— Kaden —

I dropped my ass on the leather sofa in my father’s office.

My father closed the door and leaned against his desk, his arms crossed.

“What’s going on?” I asked him.

“Well, first, Nubinero,” he said. “I don’t know where you got your information, but they were pretty on point. Things were rigged. We would have been sucker-punched in the face if it hadn’t been for your warning. And if I didn’t know to look further, we would probably have taken everyone down. They were some shady individuals, the Brotherhood took them. They’ll have a trial. For whatever good it will do them. The rest of the population was pretty well controlled. I left the Brotherhood to decide what to do with them, but I left forces to occupy the land and keep everything under control.

We found no more artifacts in their village. I have the feeling the Brothers with us were a little too keen on finding something. They weren’t exactly happy we found nothing,” he told me.

I nodded.

“The Brotherhood might contact us on the follow-ups for Greysky and Akayume. They’re pissed you went on your own to take Nubinero down, but at the same time, they’re absolutely fine with having one less problematic pack out there. Those idiots are perpetually unsatisfied.”

“You’re preaching to the choir,” I told him.

He nodded.

“Your little mate decided to come after all,” he noted.

“Yeah,” I said. “It wasn’t without challenges, but yeah, she’s here now. I don’t know what it means between us yet, though.”

He nodded.

“You know she’s a hybrid?” he asked.

“Any wolf can smell that.”

“Do you know a hybrid of what?”

“That’s the million-dollar question.” I sighed.

“She hasn’t told you?”

“She’s not really forthcoming about telling me.”

“You said her father gave you a time limit. You met her parents?”

“Her father, yes.”

“Did he have white hair like hers?”

“That I can’t know, he was shifted when I met him.”

“So you didn’t talk.”

“Oh, we talked alright.”

My father looked at me puzzled.

“You remember the children’s stories about demon-wolves?” I asked him.

“Yeah. Those are supposed to scare kids into being obedient but you kept asking us how you could learn to become one,” he said with a wry smile.

“Well, I think I met one. Or at least the closest thing to one that is out there.”

“Her father?” his eyebrows irked up.

“Massive. At least as big as me, if not bigger. Black fur. Not melanistic black, but like light can’t be refracted black. Red eyes. Not glowing, but blood red. He smelt werewolf for sure, but not like us. My best guess would be a different breed. Oh, and it talked. While shifted.”

My father’s eyes popped out at that.

“I didn’t even know it could be done,” I said.

“I read of a few accounts, but none have ever been verified,” he said looking through his library. “I think this is one of the rarest skills a werewolf can develop. But that would require a tremendous amount of strength and mastery to perform.”

“Elaeya said her father was from a normal family, normal bloodline, but he developed far beyond that. She called him a Made-Alpha. Said he wasn’t a Blood-Alpha. She said that’s really rare.”

“Oh, yes. It is.” He plucked a few books out of his massive library. “She said anything about his pack?”

“That they were isolationists and traditionalists. There was some discord within the pack. The Alpha saw a problem in her father, challenged him, and lost, so he murdered him in the night and got rid of the corpse. Only her father survived, and left.”

“Freaking amateur Alphas,” my father grumbled.

He put a couple of books on the coffee table in front of me, and sat next to me.

“Here, there’s a chapter on Made-Alphas.” He flipped through the pages. “So mostly what it says is that genetics is not the only factor in Alpha-level capabilities. Which is why not all Alphas are the same too, even within a single family, with the same blood. It mostly speaks of innate capabilities and blood capabilities. When they combine, they make very strong Alphas, but one alone can be enough, and develop quite high. But most get a good average between the two. So that guy’s innate abilities must be astounding to beat blood abilities of another.”

“It’s beyond that. I’m not sure I’d want to have a face-off with that guy.”

“Really? That’s interesting,” he thought aloud. “So she’s not from a long line of Alphas, but she does have powerful Alpha genes.”

“Does it carry over when he didn’t get it from genetic himself?” I asked him.

“I think so,” he said, scratching his shin. “Has for the demon wolf part. I think this is what you saw.” He flipped open another book. “To your credit, a lot of black dogs and demon wolf stories come from them.”

Inja Emnyama I read.

“What language is this?”

“Zulu, I think.”

“I didn’t think there were many wolves in Africa.”

“Not much. I think the Injas migrated there at some point, but from what I read they’re mostly on islands now. Very isolationists. They got a lot into breading with non-werewolf at some point in history which could explain some of their wilder abilities, but it could be bollocks. History is not as reliable as we’d like it to be.”

“What kind of things they bred with?”

“There are rumours of Yumboes. They might have had some involvement with Azizas. Both are like African faeries. But it could also be just rumours.”

“Are they still in Africa?”

“Nah. It’s mostly been only werehyenas there anyways. They might’ve passed through at some point, but they didn’t stay. They might’ve bread with werehyenas though. It’s probably one of the most plausible rumours.”

“But they’re mostly wolf?”

“Yes. Just a different breed.”

“Injas,” I thought aloud.

“They are known for their red eyes and fur blacker than black.”

“They all have black fur?”

“Few don’t.”

I nodded.

“Do you know where they are now?”

He shrugged. “They’re not known to be very friendly to strangers. I think there are some insular communities between Africa and South Asia, but don’t quote me on that.”

I nodded. “Okay. So that’s the werewolf part. I guess you asked me about white hair for a reason?”

He twitched his left eyebrow and got up again to his books.

“Have you met her mother?” he asked me.

“No. I know she’s a hybrid too though.”

He turned to me slowly, his eyes big. “Are you sure?”

“She said her grandfather was … she didn’t use the term Alpha, so I guess it’s not a werewolf community, but that he was the one in charge. But he and his wife had an open relationship and that her mother was born of such a relationship. He and his wife raised her as their own, but kept quiet that she was a hybrid, because hybrids were really not popular in that community.”

My father returned with half a dozen books and laid them before me.

“Just so you know, I’m not an expert at this. This is a pretty obscure part of supernatural history,” he opened a book and flipped through. “She does have pink eyes, right?”

“Yeah, pretty striking ones at that,” I admitted.

“The tip of her hair is bi-coloured,” he muttered while reading and flipping pages, looking for something.

“Yes.”

“Did you notice anything … spooky, about her?” he asked.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, abilities you’re not used to seeing?”

“Do you mean the fact that no one seems to be able to look away when she’s in a room? Or how anyone, and not just me, tends to react to the slightest physical contact with her? How her eyes look like they could hypnotize anyone? How she has insights which are like a mix between visions and elaborated knowledge-filled instincts that tell her things, including about the future? How she can look at someone’s actual soul? How her eyes can turn moonstones-looking when she’s having visions? How light seems to refract abnormally on her skin, like it was always bordering on shimmering which makes her skin pretty hard to miss even in half-light? I’m sure there’s more and I haven’t seen all that she can do.”

My father had frozen, listening to me intently. Then he grabbed another book and threw it on my lap.

Vaettiraï was written on the cover.

“What language is that?” I asked.

“I don’t think it’s a language that is still talked today.”

I flipped it open.

“I don’t think I can read that,” I said.

“There are some pages translated.”

“The land of the spirit-talkers,” I read aloud. I looked at my father.

“Here.” He gave me another book.

“Spirit wolves,” I read this time.

“That’s what our people called them.”

“I never heard of a spirit wolf,” I said.

“That’s because they are thought to be instinct.”

“But you think Elaeya is one?”

“I think she’s a hybrid of one,” he corrected me.

“Okay,” I said closing the books. “Ball-park it for me.”