Once upon a time, there was a man named Aldous Pike, and he was never anyone significant, at least not to himself. He never married and continued to live with his mother. He did not think he would appeal to any woman within the pack.
He had grown up in a small log house at the edge of his clan's territory. His home smelled of woodsmoke and dried herbs, where his mother kept the fire going from morning until the last light of evening. He liked it there. He liked the quiet of it, the simplicity. He helped his mother with the cooking and the mending of things around the house, and that had always felt like enough for him. He did not need more than that. He did not want more than that.
He was not built for the company of others. When the other young men of his pack gathered outside the longh
