I clamped down on the flicker of anxiety, snuffing it out. I was well acquainted with the dangers associated with strolling down that path on memory lane. I also knew from years and years of experience that Callum never lost control; his wolf would never harm a human. In any form, Callum would have died before hurting me. Instead, he took my sass and responded to it just as he always had—with a warning look and the air of someone who was trying very, very hard not to laugh.
Slightly abashed because I’d maligned him with misplaced anxiety (not fear), I took Callum’s silent chastisement and didn’t push back at him.
“Motorcycle.” Callum issued the word as a statement rather than a question, but I felt compelled to answer anyway. That’s the way it was with Callum—once you stopped pushing back, once you submitted, you’d find yourself acting in line with his will. He would have had the same effect on any other human, whether they knew what he was or not. The Mark on my flesh, and the bond between us, let me recognize the compulsion for what it was, but I didn’t fight it.
“A kid from school offered me a ride on his motorcycle,” I said, by way of explanation. “I took it.” I chose not to mention the fact that I’d nearly died of shock at the invitation. The kids in town didn’t mix with those of us who lived in the woods, and I wasn’t generally the kind of girl who drew attention from the male of the species. Any species. “There is a slight chance that the guy in question didn’t want me driving aforementioned ’cycle, but I might have ended up with the keys anyway. I guess I’m faster than he is.”
“I didn’t train you to move so that you could steal motorcycles,” Callum said sternly.
No, I wanted to say, you trained me so that I could run away from fights I couldn’t win—the kind where my opponents had fur and claws and very few weaknesses.
Out loud, I opted for, “I gave the bike back. And Jeff barely even minded.” I did, however, doubt that Jeff would be inviting me to homecoming anytime soon.
“Are you interested in this boy?” Callum asked, his brow furrowing. Despite the fact that he did a good impression of an overprotective big brother, I’d lived under his rule long enough to realize that his concern wasn’t just for me or my heart.
“I have no interest in provoking interspecies aggression,” I said, using the politically correct phrase for incidents involving young, stupid werewolves and young, stupid human males. “And, believe me, if I did, it wouldn’t be for a guy who wouldn’t let me drive.”
I spent enough time resisting testosterone-driven dominance maneuvers in my day-to-day life. The last thing I needed was a human boyfriend who wanted me to play the simpering miss.
Callum stiffened slightly at the idea of my dating anyone, even in the abstract. Werewolves tend to be very protective of their females, and even though I wasn’t anyone’s actual daughter or sister or—God forbid—mate, Callum had ceremonially dug his claws into me when I was four years old. While that had no effect whatsoever on my humanity, by Pack Law, it made me his. As a result, Callum’s wolves owed me their protection, and as far as they were concerned, that made me theirs, too. If werewolves had been into using “property of” stickers, I would have been mummified in them.
I just loved the idea of being owned.
“I don’t like the idea of you on a motorcycle, Bryn. You could get hurt.”
I didn’t dignify that particular concern with a response.
“I’m asking you not to do such a thing again, Bryn,” Callum said, choosing his words carefully, making it clear that this was not an order but a request. Lot of good that did me—Callum’s “requests” didn’t leave much room for noncompliance. If I refused to give him my word, there was a good chance that he would turn the request into an order, and as the leader of our pack and one of the highest-ranked dominant wolves on the continent, Callum’s orders were very close to law. Disobeying an official edict from the alpha meant incurring the wrath of the entire pack—some of whom refrained from sending me to my just rewards only because Callum had likewise forbidden them from killing me.
Framing my orders as requests let Callum keep the pack out of it, and that left him free to deal with me on his own terms, which was sometimes a good thing and sometimes not.
“Bryn?”
“Your request has been noted,” I said, my lips twisting inadvertently into an easy grin. “I don’t anticipate there being any motorcycles in my future.”
I was pushing him again, but I couldn’t help it. You didn’t get to be alpha of the largest pack in North America by winning popularity contests, and Callum was so dominant that the day I stopped pushing back would be the day that I was a member of his pack first and myself second.
To Callum’s credit and my relief, he didn’t push for a firmer promise—probably because there were still two major items left on his Bryn Agenda.
“Your algebra grade is lower than it could be. Education is important, and I’d not have you slacking off, sadistic teacher or no.” His voice took on that odd, old-fashioned lilt he sometimes adopted, a mere remnant of the accent he’d had before coming to this country.
“Right. Algebra.” With the spring semester a month under way, I was getting a solid B-plus, but it could have easily been an A, and Callum had all kinds of lofty ideas about the importance of my living up to my potential. It was impressively modern of him, considering that he predated Women’s Lib by a couple of centuries—at least.
“Did you tell Ali on me?” I asked. When the pack had adopted me, Callum had Marked a second human as well. Alison Clare had come to Ark Valley in search of her sister, who’d left their human family behind when she’d married into the pack. No one had counted on twenty-one-year-old Ali tracking her sister to Ark Valley and unraveling secrets best kept in the woods. Any other alpha would have killed Ali the moment she saw her brother-in-law Shift. Callum had given her a choice.
And then once she’d chosen, he’d given her me.
At present, Ali was thirty-two, 100 percent human, recently married to one of the pack’s males, and my foster mother. Adopted mother. Whatever. Putting a label on Ali’s role in my life was somewhat difficult. I used her last name and had lived in her house for almost as long as I could remember. Despite the fact that she’d been practically a kid herself when Callum had initiated her into our world, Ali was the one who’d hugged and scolded and raised me from a pup (figuratively speaking, of course). Callum was my guardian on paper, but it was Ali who fed and clothed me, Ali who’d set up this studio so that I could have a place that was purely mine, away from the constant pull of the pack, and Ali who would ground me quicker than Callum could say my full name if she thought for a single second that I deserved it.