Werewolf Wedding(18)

“Jacob?” she asked. “There was something else? Maybe about your sweet little girlfriend?”

Greta was up and flouncing around the kitchen again, smiling her sweet smile. Jake’s guts were a mess. A sweaty, roiling, gurgling mess. “Nah,” he said. “It can wait, it wasn’t anything important.”

Nothing important. Like, you know, the girl I’m currently an idiot for isn’t a werewolf. Ugh. When was the last time that even happened? The 1800s? He shook his head as another couple of shouts from the living room resulted in at least two people leaving the house, probably to have a little slugfest.

“I better go calm the tempers,” he said with a sigh. “Don’t want them breaking your curio cabinet.”

“Yes dear, that’s true,” Greta said, as sweetly as she could.

As soon as Jake was up and out of the kitchen, she balled up her fist and slammed it on the countertop, sending the remains of the panko pile flying.

*

“Uncle Elbert!” Jake shouted, grabbing his rather elderly, and fully drunk, uncle by the collar. “You cannot start a fight with someone because you think they said something fifteen years ago.”

“He did say it!” Elbert insisted. His fermented breath was upsetting, but not as much as the fact that Jake had gotten to the front room just in time to find the curio cabinet face down. Thankfully the glass had only cracked, and the door would need new hinges. He made a note to ask Dilly about fixing the glass next time he saw her, which immediately put a little flutter in his stomach.

“And it was thirteen years! That’s nothing to a wolf!” Elbert’s squawking brought him back to reality. At least they were all out front now, so there wasn’t much more damage that could occur, except to the rosebushes, which had survived things a lot worse than two skinny, old, drunk werewolves falling into them.

Jake sighed heavily. “Okay, okay. Fine. Would an apology work?”

“You’re a lunatic if you think I’m apologizing that that old jackass!” It was, Jake realized with disappointment, apparently his other old, drunk uncle’s turn to start in. “I only called him what’s true. He did try to steal my mate, so I called him a flipper!” Jeffry was livid. He was also slurring pretty heavily, and having to work rather hard to stay on his feet.

“Okay, fine,” Jake said. “Flipper is a pretty bad thing to call someone, a grave insult even,” he was playing up the drama pretty heavily. “But then again, mate stealing is a pretty nasty thing to do. Even if it doesn’t work.”

“It would have!” Elbert piped up. “She said he couldn’t satisfy her in the way a man is supposed to! Except he shot me, and she ran off!”

And sometimes, Jake thought, it’s best to pick your battles.

“You know what? You two are so drunk I doubt you could hurt a rabbit. If this is really what you want, then just get it over with. Don’t mess up the rose bushes, I spent a lot of time on them.”

Elbert lunged at Jeffry who responded by swinging an arm wildly, and falling flat on the ground. The two of them tussled for about eight seconds, and then were either snuggling, or making up. Jake wasn’t paying much attention, because as soon as the flailing began, a sound that he recognized – and a sound that made his guts churn – met his ears.

“Still trying to keep wolves from being wolves, brother?”

Dane’s voice is about the only thing in the world that can make me see red this quick.

Jake spun on his heel, eyes and nostrils flaring. After the day he’d had, it would be really good to belt his smug-ass brother right in the mouth. But somehow, he resisted the urge. Partially because he didn’t want to descend to his brother’s sophomoric bullshit, but also because he didn’t want to set an example like his brother so happily enjoyed.

“Why are you here, Dane?” Jake snarled, using every ounce of his self-control to keep from wolfing out and tearing into his brother. His brother with the golden hair and the sea-blue eyes. His brother who had stolen three of his five attempted mates; Jake’s own personality, er, quirks, had done the rest. “Why can’t you just leave us alone?”

Jake hadn’t realized it, but everyone – including the feuding drunks – had stopped whatever they were doing, and were paying rapt attention to the proceedings between the alpha and the pretender. Which one of them was the rightful alpha, and which one the pretender, depended completely on the individual being asked.

“Because I don’t have to,” Dane said. “I went away for five years and came back because I heard you were going soft. I heard you were turning our pack – our pack of werewolves – into a bunch of whiny peaceniks. I can’t have that. And so,” he raised his arms to the sides and swept them back and forth. “I’m back to make my people feel like wolves again.”

Elbert clapped for a moment, and then stopped when he realized he was the only one. Jake turned briefly back to the house to see his mother watching from the window. As soon as he caught her eye, he saw her purse her lips and then turn back to the ovens.

“You have no idea what you’re going to do, Dane,” Jake snarled. “You’re going to ruin everything. You’re going to take thousands of years of carefully crafted safety and secrecy and turn it all into a big, flaming wreck.”

Dane quickly closed the distance to his brother and stared straight in his eyes, tilting his head downward slightly to emphasize their minute height difference. “I’ll do what we’ve been doing for centuries. Wolves aren’t meant to hide in the shadows like scared children. We’re meant to be predators, little brother. I’m going to win this stupid mating contest to satisfy all the old wolves’ need for tradition, and then I’m bringing us to the fate we should have always had. If you think that means I’m going to make the world burn?”