2. Man of science

HOLDEN’S POINT OF VIEW

 I can hear Nick skipping down the stairs and humming an upbeat song. If I didn’t know the guy as well as I do, I’d say he just got laid.

 “Morning, Alpha,” he says.

 “Beta” I reply.

 “Princess. Dragon. Satan” he nods at my siblings.

 Darcy, a.k.a. Satan, my youngest half-brother, blows raspberries at Nick, who mimics him. Soon, Sophie, my half-sister, and Dorian, my other half-brother, join them and they’re seasoning my breakfast with their collective spit. Great. Chef’s kiss. Which one of them is five, again?

 “Please eat, Nick. I’m in a hurry today. I have lab duty all day and I want to take a look at the barracks before I leave” I say.

 “Sure. Olivier is already there” my Beta replies.

 “Course he is” I chuckle.

 Olivier is one of my closest friends, and the only reason he isn’t a future ranked wolf is I ran out of ranks… In five years, when I become Alpha, Nick will be my Beta, Rhys will be my Gamma, and Sally will be my Delta. Olivier will be right by our side as we lead together.

 “With a Luna…” Hendrix, my wolf, chimes in, and I roll my eyes.

 In most packs, I would already be an Alpha by age 22. But my father and I have an agreement. I’ve chosen to pursue further education, and I’m now starting my master’s at the University of Waterloo. Father has agreed to wait until I finish my Ph.D. before passing me the title. Grandfather waited for Father to finish his MBA; I’m just going into a different area of study. I hope it works out.

 Even though Waterloo is a human city, it’s adjacent to Ghost Pack territory and is, therefore, under our protection. I’ll be spending many hours a week away from the pack - either taking classes or doing my lab hours. Nick and Rhys have been stepping up and taking some Beta and Gamma duties already, preparing for their future roles. I know that I can count on them.

 But today is the big day.

 “It is a big day indeed,” Hendrix says in my head.

 Today, the new Cadets are reporting for duty. Some of them are coming from other territories or from human cities. They’ll go through orientation and get comfortable in the Barracks. Then, later tonight, they’ll join all the ranked wolves at the Small Hall for a welcoming dinner. Welcoming the Cadets should be mine or our Beta and Gamma’s duty, but Nick, Rhys, and Olivier are the ones doing it. Teamwork makes the dream work, I guess. It’s unfortunate that I have lab duty today, I wish I could be here. The Cadet Program is something I really believe in, and I’ve worked really hard on it.

 But I need to be at the lab to get my Master’s. Besides, I actually enjoy the work there. Officially, Professor Adam Tremblay and I are researching the heredity of hemophilia. Sorry if that sounds like gibberish to you. We’re doing research in biochemistry, all right, but that’s just the front. Dr. Tremblay is also a werewolf, from a neighboring pack, and we’re studying our species’ particularities. Ranks, authority, the mate bond.

 If it weren’t for my work with Dr. Tremblay, the mate bond-suppressing drugs wouldn’t be this efficient. Scientists at Selene University, in D.C., first started to develop those drugs 20 years ago, and they work more often than not. In the past three years, I have been working closely with Dr. Tremblay to help improve their efficiency. Father’s generous donations to the University have made research a lot easier and have kept it under wraps. In cooperation with Selene University and other scattered werewolf scientists, we now have a 100% effective drug.

 Or so we thought. Last year, something happened. My sister, Alice, became a Cadet and was given the same medication as everyone else. She took the same oath as everyone, said the same words, and drank mine and Father’s blood from the same cup. But her rank never changed. The combination of the oath, blood, and medication is supposed to override whatever natural rank you already have and turn you into a separate category, a Cadet. It should make your wolf’s eyes grey. Alice’s stayed Alpha red. That was the red flag.

 We give the Cadets MBS – Mate BullShit –

 “It’s Mate Bond Suppressant, asshole” Hendrix cuts in.

 Right. We give them MBS so that their pheromone production and perception will be altered, and they won’t be able to sense their mate or emit the signals that would make another werewolf sense a Cadet as their mate. It works for all ages and genders, and it also works if only one of them is a Cadet. In recent years, we’ve also been able to develop a drug that dulls a Cadet’s perception of a she-wolf’s heat. This has brought so much clarity to same-sex mated pairs, it’s crazy. We really are conducting groundbreaking research here, both at Ghost Pack and at the University of Waterloo. I fucking love science.

 The people in D.C. and the United Packs don’t –

 “The U.P. is a joke,” Hendrix says.

 They don’t really like this kind of fringe research, but, by werewolf laws, we are allowed to do that within our territory to our pack members as long as they’re fully informed consenting adults.

 Last winter, we had the privilege of hosting Alpha Luc, Luna Lorraine, and their children, from the Étoile Filante Pack, in Quebec City. Color me surprised when Song, Alice’s wolf, scented Savannah, Alpha Luc’s daughter, as her mate.

 No, not because she’s a girl, we’ve known Alice’s gay for ages. We were surprised because the MBS was supposed to override that. Dr. Tremblay and I took samples and ran tests and tried all we could to figure out what went wrong. D.C. and the U.P. also got samples, heck, we sent our results to any researcher who was remotely interested in it. The best we could come up with is that Alice being of Alpha blood made the drug less effective on her, and that Sav also being of Alpha blood meant her pheromones were a lot stronger.

 No other person of Alpha blood had ever tried any variation of MBS. Even though there’s extensive research proving its safety and monitoring its effects, most Alphas consider it an unnecessary risk. Alice stopped taking the drug and special arrangements were made for her. As the Alpha’s daughter, she could drop out of the Cadet program any time she wanted to, but her sense of duty and her stubbornness made her stay. She’s now starting her second year in the Program, and begrudgingly accepted to move out of the barracks and back into the Pack House to her own suite with Sav.

 “And that fucker Bob” Hendrix growls. The cat. He means Sav’s cat.

 “What’s gotten into you today, dude?” I clap back.

 “I don’t know, man, I’m just antsy. Fidgety” he grumbles.

 “Are you a thesaurus, now?”

 “Fuck you”.

 We finish our breakfast in companionable silence, and I monitor my siblings as they place their dishes in the dishwasher. They’re only 10, 8, and, 5, so they can’t be trusted with it. Yes, I mentioned three siblings, plus Alice. I am the oldest of five. Father and Mom had me and Alice together, then Father met his fated mate, Daphne, and they had Sophie, Dorian, and Darcy. I have no idea why my dad felt the need to spread his genes so much –

 “When we find our mate, you will,” Hendrix says in a sing-songy voice.

 Mom eventually found her fated mate, Gene, and they-

 “Never spread those Genes” Hendrix steals my joke.

 When I was 9, Mom and Father got a divorce – in a very human way. The divorce rate for fated mates is close to zero, but non-fated couples run the same risk as any human couple. Which means, more often than not, they end up breaking up. Mom always respected the mate bond and never chose to become a Luna. She says she always knew that role wasn’t meant for her.

 Their divorce raised a few eyebrows among the conservative and religious people in the pack. They had mated and marked, and chosen mates are held in high regard. Of course, as werewolves, we long to find our fated mates, but a chosen bond is just as powerful and is very common – especially among ranked wolves who often choose ranked members from other packs for political alliances or for *gag* breeding purposes.

 After their divorce, Mom moved into her own suite in the Pack House so they could co-parent. About a year later, when Father met Daphne, they had a guest house built in the backyard. For a while, right after Sophie was born, Alice moved in with Mom. Not being the Alpha’s little princess was hard on her. But we made it all work. A couple of years later, when Gene came into the picture, they decided to have a house built next to the Pack House, which is where they live now.

 “What, you’re not gonna mention their dogs?” I ask Hendrix.

 “I’m fine with the dogs,” he says.

 Mom and Daphne aren’t exactly friends, but they’re friendly. Mom and Gene often babysit Sophie, Dorian, and Darcy, and there is no creature in this universe who could ever not like Gene. He’s the definition of a goofball.

 So, yeah, our family dynamics aren’t very conventional for a werewolf family, and it’s unheard of for an Alpha to reject his chosen mate after marking and mating and having pups.

 Believe it or not, their separation is what first got me interested in researching the biology of the mate bond. When they were together, my parents never acted like a lovey-dovey fated mated couple. They were in love, you could see that, but it wasn’t like their worlds revolved around each other. A chosen mate bond doesn’t trigger a she-wolf’s heat, which is why Mom and Father only had two kids.

 Then, when Father and Daphne got together, I started to notice the differences in the way their relationship worked. It was insane. It’s like their body was highjacked. They were enslaved by the mate bond. Something inside them just pulled them together and made it so they couldn’t be happy without each other. Suddenly, Father’s life wasn’t about being a great Alpha and a great father. It was about being a great Alpha who can only excel by his Luna’s side.

 “Exactly” Hendrix scoffs.

 I don’t resent Father for finding love again. And I don’t resent Daphne either. It’s not like she’s a homewrecker who came into our family and caused Mom and Father to separate. They were already divorced and doing all right. What I do resent is the mate bond. How it changes how a person sees the world, sees themselves. How it changes how a person lives.

 That’s why I convinced Father to use MBS in our Cadets – so we would be sure their two years in the Program were fully dedicated to it. And that’s why, after the Alice-Sav debacle, I decided to become the second werewolf of Alpha blood ever to take MBS. So I won’t be highjacked by the bond and so Dr. Tremblay and I can study how the drug works in an Alpha werewolf.

 “Won’t even matter” Hendrix huffs.

 “Whatever”.

 Once Daphne arrives in the dining room, Nick and I say our goodbyes and go to the Barracks. We take a quick glance around. Rhys and Olivier seem to have everything under control. I drive into the city to fulfill my lab hours. I mentally prepare what I want to say to the Cadets at the welcoming dinner.

 “Fucking 9 PM dinner is no dinner” Hendrix growls.

 “You really are weird today”.