Roman
After the pack-wide argument, it took Roman a while to cool down. He wasn't the only one. Several of the pack members still had their feathers ruffled, so to speak.
The following night Derek stopped by his hut. "You okay?" Derek asked.
Roman handed him a beer and took one for himself. It was one of the few human indulgences he enjoyed.
"Yes. I’m trying to wrap my brain around the fact that things are just different now. I'm trying to accept that back in our day, no one would have argued with the Alpha if he put his foot down."
Derek sank down on one of the tree steps. "I seem to remember you pushing back quite a bit, back in the day."
"Not when it mattered," Roman said. "Only about the small stuff." He sighed. "And I was a teenager." By the time he was their age, he’d already been named Alpha.
Derek shrugged. "Maybe it's more important to push back on the big stuff. At least for them."
"Are you on their side now?" Roman asked, incredulous. "I thought you wanted to live out here, where we’re meant to be." He’d thought his generation, the ones who’d gone off to the academy at least ten years ago, would hold firm.
"I’m on your side, man. But I also want our pack to survive."
"You think it can survive city life?" Roman asked. What was to stop them from abandoning all of their ways?
Derek just stared at him patiently. That was the problem with confiding in one of his brothers. They'd been to the Blackwood Academy with Roman. They knew him inside and out. They would always see through his bullshit. "Listen, why don’t you call Sutton? He's closer to the city and maybe he can give you some advice."
That was true enough, Sutton had gone to Blackwood Academy with them as well. He was a bear shifter and his clan lived near Koyukuk. Sutton's father was the Alpha and they had always interacted with the human population. It had been part of their clan life since Sutton's grandparents were cubs, which meant Sutton didn’t have to deal with any sudden upheaval.
Roman grunted. "I'll call him." He preferred to go visit him, but with the pack in turmoil, it was better for him to stay close.
Derek picked up his beer and clapped Roman on the back. "You'll figure it out. You always do."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Roman said. And he meant that, very sincerely. It was nice to have at least one person who believed in him. The rest of the pack seemed to think he was an old geezer at the age of twenty-eight. Roman drained his beer and went inside to find his phone. He didn't even like having smart phones, or cellular phones at all, but the pack insisted.
He found Sutton's name in his contacts, but he just wasn’t ready to make the call.
Three weeks went by.
Finally, he knew he had to take action. Sutton answered on the third ring. "Hey, man, what's up?"
"I have some questions for you when you have time." In the background there was a lot of shouting.
"Is this a bad time?"
"Hell no. I'm ready now. We were just having a contest."
Of course. Every shifter Roman had ever known was competitive, but Sutton took it to an entirely new level. Roman laid down on the grass and stared up at the stars.
"What's wrong?" Sutton demanded. "You sound funny."
He was also widely perceptive. "It's my pack," Roman admitted. "They’re being a total pain in the ass."
"They still want to move to a city?"
Roman had vented to Sutton about this issue before. ‘Yes. You know that I have been against it. But they goaded me again last night and we all had an argument. Quite a few of the younger ones threatened to leave permanently if I don't give in. They pointed out that if enough of them leave there won't be any pups and the pack will eventually dwindle and die out."
Sutton whistled. "Damn. They really went all in."
"Yes. They cannot be swayed." He closed his eyes. "So whether I like it or not, my pack, which has been living in this area for three hundred years, is moving to the suburbs."
"Oh hell, Roman. You are so dramatic. It's really not so bad. You’ve worked yourself into a frenzy, but I promise that there are some benefits to living in a city."