Free Wild Card by Mark Henwick, Lauren Sweet

own sanity, while my wolf and Athanate worked out a compromise.
    I gave up trying to guess what I should be doing and tried what I thought was a perfectly valid counter. “Well, half the problem is that I don’t know how a pack works.”
    Felix stopped and stood in front of the fireplace, leaning back against the mantle with his arms spread out.
    “A pack works by every member of the pack contributing positively,” he said. “It’s not something we set down in rulebooks. It’s something you have to feel. To experience. It puts roots down into your soul. You gain. The pack gains. My problem is, you just don’t seem to feel it.”
    I was feeling more and more worried by the angle he was taking. It was as if he was saying I should just instinctively know everything I needed, and by not knowing it, I’d proved I couldn’t be a pack member.
    Was this some kind of test? Was he deliberately provoking me to see how much I’d take?
    “How can I if I’m not a member of the pack?” However much I needed the pack, I couldn’t let him go off in that direction. “And why can’t I just be affiliated? It’s not as if I’m a threat by being in your territory.”
    “You aren’t qualified to judge that.” His voice lashed out. “Maybe that’s the way things work for the Athanate, but it’s not how we do things in the pack. We don’t share territory. Every werewolf that gets infused within the bounds is accepted into the pack, but the pack and the member need to be willing and the member needs to accept their role and responsibilities. That means you need to accept me as alpha and do what I tell you to. If the pack’s not willing, or the member’s not willing, then they have to leave. Or die.”
    He’d crossed a boundary there and I felt rather than heard a subliminal growl from Alex and an immediate, instinctive response from Ricky.
    Shit. Exactly what we were trying to avoid. Had Felix deliberately manipulated us to this point? Why?
    Noble cleared his throat.
    Felix glanced at him and nodded.
    “I want to check that we’re clear about the basic constraints of pack dynamics, and then I think it’s in everybody’s interests to state clearly what they want.”
    Yeah. Leave the possible consequences out of it for now.
    Thank you Doc.
    Felix returned to his seat and took a sip of water while the emotional edge simmered down.
    Nobel tapped his pen on his pad a couple of times. “It’s not an issue of any one person laying down pack law about territory or hierarchy, not even Felix. The pack doesn’t want to share territory. The pack doesn’t want members disobeying the alpha. Your point about not understanding the pack is valid. With Felix’s permission, I’ll try and help there.”
    Felix nodded again. “Fine. Alexander?” he said.
    “Amber in the pack,” Alex said simply.
    Felix’s face remained blank and he turned to me.
    “I need whatever it is that a pack and alpha provide to help me through the transition, and I want to be with Alex,” I said. That sounded selfish, but to say I wanted to be part of the pack with this sort of thing hanging over me wouldn’t have been truthful. Even so, I had to add a qualifier that was going to piss Felix off. “Without conflicting the other parts of me.”
    “That’s the problem,” Ricky said.
    “It sounds like you want the benefits of the pack without submitting to me,” Felix said. “What kind of a signal do you think this sends to the rest of the pack? You see my problem?”
    I’d give him that he hadn’t got as heated as he had been before. I’d even give him that he’d selected this small group of trusted advisors rather than a pack meeting so that he could, in his eyes, go easy on me.
    “So, here we are. First choice, you’re Were, you’re accepted into the pack and all that goes with it. You are subject to pack laws and you obey me. Second choice, you’re Athanate. You don’t have a pack. You stay in Denver. You have no rights to call on the