Chapter 4
Wyatt
Rituals in my world were important.
Wolf packs were more than family, they were survival, and my pack took great pride in everything that kept us together. After all, a lone wolf didn’t survive long.
So, we maintained our traditions, no matter what.
I sat in the barber chair at Luna’s for one such grooming tradition that never quite made sense.
The head hairdresser, Luna, aka Lulu, was my cousin, and she did just as good a trim as Auntie Edie.
But since Lulu was younger and wasn’t a full werewolf, she wasn’t trusted to tame the mop on the future alpha’s head.
So Aunt Edie was doing the job. My hair had unfortunately become a talking point around the pack, and I knew there would be speculation that I’d finally cut it short.
How depressing that my hair length was considered news.
We really needed another mysterious disappearance or something to keep people entertained.
Because the subject of a simple haircut was so controversial, I tended to book my appointments after hours. A perk that I didn’t mind taking advantage of if it meant my mother wouldn’t be breathing down my cloak-wrapped neck.
Aunt Edie was my mother’s younger sister, and like Eloise, she’d been spared the enormous responsibilities that had befallen her older sibling.
Not that I was bitter. I’d been in Eloise’s corner when she’d broken the news to our mother that she was going away for college.
There was nothing I wanted more than to see my little sister live her life without being forced into a box she didn’t fit in.
While I didn’t share the dream of leaving Maple Hollow, I supported my sister’s wishes. And I respected her even more when she returned with a change of heart and her head held high, so unafraid to try and learn and try again.
What I didn’t expect from her coming home was how well she’d slotted right back into the community. She’d instantly won over the townsfolk with her coveted apple cider donuts. She’d even started leading the moonlit hunts.
As proud as I was of her, I couldn’t help feeling a twinge of inferiority, like I was even more of a disappointment to our mother by comparison.
I hadn’t changed form in nearly four years, and the pressure built every full moon.
I was starting to worry that even my deal with a demon wouldn’t keep the change at bay.
But if I shifted, I’d be forced to acknowledge what Willow was to me even more keenly, and I’d want to claim her so badly it might kill me.
What was that saying about rocks and hard places?
“Shall I take a little bit more off?” my aunt asked, instantly cooling my heated thoughts.
I rolled my eyes. “No. I like it like this.”
“Like a scruffy twelve-year-old?”
“It looks fine,” I gritted out.
“The pack alpha shouldn’t have this Connor Storrie cut,” Edie said, ruffling my hair.
I glanced up at her through falling clippings. “How do you even know who Connor Storrie is?”
“Hush.” She pushed my chin back into place, but not before I caught the blush on her cheeks. “If you don’t want to look like a golden retriever celebrity, then why are you still wearing it like this?”
“Is this some sort of reverse psychology tactic?”
“It is if you let me give you a proper haircut.”
The stubbornness on my mother’s side of the family was unparalleled.
I gave a heavy sigh, unwavering in one of the only choices I could still make for myself.
To my surprise, she listened and stuck to the maintenance trim I’d requested. “I’m just saying—”
“You’ve been talking with my mother, haven’t you?”
She guffawed. “Every day since I was born.” She patted me on the shoulder.
“Listen, it was a big deal when Sandra married a Sullivan. And not just any Sullivan, but the next alpha. Your parents’ betrothal elevated our family’s ranking in the pack and our status in this town.
It’s the reason Lulu could get the loan to open this place. ”
“I know.”
She ruffled my hair again. “And now Sandra’s son—my nephew—is going to be our pack leader.”
“Not yet,” I bit out.
“I’m going to put your photo on the wall.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“Why shouldn’t I be proud? You’re a local celebrity,” she pushed. “And the tourists eat that stuff up, thinking all the paranormals on the wall are just a gimmick. I bet you’ll have your own fan page within a year. The Maple Hollow alpha—”
“Edie—”
“Wyatt,” she lamented as she checked the length of my hair in the back. “Your grandfather is getting up there in age. He needs to retire. Usually, alphas step down by their sixties.”
“I know.”
“And he’s seventy-four.”
Irritation started to claw at my temples.
“I know.”
“You’re a big, strapping man in the prime of your life, Wy. It’s time to step up.”
I let out a groan. I didn’t need this. But I saw now that even my aunt—who was, for all intents and purposes, usually the “cool aunt”—had taken up the mantle of official pack nag.
“Maybe you should just tell Willow,” Edie added pityingly.
“Enough!” I snarled, ripping off the cape draped over me and wadding it up into a ball.
“Don’t you snarl at me,” Edie growled, and I knew she would shift just to nip at me. She’d done it before. No one messed with the matriarchs in my family. Even as pack alpha, I knew she would put me on my ass if I ever disrespected her.
“I don’t need this from you,” I muttered, rising and straightening my tattered T-shirt as if it were a fine button-down.
“Well, you need it from someone,” Edie snapped. “I’m not saying you have to end things with her, Wyatt, but it’s time to be honest with her about what’s expected of you—of her—if she wants to be a part of this life one day. She deserves that.”
My lip curled, but I didn’t reply as I stormed out of Luna’s.
I didn’t reply because she was right. Willow deserved to know the truth. But she was wrong about one thing: I couldn’t end things between us because they’d never begun.