happy, and he said it was all in how you presented yourself. Honesty, he said, was the first step.”
“Are there a lot of steps, you think?” He told Tyler there were ten and he was learning them all. “Ten steps to make a girl like you? Sounds like too much work. And if she’s already your mate, what do you care if you make her happy or not? Girls are just plain dumb if you ask me.”
They were headed back to the house when he thought of the rest of the rules from Mr. Cartwright. There were ten, but they didn’t seem all that difficult. He’d made sure to memorize each one, and remembered that with each rule there was a counter rule. Gabe didn’t know those. Mr. Cartwright told him those changed with the situation. Like if the woman was nice, headstrong, or just plain stubborn. He hoped she was the first, like his mom.
The house that they lived in wasn’t small, but it sure was crowded when they sat down to dinner, and Mr. Cartwright coming over made it a bit tighter. But he’d not change it for the world. He loved the old man like he was his grandda, and he had the best advice when Gabe asked him for it. Smiling, he thought of the dinner that they’d be having tonight. His favorite. Pork chops on the grill with cheesy potatoes, and green beans from the garden.
The pork chops had come their way by a gift card from the local grocery store. They’d been having monthly drawings for people that brought in their own bags and helped with the recycling bins. He had been working in the store for nearly three months now, and his momma had won the thing four times. He thought that she was the only person that brought in her own bags, but it was more because she could carry the extra weight that her large bags would hold rather than the flimsy plastic ones.
As soon as he entered the house he could see the tension in his parents. Mr. Cartwright was sitting at the table drinking a cup of tea and his mom was wiping down the clean counter. His dad was leaning against the wall, but he was far from relaxed.
“Something going on?” They all turned to him and he backed up. “What’s happened? I’ve not been around today, but I might have left something undone.”
“It’s not you, son. We heard from the pack master. Daniel was saying that that young woman that was killed yesterday, she was murdered by a pair of wolves.” Gabe sat down and thought of all the things that could go wrong with that knowledge. His mom continued as she rubbed harder on the surface. “They know who it was…they were a part of our pack, and the pack is going to deal with them.”
He knew what she meant, how they would be dealt with, as well as what would happen to their families if they had any. Daniel was a good man, a good leader, and wouldn’t kill the families as most would. But they would be turned out. Having no pack would be hard on a person. They were what kept you safe and full when things were rough.
Later that night, he was sitting in the window just looking out when he saw the fires. Gabe watched them for ten minutes while trying not to think of what it meant. Caleb asked him if he was all right.
“I don’t know what to think. But I believe that they’re burning their homes down with all their things inside. Both of those families had nothing to do with the murders, and now they have nowhere to go.” Caleb got out of the bed and came to sit in the other window. “That’s not right. I can’t believe sometimes that we belong to a place where rules like this are enforced.”
“The Zenick family was harboring their uncle. He’d even bragged to them about how he’d killed the woman, yet none of them raised a hand to help Daniel figure it out. They didn’t tell him anything until he commanded them to.” Gabe hadn’t heard that and told his brother so. “The Daltons knew as well. One of the boys even filmed the rape and murder of the woman so they could see where they’d made mistakes and could do better the next time. And they had that planned as well. Their plan was to take two women, one of them pack.”
He looked out the window, then at his brother, when something occurred to him. “Mom? Or Alisha?” The pack bitch, Caleb told him. “I had no idea. I wonder why Daniel didn’t kill them too?”
“Because he’s a good man.” Gabe nodded, but said nothing else as Caleb continued. “I don’t know that I’d have been able to do that, let them live. To have your family ripped from you the way that they did would be hard to live through.”
“When I have a mate, I’m going to make sure that I protect her with all that I am.” Caleb asked him what if she was stronger than him. “Nah, I’m going to be her protector. And her mate. She’ll be delicate and soft, like Mom is.”
“Mom is neither of those things. She’s wonderful, but you get her upset and she’d bash your head in with a bat and not think a thing about it.” There was that. “She’s a wonderful mom, but I sure don’t see her as delicate or soft. And I don’t know if I’d tell her that either.”
Gabe went to bed. He thought about what his brother had said, and wondered if he knew what he was talking about. Even if their mom was a little tense when she was upset, he wasn’t going to give his mate any reason to be mad at him. Gabe was going to be the perfect mate to his little flower.