“… He’s clueless,” Keith finished for me. “I really hope this isn’t all a lead up to telling me about the birds and the bees, Aunt Terra, because I promise, I’ve heard that before.”
The kid’s charisma was already shining through despite his teenage gawkiness, and I figured Keith would be putting his sex-ed knowledge to use much earlier than the average teenager. I barely resisted the urge to pat his tousled hair, and I smiled despite myself, imagining Keith’s reserved father trying to give his son the other kind of talk. Dale would get so embarrassed about the subject that he wouldn’t even be able to start the conversation. “I’ll bet you didn’t learn about the birds and the bees from Dale,” I retorted, laughing at the image.
“He bought me a book,” Keith confirmed. My nephew moved his attention up to Wolfie’s ears, which apparently were in dire need of scratching from the expression on the wolf’s face. Or maybe the alpha was just amused at my fumbling attempt to educate my nephew.
“So, right, not about the birds and the bees,” I continued. “I guess I should start out by telling you that your grandfather isn’t a very nice guy, which is why your mother ran away from home so young. I did too.” That had finally gotten Keith’s attention and he watched me as I paced nervously in front of him. After another bout of extended silence (and pacing), I figured I might as well just spit it all out. “I guess I said that wrong,” I corrected myself. “Your grandfather isn’t a very nice werewolf.”
It was only after Keith started laughing that I realized the kid didn’t believe a word I was saying. Okay, sure, he probably believed his grandfather was an asshole, but tossing out the term “werewolf” with no lead-in had made my nephew think I was making a joke. And as much as I tried to bring him back down to reality, Keith had determined we were kidding around.
“That’s a good one, Aunt Terra,” he gasped finally, when his belly laughs were all played out. “But what did you really drag me up here to say?”
“I …”I began, but Wolfie had decided to take matters into his own hands. Or, paws, rather. The werewolf stood and walked a couple of feet away from Keith, then shifted into human form.
***
“Whoa!” Keith exclaimed. “You weren’t kidding!”
“And you’re not helping!” I shot at Wolfie. Sure, the alpha had made my point abundantly clear, but I didn’t think my nephew was ready to see shifters in action when he probably thought they existed only in comic books. Figuring that I’d better get ready to deal with symptoms of shock, I squelched my anger at the alpha and reached out a hand toward my nephew.
Keith didn’t seem as traumatized as I’d expected him to be, though. “You need some clothes, dude,” was his first statement to the wolf who had suddenly turned into a man. Clearly, Keith’s teenage world view expected to see ten impossible things before breakfast, and Wolfie smirked at me as if to say, I told you so. Okay, maybe the alpha had a better feel for the situation than I did after all.
“You’ll get used to the nudity,” I told Keith, even though I clearly wasn’t. My wolf was fully alert now and begging to come out to play, but I didn’t want to make Keith shift immediately after taking in the notion of werewolves being real. It was tough tearing my eyes away from Wolfie, though, especially since he seemed to be giving off an even more enticing aroma than previously. Okay, yes, the alpha’s nakedness was a factor in my intense gaze too.
“My clothes are down there,” Wolfie answered Keith, pointing over the other side of the mountain, where we could just make out a colony of mobile homes through the trees. “I thought we might go down and meet the pack.” The alpha looked at me challengingly, and I shrugged, turning the question over to my nephew with a tilt of my head.
“Are there girls in your pack?” Keith asked, and I rolled my eyes again. Just what I needed—a teenage werewolf more interested in the concept of seeing naked female bodies than in his own shift.
***
“Humans in the house!” came the call from the kitchen as we entered the first trailer. “Put on some clothes.”