𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬. sam uley

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐲-𝐭𝐰𝐨

After Sam had been shifted awhile, the council gathered together in the town hall one day, rain pattering on the metal roof. Sam had been younger then, still getting used to his wolf and what it meant to be one. Quil Ateara III had sat him softly in the chair by a window. Sam could see the stones on the back, the wood piled up down the shore. It was raining.

He couldn't stop staring at the waves.

Quil Ateara III said, "There are rules that come with being a shapeshifter, Sam."

"A balance," Harry Clearwater corrected calmly, his voice like gravel.

Sam had barely paid attention then, but he nodded anyway. He could feel the shift on his skin, itching. Making him restless. He craved to run.

"There is always a price," Billy Black said.

Sam thought they were being cryptic, but he made his back straighter, widened his eyes a little to let them know he was paying attention. They nodded at him around the small table they had been sitting at.

"As a shapeshifter," Quil Ateara started, "you are responsible to keep the innocent safe. People. Humans."

Sam nodded. He had learned about the cold ones, the bloodsuckers and leeches that ravaged the world. He had learned about his father's own heritage and how he was a shifter, a bitter resentment coiling in him at the thought of sharing not only his face but a piece of his life with the man who stole everything from Sam's mother. It was because of his piece of shit father he knew everything now, so he didn't understand why this conversation was so important.

"And you're the Alpha," Billy said next, a deep frown on his face. There was relief, there, too and Sam knew it was because they whispered about Billy's son and Sam's old friend, Jacob, becoming what Sam had fallen into. "Which means there is more responsibility. And to be Alpha means to take these responsibilities even more seriously than you would had you just shifted, even though the rules apply to all shapeshifters."

Another nod. It seemed as though that was all Sam was capable of. He still wanted to shift, his anger and impatience rising to the surface. He just wanted to see his friends again.

He ran a hand over his hair, short strands barely running through his fingers. He frowned.

"I understand," he said stiffly, in case they needed a verbal response from him.

"That means," Harry Clearwater began, "Sam, that when you agree to protect the lands, you agree to leave all of humanity unharmed, despite who they are or what they've done."

It sounded horrible, killing a human, and Sam knew then that he never would because they weren't horrible leeches that stole life without giving anything back. Humans could be awful--Sam was a firsthand witness to that--but they weren't literal blood-sucking monsters. And though humans could be worse than leeches sometimes, Sam understood what they meant--what they were saying.

"I will," he promised easily. The waves lapped on the shore angrily. A storm was coming. Sam sighed, wistful.

Billy Black cleared his throat until Sam looked at him. "Will you, Sam? Because to kill a human would strip you of your power. You would no longer be an Alpha. A shapeshifter."

It's not that Sam wanted to be Alpha in the first place, but the punishment was fitting. Humanity was sacred, a cherished thing. Life was to be preserved because everything had a balance. A place. The only thing unnatural were the vampires--the leeches. They threw everything off, and that was where Sam was brought in. To protect the balance his ancestors fought so hard to maintain.

It was a good balance.

"I wouldn't kill a human," he promised, watching as a wave crashed into a boulder.

Harry Clearwater sighed, but nothing more was said. Sam left with that conversation marked in his head as peculiar if not important.