N. Walters - Alexandra's Legacy

Satisfied, Alex sat back and enjoyed the view. They drove in silence for another few minutes. It was a companionable silence and Alex was loath to break it, but she had questions. “I fell asleep last night before you could tell me about Wolf Creek and my father. I hadn’t planned on sleeping most of the morning away either.”

Joshua nodded. “I didn’t want to wake you. I figured after everything you went through yesterday you needed the rest.”

“I’m awake now,” she pointed out.

“So you are.” His eyes were constantly scanning in front of them and checking the rearview mirror. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

He chuckled, but it was a rough sound, as if he weren’t quite used to doing such a thing. “Well, that narrows it down.”

She twisted in her seat, as much as the seatbelt would allow, so that she was all but facing Joshua. “Tell me about my father.”

“James LeVeau,” he began. “Or rather, James LeVeau Riley, was the alpha of the Wolf Creek pack. He was the meanest, toughest son of a bitch around.”

Since he’d said it in such admiring tones, Alex assumed that meant it was a good thing. She knew her father was tough, but it was hard to reconcile this ruthless image with the same man who’d tied her shoes when she was a child, taken her to see her first White Sox game when she was five, and had purchased her first box of tampons for her when she’d finally gotten her period.

“My father was Striker back then and none of the other packs messed with ours. Retribution was swift and brutal. They were good times. Peaceful times.” As he continued, she noticed he seemed to get lost in the memory. “I remember your father coming to our home to talk with my father. They were good friends. All of us were in awe of your dad. He was the best of the best. The best hunter, tracker and fighter. But beyond that, he had a vision for the future. He knew that in order to survive, we had to fit in with the human population on some levels. Your father grew the wealth of the pack with shrewd investments and by cultivating some human friends at various levels of government. Then everything changed.” His voice went flat.

“What happened?” She kept her voice soft, not wanting him to stop.

“James LeVeau was mated to Leda.” He shook his head. “It’s always a mistake for a man to love a woman that much.”

Alex’s heart constricted at his stark words, but she said nothing. Joshua was still talking so she forced herself to listen.

“It makes a man weak.” He shot a quick glance her way. “Our women have had a hard time producing babies for the past hundred years or so. Whether it’s some naturally occurring phenomena, something we did to ourselves, or a reaction to environmental changes, no one knows for sure. Not that it really matters. The result is the same. That, coupled with the pack wars and the attacks by bounty hunters, has seriously declined our population.”

“You come from a fairly large family,” she pointed out.

He nodded. “My mother was an exception, but even she lost one of her children, the only female in the bunch, to hunters. I think that, coupled with the death of my father a few years ago, was what finally killed her. She just didn’t seem to have the will to go on after that.”

Alex kept her thoughts to herself. While she couldn’t pretend to understand the devastation that the loss of a child and a husband would bring, the woman still had other children. It was obvious that his mother’s death had been hard on Joshua.

“My father,” she prompted, hoping to lead him away from the grim thoughts of his family.

“Leda was pregnant and they were both so happy. She’d already had two miscarriages.” Joshua glanced over at her before turning back to the road. “Both had happened early in the pregnancies. This time, she was healthy the entire time. I’d never seen two people look so damn happy as Leda neared her due date. I was only a young man, but even I noticed their joy. It was almost a living thing and affected everyone around them.”

Alex twisted her fingers around her seatbelt. It was hard to imagine her father happily married, or mated, to someone else. Did werewolves even have marriage ceremonies? Another question she’d need the answer to eventually. “Things went wrong,” she prompted.

“Yes.” Joshua’s voice was dull and flat. “Leda died after about thirty-six hours of hard labor and James went berserk. It was a horrible thing to see such a great man brought so low by love.”

Alex bit her lip to keep from crying out her denial. No wonder Joshua didn’t think a strong man should fall in love. He’d seen so much tragedy and focused so much on the negative aspects that he’d completely blocked out all the positive things love brought to a person’s life.

“It took about six men to pull him away from her body so that she could be cremated. He injured some of them quite seriously. In the end, his wife was cremated, her ashes scattered and James disappeared. At first everyone thought he’d gone to grieve. Then his brother showed up telling everyone that James had sent him.”

“Why didn’t his brother already live there?”

“Families are scattered all across pack land in sort of a loose community. They all fall under the dominion of the larger Wolf Creek pack, but they have a certain amount of autonomy. Ian LeVeau moved back to the main compound, the heart of the pack, and assumed leadership. No one had the heart to fight him for it at the time because everyone was so disheartened at being abandoned by James. Plus, my father threw his support behind Ian, so that was that.”

“So Ian is still running the pack?” It was strange to try to understand the way werewolf society worked, but Alex knew she had to learn if she was going to become a part of it.

“Yes. But everyone knows he no longer wants it and it’s only a matter of time until he either steps down or is challenged.”

“So, what happens if he steps down? Who will assume leadership?”

Joshua scanned the road and began to ease up on the gas. Up ahead, Alex could see a small building. That should be the truck stop. Her stomach growled in anticipation.

“Any man who wants to be leader steps forward. They all fight and whoever emerges the victor is the new leader.”

The coffee was momentarily forgotten. “But that’s barbaric.”

“Get down on the floor, Alex.” He waited until she’d undone her seatbelt and was settled on the floor before continuing. “It’s the way things are among our kind. Only the strongest can lead. No one will follow a weak leader.”

He pulled into the parking lot and brought the truck to a stop. Putting the gear in park, he undid his seatbelt and sat back. “We are your people now, Alex. There are many things you’ll find not to your liking, but you will have to accept them if you are to survive.” He picked up the gun and handed it to her before scanning the parking lot. She assumed everything looked fine because he opened the door and slid out of the seat. “Do you want anything else besides coffee?”

“Food. I don’t care what it is.”

Joshua nodded and shut the door. She noticed he’d kept the vehicle running just in case they needed to make a quick getaway. She gripped the handle of the gun securely as she pondered his words. The metal was warm against her palm. “Who says I need to accept anything?” she muttered aloud. “Maybe it’s the pack that needs to do some changing. If things were so fine and dandy then they wouldn’t have so many problems, now would they?”

Alex freely admitted that werewolf society wasn’t much different from human when it came down to it. Fighting for the leadership of the pack was not that different from the many gangs that fought for territory in the city. Even supposedly civilized men fought for high positions in government, but their fights tended to be verbal, not physical. Still, that didn’t make it right.