Page 5 of In Your Eyes
Feeling frustrated, I sighed and said, “You wouldn’t understand.”
“I wouldn’t understand?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest and arching her eyebrows. “I’ve been mated to your father since I was about your age. I think I understand better than just about anybody what it means to be an Alpha.”
“Mother,” I sighed. “I realize you mean well, but not being an Alpha means you don’t truly know our responsibilities.”
She couldn’t know how difficult it was to balance strength, power, and decisiveness with what my father called empathy, compassion, and flexibility. To me, the traits seemed conflicting, and no matter how much I tried to act empathetic or compassionate, no matter how well I restrained my anger when people didn’t do what they were supposed to and things didn’t go according to plan, my father was always able to see through me. There were times when I wondered if I’d ever be able to master the roles he said an Alpha needed to fill well enough to please him.
Shaking my head at my mother, I said, “You don’t get it.”
“What is it you don’t get this time, Johanna?” my father asked as he walked into the kitchen.
“What it means to be an Alpha,” she said, tilting her head to the side to make room for the kiss he would give her.
He always kissed her after they’d been apart. Even if it was only for a couple of hours. I didn’t understand it, but it wasn’t relevant to me, so I didn’t give it much thought.
“Is that right?” My parents shared a knowing look and smiled. It was one of their inside jokes.
I took another bite of my sandwich.
“Yes.” She nodded. “It’s amazing, isn’t it, Tom, how much less we know as the kids get older?”
My father laughed and nodded. Then he turned to me and said, “Do you need me to drive you to the gathering, or do you want to take the car?”
“Oh, uh, you know what? I don’t need to waste your time driving me or borrow the car and leave you stranded so, uh, why don’t I stay home? I don’t mind. We can work on, uh….” I tried to think of what he’d most like me to work on. “How to force… no.” I shook my head. He didn’t like when I phrased things that way. “How toinspirepack members to listen to me.” I tensed, waiting for his reply.
“Nice try, kiddo,” he said, ruffling my hair.
I growled under my breath. “I’m not a kid.”
“Well, all right. It’s decided.” My father grinned, his green eyes sparkling.
My eyes were green too, and I liked to tell myself they were like his, but they were actually lighter, flatter somehow. Our hair was the same shade of chocolate brown, though.
“Do you want to get a jacket?” my mother asked. “It might get chilly out at night.”
“Chilly? What do you mean?” I darted my gaze back and forth between the two of them, certain I’d successfully steered them against my going to the gathering and therefore feeling like I’d missed something. “Where are we going?”
“You said you’re an adult,” my father said. “That means you won’t hide away in here.”
Completing his thought, as usual, my mother said, “You’ll go meet with the other young adults from our pack and the neighboring packs. And you’ll have fun.”
“But—”
My mother turned her attention away from me and focused on my father. “You’re home earlier than I expected, Tom.” She smoothed out his shirt with her palms. “I thought you had a late meeting with that human about the road.”
Our pack lands were relatively small, but they wereours. We’d lived on the land for generations without owning it. That changed when my grandfather was Alpha. He had insisted that land ownership was the way of the future and would ensure the security of the pack. From what my father taught me, it had been difficult and somewhat controversial at the time, but my grandfather hadn’t backed down. And history had proven him right, because for as long as I could remember, Yafenack had been a small but strong pack.
My father’s new attempt at growth wasn’t about land, but instead about money. He had learned from a friend and fellow Alpha that interacting with humans would help our pack prosper. I’d never met Zev Hassick, the Alpha of the Etzgadol pack, but I’d heard of him. He had taken an already good-sized, well-respected, strong pack and improved it. From what I understood, their numbers were growing, their members were prospering, and their Alpha was responsible for both.
Wanting to better our pack, my father had been meeting with the humans about a private road that would connect our pack lands to their highway. The pack would build it and maintain it, and the humans would make sure it wasn’t a marked exit. He also planned to put up fencing a short ways in to block strangers from coming in but still allow us easy access to the outside world. Secluded but connected, that was my father’s philosophy.
“We met about the road and agreed to go through with it,” my father said. “I told the human we could finalize the details next week.” He looked at me. “I wanted to make sure I got home in time to drive you to the young adult gathering.”
“How long?” I asked resignedly.
My father glanced at the clock on the wall. “We should leave pretty soon. It starts at seven, and the roads from here to Miancarem wind so much, the drive will be close to an hour.”
I had meant how long I had to stay, but given his answer, I decided against clarifying.
