Gifted (Cainsville 0.6)

"Yeah, we absolutely recommend it," Dad said. "It's the only defense."

Logan smiled, and they left him to strip down and run upstairs to the shower.

Logan was quiet over dinner, but no one noticed. Kate spent the meal regaling him and Jeremy with stories of the "strange behavior of humans"--all the weird things she'd witnessed while out Christmas shopping. Mom's eye rolls said Kate was exaggerating. Dad's smirks said she wasn't exaggerating very much.

That was part of growing up in a werewolf Pack. Humans sometimes seemed a foreign species to Logan and Kate, the way they did to Dad, who'd been bitten when he was a kid. Mom had grown up human, so she didn't pay any attention when humans did things like let their kids wander off in a mall, or yell at them in public or cuff them upside the head. Logan got the feeling none of tha

t was weird--or foreign--to his mother. He wondered what her childhood had been like, but she never talked about it, and if he or Kate asked, she'd just tell them a funny story from her school days.

With Kate entertaining at dinner, no one noticed he was quiet. Quiet and deep in thought, his brain racing to come up with all the necessary facets of "the puppy plan."

He had to get his parents onside. Jeremy didn't count. No, that sounded wrong. Jeremy definitely counted--it was his house, and he was Dad's foster father and also the former Alpha. He always counted. When it came to raising Logan and Kate, though, Jeremy kept out. He was like . . . Logan wasn't really sure what Jeremy was like, because he had no frame of reference other than what he could glean from other families. Jeremy seemed more involved than a grandparent. He wasn't like a parent either, because he left all the decisions to their mom and dad. One of Logan and Kate's school friends had a stepdad, who did everything a dad did, except when it came to discipline and decisions about raising him. That's what Jeremy was like. As close as you could get to a parent without actually being one.

When it came to getting a dog, Jeremy's position was simply "whatever your parents say," as it was on everything else. He wouldn't even be here for Christmas. He was leaving tomorrow to spend a few days with his girlfriend, Jaime, and then they'd both come back for the big Pack holiday Meet on the twenty-sixth.

The two people Logan had to convince, then, were his parents. He'd considered going straight for Dad. His father might be the most feared werewolf in the country, but his kids saw a very different side of him. Last summer was the first time he'd really raised his voice to them--getting into a shouting match with Kate long after their mother had lost all patience with her acting out. But Kate had had a reason for her bad behavior, and they'd sorted it out, and Dad went back to being his usual self, which meant if Logan had to pick who he could more easily woo to his side, it was definitely Dad.

That was a problem. The rest of the werewolf world might think Dad was the scary one, but he wasn't Alpha. Mom was. That meant that Logan shouldn't go around her to his father to ask for something. Yes, Mom wouldn't want him saying that. She wanted to be his mom, not his Alpha. But she was his Alpha, and he felt that.

Even if she hadn't been Alpha, he shouldn't go around her to his dad. He'd never heard his parents disagree on something to do with him and Kate. So either they never disagreed, or they just didn't do it in front of the kids. They wanted to stand together as parents, and he shouldn't pit them against each other. Which meant he had to ask them together. That did not, however, mean he couldn't work on Dad first.

The next problem was getting Dad away from Mom. Like Kate and Logan, they weren't always together, but it usually seemed like it. Luckily, this was Christmas, which meant routines had changed. Last night, they'd all gone out to cut down a tree. Tonight, they'd trim it. Dad's job was getting the decorations out of the attic while Mom and the twins made hot chocolate.

"I don't think three of us need to do this anymore," Logan said as Kate stirred chopped chocolate into the milk.

Mom got out the mugs. "Someone needs to make sure all that chocolate goes into the pan."

"I'm not five, Mom," Kate said . . . and tossed a chunk of chocolate his way before eating a piece herself.

"I thought I'd help Dad this year," Logan said.

"Why?" Kate said. "You liked the smell of deer poop on your clothes so much that you want to see if mouse poop smells just as good?"

He flicked the back of her head and dodged as she kicked backwards.

"Go on," Mom said. "Just ignore the cursing."

Dad was definitely cursing. He was snarling, too, as he stomped around in the dark attic.

"Where the hell did she move everything?" he was muttering to himself as Logan climbed up. "Goddamn it."

"Language, Dad."

His father only looked over and snorted. Logan got the feeling the "no swearing" rule came from Mom. Logan understood it, though--if they were allowed to curse at home, then they'd slip up at school, and Mom didn't need more calls from the teacher.

"Mom didn't move the decorations. You just toss them up here after the holidays and then forget where you put them."

A grunt, but no argument. Logan picked up a flashlight and scanned the boxes, saying as casually as he could, "I meant what I said earlier about wanting to do more chores . . . taking on more responsibility."

Another grunt.

"We're old enough, and I think it's a good idea."

Dad walked deeper into the attic. "I asked Jeremy for more responsibility when I was about your age." He shone the light on a box and heaved it up, placing it by the ladder. "Because I wanted something."

"What? No, I don't--"

"I wanted to go camping with the Sorrentinos. Jeremy said no."