Page 46 of The Healer and the Wolf: Part One

“I loved cats, but when I was growing up and went to other people’s houses, too many of them had cats who would be a real hassle while eating. Not only is it really annoying for the people who visit, but also it’s really unhealthy for the cats themselves. People don’t realize how much being overweight can affect a feline. Some are meant to be bigger than others, like Goober, or Russian Blues, but most aren’t.”

“Ah, I see. You really care about them don’t you?”

“Of course, I do. They’re my pack.” I didn’t go into the fact that cats really seemed to understand me. A lot of people tended to dislike felines because they didn’t understand the language and social rules, especially when they tried to use dog logic on cats. That was like trying to teach a Mandarin speaker how to drive a car for the first time while speaking Arabic. Yeah, maybe it was a little dramatic for me to feel camaraderie with my pets, but it was what it was.

“They’re lucky to have such a good alpha,” Leo said with another soft smile before inhaling his last pancake. “You know, Ricky would absolutely love your cooking.”

“Ricky? Who’s that?”

It was the first name Leo had mentioned to me. Were more memories returning? That was wonderful. It was so good to see the curse have less and less of a grip on him.

But then a voice in the back of my head, soft and insidious, started whispering.What would happen once he remembered everyone who had been left behind?He was a wolf, so of course he would want to be with them. And once he had his pack back, he wouldn’t need me anymore.

Whoa, whoa, I’m getting way too ahead of myself.

I buried those thoughts into the deepest part of my mind and focused on what Leo was saying.

“I… I’m pretty sure he’s my beta.”

“Your beta?” I questioned.

“My righthand man.”

I frowned. “Are you saying shifters have a pack structure like the one by Dr. Mech that’s been debunked for years?” Not everyone knew it, but the man’s premise had been flawed from the start. He had theorized that wolf packs were led by an alpha male and female who fought for that position of dominance along with a whole bunch of other erroneous things.

It wasn’t his fault, though; he hadn’t known his research would be completely skewed by studying captive wolves. Also, it had been many decades ago. Science and animal knowledge had improved by leaps and bounds since then, especially with the technological advances. In fact, I remembered Dr. Mech had released a paper refuting his old book a few years ago, but unfortunately, most people never really wanted to learn anything past the basic concepts they were taught in school.

“I’m not familiar with the name, but I know what you’re talking about. Shifter wolf packs do follow a hierarchy of alpha and beta. In a perfect world, the alpha would be either a matriarch or patriarch of the pack—gender doesn’t really matter—and everyone within the pack would be either related to or adopted by them by blood or by oath. The beta also can be of any gender and is generally the alpha’s total support. Kind of like a vice president. Occasionally, there’s romantic entanglements between alpha and beta pairs, but more often than not it’s simply a deep, platonic bond that existed even before either part of the pair expressed their designation.”

“Designation?”

“That’s what we call alpha or beta status.”

“So, it’s a genetic thing?”

I greatly appreciated that Leo never seemed annoyed when I peppered him with questions, because I certainly had a lot.

“Dunno. Might be. Might be magic. It’s hard to say with the whole shifter thing.”

Yeah, that did make sense. “You mentioned in a perfect world that the alpha is related to everyone in their pack either by blood or oath.”

“I did.”

“Well... We don’t live in a perfect world.”

He let out the tiniest huff of a laugh, dry but not entirely bitter. “That is certainly an understatement.”

“So, what happens when things are imperfect?” I had a feeling I was brushing up against a topic Leo didn’t really want to speak about, and if he told me he didn’t, I would stop. But I couldn’t help my natural curiosity. Leo was a walking mystery made flesh, and I wanted to learn so much about him.

“Lots of different things. Sometimes awful things happen. We shifters heal fairly well, but sometimes sickness will wipe out an entire family line. Infertility can stop a bloodline in its tracks, especially if they’re purists who don’t want to adopt.”

I wrinkled my nose at that. It figured that even in magical societies there were still douchebags who cared so much about a person’s biology, they’d rather have their family line end than adopt. “And sometimes, there are coups.”

“Coups?” Now, there was a loaded word if I ever heard one.

“Yeah. Some alphas aren’t good people. They try to take over other packs. Occasionally, this is done diplomatically between two groups with dwindling numbers or resources, but some alphas try to force it.”

“Why would someone want to do that?”

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