Chapter 1-2
1182 Words
Blaze recognized the mosaic circle in the concrete in front of that entrance as a representation of the lunar cycle. The Riders walked across it to enter the building. Blaze shivered as if a shadow had fallen across his grave. The reality of what that cycle meant in his life sent pain shooting from his chest to his toes. He hoped no one noticed how he skirted it.
Despite low outdoor lights, the moon was too dark to explore the gardens after the dinner or even to see what the outside of the building looked like. The chill that entered the hotel when the door had opened followed them to their destination. He was eager to be inside where it was warmer…and away from the reminder of the cycles of the moon.
The banquet room was filled with men and women in formal dress. Like Logan, his mother and grandfather were among those who wore some item signifying their Native blood, but many did not. Logan’s father was one of the latter. Blaze reminded himself, too, that not everyone here would be Indian.
To Logan, he whispered, “I think we’re seeing the movers and shakers of this museum and, Native or not, they’re no doubt all stinkin’ rich.”
A soft chuckle was Logan’s agreement. “I think these are our seats.” He pointed to place cards at the head table as the president of the board came to greet them.
After they had satisfied their immediate need for a little food and something to drink, Blaze spoke to Robert. “What kind of work do you do, Mr. Rider?”
“I’m an architect. I have my own firm.”
“Ah, I see where your son gets his eye for space and structure. Is your firm in San Diego?”
Mr. Rider nodded to confirm, but said nothing. Turned out he was a tough dinner companion to engage in conversation, and Blaze soon gave up. A little wine might loosen up Robert, but he had turned over his glass so it would not be filled. A waiter removed it and offered tea or coffee. He took coffee, so Blaze requested that, too. Either Robert didn’t like red wine, was allergic to the grapes in it, or had a problem with alcohol.
From what Blaze understood, Natives had a much higher rate of that than others. It had something to do with the recent discovery of a gene that protected people from developing dependency, and too many Native Americans they’d studied lacked it. If Robert was afflicted this way, fear of it might explain why Logan almost never drank anything alcoholic.
Has Logan perhaps struggled with a drinking problem? I should ask him.
Logan’s hair hung in one neat braid down his spine, so clean it gleamed under the light of the room’s chandelier. That and his bright, beaded earring were tonight’s only two acknowledgements of his high degree of blood heritage. To Blaze, they symbolized the two worlds Logan handled with such ease, and he hoped he could learn to handle being an alpha wolf and human. Having to shift was difficult enough. Pack leader would be…was…almost unbearable.
He sighed, and Logan glanced at him, shoulders lifted in a query as to what bothered him. He smiled and shook his head, signaling not to worry. It was true that he was fine, but that symbol of the movement of the Earth around the moon at the entrance had triggered unhappy memories of when he’d first discovered his dual nature.
He’d known he was different even as a small boy. As puberty loomed, he realized he liked boys better than girls, and by his twelfth birthday, he knew for sure…he was gay. He trusted his parents enough to tell them, and they assured him it was normal for some people. But when he shifted into a gray wolf for the first time soon after, he’d wanted to kill himself. Lacking the courage for it, he ran away. The quick-thinking love and tracking skills of his alpha parents averted that disaster.
Tears streaming down his once-again human face, his throat raw from screaming, he kicked his father’s shins and pounded his chest. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you just smother me when I was born?”
His mother stood aside, her hands on her temples as if to hold her head together, face streaming with tears, a study in unendurable pain.
It was his father—taller and heavier than Blaze, whose powerful arms and legs restrained his kicks and blows—who held him as he sobbed, who spoke of love and his duty as a son not to break his mother’s heart by thinking of harming himself.
His mother’s words stumbled through her tears. “Of course we wouldn’t have smothered you at birth! I’m sorry this hurts you so much, Blaze. We didn’t tell you because we didn’t know if you would be like us. We shifted much, much younger than you have, and so we assumed you never would. Because we were little, it wasn’t the shock to us that it is to you.”
His father’s quiet voice did not invite rebuttal. “Know this…we have loved you even when you told us your s****l nature differed from ours. Even when sadness claimed us because you will never become alpha after us, we loved you.”
“And we always will.” His beautiful mother buried her face in her hands, and her pain penetrated Blaze’s.
His father nodded. “We will always love you.” And hugged him even tighter.
Subdued yet rebellious, Blaze cowered when they introduced him to the Yellowstone pack. The magnitude of what it meant to have a double nature shredded the muscles of his heart, and when he saw his father’s role and what it meant to be an alpha, it was like someone had punched his gut with a sledgehammer.
They introduced Blaze to the pack. He refused to lift his head. They hunted elk. He cowered and hid. Snarling and threatening, his father found him. With muzzle and sharp teeth, he drove him out and prodded him into his first hunt. Gradually, painfully, the life of a shifter became second nature to him.
In human form, Blaze added new terms to his moon vocabulary—waning gibbous, waxing gibbous, quarter, half, three-quarters, and full. Each was determined by the movement of the Earth around the moon and how much of the sun’s light was between them.
In time, Blaze came to understand the depth of his parent’s feelings for him and he loved them fiercely in return, but he left home as soon as he could, determined to live his own life. He vowed he would never be pack leader. While they were alive, he avoided visiting them near the time of a shift. He also refused to meet the pack members in their human form.
As a SEAL counter-terrorism officer on secret missions around the world, he learned to control his shifting. Unless the mission required it—or he just wanted to run and howl—he did not change, no matter how strong the pull of the moon might be. His teammates never knew he was gay, much less that he might shift into a wild animal every twenty-nine and a half days.
It was to save Logan’s life that he’d been forced by circumstance to become the alpha of his late parents’ pack. Love for the Shoshone had given him no choice at all.
“Never say never.” Wasn’t that the saying? If so, he knew it was true.
- Writer
