Roman
Ten years later…
"Roman. Listen to me,"his brother Derek said. "We can’t keep going like this."
"I’m listening."
Derek grabbed the ax out of his hand. "No, you’re not. You’re chopping wood."
Roman growled. Yanking a sharp blade out of an Alpha wolf’s hand was a damned dumb thing to do, but his brother had never been all that aware of personal space. Most wolves weren’t, but now that he was Alpha, Roman got a bit more respect than some. But not from Derek. Probably because he’d known Roman since they were pups, thanks to them being cousins by blood.
Roman grabbed the ax back. "Do not do that again."
Derek huffed. "Then put it down and pay attention."
Roman propped the ax against a stump. "Okay. Talk."
"The older teens said they tried to talk to you about moving."
Roman groaned. "Not this again." They had been on his case for months about moving the pack. The younger shifters wanted to move the pack away from their ancestral lands. Permanently. Roman was only twenty-eight years old, so he was hardly one of the elderly members of the pack. But he at least had some respect for history and tradition. The younger members had none.
"If not now, then when?" Derek asked.
"Don’t you feel like a traitor to our pack by even entertaining these ideas?"
Derek’s eyes flashed. "When you asked me to be your second in command, you said you wanted my honest opinion. That’s what I’m giving you."
Roman heard footsteps approaching. Now what? Usually people didn’t interrupt him when he and Derek were hashing things out.
"Alpha?" The young male’s voice was hesitant.
Roman looked up to see one of his cousin’s pups, lurking on the other side of the stream.
Roman tried his best to keep his tone even. There was no point in snapping at the kid. "Yes?"
"We’d like to request a meeting."
"A meeting? About what?" Roman asked, even though he already knew.
"The pack," the kid said.
Great. He was being vague for a reason. "Sure. We can have a meeting."
Roman was going to have to set these pups straight. They had no idea what they were talking about. They didn't understand the benefits of living traditionally.
They were attracted to the glitz and glamor of the human world. Roman didn't have a problem with any of those things. He'd seen movies and television shows and he'd read human books. He knew how to shop at a human store. It was good to be able to adapt to those circumstances when necessary. He just didn't want to live that life all of the time. That's not the life he wanted for his pack.
"Meet me by the stream crossing bridge at sunset."
The kid nodded. Roman got there early and was surprised there were at least ten young males waiting on him. He thought it was going to be a one-on-one meeting. They all sat down facing him and he started talking. "I'm here to hear what you have to say." He was going to be a good Alpha. He was going to let them vent and work it all out of their systems.
"Respectfully, Alpha, this living situation is no longer working for us," one of them said. "We have repeatedly asked you to consider moving, but you have refused to take it seriously. Those of us here are prepared to leave the pack. Immediately. There are thirty more that will follow soon after.”
He did his best not to show his shock but it was difficult. Forty young shifters would leave the pack? It would decimate their numbers. He looked among the group; these were the best and the brightest. Two of his own young cousins were among the group.
"You no longer wish to be a wolf shifter?" he said. He kept the venom from his voice, but he was sure his eyes were straight-up glaring at them.
"We very much wish to be wolf shifters. We just want to live out in the main world. We want to study history and we want to create our own history. We want to make an archive of shifter life."