Page 46 of Scarred Resolve

“It’s the hosts’ job,” Shamus said with a chuckle.

“You ask him,” Heath said, chuckling in return as he gestured to his son.

“Yeah, Shamus, ask me,” Landon taunted with a toothier grin now as he looked over his shoulder between him and Dirk to Shamus, the werewolf directly underneath him in the pecking order.

“Kids, you two are going to bring over things for Landon and Dirk to host pack meetings here with food and drinks,” Shamus ordered, staring at Landon while he said it, still smiling like everything was fine.

“Yes, sir,” they both promptly replied, not looking up.

“Was there a fight?” Heath knew that while Shamus was their father, he was the one in charge of the entire room. Shamus didn’t often order his kids around like that.

“Yeah. They’ll be fine with some chores,” Shamus answered, rolling his eyes as his children, both adults now, sank further. “Old enough to be werewolves and part of the pack. Young enough to be stupid.”

“Everyone goes through it,” Heath reminded him.

“Not everyone puts their siblings through the walls right before we’re supposed to leave,” Shamus countered.

Heath immediately put together a plan to fix that.

“The pack will cover the cost, and they can get on-the-job training with one of my crews about how to repair that sort of damage… without pay, considering I’m willing to cover the cost. If Landon is willing, he can supervise if you don’t want to.”

“Willing,” Landon said with a vicious smile through a chest-vibrating growl. Willing but not happy about two young werewolves giving him a babysitting job for the summer.

“Thank you, Alpha. They’re both taking the summer off from school, so feel free to keep them for as long as you like. I’ll make a schedule with Landon so he’s not watching mine all the time.”

Heath nodded, then gestured to Landon, who pulled out his phone and made a note of that. Just another thing for them to deal with.

“Well, with that… handled, I’ll get right to the meat of this meeting. It’s not a Monday, I know. It’s not a real emergency, either. Jacky is out of town with her brothers, so it seems like a good time to address something. I’ve heard the brewing whispers and felt the shift in the mood of the pack. I was going to let things play out how they were going to until others came to me and pointed it out as well.” He looked back, grabbing the barstool his son had placed nearby for him without him needing to even ask. He positioned it and sat down, looking over the room as he got comfortable. “There’s been some icing out from Jacky toward the pack recently. Everyone’s noticed this, I assume.”

Heads nodded, and Heath looked around to see their expressions and smell the emotions in their scents. Nothing stood out to him.

“Let me start with something simple. Jacky has no intention of forcing anyone to leave. What happened with Fenris is notthe fault of the pack. Fenris was a complicated, mad werewolf, and we knew that when we let him into this pack. In fact, it was Jacky’s call that Fenris was allowed to stay.” There was some surprise from a few faces, which was expected. “She wanted to give him a chance. If he had just been the Fenris we knew, he would have taken that chance and run with it. He was doing very well. No one expected, not even Fenris, what would unfold. She doesn’t blame any of you for that. She doesn’t blame any werewolf for it.”

Landon snorted. Heath inhaled deeply, realizing he had accidentally lied.

“She blames one werewolf that I know of who is not here,” Heath corrected. “Callahan knew who Fenris was, his true identity, and he carefully covered it up for several hundred years as Fenris grew madder and further from his original identity and totally forgot himself. I won’t put words in her mouth about any other high-ranking werewolf outside of this pack, but I can say she blames no werewolfhere.”

“Why is she avoiding us?” Arlo asked, his chin up, his eyes full of defiance.

Heath glanced his way, nailing the young man with a hard stare, and waited. It took all of two seconds for the young man to drop that chin and lose the defiance. Another second and his eyes dropped.

“Grief is complicated. She’s grieving, and so is this pack. While we, as werewolves, often grieve together, werecats aren’t like us. She’s handling her grief and trying not to worsen ours.” Heath didn’t let someone else throw out another question, only taking a second for a breath and to collect his thoughts. “She thinks that by being near the pack, she’ll only remind you all that… she put him down, and that may make things difficult. I can’t convince her otherwise; she has to realize on her own that there are no hard feelings against her for that.”

“There aren’t, right?” Landon said, not moving, but the question was for the room.

And it was a threat.

Heath let it happen. He could have quickly shut down his son’s attitude, making sure everyone felt comfortable, but Landon was doing it for him. He was doing it for their family, and that family included Jacky.

“Not from anyone in my family,” Shamus said carefully. “I’ve never caught any sort of behavior that would make me think that about anyone here, either.”

“Why would we? She was fighting to save two members of the pack and one of her siblings,” Penny said softly, only giving off confusion and sadness.

“And regardless of any prior feelings we might hold about werecats, particularly that werecat with his moniker, he raised Dirk, another member of this pack, and accepted that he’s a werewolf now. If he can do it, so can we,” Roselyn added.

“And Fenris was mad,” Jenny pointed out. “Only Teagan and the boys really could spend time with him. It only makes sense that he was fucked up by some fae magic and lost it. He was a strong werewolf, but truthfully? I feel for Jacky more than anything. She really seemed to believe in him. When you believe that hard and it goes wrong… Yeah… I was worried Carlos and I would need to leave. I couldn’t imagine moving on from that sort of betrayal even though we know that Fenris was messed up.” Jenny lowered her head, guilty because of her fear about the potential of being pushed out, but Heath couldn’t deny how she had gotten to that point. She was also committed to a werewolf that had nowhere else to go. They would have to go rogue, and it would be disastrous for them if they were ever caught out. Carlos sighed.

“She’s right. It’s only reasonable to avoid us or distrust us,” he said softly.

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