Werewolf Wedding(17)
A terrible noise – a crashing sound, and then something that sounded like a door being slammed so hard the jamb broke – interrupted their conversation. Greta looked downward at the floor and shook her head. “Sometimes I wish we had a little more gentleness in our family. I don’t understand the constant need for shouting and fighting. I really hope your uncle Elbert didn’t just break my curio cabinet, because if he did I’m going to be very irritated.”
Jake sat down and reached for the oversized mug of coffee he’d forgotten he made. “There’s something else,” he said, his voice low and shamed. “I need to tell you before anyone else does.”
Without a shred of hesitation, Greta took over the stirring of the macaroni, and a moment later, poured it into a casserole and added the panko that Jake apparently forgot, since he left the entire handful in a pile on the countertop. She scooped that on to the creamy, steaming mass, and reminded him in the most motherly voice imaginable that he could tell her anything.
“He challenged me.” Jake said, gritting his teeth and taking a long pull on the coffee. “He came to the office the other day and challenged me to a mating.”
“Oh,” Greta said, trying to sound unconcerned but failing. “Oh, dear.”
For a moment she busied herself with the oven. She removed three pot roasts before sticking the four gallon casserole in and adjusting the heat. “Well,” she finally said, “you have your girlfriend. That’s a good start. And what does he have? Certainly he isn’t going to simply force someone to mate?”
“He’s after my girl,” Jake said, still gritting his teeth. “At least I think he is. She mentioned him the other night right after we... well anyway, she mentioned him. And this wouldn’t be the first time he tried something like this.”
That got Greta’s attention. She wadded her apron up in a balled fist, and made a long, drawn-out humming sound. It was her thinking noise. She made it whenever something was working its way through her considerably cunning, though completely unassuming, self.
“You could always trap him,” she offered.
When she started in with the cunning plots, her grandmotherly appearance took on a much darker tone. She was, really, a wolf in grandma’s knit sweater, but she was usually the most passive, sweetest wolf you could ever hope to meet. But when someone messed with one of her cubs? That’s when the teeth came out.
“Trap him? I don’t even know how to begin trapping him. He’s got the support of part of the pack, you know that. If I just sneak into winning this mating challenge, they’ll never back me.”
“He has the support of the part of the pack that wants to freely kill people and eat humans whenever the urge strikes. That’s not the population anyone wants backing them.”
She hadn’t ever been soft when it came to Dane. Even when their father was alive, she frequently refused to let him in the house when he’d get in a rage, or when he’d start throwing things around. Partly it was because she wasn’t Dane’s natural mother – that surely had something to do with it, although she selflessly raised him like he was – but partly it was because she just hated the violence.
“Those wolves,” she continued, “are going to be the death of us. We’re strong, certainly, and we can always cause some havoc – but the thing they don’t consider is that as far as population goes? I’m fairly sure humans outnumber werewolves... what, ten million to one? More, maybe? We start up with that medieval business of hunting people in the alleys and terrifying cities, like your silly brother wants? We’re the ones that’ll be hunted down. We’ll be killed to a wolf, don’t you doubt it.”
She was getting worked up, and Jake knew better than to try and get a word in edgewise.
“This isn’t a fairytale we’re living. This is the twenty-first century, Jacob. I don’t mean to be dramatic, but if your brother takes over the pack? He’s going to kill every single one of us to satisfy his idiotic, teenage bloodlust. And I doubt it’ll stop just with our pack. Once people find out about us, and realize that we are exactly as terrible as the Grimm tales have us? They won’t stop until there isn’t a single breathing werewolf left on the planet.”
After sitting for a moment longer, she crossed her fingers in her lap, patted her thighs and stood up. “Rutabaga pie is done. Didn’t you say there was something else you wanted to tell me?”
“Oh,” he said, still reeling from the monster of an info-dump his mom had just put in his lap. Even though none of that was news – he’d known how dangerous it would be for wolves to be outed. After all, that’s why they worked so hard to keep secret. That’s why they kept to themselves and only their most trusted advisers – like George – were privy to the unbelievable reality that there were actually werewolves. And, Greta was exactly right. Dane’s unbelievable rage and his utterly childlike glee in killing humans and forcing them into... whatever it is he forced them into? That wasn’t going to go unnoticed. He also knew that if Dane were willing to go to such extremes to satisfy his own stupid urges, there was no telling what he’d do to win this challenge and take over the pack.
A mixture of rage, confusion, and an almost helpless feeling settled into Jake’s stomach. He hated violence, hated the fighting and all that... but he had a feeling he wasn’t going to have the luxury of pacifism if he was going to stop his brother.