Rise of the Underdogs: JACOB

A Long Farewell

He was gone, and I was alone. Again. Alone in school and in the group of friends so tightly knit we considered each other family. Brothers and sisters brought together by the flickering light of a Runt’s call and destined to become the Howlers.

That… was… Oh gawd, I’m going to vomit. Not really, but yeah.

Running through the halls screaming “It’s overdone!” sounds like a wonderful prank to pull off. I wonder what Wyn is up to….

Oh, right. My story.

So, I was watching my best friend’s plane take off from the runway, my heart feeling torn as he left. He didn’t leave town or the province. He left the country all because one bratty b***h couldn’t just accept Fate. Leaning against my car, I shook with the rage that had been building since the day Andrast mockingly rejected him.

The sun was shining, the weather was great for our last year of school, but I hated that he was gone. I hated that I would have to guard my Luna alone for the first time since meeting Logan’s brother just a few years before.

I understood his need to leave. Not to run, but to learn how to manage the emotions he still didn’t fully understand. To find his place in our world and finally grow into the position Logan created just for Valik: Captain of the Elite Guard. He would rank with the founding members and be able to attend all founder meetings.

Gravel crunched behind me, but I didn’t need to turn to know who it was. The scent of my older brother – stinging and feral like the Beta he was – filled my nose, and I smiled sadly. “Was it this hard for you? When Lo-lo went to Mexico that time?”

“It wasn’t easy, and it never got easier until you guys came back. Will you be alright for a year? You’re going to graduate without him,” Paul said, reminding me of the coming final leg of high school.

Thinking it over, I sighed heavily. “I’ll still have our little Luna. I mean, Selene is in my grade, so at least one of her assigned guards will be with her at all times. We’re going to need to alter the schedules so that I can be in all her classes.”

My brother grinned at me, “Already thinking in Delta mode? Good. That means Valik leaving didn’t completely disrupt the fabric of the pack.”

Shaking my head, I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. I leaned back on the car, the one I shared with Valik not because I had to, but because I wanted to. Because he needed a friend, not another meaningless arrangement and not another situation where running or death were his only options.

Another heavy breath escaped me. “No matter how much I miss him, he needed this chance. This escape to find himself.”

“You’ll be okay, little bro. C’mon, Logan’s waiting for us back at the packhouse. Sam’s got another idea for security monitoring that’ll leave some of us available for other things.” He said.

The helmet under his arm told me he’d driven the Honda, which meant I could blast my music without him complaining. Sliding into the driver’s seat, I frowned, “I know I will. I’m just worried about him. Yo, um, Sammy’s not planning anything… drastic, is he?”

“Not that I know of,” he said, grasping the helmet in both hands as he moved to put it on. “But Devon might try to claim partial ownership like he always does. I think he’s convinced that, just because they’re twins, his brother’s ideas are his too.”

“Goddess, Paul. Don’t let Wyn hear that,” I shuddered as the thought of my prankster sister we’d dubbed Trouble surfaced. “But you’re right. Devon does try to claim stuff that ain’t his, and he really needs to lay off before Sam shows him why it’s a bad idea to take what ain’t his.”

Paul snickered, his eyes closing. “Yeah, I know. Then again, it could be poetic justice for all the times Samuel stole food off his brother’s plate.”

The sky, once a clear blue with puffs of fluffy clouds, was slowly being crowded by cirrostratus. The thickening underside turning a deep shade of gray as the weight of precipitation hung heavy in their basement. Honestly, they were the perfect metaphor for my current mindset. Laden with painful secrets and shattered hopes while simultaneously trying to hold in tears that would eventually escape anyway.

The painful secrets? I was there when the horrifying reality was set down at Valik’s feet. The day his supposed Mate confidently and laughingly declared that he meant nothing to her before she detonated the already weakened tether of the Mate bond.

The shattered hopes? Easy. My best friend desperately wanted a reason to prove he was nothing like the boy who sired him and Logan within the span of two years. I, for one, would never in my lifetime call Austin a man. Men don’t steal mothers from their children, and they certainly don’t murder good fathers in cold blood just to make a point.

It took Paul nearly a year to understand that Dad’s death wasn’t his fault and there was nothing he would have been able to do against someone who could only be defeated by someone he assumed was too weak to matter. Austin knew Dad was a Warrior, and he knew Paul was a Beta. What he didn’t account for was Logan going feral long enough to gain the upper hand and finally put the supernatural world out of our collective misery.

In absolutely no possible future could I see myself losing both my brother and my father to that beast. Dad had been our world, but Paul was my brother – the only other boy in our family I was close to in any sense of the word.

Why?

Because he never left me out. Never let me wonder why everyone else but me was included.

“Looks like rain,” I commented dryly.

He nodded, his smile strained as he pocketed the phone that had chimed a moment before. “Guess what?”

“Kaylene booted you onto the couch?” I offered, falling back on my old humour.

Paul’s grin widened, his eyes taking on that bright, I’m-up-to-something-big shine they always did before he dropped a truth bomb so big it would shake the foundations of the family. The smile on his face was the same one he wore when telling people that Logan would burn the world with truth and justice if they pushed us Howlers more than necessary.

He wasn’t wrong.

“Brat!” He snapped, but there was no crossness in his tone. “No, you’re the first of our family to know she’s pregnant.”

“The very first pup born to a high-ranked member of the Howlers,” I said, pride swelling in my heart. “That’s… wow, big brother. That’s a reason to party right there.”

The Howlers were not born of necessity, but from the choices we made to stand with the one no one else saw clearly. To shove a Runt into the position of Alpha, and make him be seen. We each fell into our roles, not because we wanted to or because they were handed to us, but because they felt right.

Right from the start, each of the original nine founders simply gravitated into our roles without questioning the validity of it. Paul, calm and quiet, commanded the Beta role perfectly. Maria, our Gamma? Oh, she was water personified. That was one woman who could switch from sipping tea with Luna Selene to asserting her power over the trio of troublemakers. I hadn’t felt like I belonged in any position but the Delta – a role not used since before Grand Alpha Henry’s father was born.

Wynter and Devon had been in more fights than I was certain the adults knew about. Samuel, Heaven, and Ember however, slipped into their roles as Omegas. Not less than, but not the strongest, either. It was why, when the option of the False Omega was brought up, Wynter jumped into the role and never looked back.

So much so that, during the war Austin started, she’d traded herself for Sammy with the thought that the whole pack would fall apart if even one of our weaker founding members got killed. She was given an impossible choice that day: leave with Devon to get help and risk Samuel’s life or letting herself take Sam’s place and give the twins time to escape. She chose the latter, effectively blocking Devon from going nuts if anything other than a battered body had happened to his twin brother and saving Sam all in one motion.

They didn’t need to speak to know. Those three were terrors with surgically precise combat plans that had even seasoned Warriors of the Shadow Storm pack triple-checking their doors at night. My younger sister and her twinned friends were all sorts of crazy, but they were Howlers. Any sign of ill intent toward them rallied those of us who would bring marshmallows to the battlefield to make s’mores while the enemy burned.

I am fully aware that I sound completely unhinged. I’m grinning right now, so that should tell you how much I care about public opinion.

“Crap,” Paul groaned.

“What?”

He winced, “I’m going to need to call on you and the girls to help me break the news of Kaylene’s pregnancy to her family and ours.”

Despite wanting to laugh and poke fun at him, there was no way I’d let Paul face our mother and older siblings on his own. “I got you. Just let me know when and where.”