Weremones (8 page)

Perversely, Adam was of two minds. He missed Paul and his guidance, but he didn’t want Paul telling him what to do. He didn’t want Paul’s opinion anymore, though he was curious how the old wolf would handle the boys.

The boys were not Paul Sheppard’s business. Adam didn’t have to answer to him anymore.

Adam realized that he’d unconsciously bared teeth at the monitor. He gave a little shake and ran a hand over the back of his neck to smooth his hackles, then sat back to absorb his rioting thoughts and feelings.

He’d been so upset about what he’d lost, about having to start fresh here, that hadn’t realized how he’d changed. He’d gone from pack Beta and warden chafing at his Canis’ rules, to handing out rules in his own pack.

Maybe the boys hadn’t fully accepted him because they sensed that he hadn’t wanted to accept them. If Paul offered a place for them now, Adam would fight to keep all five of them right here in his house.

He propped his feet on the desk and crossed his arms over his chest, then tested a new truth.

The boys were not Paul Sheppard’s business.

Adam frowned. True, but that didn’t sound quite right. He rubbed his nose and recrossed his arms. He tried again.

Sire Adam Weis of Canis Anderson.

Better.

To be Sire was to be the Alpha, the Pack Protector, Family Father.

The turmoil that had plagued Adam since last February melted, revealing the hard core that had been hidden from his sight, but not Paul’s. Adam smiled and composed a short note to the other Canis.

Hail, Sire Paul,

Greetings, from Canis Anderson.

Send Dom my congratulations, Grampa.

Good Hunting,

Sire Adam.

After responding to his other messages, Adam grabbed the paper mail and flipped through the envelopes. A feeling of rightness settled into his gut. He tossed the junk mail.

He set his bills aside. That left five small manila envelopes that had been tucked unobtrusively behind the mail. Bold black letters proclaimed the local middle and high school’s addresses stamped on the appropriate envelopes. The boys’ names and homeroom teachers’ names were typed underneath.

Was it report card time again?

One by one, he pulled out each printout, read the expected news, and signed the bottom. Adam had been to enough parent/teacher conferences in the past months to know that Rick was only barely passing. Seth and Mark were failing. Seth didn’t care one way or the other and Rick and Mark were driving the teachers nuts with their antics.

Mark especially. The kid was more than wired. Teachers called him at least once a week for one stunt or another. Complaints of Mark’s daydreaming and failure to complete his work were written on progress reports. He had no idea how to keep the boy’s attention focused or calm his behavior. Adam had grounded him, but had little hope of making an impression on the kid.

He’d heard enough lectures on helping the boys’ reach their potential to make him want a beer, several beers in fact, with a chaser of school counselor’s blood.

It wasn’t that he did not respect the teachers. He did. God, they dealt with his kids every day, and some worse, and still managed to stay sane. Adam was simply at a loss of how to deal with the boys’ needs, or how to get them on track academically.

He wasn’t the boys’ foster parent. His guardianship, obtained with the best wolven lawyers, was ironclad. He didn’t worry that the boys would be taken from him, but he was concerned about their future.

Adam slid the printouts back into the envelopes and moved them aside to concentrate on the bills, most of which he paid electronically.

The report cards drew his attention once more. He stared at the neat manila squares on the edge of his desk.

Frowning, Adam pulled out the failing printouts again and scanned the contents.

He tried to pin down exactly what bothered him. He set those aside and pulled out Bradley and Brandon’s grades. Both were passing.

Bradley consistently brought in high A’s. His little beta wolf should be in advanced classes. Nothing ever dropped below a ninety-five. Brandon was a steady middle of the road B. He carried an eighty-five in every class, every six weeks.

Adam glanced at the other report cards. Fluctuating C’s and F’s marked the other three. Mark might even have to go to summer school to make the next grade.

Adam picked up the twin’s grades again, studied the averages. He set one down and stared at the other as an idea took hold.

He reached for his desk drawer that served as a filing cabinet, where he put the boys’ school records and his guardianship papers. As a lawyer, his brother was nothing if not thorough. Dom had made sure that Adam had the boys’ medical and school background, as well as documentation of his legal guardianship.

Adam flipped through folders until he came to the right set of grade printouts. He pulled them out and unclipped them, scanning the boy’s averages over the years. All of the boys were smart and if they could be motivated would be college material. This particular one was brilliant. It was a near perfect plan.

Third grade, second six weeks, was when a nine-year-old child figured out how to stay unnoticed by becoming completely average. In Garrick’s pack, a reward for your achievements wasn’t a good thing. Failing grades would have been a bad idea because a call from the school would have irritated the boys’ guardians.

Hell, his three underachievers had been barely passing when Adam took over.

Maybe that was weird sign of trust in itself. That they trusted him
not
to hurt them if they messed up. You never knew with kids.

He felt like he’d discovered a key to the puzzle that was his pack. Adam laughed.

Damn he was proud of that kid.

Potential. It was all about potential.

Adam ran a hand through his drying hair.

What kind of idiots missed the obvious? With these kind of fixed grades, he’d bet his tail that boy was the smartest of the litter. That kid would be hell in Vegas.

He put away all of the report cards but the one with the most potential. He still had to talk to the others about failing grades, assign punishments, and all that.

Excitement and pride thrummed through his veins. He nearly picked up the phone to call and brag, but he didn’t know Diana Ridley’s phone number. Mack would probably listen, but he didn’t know if the man would understand. Adam put the phone down and decided he’d call his parents, his human parents, later.

But damn! An eighty-five in every subject since the third grade? What kind of planning did that take? The boy would have to have known how to take everyday work, homework, and final exams into account, and average them out accordingly. He’d have to plan out each paper ever turned in for the appropriate grade. Adam shook his head, amazed. Then walking to the door, Adam stuck his head out into the hall and bellowed.

“Brandon!”

The raw scent of fear reached the office before the boy. From behind his desk, Adam watched the door open, slowly, like a scene in a horror movie where the victim is brutally attacked. Brandon stood in the door, eyes down, waiting.

Geez. The boy was about to piss his pants. Adam wanted to kill that bastard Garrick again. This time he’d castrate him before strangling him with his own entrails.

Death had been too easy for Garrick Moser.

Adam gestured at one of the chairs in front of his desk.

“Shut the door and sit down.”

He leaned back, trying for casual. He hoped that his actions and mood would transmit to the boy and put him at ease.

It didn’t.

Brandon sat, a silent ghost in the room. If the boy could control his fear scent, he’d be nearly invisible.

“Look at me, son.”

In two jerky motions, the boy brought his eyes to Adam’s chest.

“Good enough.” He grunted. Better than the floor.

Adam leaned forward to put his arms on the desk. He hated the way the kid tensed. Adam sighed and ran a hand through his hair instead.

“Look kid, we can’t keep going on this way. One of us is going to get an ulcer.”

With no response forthcoming, Adam leaned forward. He didn’t know how to get through.

“Dammit! Look at me. I’m not Garrick!”

Brandon paled. He looked as though he might be sick. He stared at Adam with wide eyes.

Not wolf eyes. No, the sick bastard had given the boy goddamn Bambi eyes.

That infuriated Adam.

He stalked around the desk, a red haze forming as the boy shrank away. Adam leaned over the chair, the sick scent of fear egging him on. The wolf wanted blood and pain for penance. Not this blood, though. This one was innocent.

The beast slipped under his skin. Sharp canines, upper and lower filled Adam’s mouth. He gripped the armrests tight with hands that were more claw than human, caging the boy. He pressed his face close, his nose inches from Brandon’s, so that all the boy would see, smell, and hear, was him, Adam Weis, no matter how he cringed or hid with his eyes shut.

“Who am I, Brandon?” He demanded. “Tell me.”

“Alpha.” The boy answered in a strangled whisper.

“Tell me.”

Brandon whimpered. A knock on the door jerked Adam’s attention from his prey.

He snarled. A wise wolf would leave the door shut.

The door opened and Bradley slipped inside. He shut the door behind him and stood there.

Adam growled at the intrusion. Moving with preternatural speed, he pinned Bradley against the door. If they wouldn’t see, he’d make them see. The boy’s bared neck, barely mollified the wolf. Adam waited a second before accepting the offering, then dragged his tongue slowly over the heavy vein in Bradley’s neck.

Adam released him and stepped back. He pointed at the door with one claw. His voice was harsher than he intended with the partial Change.

“You want to talk. We’ll do it later.”

He watched Bradley struggle inside himself, the need to protect his brother at odds with the desire to obey his alpha. Adam made the choice for him. He grabbed the pup by the scruff of the neck with one hand, careful of the sharp digits so close to tender skin. Pushing Bradley outside, he shut the door, locking it against another intrusion.

Adam turned around to size up his prey. Brandon sat huddled in the chair, literally quivering in fear of his leader. The only pack member the boy trusted was his blood brother. The wolf understood and reminded him. The pack was brotherhood. Blood bound them all. The blood of birth, blood shed in a hunt, it was all the same, shared blood between them.

“C’mere.”

Adam watched Brandon slide out of the chair and begin to crawl toward him. He closed the distance and reached down, pulling the boy up against him.

“You’re not a dog, son. Stand.”

Adam cupped the boy’s chin carefully between his clawed fingers and tilted his head up to meet his eyes.

“Look at me.” He nodded when the boy finally complied.

“What do you see, boy?”

“I see you.”

“Do you?” Adam stared deep, trying to find the psychic connection he had with his pack. “No. You don’t. You see a monster.”

Brandon closed his eyes tight. His breath came in short gasps.

“Look at me.”

Adam gently feathered a deadly digit over the boy’s cheek. The kid had amazing mental defenses. He pressed his mind closer, using Brandon’s eyes as the window. Adam lowered his gravelly half-changed voice to lull the boy’s defenses.

“Shhh. Look. At. Me.”

Brandon relaxed against him. Adam caught him, careful not to hurt the boy and stared deep into the brown depths.

“What do you see?” He whispered.

“I see a forest. I’ve never seen one like it before.”

Brandon sounded surprised and awed that he’d found The Forest, the psychic plane that connected all of their kind. Wolven were all a little psychic. It stood to reason that their connection to one another and the Earth would be too.

“And?”

Adam prodded, gently, lest he break the fragile bond he’d forged. If he failed here, he would fail with the rest.

“I see … everyone.” Brandon closed his eyes and smiled faintly. He reached up to touch Adam’s bare chest, laid a hand flat over his heart. “The Pack … all packs, running in the forest together. Hunting.”

Carefully, he drew the boy close, and rubbed his chin over the top of Brandon’s head, amazed at the feeling of possession that welled up inside.

His … boy, brother, pack, son. The words didn’t matter only the meaning.

Mine.
The wolf howled. Power filled him, driven by instinct. He staked his claim.

This is mine.
Let no one trespass on what I have claimed.

The wolf needed to seal the bond. In case the boy fought him, he shifted his hold so that he cradled the boy’s head in one hand. With a quick slice of one claw, Adam opened a wound in his own chest near Brandon’s mouth. Blood welled and ran down his chest.

Brandon blinked and jerked back, but Adam held tight guiding the pup to what it needed.

“Shhh. Drink.” Words came, an ancient ritual that welled from deep inside Adam’s soul. From his core.

“Blood to blood. Brother to brother. Hunt to hunt. Heart to heart. Run with me brother. My Heart, my Hunt, my Pack.”

The pup, his pup, nuzzled at his chest. Adam threw back his head and howled, loud and long. He called his pack to him. He threw his power out, touching those he claimed as his own, demanding attendance.

Come! Now! Come All! Brothers! Attend Your Sire!

Adam opened his eyes. He looked down at Brandon, cradled in his arms. The boy’s face was flushed pink with the power of the ritual and his Sire’s blood. His eyes drooped and he rested quiet beside the wound on Adam’s chest.

The rest of the boys lay in a pile at Adam’s feet, each in a different state of Change. The office door was askew on its hinges where the boys had obeyed the compulsion to come. Bradley grinned up at Adam, flashing fangs. His eyes glowed feral in the room. Mark and Seth looked like the adolescent wolf-men they were. Rick the wolf lay on his side and panted, happy.

Adam lowered himself, and Brandon, to the floor. The rest of his small pack claimed their piece of their Sire. Soon, Adam was the center of a great sleepy pile on his office floor. He was a part of them and they, him. There was nothing obscene or perverse in their bond.