Tara #2
Across the table, I noticed my mother blush like the seventeen-year-old she’d been when she met her mate. Just as she always did when Danso reached this part of his story.
Valentina, however, looked slightly horrified.
“Did you not tell him of the Ontario king and the other province and city packs, so that he could find more wolves like himself?” she asked Else.
“Oh, she told him all right,” I replied, defending my mother with a wry chuckle.
“According to Mamm, she encouraged Daed to return to Toronto and find a pack to join and a more appropriate she-wolf to mate with. But Daed refused to see reason and applied to the St. Ailbe’s pack leader for an apprenticeship with a family of carpenters. ”
“This was at the beginning of our problem with low male birth rates. Fortunately for me, the village was eager to welcome male converts,” Danso added.
“Daed spent a whole year here learning carpentry and how to farm, not knowing if my mother would accept him as her mate,” I told Magnus and his parents.
“Oh, no, Daughter. I knew your mother would come to feel for me as I do for her,” Danso corrected. Then he gazed at my mother with the same gentle love he always did.
I felt a sudden burst of consternation flare up over my mate bond, and I looked up just in time to see Magnus shift uncomfortably in his seat. Why had my parents’ meet-cute story bothered him?
Soon after, Magnus firmly steered the dinner conversation towards the subject he’d been discussing with the pack leader. “The one sticking point is the pacifism. Our warrior tradition goes back to the Viking Age and most of our boys are taught from birth to defend our village with sword and rifle…”
Not surprisingly, this topic dominated the remainder of dinner, with the men and Valentina passing opinions back and forth until Magnus suddenly stopped and said, “Tara, what do you think?”
I glanced up in surprise.
“Oh! Well, I think there are several workarounds in the Ordnung we can use,” I answered carefully, keeping my eyes on my plate as I spoke.
“But perhaps we could also increase the age of the training program and make it optional—kind of like we do with the armed forces. If male or female children who grow up in New St. Ailbe decide at sixteen that they want to train as a Highland warrior, they will be permitted to do so for a while and make the decision for themselves.”
“New St. Ailbe?” Magnus asked.
“That’s what we’re calling the village,” I informed him, looking up long enough to smirk. “It’s about time your side of the pond was forced to name itself after a town from our continent. Consider it payback for New Brunswick.”
Naomi’s mouth dropped open and my mother’s eyes widened in shock at my disrespectful tone. But Magnus, Lachlan, and Valentina just laughed.
For a moment I felt like my old self again. Though in truth, this was my new self, wasn’t it?
Like many of the indigenous packs, the St. Ailbe shifters were exempt from the Ontario pack laws, so my name had never been added to the Canadian Registry of Wolves. I also didn’t acquire an official birth certificate or Social Insurance Number until I needed them to attend university.
For all intents and purposes, the woman on my human I.D., the one I’d been presenting myself as up until now, had only existed for ten years.
I’d been Tara, middle daughter of Danso and Else, for far longer. Eighteen years to be exact. Like my father, I’d left everything I knew behind to enter another world. But unlike my father, I’d returned to my former life … this time with my mate.
I pondered these things as I helped my mother and sister clear the table. After the post-meal clean-up was done, Danso broke out the updated Life on the Farm board game I sent them a couple of Christmases ago and encouraged everyone to play.
As soon as Magnus agreed to join, I made my escape, claiming fatigue after all the travel and activity of the last several days.
But even as I rushed upstairs, I knew I wouldn’t be able to avoid Magnus forever. I’d felt his eyes on me throughout dinner, and though he’d yet to ask me questions like Valentina did, I doubted that meant he didn’t have any.
How could he not? If the entire house wasn’t without mirrors, I’d be as shocked by my appearance as I knew he had been when he first laid eyes on me earlier.
The whole experience made me wonder if my situation was at all similar to the strange dichotomy drag queens lived. The careful balancing act of who they were with makeup and who they were without.
I could not recall the last time I’d stepped onto a public street without makeup, and my hands were itching even now to put some on … to don my everyday mask and hide my true self from Magnus.
Instead, I grabbed the paperback I’d borrowed from Milly before my friend and Iain had left out on their extended babymoon. It was called The Beach, and Milly had said it was one of the novels that had sparked her love of travel.
I cracked it back open and let myself get lost in the story. Though, as someone who never wanted to live in another super remote location again, I found it hard to get on board with the concept of a commune far away from civilization …