Chapter 16
Steven
Shifting.
Shifters were creatures of habit. We’d learned to control our primal needs, yet just like hunger for food, we also had a spiritual hunger that manifested itself in times of stress.
That’s why two decades before, parks had been developed to feed our canine needs where we could run free from fear of discovery and persecution.
I’d heard other shifters had similar recreational facilities, but we certainly didn’t offer cross use of our environment. We were predators and couldn’t promise full control once in our natural forms.
But the growth of parks had been discontinued after our existence had been outed.
I’d need to head to upstate Georgia or over to Alabama if I wanted to run freely.
That just wasn’t going to happen. However, after the day’s practice and the level of rage I’d felt, sex wasn’t going to prevent me from losing both control and my freaking mind.
Even with Christine.
Maybe that’s why I was still sitting in my car in the tiny parking lot beside the Wolf Bar. I’d left Tony’s house because several of the guys were coming over for a few beers and to play some darts.
Not only did I want nothing to do with the evening, but I had a feeling they didn’t want me involved either.
Something just wasn’t right. I could feel it.
While my time spent with Christine had manifested in a surge in the darkest of my hungers, the truth was I’d been experiencing restless nights, a desire to spend copious amounts of time deep within forests, and had a hankering for rare steaks over the last few months.
That wasn’t normal.
With the events of the last couple of days, I was concerned that I was losing all sense of control. There were legendary stories about some shifters who abandoned their human side completely, falling prey to a psychosis that eventually turned them mad. When that happened, they became dangerous.
If the stories told to us as children were true, the only way to control their carnal urges was death. Evidently, our ancestors had tried locking them away, but that hadn’t tempered either their anger or their raging hungers.
What if I was turning into a vicious beast?
There was only one man who could provide answers.
My father.
So I dialed his number.
If we were in the same city, I’d head to his favorite place in the whole world, the location where he ran his corporate ventures and led the pack, which was growing larger every day. His study.
I’d loved being in the room as a kid because it smelled of cigar smoke and first edition leather books. He’d always thought he was hiding his smoking habit from my mom, which was ridiculous. She knew everything that happened with and around our family.
“I need your advice, Dad.”
“I thought you might give me a call.” My dad’s voice was gruffer than usual, which meant I’d interrupted him while doing big business. I’d known he had his hands full with some coalition presented by the mayor, not as the leader of the Chicago but as the king of the pride, also large in numbers.
A new trend had emerged since shifters no longer hid in the shadows.
The various species had realized there was strength in numbers, combining various packs or in the case of lions, different prides.
It wasn’t always an amicable alliance, but given our behavior no longer mirrored that of our ancestors, all in all it worked.
Why was it necessary?
Because of the humans determined to erase us from this earth.
“Why is that?” I asked, uncertain I wanted to hear the answer.
“You’re living in Florida, not Italy. We get the news here, son. You’re a household name in Chicago, so as soon as your name dropped as almost beating a man to death, my phone started ringing off the hook.”
“Shit, Dad. I’m sorry. I didn’t do anything of the kind.”
“That’s why I didn’t bother calling. You’re a lover, not a fighter. I knew someone lied about you being in the bar let alone attacking someone.”
“Um, they didn’t lie.”
He grew quiet. “Please don’t tell me you shifted and almost killed this man. If so, tell me now. I’ve got Michael on speed dial.”
Michael, the family and my father’s corporate attorney who’d dug the entire pack out of one potential crisis after another over the years. He and his staff were paid well to be a gate keeper.
And to keep the secrets of the pack.
He was human after all, allowed into the secretive darkness of our world. Sworn to secrecy. I’d heard the man had been forced to take a blood oath to the pack, any discrepancies punishable by death.
Maybe another old wives’ tale to keep the human and his minions in check. But from what I could tell, my father’s strong message had been an excellent deterrent.
“No, of course not. But I wanted to.” It was a difficult thing to admit.
“You wanted to shift or kill him?”
“Both.”
“Uh-huh. Answer me this question. Was a woman involved?”
“How did you know?”
His laugh caught me off guard. “Trust me. Your father always knows. Let me guess. She’s beautiful and you can’t figure out why you can’t stop thinking about her. Right?”
“Well, yeah. She’s just magnificent. She’s the kind of woman who could keep me on my toes. That’s for certain.”
“So this guy in the bar. He hit on your girl?”
“Well, she’s not my girl. As a matter of fact, I don’t think she particularly likes me.” Not that I was going to give him the gory details of the mess I’d gotten myself into.
“Oh, my guess is that she can’t figure out why she’s drawn to you either.”
“I wouldn’t know. She really didn’t like me when I first met her.”
He took a deep breath. “You ask your mother how much she hated me in the beginning too. Women are fickle. You need to handle them just so. Maybe buy her flowers.”
“Oh, don’t mention flowers.”
“Okay, I won’t ask. Did you almost shift when you attacked this guy?”
“I wanted to.”
“But…”
“I came close to shifting earlier today, Dad. It was the second time in days. That hasn’t happened since I was a kid and fell in love with Amber Jones.
Do you remember her?” I laughed at the memory.
I’d been raging hormones and little else, challenging every other young pack member to every contest there was.
I thought my father’s reaction would be completely different. When I heard ice shifting against the side of a glass, I knew he was in deep thought. But I figured he had a huge smile on his face since he’d been forced to fully explain why dating an older woman wasn’t in my best interest.
“I remember. I had to bribe her father with season tickets for the hockey games to keep him from getting you kicked out of school.”
“I didn’t know that.” I had a bad feeling that what he was about to tell me would rock my world even more.
“I don’t always tell you everything, son. A father needs to hold certain things back until the time is right. Unfortunately, I think I waited too long.”
“Too long for what?” As a couple strolled arm in arm toward the bar, I felt a strange pang in my chest. A longing that I hadn’t experienced since being that boy believing he was in love with a girl who was six years older. Six. I’d thought I was a stud muffin.
“Do you remember what happened with your brother and our sweet little Lily?”
“They were forced together to clean up his act. They hated each other. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Then poof, they were in love. Sure, I remember.”
“I’m going to tell you the same thing I told your brother. Your time has arrived.”
“My time. To what, take over the world?”
His laugh was even more gregarious than before. “In a manner of speaking, although this is nothing to make fun of. Put plainly and simply, your body needs a mate.”
“My body?”
“Yeah, all the heavy load of testosterone you’re experiencing, the night sweats and lack of sleep. The change in eating habits. The hunger that has nothing to do with food. Uncontrollable rage. The desire for sex constantly? Does any of that sound familiar?”
As the couple stood outside the door of the bar, I played witness to one of their uncontrollable moments.
Now I wasn’t a prude by any means as I’d done some pretty damn kinky things in my life, but seeing the two of them ripping at each other’s clothes and hearing the hard thud through the metal and steel of my Trans Am as he shoved her against the side of the building just before plunging his dick deep inside her was a little much for me on a Thursday night.
I closed my eyes, but in doing so, every image popping into my mind was of Christine. “Yeah, too familiar.”
“That’s because you need a mate and until your wolf is satisfied internally, you’ll never be able to fully function as a human in the way that allows you to remain anonymous. Are you following me, son?”
“So I need to have sex more often.” Now I was joking, but my laughter died within seconds. “You’re serious.”
“I am.”
“Why now?”
“That’s the way it happens. There’s no rhyme or reason to the timing, at least not that I’ve seen over the past few generations. There simply comes a point that every male needs to find a mate.”
“How did Saint handle the interruption to his life?”
My father could make a point with nothing but his breath sounds, which he was famous for.
When he didn’t like something, you knew it.
“Given he’s considered the best hockey players in the freaking world and has a beautiful wife with at least two pups on the way and a padded bank account, I’d say he is handling everything pretty damn well. ”
“But does he love her or is their coupling about chemistry?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Steven. I don’t know but so much about the other species, but when a wolf mates, there are several reasons why.
Is most of the early connection about chemistry?
You fucking bet it is. If you’d open your senses, you would be able to smell your mate from a mile away.
But if you had, nothing would stop you from getting to her. But alas, I’m stuck in the old ways.”