Page 9 of In Your Eyes
“Yes, you have. You were the only teenager I’d ever seen who preferred combing through old texts to watching television.” My father laughed. “I’m sure you could school me and every other pack Alpha about shifter history.”
He reached forward to ruffle my hair, but I stepped back. I was twenty, a man. Sometimes he forgot, so I had to remind him.
“The thing about culture, though,” he continued, “is it isn’t always written down.”
“What do you mean? If it matters, it’s in the texts.”
“Not necessarily. Some things you only learn by talking to people.”
Of course, he would once again bring the conversation around to interacting more with the pack. With everything I did right, I kept hoping he’d be satisfied, but I was forever coming up short on that part of my training.
I hated letting my father down, but no matter how hard I tried to play the part of Alpha as he described it to me, even going as far as using his words verbatim when I spoke with pack members, he said I wasn’t leading from the heart and the pack would sense it. When I asked him how to act like I was leading from the heart, he shook his head, said it wasn’t about acting, and looked disappointed. So I stopped asking questions, deciding I’d figure it out on my own. Up to that point, I hadn’t made any progress, but, thankfully, I still had years before I’d start my time as Alpha.
“The parts of culture you witness are just as important as the ones you read in the writings.” My father paused and knitted his eyebrows in thought. “There are things you learn by hearing people talk when they don’t realize you’re listening, by seeing how they act when they’re not thinking about it. You learn how your pack sees things based on what they say and do when they feel free to be themselves.”
I had no idea what he meant. I was always aware of what I said and who was around. After all, the only reason I was with people or spoke to them was because it was part of my training and would be part of my responsibility as Alpha. There was nothing freeing about that. Only when I was alone in my room could I relax; but then I didn’t speak out loud. Nobody could read my thoughts, so that couldn’t be what my father meant.
“Do you hide so they don’t know you can hear them?” I asked, thinking that was his point. “Is that how you always know what the pack members need? Is it part of monitoring them and—”
“Of course not,” my father snapped, catching me off guard. “That’s not what I….” He looked at me, and his expression changed from anger to one I’d seen many times but never fully understood. It resembled concern or sadness. “During unguarded moments, simple conversations, people say what they take for granted as being normal,” he explained in a lower, calmer tone. I thought of it as his teaching voice. “And then you realize some shifters have taken the tradition of pride and connection with the pack and transformed it into animosity toward those who aren’t pack. But they’re wrong. The pack is stronger when we’re connected with the world around us, and we can’t connect if we refuse to acknowledge others, or if we degrade them by calling them names or—”
“That’s why you tell the pack not to call humans half-souls,” I mumbled, talking more to myself than to him.
“Exactly. Lowering those around us does not elevate us. Our pride, our strength—” He looked me in the eyes and tapped his chest. “It needs to come from within or it’s flimsy and meaningless.”
Nodding in understanding, I committed the lesson to memory so I could reflect on it later. I’d probably write it down in the Alpha studies journal I kept so I could go back to it when it was my turn to lead.
“All done with the questions now?” my father asked after a few moments of silence. “Or do you have something else to distract me from working with you on the shifting issue?”
He knew what I’d been up to. Of course he knew. My father knew everything. It was why he was such a good Alpha. I lowered my gaze in shame.
“There’s nothing else.” I gulped. “I can shift now.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “Shift into your wolf, go for a quick run, and then shift back. I’ll watch you.”
Nodding, I pushed down my shorts and briefs and folded them.
“Samuel.”
I glanced up at my father as I put my clothes on the table we kept on the back porch.
“I want you to pay close attention to how you’re feeling during both shifts—into your wolf form and back to your human. When you’re done, explain it to me so we can understand what’s going on.”
“IT’STHEonly thing that makes sense, Tom,” my mother said.
“Do you really think so?” He started pacing. Not that I could see him from my perch behind the wall outside the kitchen entry, but it sounded like he was pacing. “I had the same thought, but he’s so young.”
“He is twenty years old,” my mother reminded him.
I nodded vehemently, even though nobody could see me.
“When we were his age, I was pregnant with him,” she added.
“You’re right.” I heard the chair scrape across the linoleum floor. “It’s hard to remember sometimes.”
I wasn’t sure why it was so hard with me constantly reminding him.
“He’s our son, but he’s also a man.” My chest puffed up with pride in response to my mother’s comment. “You need to talk to him before things get worse.”
