“I did.” Arit hadn’t meant to work for the resort his dad had founded, couldn’t have been less interested in the lodge while he was growing up, although he’d served guests and learned to be a trail guide from his dad to keep the place running as he’d matured. At various times in his life, like every other shifter he’d grown up with, he’d dreamed of becoming a cop, a soldier, a healer, a pro athlete, and a rock star. He hadn’t cared about Shifter Frontiers and the ancestral lands his absentee sire had bequeathed to him…until, suddenly, strengthening the business was all Arit could see, hear, touch, or taste. He’d worked tirelessly since to build and expand the resort into the thriving adventure tour the business was today.
Every generation resisted, but in the end, shifters continued whatever trade his or her bloodline excelled in once they reached adulthood. Part of it was innate devotion to family that was genetically programmed into shifter DNA. Benjic was an oddity because he’d left his home for the capitol, but he’d still bent to the call of his blood because, until his premature death in a hunting accident when Benjic was a boy, Benjic’s father had led the Ural tribe as high alpha. That’s how life worked in the tribes, avocation bred into every shifter’s bones at birth. Parents encouraged talents catering to a bloodline’s profession and sharpened supporting skills in their young as a blade on a whetstone. Arit’s dad had left the inn his family had kept in operation for hundreds of winters to mate Benjic, true, but to do what? Open his own hotel. Blood called to blood. Always. Builders begat builders. Pack enforcers begat the next generation’s policemen and -women.
And political leaders begat other politicians. “My dad’s clan are innkeepers.” Arit slid his hand from one pocket and patted his chest. “Their blood fills my veins, Dad’s influence on me strongest and far surpassing Benjic’s—I became an innkeeper, too.” He gestured at the suite around them. “Shifter Frontiers is a different sort of hotel, but I’m an innkeeper just the same.” Hs frowned at Nick. “Your parents ruled an empire.”
“Did you ever want to be something else? Do something else?”
Arit blinked at him. “What?”
“When I was the emperor’s son, I pestered our cook, Kaya, to teach me what she knew. My destiny was to become a prince of the Urals, but I loved the smells in the kitchen, the chopping, curing meats, and selecting ingredients to flavor our meals.”
“You like cooking?” Confusion whirled inside Arit. “Everyone cooks, else we’d starve.” He tapped his temple. “Only some of us are born with the intelligence and talent to lead.” He halted the motion of his finger. “You have the gift. I’ve seen you wield it.”
“That isn’t the point.” Nick jerked a stiff shoulder. “As a child, I desperately wanted to create the delicious meals Kaya regularly produced in our kitchens, but I could only learn from her if we were sneaky and when I convinced her that I’d completed my training for my fate in the Urals to the best of my abilities. I was heavily discouraged from pursuing my interest in cooking otherwise, including by Kaya.”
“You didn’t become a chef in the lands of men, though.” Arit narrowed his eyes on him.
Nick growled in frustration. “My career interests changed as I grew, but what matters is my adopted parents allowed me to develop whatever talents I chose. My lineage no longer defined who I was and what I would become. I decided, not my bloodline.” He sighed. “One more way the rebellion failed the tribes. The circumstances of birth still determine who each shifter must be.”
Irritation blossomed inside Arit. “You forget we are linked by virtue of our mating heat. You want to rule. I grasp your desire to lead as readily as I sense how good you would be at governing if given the chance. I feel it strongly in you because the gift to rule is in your blood. Yet you rejected Benjic’s offer.” He scowled at Nick. “Ostensibly, to run a yarn shop.”
“I’ll compare the Stitchery’s profit and loss statement with yours anytime.” Nick smirked.
“I’ve no doubts you are a successful manager, but being a good businessman doesn’t change the fact you were never meant to run a business.” Arit squared his shoulders. “You were born to lead a tribe. This tribe.”
Amusement glimmered in Nick’s eyes. “I was born to marry well and trained from birth to support my future husband—who was to be the high alpha of the Urals, not me.”
“I’m the only one of Benjic’s children who hasn’t mated and I’m no high alpha. Harr is probably the closest of his children to fit the bill, except Harr has never set foot in the Urals and rose to power in his mate’s tribe instead.” Arit stiffened his spine. “I’m happier as an innkeeper. By process of elimination, you’re stuck with leading.” He glared. “But you tossed it away. What for, if not for love of your human parents? To prove some ridiculous argument against our tradition of inherited professions?”
“I threw away nothing. Because nothing is what your sire offered me.” Nick grimaced, handsome features twisting with displeasure. “I would retain my title and my crown, but why? To lead the people? To affect change and make life better for the tribes?” He hissed out a frustrated breath. “Benjic wants only to continue his farce of a PR stunt, one I agreed to tolerate in exchange for decently burying my birth family. I won’t prolong his mockery of everything they died for a moment longer than arranging their memorial requires.”
“You’re giving up…to squander the rest of your life running a yarn shop.” Arit couldn’t stand it anymore. He reached for Nick, fingers digging into the warm skin of his biceps. “Benjic would not have suggested you could hang on to the throne if other elders weren’t likewise sympathetic to the cause, and Goddess knows you’ve won over the peasantry despite your bizarre ideas about humans mating with shifters and what jobs we should work.”
“The rebels took to the streets in protest and screamed those same ideas not too many years ago.” Nick chuckled. “Your own sire crusaded against the tradition of shifter castes.”
When Arit growled his annoyance, Nick laughed. Arit held on to his temper. Barely. “If you want to do more for the tribes than spread council propaganda, then you must fight for it. That’s what is important. Be the leader our emperor and empress promised us.”
“Who says I’m not?” Still chortling, Nick tipped his head to a provocative angle. “I haven’t preached to the tribes about accepting humans or given eloquent speeches supporting freedom to choose work outside of bloodlines.”
Arit rolled his eyes. “The Council would have stopped you.”
“I let my actions do my talking.” Nick nodded. “Quite effective. The tribes aren’t just demanding change, as they did during the rebellion. The people are finally ready to work for the changes they want, and if providing an example to follow hurries their progress, I’ll have fulfilled my duty to lead the tribes far beyond the humble expectations planned for me at my birth.” The corners of his mouth lifted to form a small, sad smile. “I only wish Eton and Olina had lived to see the potential of the rebellion finally unfolding.”
When Nick stared at Arit’s grasp on his biceps, Nick’s nostrils flaring with interest, Arit snatched his hand away, but the heat of Nick’s skin on his palm burned him to his core. “You cannot fight for the tribes or lead them if you leave.”