Dominance

Spring deepened into summer and Malcolm stayed away. Weeks passed like a leaf floating downstream, unconcerned with progress or destination. I gave in to the equally gentle but unrelenting force of Jeremy’s will, and learned to speak properly and behave with passable normality in public.

I didn’t need to worry about public behavior very often. Jeremy rarely went out. Everything we needed was here—food and shelter, companionship, land to run on and endless diversions of our own devising. Food was delivered. Banking and legal affairs were conducted by telephone and mail. Jeremy’s work also came and went by the mail. Antonio drove up from New York City every few weeks to visit. We had no reason to leave.

Over that spring, Jeremy taught me more than just language and manners. I learned to shoot an arrow within ten feet of the target, to swim in the back pond, to read the Sunday comics (even if I didn’t understand the humor) and to sneak up on a rabbit (even if I couldn’t catch it). An idyllic spring, which gave way to an equally idyllic summer. Then I went and screwed it up.

Jeremy and I were in the backyard replacing a section of stone wall that had crumbled over the winter. Actually, Jeremy wasn’t so much fixing it with me as in spite of me. I’d already knocked two stones out of the fresh mortar, one of which had landed on Jeremy’s foot. But I wanted to help, and enthusiasm always overruled ability with Jeremy. He wouldn’t discourage me even if it meant wasting half the day and breaking a few toes.

“Pull it back,” Jeremy said as I put a stone in place. “Not so much. A bit more. Now toward me. Perfect.”

It wasn’t perfect, but I knew that once I turned my head, it would miraculously find its way to the right spot. I bent to lift the next stone.

“Hello?” a voice shouted from the back of the house.

I dropped the stone. Jeremy yanked his foot out of the way, then straightened and brushed his bangs back from his face, mortar streaking his black hair with gray.

“There you are.” Antonio strode around the back wall. He skirted Jeremy and rumpled my hair. “You aren’t getting any bigger, scrap. Isn’t Jeremy feeding you enough? It’s past noon and I didn’t see anything on the table.”

“We weren’t expecting you,” Jeremy said.

“So you don’t eat when you’re not expecting company?” Antonio grinned, but avoided Jeremy’s eyes. “Are you hungry, scrap?”

I looked up at Jeremy. He was watching Antonio, his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. I recognized the look. It was the same one I got when he caught me sneaking back to my new bedroom late at night, smelling faintly of cold roast beef.

“So, you just happened to be in the neighborhood, thought you’d pop by for lunch?”

“What? I can’t make a surprise visit?”

Jeremy didn’t answer. He scraped the trowel off in the bucket, then laid it on the wall. “I suppose we should go in for lunch.”

“Before we do, I—”

The creaking of the distant back door cut Antonio off. I tensed, inhaled and caught the scent of a stranger. The hairs on the back of my neck rose.

“Dad?” a voice called.

“Just a sec, Nicky,” Antonio called back.

“I thought we agreed to wait.”

Jeremy’s voice was low, his tone even and calm. I shivered in spite of the warm sun. I recognized this, too—the voice I got when Jeremy went downstairs the next morning to discover that not only was the roast gone, but the fridge had been left open and the milk was spoiled.

“It’s been four months, Jer,” Antonio said. “Stop fretting about it.”

He clapped Jeremy on the back. When Jeremy stiffened, Antonio pulled his hand away and shoved it into his pocket.

“He’s not ready,” Jeremy said in that same measured tone. “I asked you to wait.”

There was more to the discussion, but I didn’t hear it. I’d tuned out, concentrating instead on listening for sounds from the house. A child. A boy. In my house.

Tension strummed through me. I strained toward the house like a bird dog on point, waiting for the word of release. Every second seemed interminable. A boy in my house. Strange adults were one thing; I was learning to deal with that indignity. But children? Sneaky, sneering boys like the ones at the print shop? In my house? That was beyond tolerating.

“Clayton?” Jeremy said, laying a hand on my shoulder. “I’d like to speak to you. Come around to the garden and—”

The back door swung open, then slammed shut. Jeremy’s hand tightened on my shoulder. A boy bounded around the corner and stopped short on seeing us.

“Hello, Nicky,” Jeremy said.

Jeremy said more and the boy responded, but I ignored them as I sized up the boy. So this was Antonio’s son. He had his father’s dark wavy hair and dark eyes, but was built slender and tall, already outstripping me by at least a foot. He had a good twenty pounds on me, too.

The first prickling of fear zinged through me. Then I noticed my advantage. He was unprepared. As he talked to Jeremy, his eyes darted over to me, but they held nothing but curiosity.

“Clayton,” Jeremy said. “This is Nicholas. Antonio’s son.”

The boy extended a hand and a wide grin. I knew it was a grin, but the bared teeth still made my hackles rise.

“He’s like you,” Antonio said quickly, stepping forward. “A werewolf. Or, he will be, when he gets older.”

The boy said something. Ignoring his words, I stared into his eyes and saw nothing but open trust. I sniffed the air and caught only the barest undercurrents of werewolf scent, heavily overlaid with the stink of a human child. Like me? This boy? Not likely. At least I had the sense to be wary of a stranger.

I sniffed and turned my face away, not quite willing to turn my back.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the boy step toward me. I turned, slowly, and met his gaze. He smiled at me with that affable smile that made me curse him doubly a fool. I bared my teeth. He seemed to think I was returning his smile and grinned broader.

“Man, I thought I was never going to get to meet you,” the boy said. “Dad’s been talking about you all the time and then he said maybe you guys were coming to the Meet last month, but then you didn’t and I kept bugging Dad and…”

He kept talking. I stopped listening.

As he spoke he moved closer. His shadow fell over me, making me feel suddenly very small. I clenched my fists at my sides and pulled myself up straighter. I still only came up to his chin.

I inhaled. The werewolf scent was stronger now. So this was a werewolf child, was it? Well, if so, something had to be done and quickly. You only get one chance to establish dominance.

I lunged without warning. I hit him in the stomach, knocking him back to the ground. As I held him down, he didn’t struggle, but just stared at me, eyes wide. The acrid scent of something vaguely familiar floated up. I felt a dampness seep through the knee of my pants and looked down to see a dark patch creeping outwards from the crotch of his trousers. As I wrinkled my nose and pulled back, Jeremy hauled me into the air.

The next few minutes blurred past in a series of images. Jeremy’s face, shuttered and hard, not looking at me. The stink of urine. Antonio bending to help his son up. The boy jabbering something. As I was being carried into the house, I caught the boy’s eyes. I saw no anger there, no lingering fear, just complete bewilderment. Any struggle for dominance had existed only in my head. Then I felt something I’d never felt before. Guilt, regret and more than an inkling of shame.

After a few hours of being left in my bedroom, Jeremy brought up my belated lunch. He explained, calmly, that as Antonio’s son, Nicholas must be treated with the same respect I would accord Antonio. Although Nick wasn’t a full-fledged werewolf, he would be when he grew up.

There were no others like me, no child werewolves. There never had been. There were other children of the Pack, like Nick, who would grow into werewolves, but not until they became adults. These would be my Pack brothers. No matter how I felt about them, I would have to learn to get along with them.

I offered to apologize, but Antonio and Nick had already left Stonehaven. I’d blown my first chance at fitting into the Pack. Although Jeremy never said this, I understood it.

Deep down, I sensed his other fear, too. That I’d never fit in. I was determined to prove him wrong. Of course, I’d also been determined never to raid the fridge again, never to attack strangers again, never to…

As summer passed, Jeremy began steering me into situations where I’d be with other children. After the fiasco with Nick, I was eager to please him, so I did my best to tolerate the little monsters.

Twice a week, for an entire month, he took me to a playground in BearValley, the nearest town. I behaved perfectly. I sat motionlessly on a swing, watched the children and gritted my teeth until the ordeal finally ended. Whenever a child ventured too close, a covert growl always sent him or her scrambling to find another piece of playground equipment.

I was so busy congratulating myself on my model behavior that I failed to realize the obvious—that these excursions were leading up to something. Had I known, I would have kicked and screamed and thrown my finest temper tantrum each time I so much as saw a swing set. Instead, I behaved so well that at the end of the summer, Jeremy pronounced me, with no small amount of trepidation, ready for the next major phase of my integration into human society, a torture worse than anything I would have thought him capable of devising. I was to go to school.