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My parents were pleased to see Jackson, but I got the impression that pleasure was fake. I'd never found out why they'd sent him away two years ago, and Jackson himself had never told me, but I was too happy to have him back to care about the whys and wherefores.
Another sour note soon ruined what was otherwise a good afternoon. Bethany and Georgia - Gemma and Pearl's mother - came over and demanded an apology for last night's debacle. Mother told them to go pound sand, to which Bethany replied that perhaps she should watch her words. She and Georgia were thick as thieves now that their children were mated, and Bethany hinted that an alliance between the Blue Winter and Golden Heart packs would put an end to my pack's "arrogance" once and for all.
"Look up "arrogance" in the dictionary," Mother advised sweetly. "You'll find your pictures next to it. Or you might find them under "catty". Either way, you can kindly leave my house before I turn you into hearthrugs."
Bethany and Georgia knew when they were beaten - our pack wasn't as powerful or as well connected as the Golden Heart pack, but we were no slouches either, and we had connections to other packs that would put Bethany and Georgia's packs to shame. They did, however, threaten to make sure I "suffered" one way or another, implying that Gemma would be used against me in some way. I hadn't seen Gemma since the night before, and to be honest, I wasn't keen on revisiting that nest of vipers any time soon. Gemma was still my friend, but the fact she hadn't checked in on me at all in the last almost twenty-four hours was a bit concerning. I hoped it was a simple fact of her being "forbidden" to do so by Pearl, and not something more sinister.
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The party that night was much quieter, but there were plenty of shamefaced apologies handed out by those pack members who'd snickered at me the night before. One and all, they admitted they were at fault, and I accepted their apologies, telling them they weren't to blame. I had been a bit ridiculous the night before, but they told me they'd have done the same had they been in my shoes, and this made me feel better.
My Big Worry of the afternoon also seemed to have been quashed - Jackson had brought his mate Elena and their cub Saffron to the party, and he lavished them with all the attention of a loving mate and father, and I felt relieved, suspecting that the scent of cinannamon had in fact been a misfiring of my thwarted attempt to officially make Jethro my mate. Werewolves these days often chose their mates through more traditional methods of courtship, rather than letting fate dictate such things as had so often occurred in our history, and besides, Jackson was my brother.
I did feel better for having him around, though. We'd often joked we were Irish twins - having been born exactly two years apart - and we'd always been extrodinarily close. Our parents had often tried to discourage that closeness - why, I couldn't imagine - but Jackson and I had remained joined at the hip regardless. Two years apart hadn't dimmed our affection, and when Jackson wasn't attending his little family, he was glued to my side, much to our parents' displeasure. Mother would find excuses to get me to talk to some of my cousins, and Father often found a reason to talk shop with me as concerned my duties as Theta, and always, they insisted Jackson go back to his family, or speak to some of the cousins he hadn't seen in two years. Jackson complied, but I could feel the resentment coming off him waves, and again I found myself wondering just what had happened two years ago that he'd had to be asked to leave the packhouse.
But as the night wore on, I found I didn't care too much as to the whys and wherefores of his exile. He was home, where he belonged, and as I watched him swing his little girl onto his shoulders to play horsey for the twentieth time that night, I made up my mind to ask our parents if he could move back in. I wanted to get to know my sister-in-law and niece, but most of all, I wanted to get to know my brother all over again. 119Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnXK0gOVN7i
Two years had been too long a separation, in my opinion.
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