Little Wolf

Ch 4 The Wolf Side of the Family

I didn't feel like listening to another lecture, especially without Mom around to keep things from exploding between my dad and me. I also didn't want to lose the camaraderie my dad and I had tentatively found. He sounded tired and looked drained, but managed to pull on hidden reserves to get him through this, whatever this was.

The way he was looking at me wasn't his usual condescending smirking glare, nor was it the demanding drill instructor, the no-nonsense-tolerated, stiff-ass attitude I often got from him when he taught me anything about being one with the wolf.

It took me a second to realize he was going to try and speak to me like an adult, someone of equal standing. It's about time, I thought triumphantly. I took a breath and leaned forward a bit myself. I didn't trust myself to say anything other than, "I'm listening."

Dad gave me a small, wane smile. I was sure his usual way of talking to me was ready to come out the second I acted immaturely enough, in his opinion, to blow it. His self-deprecating smile was an acknowledgment of what typically happened when we tried to have any conversation since Mom died.

"Your mom and I had many discussions in our time together about the wolf that is part of me. Our conversations covered history, spirituality, physiology and psychology, practicality, and sexuality."

His eyes held a bit of humor with that last word. Shit, I think I knew where this "adult" conversation was heading. As if I needed a talk on sex! I'm twenty years old now. I bit back a sigh, trying not to roll my eyes or show any other sign of attitude, promising myself that for my mother's sake, I would hear Dad out. His grin only got bigger as he shook his head slightly.

"Let's start with history," he said, surprising me. "Specifically, my history. You know I met your mother at college, and that I came over to the United States from Europe. I've told you my parents had passed away, and that's partially and probably true. You know my mother died giving birth to me. My father..."

His eyes filled with sadness, compassion, and something I couldn't name. Dad looked lost as he reflected on his past. He refocused on me and continued before I could figure out what to say.

"My father gave in to the wolf, like I almost had before you pulled me back. Before he gave himself over completely to the wolf, he gave me his history, what he knew of it."

I wasn't sure I understood what Dad meant by giving into the wolf, but I wasn't going to interrupt his story to ask him.

"At the end of the Russian revolution, some soldiers found my grandfather in the ruins of an old deserted monastery in the Black Forest. The soldiers carried him out of the forest and left him with an elderly peasant couple in the first village they came across.

"It didn't take long before the couple figured out they had a demon child on their hands, one who could change into a wolf. They thought he should be drowned, but couldn't bring themselves to kill a child.

"Needless to say, my grandfather grew up without much human contact. He learned to stay in human form around humans. The old couple died while he was in his teens. When he got older, he mated with the local wolves in the forest, not trusting human companionship. One day, one of the half-grown pups started following him around instead of staying with the pack. That was my father."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I had real wolf heritage in my blood? We were werewolves because a werewolf mated with actual wolves? No, that wasn't right, there was a werewolf at the beginning. Or was that mating as incidental as being able to be human because of a werewolf mating with a human?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Where was the natural separation between wolf and man? Or was there one? Was it that lack of a boundary that made us werewolves?