Runt of the Litter (2 page)

Leaning heavily against the wall, he closed his eyes
before opening them. “It can’t be. It’s not possible.” It was too cruel. The
fates couldn’t be that cruel to him.
 
 

“I can’t help you unless you tell me what it is,”
David said.

Some would consider his father a cruel man with how he
made Jack train. Jack, however, knew how important his role was in the pack.
He’d take over from his father,
which
meant the safety
of the alpha and the pack lay on him.

“It’s Tori. She’s my mate.”

He was shocked when his father gripped his shoulder.
Even more shocked when he was pulled against David for a hug. He’d not been
hugged by his father in over eight years. His training had started when he was
ten.

“I’m here for you, son. I’m here.”

David may be there, but Jack didn’t know how he was
going to survive. His mate was the runt of the litter, and no one expected her
to survive the transition. She was also underage, only sixteen.

What the hell was he going to do?

Chapter Two

Tori laughed as her family rushed to embrace her. Even
after all of this time, they were all scared to even touch her.
“Hey, everyone.”
She wrapped her arms around all of her sisters
and then her brothers. Rachel and Tom held back. They were the eldest boy and
girl.

“Honey, I’m so pleased you’re back.”

“Uncle Paul didn’t want me to leave, but I thought it
was time for me to see you guys.” It had been three years since she’d been
home. The whole of the family visited her Uncle Paul, who wasn’t part of the
wolf pack, during the holidays. They had all undergone the transition with
Holly bringing up the rear last summer with Jack. Tori had never forgotten
about Jack Rowlands. He was one of the few guys who’d taken the time to be nice
to her.

“I’m so pleased you made it through your transition,”
she said, talking to Holly. Her sister looked at her with tears in her eyes.
She stood in the center of the group, the smallest of them all.

“Oh, Tori, it’s good to have you back.” Holly wrapped
her arms around her.

“Come on. Let’s get inside,” her father, Carl said.
She watched as he turned to Luke, the alpha of the pack. “I appreciate you
coming to see her. We’re going to spend some family time.”

“We’re here if you need anything.”

Carl looked back at her before turning back to the
alpha to whisper. Emma, her mother, moved in the way and started to usher her
inside. “Come on. I’ve got a whole spread ready.”

“What she means is we got the spread ready while she
went to the airport to pick your ass up.”

She laughed as one of her brothers ribbed her mother.
It was always fun and games at home.

Rachel placed her arm through hers. “I’ve missed you.
How was Uncle Paul?”

“He was great.” Three years with a man who couldn’t
turn into a wolf had been strange. He knew about her problem, and they’d spent
every second that she wasn’t in school training with him. She didn’t know how
she was related to a man who couldn’t turn into a wolf, and she’d never
questioned it. He’d taken her under his wing, teaching her the art of
self-defense, meditation, and dealing with pain.

If her parents knew what he’d been training her for,
they’d have pulled her away years ago. They’d kept it a secret just like their
research into other wolf pack runts. She wasn’t afraid of
who
she was, but there was still a question of whether she’d survive the
transition. Uncle Paul wanted her to keep up her regime away from the family
while also looking into the pack traditions.

The only area she hadn’t been able to venture into was
mates. She didn’t know anything about the mating process or how the mating
process happened. For most wolves, the mating ritual wasn’t discussed until
after the transition. Her own parents hadn’t even told her about sex.
Everything she knew she’d learned through sex
ed
at school. She wasn’t interested in mates. Tori
wouldn’t find her mate until she transitioned, and at the moment, no one
believed she’d make it through that day. She did wish for a mate, but she
wasn’t holding her breath for one. Her biggest focus had been on runts.

There hadn’t been any record of a runt making it
through. She saw the fear in all of her family’s faces when they looked at her.
In two years the answer to the question would be complete. She was going to
fight it, work damned hard. There wasn’t a chance of her giving in or dying.
There was so much she wanted to live for.

“So, how was Paul?” Emma asked.

“He was cool. Helped me with homework, took me to the
mall, and we just hung out.” They’d done none of those things. He’d helped with
homework, but every spare second had been about her locking into her wolf. She
lay dormant until her eighteenth birthday, but once she turned the right age,
she was supposed to just wake. “How is everything here? You graduated from
school, right, Holly?”

“Marshall, the
alpha’s son.
He’s mated to a human.
A charming
little thing, Scarlett.”

“A human?
Really?
Wow, I guess I’m not the runt of the
litter anymore.”

“You’re still way smaller than her,” Tom said, handing
her a can of soda. She took it without question, wrapping her fingers around
the cool metal.

“I can’t wait to meet her. What about his friend? I
heard he made it through his transition.”

“Yep, he did. He made it through.” Rachel stopped by
the table frowning. “He came to say hello. Didn’t you see him?”

“No, I didn’t see him.”

She’d not seen him since that hot summer’s day when
her life had changed forever. Tori believed she was more accident prone than a
danger to anyone. It wasn’t his fault that he’d let go of her hand or that she
got tangled in the weeds. She’d been too weak to pull herself out. Before she
knew it, she’d panicked underwater, not
good
.

Everything else got a little fuzzy until she had woken
up a few hours later. She was shipped off to her Uncle Paul with the family
visiting her. It was too much when her pack was considered too rough to hang
around with.

She couldn’t hate it too much. Moving in with Uncle
Paul was the best thing that ever happened to her. She was stronger, more
determined, and focused. No one was going to take that away from her, not that
they’d want to.

“I was really worried that Paul wouldn’t be able to
handle you.”

“He was fine.
Kind of cool.
He lives out in the middle of nowhere. We stripped naked during the full moon
and called upon the good wolf spirits to guide me down the path of
righteousness.”

Silence descended on the room. She looked at each of
them, smirking. “I’m kidding. God, what happened to your sense of humor while I
was away? Anyone would think that you died.”

She rolled her eyes, taking a bite of the sandwich
that she picked up off the tray. Minutes later her father entered the room.
Something passed between her mother and father, but she didn’t know what.

“Welcome home, honey.” He kissed her head like he
always did before going around the counter to his woman. She watched the love
passing between her parents. Would she ever have that?

Her uncle believed she would. She was stronger now
than she’d ever been before. “I’m just going to head up to my room. Unpack.”

“Okay, honey.”

She grabbed her cases and walked out of the room.

“Well, what did the alpha say?” her mother asked.

“He’s going to look into it, but he doesn’t know if
there’s anything we can do. There are not many runts, and if they are, they
don’t survive in a pack long. It has been a miracle for Tori to have lasted.”

She kept walking. Her sense of hearing had improved
while she was away. They were talking because they didn’t know she could hear.
Over the last year little senses had started to become more alert. Uncle Paul
had started dropping things around her for her to catch. The action had
improved her reflexes, and she barely allowed anything to drop close to her.

“Dad, she can’t die. She’s one of us,” Rachel said.

“We’re going to do everything we can, but we may be
fighting the inevitable.” She heard the defeat in her father’s voice. Not
wanting to hear how sad he was any longer, she made her escape upstairs. They
were all scared for her and for good reason.

Entering her bedroom, she closed the door quietly
behind her. Staring at the pale pink room, she couldn’t help but smile. It had
been so long since she’d last been here. Her parents had chosen to visit her at
Uncle Paul’s rather than bringing her home.

Moving toward the window, she opened it up to allow a
little draft. Since that summer when she almost died, she no longer felt the
constant chill. She’d even started sweating at times.

Tori stayed by the window, taking her time to look out
over the landscape. She got a clear view of the forest from here where all the
pack ran during the height of the full-moon. On the edge of the forest she saw
Luke and Marshall talking. Off to the side was a girl with brown hair. She
looked worried, and Tori wondered if that was Marshall’s mate. Her stance gave
her away. Most wolves would be standing straight in the presence of the alpha,
but the girl simply leaned against a tree, clearly not worried.

What would it be like to be a mate? To love someone
with her whole heart and never worry about it being crushed? The love between
wolves was absolute, like fairytales or the movies. There was no chance of a
wolf cheating or falling for another woman. In their world, nothing could touch
them.

Just once before her transition, regardless of the
outcome, she would just like to be loved, loved and cherished.

****

Jack sat on his bed staring at an old photograph that
was taken the summer before he almost killed Tori. She was so small, only
coming to his chest, and he had his arm wrapped around her. The pack had been
ordered to treat Tori with care. He’d found the young girl charming, advanced for
her years. She was a ball of trouble and seemed to find accidents rather than
the other way around. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d seen bruises
or broken bones on her.

If the pack hadn’t known she was a runt, as everyone
liked to call her, they’d have thought the family was abusing her. No one in
the Hunter house would ever dream of hurting Tori. Her condition was strange to
be within the pack, but she was well loved. Not many runts were known, but he
heard his father once telling his mother, Diana, that the packs probably killed
the runts.

He wasn’t a fool. A lot of wolf packs survived on
cruelty. Luke, the pack alpha, didn’t see cruelty as a skill or something to be
part of. Their pack was about family, united together in their love and
acceptance of one another.

There was a knock on the door. Placing the picture
under his pillow he called for his mother to enter. She carried a tray of food
with her.

“Hello, Jack.”

“Hey, Mom.
Did, erm, did Dad tell you?”

She nodded. “He told me, son.”

He watched as she put the tray on his lap. Fried
chicken and two burgers were on his plate. There wasn’t any sign of a vegetable.
Wow
. Getting a mate must provide some
leeway with his mother. She was always nagging him to eat more fruit and
vegetables. He worked out and trained over five hours a day and was always
starving. The role of the beta was to be prepared. With Marshall taking a human
mate, his father had started to be a little more forceful in his training. When
the time came, Jack would be responsible for it all.

“She’s a wonderful girl,” Diana said, cupping his
cheek.

Jack gritted his teeth and tried to think of anything
that would stop him losing control in front of his mother. He’d not cried since
his transition, and he wouldn’t shed a tear now.

“I don’t know what to do. She’s only around for the
summer.” The thought of her leaving was tearing him up inside, twisting his
stomach in knots. He’d never once known the pleasure of what a mate could give
him.

“Then spend some time with her. Go and see her.”

Picking up a piece of fried chicken he took a bite,
relishing the taste of the spices as it slid down his throat. “What would I
say?”

“Anything.
You know, your father and I, we didn’t exactly get along when we were
younger.”

“You didn’t?”

“No, he was a hothead and arrogant. He’d strut around
the pack as if being there was his very right. I mean, it was, but I hated him
for it. I wasn’t anything special. For the most part I tried to steer clear of
him. When he was around he’d try to show off. At the time I just thought he was
being egotistical, showing off to the girls because he was the future beta. I
was wrong.”

“Mom, did Dad fancy you?”

“That he did. I didn’t know about it until we both
transitioned.”

His parents were the same age.

“He came looking for me straight away. I was by the
lake, and when I saw him, I just knew he was going to be my mate.” She
chuckled. “I didn’t know what to say to him, and so I just treated him like I
always did. It didn’t stop David from coming back for me. I think in a weird
way, he fell in love with me during the time I made him wait. Whenever he tried
to bring up the mating, I’d stop him from spoiling our fun. The mating is not
an obligation, and some women don’t like it.”

“Did you?”

“I didn’t like the thought that he was only around
because the fates demanded it. Your father has been tough on you over the years,
but he loves you.”

“He needs me to be strong when the time comes.”

“That he does. I can’t argue with him there.”

“I’ll finish this food and then go and see her.”

“You do that.” She kissed his cheek.

“Mom?”

“Yes.”