"Some times the one you think is hurting you is really protecting you." Fluffy smiled in the knowledge of his newly acquired wisdom.
"My dad? How?" Harvey asked his hands, "He is a monster."
Fluffy laughed, "Yet he had been keeping you from becoming Kev's beta."
"He doesn't want me to find out about the illegal activities." Harvey said.
"What would happen if you did find out?" Fluffy asked.
"I'll report it to Alpha Kev." Harvey answered firmly.
"What if the rogue army was Alpha Kev's little personal project?" Fluffy asked, "What would you do?"
Harvey paled.
"How did you not see it?" Ben tsked, but in his usual monotone, so he could just as well had been remarking to himself.
"Your dad's too shrewd to actually link his personal business to rogue activities." Fluffy elaborated, "The moment an internal audit is called, everything would fall like a house of cards. He would know that should the rogue army training camp be uncovered, the blame would be quickly and squarely pinned on him, and he would take the fall and stand trial for treason. That was pretty smart."
"Oh." Harvey looked up for the first time.
"By sacrificing himself, his Alpha and the rest of Morning Light would also be the victim to his villainous ways." Fluffy shrugged, "By keeping you ignorant, he buys you time to escape your fate as Kev's right hand man. Do you really want to be Ron in this life?"
"So there is a training camp now?" Dad said.
"Yes, I saw it myself." Fluffy boasted, "I dropped by to check it out last night."
Last night, Fluffy had followed Kev out to the clubs at Gold City. Unknown to the rest of his family, Kev was quite the "ladies man" and heavy drinker. Fluffy used his connections to hook Kev up and get him completely wasted, "He's really bad at saying no to pretty girls."
Then he drove Kev home to Morning Light, "He was out like a light."
And while Kev was down, and Fluffy was already in their packlands, he took the chance to sneak out to their borders to check out the hidden rogue village, and lo and behold, an army training camp with bunks and all.
"Its nothing like Wolfie's army though." Fluffy waved his hand.
"Don't compare my warriors to rogues!" Wolfgang scolded.
"But I have no idea what's going on between your parents." Fluffy shrugged, "Maybe they just like to play rough."
Harvey punched him, "Sorry, Alpha. Reflex."
He wasn't sorry at all. Fluffy laughed, "Don't worry, it didn't hurt."
"Do you want all of us to beat you up, Alpha?" Ben threatened.
"Oh, so scary." Fluffy smiled, "That's why you need to mate far away from here, my pretty La. There are only violent idiots here. Go live the life of a duchess with Wolfie!"
Wait what? I got mad at that, "Shut up, Fluffy. You don't get to decide my fate."
"I don't?" Fluffy asked innocently.
"No." I told him firmly, "I will choose my own fate."
"It's my turn to report." I stood up and walked over to Dad's desk, "I personally don't care which timeline we end up with, but if we have to stay, from the moment I shift, I'm starting my own pack."
"WHAT?" More than one person yelled.
"Sam… one of the advantages of staying here would be keeping you safe." Dad said, "I never… I never really managed to keep you safe when you were growing up before. If you mother knew the number of times you fell off the back of my bike…"
You mean it happened more than once?
"Or how you cracked your head on the road that one time…" Beta Lucas said.
"What?" This was me because I never remembered a time I took any real damage.
"Hoo boy, the sound was like an egg hitting the tarmac." Beta Lucas remembered.
"But don't I always get up just fine?" I asked. Beta Lucas had said so too!
"Yah man." Beta Lucas nodded, "But that was only later. I guess you got really good at falling."
"What kind of thing did you do for her to get really good at falling?" Ben groused at his Dad.
Dad grimaced and then sighed, "It was my fault."
"Your dad ran with you in his arms all the way to the Lorent's Packhouse and begged for a healer." Beta Lucas said as if in Dad's defense, "A female healer heard the commotion and had compassion and healed you. Later, I returned to say thank you on behalf of Alpha and see what we might be able to send to her as payment. You were very badly injured, Sam… and we were not sure what the heal had cost the lady."
"Who was she?" I asked.
Beta Lucas shrugged, "We had no idea, but she had eyes like Ki's, so it was easy to spot her while she was doing her rounds in the hospital. She refused any form of payment, so I left her my number and told her that she had saved Alpha Kingsley's daughter and life for life, we would owe her. And also that the incident was on Black Out."
Urm yeah. A Black Out order was probably overkill since the only person who absolutely shouldn't know was Mum.
"Two months later, I received a text from an unknown number saying that she was the healer who saved Alpha Kingsley's daughter. The life for life favor, she would like to transfer to her son. A few days later, we saw her picture in the obituary."
Beta Lucas shrugged, "Hoo boy, it left your Dad and I were wondering how to return the favor. You know how the Lorents were keeping everything under wraps those years after that. Next thing we knew, you brought Ki home."
"I did think it strange why I was accepted so easily into your home." Ki smiled, "Thank you for honoring your promise, Alpha."
Wait... Give me a moment to process this...
"Sam." Dad sounded pained now, "Although you seemed well, you were also not quite the same after the accident."
"It's fine. I'm fine now." I waved it off.
"You stopped talking for a while." Dad admitted.
"I'm talking fine now." I said.
"When you did talk, you declared yourself the alpha." Dad said.
"I was just being a brat." I brushed it off.
"Yah man, that was cute." Beta Lucas remembered.
It wasn't. There were things that wolves knew by instinct not to say or do even from a very young age - like challenge the Alpha.
"You were always a little slow to read the room." Dad said, "And you didn't have the same sense of self preservation as the other pups."
I'm speechless, was that what my own Dad thought of me?
"And when you were older, your mum worried about how you seemed indifferent about connecting with girls your age." Dad sighed.
You know, when Dad put it like that, it really made it sound like I was defective as a pup.
"Lucas and I feared we broke your wolf in the accident." Dad said.
"My wolf is a monster." I said, "It won't break so easily."
Not that I had never suspected my wolf was defective, and it did explain why I could leak wolf power even as a pup. Not that I was going to tell Dad...
"Yah man, it's good your wolf wasn't damaged. Even the healer was worried and warned us." Beta Lucas confessed.
"Warned you what Dad?" Ben pressed.
"Well, she should have died." Beta Lucas shrugged, "Her wolf could have returned to the goddess, or be damaged, or anything really. The healer could only patch up the physical wound - but whether Sam woke up or not, whether she could shift or not, whether her wolf would be whole or not, that would depend on her luck."
I had never felt so thankful for my incredible luck as of today. I could have been the stuff of horror stories. The kind told in the dark and stormy nights when lighting flashes while a powerful healer cries out, "It's alive! It's alive!" or the really creepy ones about puppies who grew up with a dead wolf within them… All good movie material if you were into horror.
Ben considered all this and then nodded, "It does explain a lot."
WTH. "How does it explain anything?"
Ben shrugged, "You were always different from the other pups, Sam."
"Me? You were the weird one!" I protested, "You didn't even talk to other pups till you were in grade school!"
"That's because everyone around me was an idiot." Ben said. In this life, he had Fluffy to talk to though, so in Lala's memories, he was always following Fluffy around like a shadow… a very talkative shadow. In this life, Ben's droll sarcasm was blamed on Kai's influence, but now it was pretty obvious that it was more likely just Ben.
Anyway, these two concluded from a young age that they were in a pack of idiots. It was only as they grew older that they were made aware that the whole world was stupid. In a way, the two of them ran perfectly as Alpha and Beta.
If I didn't know about my previous life, this one would have been as good as any.
"Hoo boy, Alpha. She still zones out here too." Beta Lucas said, "Opp, maybe the zoning out is normal."
"In what way is that normal?" Ben felt he had to be the droll voice of reasoning for his Dad.
"It could be her gift of insight." Dad suggested thoughtfully.
"She hasn't shifted yet, Alpha." Ben pointed out.
"That's true." Dad nodded, "Hm."
Don't "hm" me, and don't stand around and observe me like I'm some kind of lab experiment!
Exhibit 1 dropped and cracked head as a pup.
Exhibit 2 protected and sheltered all her life.
Spot the difference.
Actually, the gift of insight would be really useful right now.
"In other words, are you saying the reason we are staying is because La is safer in this timeline?" Fluffy asked, "So not to save Kev, but to save La?"
I didn't need any saving! I was far safer as Sam than this weak and useless girl Lala. How long was Dad going to be able to shield me from the rest of the world? Even if he blocked out the rogues, kept the Great War from erupting again, and sacrificed both my brothers' happiness. I would NEVER truly be safe if I couldn't even protect those I loved.
"It does make everything simpler if Kev is dispensable." Fluffy opined.
"I'm not planning on sacrificing my sons." Dad declared.
"You should definitely sacrifice one of them though." Fluffy said brightly, "Not me though, because I'm your favorite."
"Sorry, Alpha." Ben said and hit him. I think the guys were starting to make it a game of beat up Alpha Kai.
"Kai, what if I said I wanted to save all of you?" Dad asked seriously.
"Then I will give up everything in my life to see it through if I have to." Fluffy answered darkly before laughing, "Just kidding, there's no way it would ever come to that!"
But Dad's expression only got darker, and Beta Lucas almost panicked, "Hoo boy, do you think they've already figured it out?"
"Figure what out?" I asked.
"I wonder what other dark secrets you're keeping from us, Dad?" Fluffy smiled.
"Maybe you were dropped off the back of a bike too." Ben told him.
Fluffy laughed, "Don't worry my lovely beta, if I had to fall of a bike, I promise to drag you down with me."