Warning, this is a fully grown wolf "born yesterday" and Nathaniel cannot control him. Ryder was very dangerous, even towards me in the early days. He rapidly grew out of being too rough, but he wasn't tame. It's best to keep firmly in mind that I've never been harmed by him.

My Doctor's visit went as expected: "Luna's in fit health, Alpha." "Trust your wolf, Alpha." Even I could almost hear the mental struggle in his head through him walling me off.

I wound up pulling him aside between my visit and going to see our pack mates in the hospital. "What exactly are you two in a snit about in there?"

"Just 6 years of my life." I had never seen him draw his mouth shut so tight around his words. Veins sticking out for various reasons, sure, but control exerted from gritted teeth wasn't natural to Nathaniel. He backed me into a wall, to keep his voice down.

I've known all along that he was active at a young age. I laid out those issues for him months back. This time of me being the only thing that soothes the beast? Yeah, that wasn't going to help them any further. "Who is attacking who?"

"Ryder wasn't here."

I reached up and started massaging his jaw, gentle circles to remind him to let go of his rage. "So are Nate and Ryder mad that Nate was a child making adult mistakes without help or are you both pissed that Ryder wasn't there that early?"

"All of it."

"Who is in control of your decisions, Nathan?"

"Me." He closed his eyes and leaned into my fingertips.

"But who is responsible?"

"Me, again." Typical man, responsible for the whole of the world. Well, it's better than a boy who won't have anything to do with responsibility. He's been that.

"No. Other than if you had some jailable offense, you didn't become fully responsible for yourself until you turned 18, by US law. And by anything I'm aware of, a wolf isn't held responsible until they shift. There are often a few years where they still aren't, even after that. That and I'd like to know how many years was Ryder repressed for these two nuts contest with each other? How much of what you've done was encouraged by either side? Nobody truly belongs to themselves, in this mess. How much can you claim is totally on you?"

"I don't know." That had him slamming his hand against the wall right beside me. This man who can break bricks didn't even crack the drywall, so spare me your red flags, brain. He wouldn't run the risk of hurting me, even though part of him did want me to shut up to even give the appearance of danger.

And if you think I flinched? Yeah right. That seems to be a response I lack for Nathaniel—I trust this idiot. But he's straining the hell out of my trust.
Flinching would have had me ducking right into the path his hand took and if he hit me even by accident, this behavior was going to cause him to flip on himself a hell of a lot further than he already was.

I started to falter on what the hell I thought I was doing.

Remember, this was a snit over unfaithfulness between 2 different people in 1 head. God help him if he adds abuser on top of that.

"Why couldn't you be some dumb blonde?" That raspy tone, the subtle shift of demeanor. Nathaniel wouldn't say this.

Hard on the back of me arguing with myself over flags: Nathaniel wouldn't do this. He has never swung a fist anywhere close to towards me.

I was hoping that his wolf was a better version of him. Ryder isn't better than Nathan. He's new. He's wild. He's too wild. Try not rolling your eyes at the irrationally enraged wolf.

"Because you were given what you were capable of bearing under, not what would make your life easier, Ryder. Your split was born of conflict and you fear that the fight is all that will keep you a separate entity, right? Quit picking fights to exist."

With a snarl the wolf pulled back, leaving the man holding half his face like he had a raging hangover. Nate probably hurt like hell, for a brief moment. "Why didn't I see that?"

"Forest for the trees." I tapped my forehead. "He's not the voice in my head. I've got my own demons in here."

Remember, this is a fully grown wolf who is only days old and Nathaniel hasn't been trained to handle him. It's not a long term issue but it is dangerous.

To this day, I've no clue how close I've came to being hit. It's been 8 years, and I've never seen another event like this.

~~~

Going into Chana May's room was a disaster.

They had been admitted early this morning. Here it is bordering on noon before the Luna finally gets off her butt to come to check on the wellbeing of a pack member.

Forget circumstances: the Alpha's health wasn't pristine, the Alpha wanted the Luna's stability confirmed, and let's not forget his existential crisis, to boot.

But Nathan walked through that door with a punch to his face. Jude done lost his mind.

Of course, with a presence like Ryder's below the surface, he shook it off and glared.

I'm starting to think of Ryder as "No more Mr. Nice Guy." Not that Nathaniel was an angel by any means—ha! But seriously, a huge component of this early b.s. was unbridled rage. Not that Nate was that far behind. Hell, this shit pissed me off from the beginning and I've been checking out as much as I can.

"What the fu..."

"Luna!" May knew instinctively that the males would be useless to plead with. "I know I'm not your favorite and you don't want the competition with our children, but I don't want to lose my babies!"

Well, shit. My antisocial behavior has come back to bite me in the ass. Big time. Remember, you can push parents into rejecting their pups. It's the mental connection acting up—or more accurately, a lack of one. Our official standing sucked.

I glanced back at my mate—he was willing to commit an execution right there in front of me and was barely holding himself back. "Ryder, there's humans here. Pin him until I figure this out."

I trusted him, despite the cascading rage dripping from him. We had survived the 1st hurdle, hadn't we?

I turned my back on them and sat down by a woman who should have been a friend, first. "Who said that your children would be competition?"

"Alana." Alana was May's closest friend out of the pack's mates. We had some really self-imporant bitches this go-round. They're going to need that thick skin with a cold Luna, so I wouldn't complain about them. But Chana May is a gentle soul. You know, one of those soft women that people gravitated to—usually to tear them to shreds because no one with an ounce of fake can compete with the genuine article. And yes, I have an ounce of fake to me, so I'm talking about behavior I control that others do not. It's my polite face while my sarcasm rides your ass.

Now, I was wondering how real Alana was, or if this was more projected worry from another timid mind. Not the time or place to address it. "I don't know why she would think your pups wouldn't be the backbone of the next generation. Like Nathaniel has not abandoned your mate—even now—my child will need to have her own peers. And who knows—you may be carrying the next Alpha? We know nothing of what these children's futures hold."

"But why would you care about my pups? You don't like me enough to spend any time with me." That brought Jude's growling up a notch—this beautiful young man who is so sweet with kids. Even if I did hate her and her pups, I'd keep it to myself because I think this is the wolf who will win all the "BEST DAD" awards.

Well. That was an awful way to interpret my behavior. And I knew it would be lame, but the truth was the only thing that would work. "I don't like crowds. I don't like having to play nice all day long. But this is not because I hate you, Chana. If anything, you're far more likable than any of these mated-in witches ever will be. Know your worth."

I leaned forward, kissing her forehead as I breathed out one of the handful of prayers I've ever prayed, for the sake of a woman that humbled me.

Then I damn near stumbled out of the room, shaking. I felt as if the power had been drained from me.

Of course, Ryder let go of his fight so Nate could chase after me. Not that Jude wanted to follow either of us out.

May was released from the hospital before nightfall—stable enough to go home. If I was the cause of that turnaround, natural or more, it's something that would be added to the legend of me.

Whatever the hell I am, that is.

But I firmly believe this was just regular Luna work with a lot of medical aid.

~~~

Later that night, amidst a more typical session, I brought up the one thing that has been nagging at me since that stupid cat broke into the office. "Hey, big man, I don't think we're going to make it to your scheduled date."

A chuckle. "If it's pushed up any further, I'm not going to have the mass to shift."

At least this time he didn't tell me to shut up. Probably the nickname that did it. Besides, I knew he would think about it long after he finished delving between my thighs.

~~~

Paperwork. My life is a realm of papers. I was sorting through how to electronically refile yet another scanned-in document when I realized what I had: a police report, after the death of one Soleta Duran.

She called the cops because her boyfriend was beating her, but by the time they showed up, the woman was ravaged by a wild dog. They wound up having to kill him. The witness to the whole thing was one Jessica Owens—the supposed aunt I knew as Jesse. Scanning through the document, I saw so many glaring gaps in the information that I knew another investigation would be necessary.

And I could see it now: "Do not go searching for that woman. You don't know what she's been into." Or "Let me take care of this. Hell, if she's safe, I'll let you question her."

Yeah, If I found her surrounded in the filth she slummed in, out in Reno? Of course, Nathaniel would have every reason to be irate. Pregnant me waddling around where these traffickers likely have eyes and ears. I think the woman is rather harmless, but a pimp or dealer who can turn a profit off me—that is, if they have got word out on the street for me? Shit, that would have to be dumb.

No, I was going to do something far more useless. I grabbed Tabitha, and headed to the pack's graveyard, to see where Ms. Duran was buried.

I let her drive as Dumond's Clouded Acres is all the way on the other side of town. Of course, Tabitha Wineoak called Appollo as soon as we buckled ourselves in, and he started fussing about the level of protection I'd have.

Tabitha is an almost full-blooded Native American shifter out of the Carolinas. Her home pack shifts around the age of 12, give or take a couple of years. She's 22 and cracks jokes about having a child for a mate. Plain won't touch him until he turns 18—less than a year, but still, it's to the point where she comes flinging herself through the common areas, shrieking because he's threatening to poke her. God knows what they mean by that.

I know they share a room, but she insists she sleeps in a hammock suspended over his bed—just out of reach, at night. If I hadn't seen the diamond-shaped welt marks from the ropes at breakfast, I'd think she was lying.

She takes the time to answer Apollo as if she respected him. Hell, she goes too far down the Lord and Master trail for my taste but then, a lot of old-school weres were just shy of medieval. Whatever their kink, they seem content, not distressed like Grant. Sometimes I think this diversity is here to shut me up because I'd rather be picking a fight than be sweet and docile. Just what fight is there to pick? I don't have a good cause other than the pressure I'm under. Not fair to Nathaniel—he's got it as bad. He's also better built for it.

The best things about being true to yourself are going to backfire and paint you as a jackass when people depend on your behavior being better than your natural state. I was feeling that more than ever after the visit to the hospital. The edges creeping in. This tight-knit group of once-morons and their wild-card women...

Well, back to this wild card. She's the only fighting-adept wolf outside her mate's father. Training is now daily, and these boys are putting on muscle I didn't even know the body could carry. So many lines to trail fingers over, even on the few girls that could shift... Yeah, thoughts that could get me into a shit ton of trouble with the mate.

It's crazier that some of those practicing are octogenarians who look under 40 and have ginormous popcorn kernels for abs.

I go around humming the Popcorn theme every time I'm in a pack of shirtless men.

I'm losing my damned mind.

I was even more fascinated about it all from a visual art viewpoint than I was from the sexual attraction side of things. I'll deny that shit until my dying breath. It made my fingers itch to draw them all, to sculpt them as little figurines for a battlefield.

And right there, I'm back to thinking about making more video content. Like a chess set made to look like my boys and their mates.

I'm finding it harder and harder to focus. There are things my mind needs to be on, and it's not. I want to tear my hair out when I dwell on it.

Anyway, Tabitha, graveyard: she's there as my direct guard. Some of the boys would be loitering at enough distance to give me the illusion of privacy, but close enough to stop the worst of what is to come.

There is a directory? map? at the entrance. Durans were buried pretty close to the front, Soleta the furthest left—a very short walk which I lead with Tabitha towering over me. Girl has Alpha and Gamma ancestry. She looks her young mate in the eye and calls every one of these giant bastards "Shawty" for shits and giggles. Nate gets "Alpha Shawty" for respect.

Aldane?

She asks him how the weather is up there.

Every day.

Sometimes twice.

It's because her mind is fixated on tactical information. The small talk is what she flutters around everyone so they relax while she thinks of which way she'd take them down in the next minute. Her whole mind is laser-focused on this one aspect of Werewolf life, and chitchat hinders that focus.

Why does she run from a poking when she could likely end Apollo?

I told her to shove the small talk up her ass the 2nd day of enduring it.

We're both happier with her silence.

Finally, the damned grave...with a body draped over it.

A moving body.

Unlike the boys, Tabby has no hesitation when it comes to being handsy. She no sooner grabs me, and I'm pinned between her and a mausoleum wall.

Grant—poor bugger—is forced to deal with the ball of rags.

It's fighting him off like an enraged little bat, but it's human. He finally gets her pinned down to expose her face to us.

"Aunt Jesse." I can't believe she's here. This wasn't some sort of precognition, where I deduced that she must be here, somewhere.

It stank of fate.

It reeked of manipulation.

"Ah, the bitch's kid. I got paid to suck your brother's dick off last week. Stank like a dog. You look like you have some first-hand experience with that."

Oh, shock value. No. Distraction. I'm supposed to be able to see some of this bullshit coming and I can't focus to see. Damn, whomever is blocking me up like this. I didn't dare say what I was thinking out loud, so I started the annoying process of thinking to reach for my mate through our bond. "Can't do oral. Not into gag reflexes like that."

A small sliver of his mind brushed against mine—a world of colors, sounds, and smells set off against my own like a dancing butterfly. I don't know how he sees me, especially from a distance, but I know I don't visualize my thoughts very well. It's like I have a big ocean full of numbers and letters being shaken about by the currents and here comes this dancing little sprite...

It becomes my whole world, very easily.

Nathan, blindsided by Aunt Jesse. She might be distracting us for someone else's purpose.

His response was top-heavy, directed at everyone close to me. Get my mate in a public building, now. We are in lock-down.

Unfortunately, that means I get to hear it in detail before I go all muzzy-headed again.

I was thrown over the Amazon's shoulder, carted ass end first out of a graveyard. Her collarbone was dangerously close to collapsing my zyphoid process, which meant losing my breath and vomiting. Thank God the baby was sideways.

Like I need more of that.

By the time I can wrap my mind around what the hell happened, I'm in a back corner booth stuck behind Tabitha's solid frame. Grant roughly tumbled the woman into the seat across from me before blocking her in. "Make a move so I can kill you."

A low threat, but Grant's ever-celibate temper makes that more a promise.

I didn't know what was going to happen, but at least I had a chance to interrogate Mrs. Bitch, here.

I don't know whether I'm excited for a bit of freaking action I can participate in, or if I should kick myself for being dumb enough to be tempted to get more involved.

I mean, hello, preggers! here. Baby girl was tub-thumping madly because we jostled her all over the place, interrupting her nap.