Chapter 1 The Third Son

I sigh I was run my fingers through my dark brown hair, my duffel bag nearly packed with the essentials I will need to last for 4 or 5 days. I really don’t want to go; I really don’t want to do much of anything anymore. At 21 years old I have been to too many of these dances only to leave alone. I can’t find her and its really starting to affect my daily life. Some days I just stay in bed all day not even leaving my room to train or eat. Someone knocks on my door and my sister calls to me. “Hey Ben? You decent?” A second later she pops her head in my room with two dresses in hand “I can’t decide which one to wear, the red one or the black?” She holds up each one and neither one has enough cloth to be considered a dress.

“Neither” I say gruffly. “What about the light blue one with the sleeves? Its October and we are going further into the mountain range remember?”

“OH yeah, I forgot. We’re heading north into North Carolina, not south down the mountain.” She thinks for a moment. “That dress could work….hey!” She runs into my closet and pulls out a similar dress shirt. “Why don’t you wear this, we could compliment each other!”

I smile, its clear she is trying to cheer me up. “Okay Lil, I’ll wear it. But I have a feeling no one is going to be looking at me, they will be too busy checking you out.”

She flips her blonde ponytail over her shoulder. “I only want one person to be looking at me, I hope he is there tonight.” She bit her lip and looked at me sadly. “I hope the Goddess lets us both find the one tonight.” Her arms wrap around me comforting me.

“Yeah,” I laugh sadly, “I doubt it though, it seems I am just too unlucky.” I pull her away and look her deep in the eyes. “I really hope mine and Jake’s bad luck hasn’t rubbed off on you. But…don’t be too disappointed if you don’t find him.”

Lily nodded, “Have you heard from Jake lately?”

I frowned, “No, last I talked to him he was close to Portland I think.” I rubbed the back of my neck, “he hasn’t had much luck either, he sounded really lost when he called me.” Jake was approaching his 23rd birthday still without his mate, his other half. I check the clock; we have to be ready to go in less than a couple hours. “Hey, you had better get ready, you still haven’t done your hair or makeup!” I tease as she pouts.

“Are you blind? I already did my makeup!”

“Yeah, and its caked on like frosting, go do it again.” I’m only looking out for my baby sister; out of all our siblings she is the only girl so all her life there have been the three of us brothers there to protect her. I worry though, once she finds her mate she will probably leave our pack and move into theirs. Yes, it is custom that the femme wolves will move into their mate’s pack but in the past couple of decades it is not unheard of for the male to move. It mostly depends on who’s wolf is stronger and which of the two packs are stronger. Lily is not weak by any means and is strong enough to bring even betas to their knees in combat. Plus, she fights dirty; I smirk because she learned most of her dirty tricks from me.

She shows me her tongue before running out and teasing me back. “You better hurry and take a shower! You don’t want your mate to smell you and pass out from the stench!”

“Hey! I don’t stink!” I yell back. I raise my arm to be sure…a shower couldn’t hurt I suppose.

A couple hours later we are piled in the car, my father driving with my mother beside him. Me and Lily in the back. My eldest brother and his mate stayed behind with Dad’s beta to watch over the pack. Many of our unmated members where following behind us, our pack was not huge compared to others in the South East region of the US but we weren’t tiny either, our numbers reaching almost 400 total. I wondered about the SilverFang pack. It was really odd how the hosting pack was changed so suddenly but every time I asked Dad about it he changed the subject. Something else the original host pack’s Alpha suddenly stepped down as well due to medical issues. Not many things could bring down an alpha, we as a species rarely get even a cold and an alpha’s immune system is more potent than a normal wolf.

It’ll take about an hour to get there by car, the joys of mountain living, our wolves could cross the terrain and get to the SilverFang pack in less than thirty minutes but due to the way the roads were built we were forced to go around our elbows to get to our butts so to speak.

Lily shifts again, clearly nervous. “Hey Daddy, are the rumors true? Is the alpha of this pack…really possessed by a demon?”

He glanced at both of us in the rearview mirror. “Remember, since we renegotiated treaties and alliances a couple months back we haven’t anything to worry about. I was good friends with the previous alpha and Alpha Sam respects our past. But I will warn you, do not show any disrespect; the new alpha is powerful….and has a really bad temper.”

“What do you mean?” Lily asked, a little more nervous.

“That’s all I care to say on the matter Lily.” He retorted, his alpha command making himself clear. “But no,” he continued after my Mom gave him a stern look “the alpha is not possessed by a demon.”

After awhile I could feel the tension in the car rising again. My sister’s aura showing her anxiety and restlessness. So, I did the best thing I knew to do in situations like these. “So, it’s a good thing I didn’t need to bring but a duffel bag, you brought so much stuff if there was anymore we would have needed a U-haul!”

She slapped me on my arm. “Hey! Everything I brought was important! We are staying longer than everyone else remember. Mom and Dad need to stay to help with any of our pack who may be transferring!”

“Are you sure you brought enough stuff though? 4 bags of crap for 4 days away seems excessive!”

“You’re a guy you don’t understand!” She slapped me again.

“HEY YOU TWO” My Mother yelled, her Luna tone bringing us back to behaving. “Stop acting like a couple of kids and act your age!”

“But Mom we will always be your babies remember?” Lily pouted with her best puppy dog face on full display.

Mom sighed and leaned back into her chair. “My mother always said my kids will one day be worse than me, damn was she right.”

The car pulled off the highway and onto a dirt path, we sat in silence as the car slowly made its way in, we were almost there. In the path in front of us stood a man dressed in a tux and he waved us down. My father rolled the window down to speak.

“Name, Pack, and how many in this car?” The attendant asked.

“Alpha Eric, my Luna Mary and two of our children. We are from the Black Hill pack. There are several cars from my pack behind us somewhere, I believe about 30 wolves total will be attending.”

The attendant nodded as he entered some information into his tablet. “Yes sir, thank you Alpha.” He pointed down a secondary path that we would have missed if we weren’t looking for it. “Please follow that way, you will cross a small bridge and from there you will see our pack’s main gate. We are asking everyone with title to go in that way so that you will be closer the pack house. Our Gammas will have your rooms assigned to you, if you have any questions or problems someone from our pack will help you.” He smiled and bowed slightly.

Father nodded, thanking the attendant and drove down the path. I reached over and lowered the window on my side, letting the cool autumn breeze blow my face. We crossed the bridge and reached the gate, as we entered my sister suddenly tensed and lowered her window and breathed in deep. She looked around suddenly with her eyes wide.

I already knew the answer, but I asked anyway. “What’s up Lily?”

She glanced at me and our parents “I think he is here; I smell him but its faint.”

“He must have arrived right before us then.” Mom responded.

“Or this could be his pack” Dad added. “As soon as we get to the packhouse you can go look for him. I don’t want you jumping out of his car while its still moving.”

Mom chuckled. “But dear, that’s exactly what you did. And you were driving at the time.”

“That’s not important right now.” Dad smiled. “Once you find him I expect to meet him.”

“Yes Daddy!” She smiled happily. I’m truly happy for her, the curse that my brother and me were under didn’t affect her.

We quickly parked the car, a valet came over and while he and my dad talked Lily just stood in one spot, shifting her feet from one to the other and biting her lip nervously. I rolled my eyes and gave her a gentle shove. “What are you doing kid? You better hurry and go before he sees you and runs the other way.”

She shot me a glare before gesturing to herself. “You think he can resist this? Please!” But she did turn around and scurry off to get her destined.

“Remember what your father said!” Mom yelled at her retreating figure. She then turned to me, gesturing me along too. “Go, have fun! Your father and I will handle things here and join you.”

Have fun, I thought sadly, my heart was already heavy cause I’m not expecting anything different from the other mate dances I have been to, but I slap a smile on my face to not worry her. “Okay mom.” I look over to the huge building that looks brand new. ‘Here goes nothing.’ As I begin to walk away the wind whips again and I smell it in the freshly fallen leaves around me. A smell that doesn’t belong-spring flowers and young grass. I freeze and turn back to my mom who has an interested look on her face. She says nothing but suddenly my dad turns around and looks at me, they must have messaged each other.

My dad walks over to me and places his hand on my shoulder. “Everything okay son?” He asks with clear worry in his voice.

I swallow, looking around me to for anyone who could be close by. “I think she is here.” I say cautiously, as if fate would see my trepidation and make her vanish. “My mate.”