She was down there somewhere right now, Trace knew.
The upper level of the Blackwood lodge had a terrace where one could sit and look out and down onto the town of Reynolds Hollow, the surrounding valley, and the opposite mountain. Right now, the only lights in the panorama were the street lamps and the few lights in the houses in town, and the broad, glittering splash of stars in the sky. Trace, sitting in full wolf form on the terrace, looked down onto the sprinkling of lights in the town and wondered if one of them might belong to the window of Grady Shaw’s daughter.
His very beautiful, very fresh and untried eighteen-year-old daughter who had never known the penetration of man or wolf. And he licked his wolfen chops and parted his snout wide in a wolfen yawn. It was not a yawn of fatigue or tiredness so much as the yawn of pent-up energy, churning unspent inside him, wanting an outlet.
Trace could not escape the thought of it. There she was, Crystal Shaw, soon to embark on the journey of a young woman’s life without the benefit of the one sweetest experience in anyone’s life. She’d yet to have her First Time. He thought of it that way, in capital letters: her First Time, that one time that opens the door to all the other times over the course of a lifetime. Crystal had not had hers yet.
This was spring, the mating season for wolves and werewolves alike. It was a pivotal time when new heirs to wolf and werewolf packs were most likely to be conceived, and when rites of passage took place. For common humans, it was prom season. But for lycans, it was something just a bit more.
There was something else that happened in the lives of young lycans on prom night. For the young people of Reynolds Hollow, it happened at a special spot in the forest outside of town. There, after the usual party attended by werewolf and human kids together, the lycan youths would gather for what was generically but meaningfully called the Revel. They would have torches and lanterns lit. In the clearing and in secluded spots in the surrounding forest, they would have tents pitched and sleeping bags laid out.
They would play music, strip themselves nude, and dance around a central fire, morphing back and forth from human to wolf. And then they would pair off, partnered up, and retire to their tents or their bedrolls—and they would celebrate the spring as only young werewolves could. The forest would come alive with the sounds they would make, the yowls and growls, the grunts and groans and moans, the huffs and puffs, human sounds mixing with wolf sounds. And the place would ripple with the noises of their thrashing and rolling and rutting and humping. Many a lingering virginity would be finally cast aside during the night.
Squinting at the lights of the town, Trace licked his chops again. Crystal Shaw’s virginity might well be among the last to go. And still, he envied the wolf boy who’d have the privilege of taking it.
Trace had heard so many stories about prom night in Reynolds Hollow and the Revel. The experience of going to school in the little town that his family’s lodge overlooked was one that he had missed completely, as he had been to the valley only in the spring and summer and been educated in private schools in the city. But he had met other young people who had grown up in Reynolds Hollow, and they had told him about the things that the kids of the town did that night. And even though Trace had by no means had a sexless adolescence, he had always been fascinated by that one revel that took place every spring.
It had become the stuff of his fantasies. Yes, ironic as it seemed, Trace Blackwood, the sophisticated, well-traveled, and experienced heir to a wealthy lycanthrope family, who had never lacked for female company in bed and had bedded wealthy, privileged, and sophisticated women both human and lycan (including several women from Reynolds Hollow), had for years held a fantasy about being a small-town teenage werewolf sharing in something that was not an orgy (there was a strict taboo against sharing or exchanging partners, and anyone who tried it would be forcibly expelled from the Revel) so much as it was a celebration of being young and being both human and wolf. It was the one thing, or so it seemed to him, that his money could not buy.
And yet, he realized, he was rich, and he had other options. One of them had just presented itself tonight.
As if on cue, his father’s voice came up behind him. “Trace, you seem to be a bit distracted.”
Trace looked behind him and saw his father standing there in human form in silk pajamas and robe, holding a brandy, looking every bit the distinguished and urbane gentleman, regarding his son curiously. Trace watched Roman take a warming gulp of brandy. He morphed to half-wolf and sat his human-shaped wolf body down on the terrace to talk to his father. “I’m just thinking,” he said.
“Oh? About…?”
“Just…things,” Trace replied. “About tonight. And…the plans we talked about.”
Roman furrowed his brow and nodded. “Are you excited?”
“I’m always excited about a party, Dad,” said Trace.
“But this won’t be just a party,” Roman reminded him. “There are decisions to be made.”
“Dad, I don’t have to decide the whole rest of my life at one party. As a matter of fact, a party is the worst time to make up your mind about a thing like that.”
“Ah. So now my son who’s spent his whole life avoiding over-thinking things and going with his instincts—especially about females—turns cautious and circumspect.”
Trace shook his head, mildly frustrated. “You make me sound like I’ve never thought through a decision in my whole life.”
“Perhaps that wasn’t fair,” Roman allowed. “You’ve never had to think about much, after all. I suppose this really is the first time in your life that you’ve ever been expected to think something out.”
“And I don’t want to sound like I don’t appreciate anything, because I do. I know how good I’ve got it, and I appreciate it. But the party—this is about having a look at things, seeing what’s out there, having people get a look at me. I’m not the only one having to think and make a decision about this. There’ll be some of that on both sides. It’s the rest of someone else’s life too, you know.”
“I know that,” Roman agreed. “I’d just rather it didn’t take too long. I must step down, son. And the pack cannot be without an Alpha. And the Alpha must have a mate.”
Trace bowed his wolf head on his wolf-furred human shoulders and snuffled. “I know, that, Dad. And I appreciate that too. I guess it’s just the time of year this is.”
“How so?” Roman asked.
With a sidelong glance over his shoulder and back at the town, Trace replied, “It is spring, after all. The world waking up, life starting up again—things changing, etcetera. You know, a lot of young people down there are going to have a lot of other things on their minds besides just what we’ve got planned.”
“That’s true. A lot of them will be graduating, and they’ll have their colleges picked out.”
“Right. A lot of them already have their plans made. They won’t even have been thinking about a thing like this.”
“Trace, I know you’re not thinking of selecting someone that young,” said Roman, now sounding concerned. “There should be plenty of attractive female lycans out there closer to your own age. You should be thinking about one of them.”
“And what about the ones my own age?” Trace gently argued. “Dad, did any of us stop and think about what time this is? It’s 2017. It’s not some bygone age where things might have been done like this. It’s not the way people choose their mates now.”
Roman could not help but chuckle. “Isn’t it? Trace, have you spent so much time copulating in bed that you haven’t watched any television? There are whole shows about people being presented with possible choices for mates, and what they go through to select one.”
“Those shows are idiotic, Dad,” Trace said with a hint of a growl of protest. “And how many of those so-called ‘matings’ that are hooked up on TV actually work? How many of them really last?”
With another swallow of brandy, Roman firmly said, “Those people are only human. We are lycans. We’re better at staying together, regardless.”
Trace shook his head again. “I just think it’s kind of a backward way of doing things.”
“And how would you prefer to be introduced to prospective mates?” his father asked, seriously. “Have you a better way? Should we use the Internet, where the whole world can log on and know who we are?”
“That’s worse than TV,” said Trace.
“Well, then. This absolutely needs to happen by fall. I can’t remain as Alpha any longer than that, and the longer through the spring and into the summer we go, the more impatient the pack is going to get. We need leadership and continuity.”
“I understand. It’s just…”
“What?” Roman grew more concerned at the tone in his son’s voice.
“I keep thinking about the kids down there. Our kind and humans, they’ve got a whole world of choices in front of them. They haven’t got things cut out like this.”
“Ah. And the trees are greener in someone else’s forest.”
“Like I said, Dad, I don’t want to sound ungrateful. It’s just the time of year it is. There are people who feel like the whole world is opening up now.”
“And you think it’s closing for you?” Roman asked. “Is that the way you really feel? Son, the world is as open for you as it is for anyone. You’re better off than the vast majority of people, lycanthrope or human. You will still have the ability to go anywhere you like, do anything you like. The whole world is out there for you as much as it is for anyone else—more than it is for most people. There are no doors closed to you ever. It’s just that whatever you experience now, it must be as the leader of this pack and the father of the Alpha heir. Without an Alpha, the pack has no direction and drifts apart. Without an heir, there’s no future. You know this. And…as the father of the heir, you’ll be able to give your pup everything that you’ve had.”
“And someday, he’ll probably be sitting right where I am now, feeling all these same things,” Trace said, almost melancholy.
“Feeling as if he’s been caught in one of the humans’ traps?” Roman asked. “Feeling as if he could gnaw off his own leg to get free? That’s not the way to feel about this. It’s not the end of life, Trace. It’s turning the page in life. That’s what those young people down there are really feeling. I promise you, none of them feels as if anything is over. They’re all turning the page, just like you.”
Trace said only, “I know you’re right, Dad.” He took in the meaning of his father’s words, doing his best to feel convinced and not necessarily making the best job of it.
Knowingly, Roman replied, “You know I’m right in your head.” And he stepped forward and reached out for his son, and with the hand not holding his brandy, he rustled his fingers through the fur on Trace’s head with all the affection with which he’d petted his son since Trace was a pup and changed for the first time. “Where you have to know I’m right is in your heart. And that will come. Tomorrow, we’ll be working with the Town Hall to identify who’s eligible to be invited up for the party. And then…we’ll see what we’ll see. We will find your mate.”
Trace looked up at Roman, almost feeling as if he were still that little pup with his father tousling his head. “Okay, Dad,” he said.
With a last swallow of brandy, Roman said, “Try to get some sleep, son. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“All right,” Trace softly replied.
Roman turned and exited through the glass doors of the terrace back into the lodge. Trace got up and went back to the railing of the terrace, looking back down on the town again. And into his mind came a most tantalizing and provocative thought.
His father was right, after all. The eligible lycanthrope females of the town would all be getting invitations. And many of them, he was sure, would at least be intrigued. Some of them, at least, were sure to jump at the chance that those invitations would present. After all, being the mate of the Blackwood Alpha would give them access to the most desirable kind of life that anyone human or lycan could want.
They would live in beauty and distinction and never want for anything—especially not the ardent and abundant sex of Trace Blackwood himself. They would not be obligated to answer the invitation or come to the party—but there was no question that the party would be attended. All that remained to be seen was whether one certain female would accept.
Crystal Shaw was eighteen years old. She was of age. It wasn’t only that she was virginal; as far as Trace knew, she was not bonded with anyone else, at least not formally. Did she have a boyfriend? He did not know. There was no way for him to know. But what if she did not? What if she were both untried and un-bonded? Would she accept the invitation? And could there perhaps be some way to encourage her to accept?
Even if Trace had to select some other female as his mate and the mother of the Alpha Heir, the prospect of knowing Crystal Shaw better—much better—was too delicious to resist. If fate were kind, perhaps he could both select a mate for his life and a partner to send out his bachelorhood. Was it possible that he could enjoy the proverbial “one last fling” before turning that page of which his father spoke?
The more Trace thought of the idea, the better he liked it. What better way to end his life as he had known it up until now than by helping a beautiful young female wolf through one of the most important passages of life? What better way to end his bachelorhood than by deflowering a virgin just one more time?
Smiling a wolf’s smile, he licked his chops again.