Ascension - Book Eight - Man x Man

Chapter 10

I don't have to make eye contact with him to feel the frustration boiling to the surface. Luck on my side for once, he was thoroughly exercised from his training session with Legardo and the edge had been taken off the anger that I knew he possessed. "I beg your pardon?" His English accent thickens against the tightening of his body. "Would you care to repeat that?"

It was an opportunity to correct a fatal flaw, he had just relaxed enough to allow them into our home, letting his carefully calculated fortress plummet into chaos with children and visitors. I had seen him snap only a few times, I feared if she pushed him the wrong way, we might very well see the return of the Alpha here in this very room. I clear my throat, taking a step forward. "Remember I told you that you needed you to have an open mind?"

The responding snarl would have made me shrink if I didn't have royal blood coursing through my veins. My own wolf wishes to bark back, it takes all my concentration to hold onto my composure, I must display that I am fit enough for this. I don't need a babysitter and we had often said we had wished there was another who could train me for he felt that he didn't have the heart to push me as hard as he would another. 

I must continue, this was worth the cost of freedom to me. "Kestrel, Echo, and Helen are all going hunting, I want to go with them and get out of the house for a few days... think of it as a safer bachelor party than the one Chispa is throwing me." My attempt at humor falls on deaf ears as the light gaze of a long-dormant alpha rests the blame squarely on the uninvited trio. 

Tonic offers me a concerned side glance. His eyes hold pity but not for me in the sense that my treatment was unfair, he knew exactly what was coming and his pity only rested on the laurels of his own memories of exactly how this felt. We had few rules in our botched pack, Helen might have been handed the Alpha position but one true master held strong. "How do you intend to go hunting if you can't even call your wolf?" His voice is short, stern, devoid of consideration as all humanity dissipates under the animalistic nature of a wolf stepping into alignment. 

I was envious. My wolf would hardly even speak to me. 

"I'd talk to you more if you didn't anger our soul mate."

"Echo will teach me." I tell him firmly. "As she's been teaching Helen." 

My reveal causes Helen to flinch, like a puppy scolded for wrongdoing, she considers slinking back to hide behind the feral woman who'd agreed to mentor us. "So that's where you've been." Verando's nose wrinkles slightly at the thought, disappointed with his somber expression. The corners of his mouth pulled down, "If you're going to betray your mentor then the least you could do is own up to it."

"Helen.. is this true?" Legardo seems to be capturing his breath, his expression one of concern rather than upset. The thick white hair matted down to his skull, standing beside his sire, they looked more alike than I care to witness so I avert my eyes to less scrutinizing faces. This was embarrassing, I hadn't intended on being embarrassed as a first impression. "Why would you go to a different mentor?"

Addressed, society dictates that Helen could no longer make herself invisible. She must atone for her actions. Stepping forward, she exhales slowly, squaring her shoulders to address them both. "Papa... Daddy.. I am grateful for all the training, it's just... taking a very long time. Time that we don't have." Verando scoffs and Legardo resists the urge to silence him. "I have become more in touch with my wolf running with Echo these last few months than I've felt my entire life."

"Running feral, like wild animals." Verando snaps, shaking his head as Legardo lifts a passive hand to stop the assault. 

It's Echo who steps forward this time, putting her arm around Helen's shoulders. "We like being free, it's our native roots to run like the wolves we came from. This hierarchy mess is what caused the three brothers to try and kill each other in the first place. Instinct is the best method, if you returned home, you would know that, Verando."