Page 12 of In Your Eyes
Chapter 4
INEVERfound a way to tie. It wasn’t that I didn’t know how. Though I’d dismissed my father’s attempts to talk to me in any sort of detail about something so personal, I hadn’t had any trouble finding information about sex. After all, I had a computer.
Most shifters had, at best, a grudging acceptance of technology, preferring the trees and the land and the air to being indoors in front of a screen. I had always loved being in my wolf form too, much more than my human form. But with my shifting issue intensifying, I could no longer risk following the call of my wolf for fear that I wouldn’t be able to return to my human skin.
When I went outside and smelled the fresh air and soil and trees, the need to become one with nature and feel my paws on the ground was overwhelming, so I had taken to staying indoors. Getting an education seemed like a perfect thing to do with my free time, but my Alpha training prevented me from being able to attend a traditional college. Thankfully, I found courses on the Internet and received a degree that way, managing to become very adept at using a computer along the way.
I had always had a head for numbers, and after my first business course, I realized I loved working with spreadsheets. Accounting seemed like a natural career choice, but becoming a good Alpha continued to be my top priority, so I divided my time between my training and school. It had worked out well for me.
Now twenty-three, I had my degree and a job providing accounting services for Internet-based companies. I did all my work via e-mail with a very rare phone call mixed in, and I never had to meet anyone in person. Though I could afford to move out on my own, I was still living with my parents because I hadn’t yet mated and I was training under my father.
If I hadn’t been dealing with the shifting issue, my life would have been right on track. But with my shifting problem, I never felt right, never felt whole. I knew it was because I was suppressing my wolf, not allowing myself to shift for fear I wouldn’t be able to return to my human form.
It was incredibly difficult to smother such an important part of myself, but with a lot of focus, I was able to hold the shift back most of the time. Unfortunately, when I got tired or angry, my control weakened, emotions overrode my common sense, and my wolf broke through. Shifters were generally clear-minded in our wolf form. We were more in touch with nature and our core needs while in our wolf skins, but we still had rational thought, still knew who we were and what we were doing. But my wolf had become unmanageable.
When I shifted, all I felt was a clawing need, a desperation, a deep sense of frustration, and it overrode all my common sense. Once I was in my wolf form, I’d inexplicably head straight for the woods at a breakneck pace. Normally, going for a run would have been fine, but I inevitably dashed through our pack lands and crossed over into the Miancarem pack lands. With the strained relationship their Alpha, Dirk Keller, had with my father, infiltrating their territory without permission was dangerous and stupid. I’d never considered myself either of those, and yet I continued to lose focus and ended up going exactly where I had no right being.
On more than one occasion, my father and brother had chased me through the forest. They had surrounded me, tackled me, and held me down until I snapped out of the fog in my mind. As I’d gotten older, I’d outgrown my father, so it wasn’t easy for them to overpower me, even with two of them and only one of me. Thankfully, they’d managed to do it and, up to that point, I hadn’t been hurt. But I could have been.
My parents were both worried, I knew. They worried for me and, of course, for the pack. I put on a brave face, insisted everything was fine, but I knew it wasn’t. My duty to lead the Yafenack pack was getting closer and closer, and despite all my knowledge and training and physical strength, I was in no position to be Alpha. An Alpha had to be strong in both forms. He had to garner the respect of the pack and lead them, not hide indoors because he couldn’t control himself.
And that was why I found myself looking in the mirror on yet another Friday morning. I straightened my shirt, brushed my hair, and wondered if that night would be the night my body wouldn’t betray me. Every other time I’d made the trek to a gathering far from our pack lands, I’d returned home without success.
Seeking a female to tie with inside my own pack wasn’t an option. First off, I knew them all and not one inflamed lust within me. But what was worse, if I tried to ignore my distaste for them and force my body to do what it was meant to do and failed yet again, the female would know and the information would spread through the pack like wildfire. I would not only shame my family, I would decimate my chance to become Alpha if my pack realized I had such little control over my own body.
Trying to keep a positive attitude, I climbed into my car and began the long trek to the annual gathering of the packs in the region north of ours. I had made a point to learn when all the regions had their gatherings and then attended. I’d slip in quietly, never tell anyone what pack I was from, and seek out a female. I had learned early on that females found me attractive, so I never had trouble garnering their interest. The problem was that in order to tie, my body had to cooperate, and time and again, I failed on that count.
It was no different that night, so my mood was already sour when I reached the Yafenack pack lands early the following morning. The long drive had given me time to think about my struggles. I was twenty-three years old, an adult by any standard. I had to tie in order to hold on to my human half, but I couldn’t. And because there was no other explanation for my shifting issue, I knew the two struggles were interconnected. I finally admitted to myself that I couldn’t solve my shortcomings on my own and I had to confess what had been going on to my father.
An odd sort of calm came over me with that decision. Oh, I was still ashamed and disappointed and scared, but I knew my father would be able to help me just as he always had, and there was peace in that, relief. Unfortunately, it was short-lived.
As soon as I walked into the house, I was slapped with a vision of panic. My family and my father’s close friends were rushing around the large entryway, talking loudly and looking stressed.
“What’s going on?” I asked nobody in particular.
When I didn’t get a response, I darted my gaze around, trying to figure out the answer on my own. The entryway was in the center of the house, surrounded by arched openings leading to the living room, the kitchen, the dining space, my father’s study, and a pack gathering room. A curved stairway leading to the bedrooms broke up the space.
With thick pine floors, butter-colored walls, and diamond-shaped windows, the Alpha den was normally warm and calm, much like the Alpha himself. My father was a hard man to ruffle and he was good at soothing the nerves of those around him. Pack members came to him when they were worried or needed advice, and he always found a way to resolve their concerns. Instinctively, I looked for him among the tightly strung people, but I didn’t have success.
“Where’s Dad?” I said, hoping my mother or brother or sister would finally notice my presence and answer me. One out of three wasn’t bad.
“Samuel!” My mother rushed over to me. “I’m so glad you’re home. I worried you wouldn’t get here in time.”
“In time for what?” I fished my phone out of my pocket and looked at my calendar; we had nothing scheduled. “And why didn’t you call to tell me”—I had no idea what was happening, so I had no idea what she would have said had she called—“something was going on?”
She flicked her gaze from my face to the phone in my hand and back again. “Oh. I always forget you carry that thing around.” She shook her head. “Never mind. It’s not important now. Go speak with your father. He’s in the study.”
Already frustrated with my inability to tie, the long drive, and the disarray in my den, I repeatedly squeezed my hands into fists and released them as I marched toward the study.
“Dad?” I knocked and slowly opened the door.
“Come on in, Samuel.”
The overhead lamp was off, so the only illumination in the room came from a stained-glass lamp perched on the corner of the desk my great-grandfather had made by hand from fallen trees from our pack lands. My father was on the other side of the room, sitting on the small brown tweed sofa wedged into the corner.
“Is everything okay?” I stepped toward him. “Everyone seems”—I furrowed my brow, pinched my lips together, and tried to think of a good description—“anxious and worried.”
“You can sense their emotions?” he asked, sitting up straight and peering at me, hope flashing in his eyes.
