Waxing Love

Waxing Love 11: The truth over a lie

            Full days went by without Luke so much as saying a word to me. I suppose he was angry with me, for a variety of reasons, but the way I saw it, he should be most angry with himself, for expecting a certain rigid conception of a mate and failing to accept that I was any different. Well, that’s why I was angry with him anyway.

            Meredith hadn’t been around much since our night out. I suppose Luke was punishing her by giving her extra work to do, or he had ordered her to stay away. Git. And she followed his orders, because he was the next alpha, whatever that meant. They all let him get away with murder, and he wasn’t any more intelligent or wiser from what I could see. In fact, his temper and stubbornness made him quite a bad leader. Well, not that I had seen him in any leadership position. I suppose they must all follow him for a reason, I was just having a hard time discerning what that reason was.

            At the moment I was in the garden, lying on the grass with music blasting through my earphones. Loud, angry music was all I played nowadays in some vain hope that it would vent some of my excess frustration. With Meredith and Eddie being away and Luke deliberately not talking to me, I had been particularly lonely and frustrated recently.

            I suddenly got a strange feeling shimmy up my spine, as though I were being watched. The music had distracted me for a while, but I definitely felt observed. After a moment I cracked one eye open to see Stephen Tatlock standing a few feet away watching me intently. I scrambled to my feet as I ripped the earphones out and paused the music.

            “Hi,” I said quickly. He looked at me with his usual mild, enigmatic air about him.

            “Agnes,” he said with a smile. “Walk with me.”

            I hesitantly fell in step with the alpha of the pack. By now, I had imbued a better sense of the hierarchy of the group, and a very strict hierarchy it was. Status mattered to these people – or werewolves – and although I didn’t necessarily understand what gave one person status over another, I could see that they all treated Stephen Tatlock with great deference and I felt a bit sheepish at how I had acted towards someone who commanded such respect. I wasn’t about to let these people walk all over me, but I knew that in order to engage with them properly, I had to play the game at least loosely according to their rules. People are always more inclined to listen to you if you speak their language.

            “I heard that you’re having some difficulties with my son.”

            I raised an eyebrow. That was putting it quite mildly. “We don’t see quite eye to eye,” I said, just as euphemistically.

            Stephen Tatlock sighed and paused for a moment. “My son does not have much human blood in his veins,” he said, almost sadly. “That is my failing, for not finding a suitable human mate for myself. There was no Llewelyn daughter, and I thought one more generation of concentrated werewolf blood would be all right. It’s worked out more or less, but I do notice the battle that he struggles with, his alpha werewolf side against his human rationality. It is more intense than the battle I struggled with. He has also grown up with more worries than I did. This I could not help, it was a product of the times. But I do wish to ease his struggles.”

            I wasn’t quite sure how to respond. Did he think I was going to ease Luke’s struggles? I probably just added to them. Not that I necessarily wished him ill, but I was not willing to give in to bring Luke ease. That wasn’t my place; I didn’t belong here.

            “I’m just being myself,” I said finally. “I’m here, so I’m holding up the Llewelyn end of the contract. You never said anything about suppressing my opinions. If Luke can’t handle me, that’s not my fault.”