Page 44 of My Fugitive Wolf
"I recognize some of the names..." Leo started to say once they reached the 19th century.
"From our packs..." Stephen finished for him.
"We need to..." Kellen looked around.
"Here." Leo handed him paper and pen.
By the time he reached the last page, Samara closed her eyes, knowing what she would see there but not wanting to believe it.
"Samara?"
"My name is there, isn't it."
"Okay." She could hear Kellen closing the book. "We can look at this later."
Knowing that her name was in there sparked Samara's inner rebel. "No, open the book again. We're going to figure this out and we're doing it today. I want to know why there's a man named Samuel on all of these pages and why my grandfather is on the last one."
Kellen reached up to touch her shoulder. The warmth of his hand said more than words. He knew what she was thinking, and it was okay to be upset about it. It was the first time he'd touched her since yesterday. How she wanted to keep his hand where he could offer her comfort, but that would only distract her. Still, she couldn't help but rub her cheek against his fingers before he opened the book to the last page with his other hand.
There was her grandfather's name printed next to her grandmother, who died of cancer soon after she'd given birth to their only child, her father. Below them, her father's name appeared as well as her mother's. Below them was her name, but Josiah had printed her name in all capital letters and with a bold underline.
"My grandfather was a wolf shifter. He must have been. He changed his surname over the centuries, every time he married. Just like you three." She looked at Kellen first, then Stephen and Leo. "You said it was time for you three to move again. Folks are starting to notice that you're not aging. My grandfather must have done the same. That's the only explanation I have for this." She waved a helpless hand at the book. "But how can that be? If he had a wolf shadow, wouldn't my father have one also?"
"I've never heard of a pup born without one." Grace kept her voice low.
"But my father never shifted. I'm sure of it. If he had a wolf shadow, it must have been dormant. He was always so...regular. He fought fires, hosted neighborhood barbecues, pampered my mother, and attended every one of my school recitals. If he had a wolf shadow, then I didn't get mine from being bitten by Josiah. I always had one." She reached out and touched her name on the page. "I don't understand any of this."
No one said anything for a moment, but then Stephen cleared his throat. "Kel, would you turn back to the early 19th century?"
Samara removed her hand and shoved it into Kellen's lap, as if touching the book had burned her. Kellen flipped back to the beginning of the 19th century.
"I recognize some of these names." Stephen leaned in closer. "The females were members who married into my pack. They were turned, not born."
"Same here." Leo motioned Kellen to turn another page. "Yeah, some of the pups grew up in Firebrand. Kel? Grace?"
Grace shrugged her shoulders, but Kellen answered even as he turned the page and then another. "No, none of these are from Riverstone."
They flipped through to the end of the book.
"It looks like none of the names after 1850 are familiar to us. Let's list that as a clue." Stephen started writing. "What else do we know?"
"My grandfather was a wolf shifter," Samara muttered, rubbing her temple that had started to throb, still confused and not sure how she should feel about this family secret. It did explain why her hands had burned when she was a child. It had been the silverware she was never supposed to touch that burned them.
Stephen wrote down her words. "Not just a wolf shifter, but a rogue wolf..."
"Judging by the birth and death dates, I would guess all of his female mates were regular humans, unless he changed them later." Kellen stopped turning pages. "Let's keep looking for any connection with Samuel by any other surname and Josiah, who might also have changed his name."
"How far back should we go?" Samara dug back into her box. "I mean, the family tree goes back over a thousand years. Kellen, you said wolf shifters only live an average of five hundred."
"Yeah," he said, looking back into his box. "Which means an outlier could live a thousand, but I don't know of anyone who has."
Stephen interrupted them again. "I don't think we should be looking for Samuel. What we should be looking for is for Josiah. I don't know much except that he wasn't the original alpha of Riverstone. Riverstone was peaceful, like Moonclaw and Firebrand until?—"
"—he murdered the Riverstone alpha." Leo said. "That's all I heard, but it was just a rumor."
"Yes, he did," Grace confirmed. "He showed up one day, already a wolf shifter. He claimed to have been born a wolf, but I don't believe it. He hung around, talking a lot, but saying nothing useful, bragging about stuff he'd done, but I doubt he had. Yet, some of the betas and omegas started to listen. He had that kind of charisma and told them that the alpha was weak and dragged down the pack because we refused to expand beyond Riverstone.”
She made a rude, scoffing noise. “After hunts, he would tell the omegas how stupid they were for following such a weak alpha who only took from the forest what was needed to survive. He would actually make fun of the alpha behind his back, twisting the alpha's words, or making up complete lies about him.”
