Page 27 of His Curse
"Why are we doing this?"
"It's tradition.” I sigh and roll my shoulders. "The Rite of Passage is sacred, it’s important, some would sayexistentialeven. It's how all great leaders are born, and how one truly becomes a man."
"I'm already a man,” Ronny grunts again. "My balls dropped when I was eleven, I lost my virginity like, three years ago, and I heard the call of the moon shortly after that. I'm gonna be twenty-one next month. Pretty sure those are the requirements to be considered a man."
I blow out a breath and open my eyes to find my nephew already staring at me. "You should have done this afteryour balls droppedor at the very least after your first shift. If I'd have known your dad never took you out for your Rite of Passage I would have done it then."
"So why do it at all?"
"Because you're Cherokee and a wolf. It's part of who you are and it's important to embrace all aspects of yourself in order to be whole."
Ronny frowns. “Something I have to do by sitting on a stump in nothing but a loin cloth with my uncle in the middle of the Siskiyou Forest at midnight?”
"Typically, you'd be naked, blindfolded, and left alone overnight, but your mother was too worried about something happening to you so I offered to stay."
"Did you have to sit in the woods naked overnight, or did grandma have the apron strings still attached to you, too?"
I smirk and shake my head. "Grandma practically booted me out the door. Told grandpa to leave me for at least two nights before my unruly ass could even be considered a man, then she blindfolded me herself before dumping me in the wagon. Then your grandma scared the shit out of our horses so they'd go flying down the trail and she made sure grandpa hit every rock and hole in the ground on the way."
"Man, I wish I could have met them.” Ronny laughs as he pushes his big mitt back through his wild dirty blonde hair. "I feel like Grandma would have told Mom to chill the fuck out."
"She would have. Grandma had a way with your mother that no one else has, not even your dad. Your mom listened to grandma and not just because she was our Luna, but because she was smart as hell.” Then I chuckle. "And scary as fuck."
"Well, I sure could use the reinforcement from someone like that since Mom won't listen to you and barely listens to my dad. And it's only gotten worse since I moved out."
Ronny just recently moved into Vok's old cabin. Originally, it was meant to go to Zan after Havok and Cora finished their new home but since he moved in with Frankie, his cabin sat unused for a while before they decided to give it to my nephew.
Ronny had been talking about getting his own place for some time, since he turned eighteen really, but Mary had a very hard time letting go. She didn’t like the idea of her oldest son branching out on his own, especially if it meant he wasn’t on clan territory anymore.
But then he started school—classes at Southern Oregon University—bought Andrej's truck from him after the dragon upgraded to something more family-friendly, went full time at Kady's, part time at Bill’s—the lion still wasn’t able to replace Posey after Cora went apeshit at the bar—and Ronny was still working the family ranch with Ron through all of that. Andthatwas barely enough for my sister to finally even consider letting Ronny move out.
Not without a huge fight and ultimately listing about fortyrequirementsfor the young wolf, including the fact that his new homehadto be on clan property or else it was a no go, her final attempt at preventing him from moving at all since she didn’t realize there were any empty homes left.
And because my brothers are intuitive as fuck, Zan mentioned Havok's place, Kai buttered up my sister by playing up how it was not only clan property but closer to her and the core clan than any of the places in town Ronny was looking at. Then our king sealed the deal by reminding her it still had the tunnels that connect to the main house. Tunnels that have been added in order to lead to my place, Vok's new one, and Zan's cellar.
Marigold finally agreed after what was essentially a group intervention, and Ronny moved out about six months ago.
I'm proud of my nephew, proud as fuck of his work ethic, how well he's doing in school, proud of the way he balances his life and still makes a little time to hang out with the friends he's made at SOU. And he's really coming into his own, proving that his destiny as a Beta was spot on, and his loyalty to our king and clan is matched only by the other members in the core group.
Not to say the outside circle isn't loyal; they are very loyal and revere Kai as they should, but some of them are still pretty old school when it comes to keeping the various species separate, and it's been an interesting adjustment, to say the least.
The mega pack—pride, clan—whatever you want to call it, that's made up of a decent variety of shifters, a pure bred vamp, a fae, and a demon has been a bit of an adjustment for all of us since it's never happened before, but some of us embraced the progressive style Kai introduced quicker than others.
And to be totally honest, my sister has been the biggest pain in the ass over most of it.
It probably goes back to holding me responsible for leaving our born-of pack damn near one-hundred-and-sixty-years ago. Her resentment knows no bounds, apparently, but I'm just glad she quit making Ronny suffer for it.
I don't want him to strain his relationship with his mom anymore than he already has though, which is why I say, "Your mother didn't haveterriblereasons for wanting to keep you close."
He frowns, scratches the light hair over his wide as fuck chest and waits for me to elaborate.
"Think about it. Wolves are bred to have a pack mentality, mothers even more so, and since we don't have what most consider atrue packit's forced us to modify over time. Keeping their pups close was natural, it was normal in a pack, and since your mom doesn't exactly view our hodgepodge clan the same way you or I do, she felt like she had to hang on a little tighter.” Then I smirk. "Not to mention, things haven't exactly been quiet here since the dragons came to town."
Ronny shrugs. "I guess. I mean, I get that all that shit with Cyril and Ivan, even the stuff with Nero, was scary, but you know as well as I do mom's paranoia goes back further than the last few years."
"Can you really blame her for that, though?"
"Yes,” he deadpans. "It wasn't your fault Ivan killed Grandma and Grandpa. It wasn't her fault either, but she's pretty fucking convinced that if she doesn't have eyes on me at all times, that twisted fuck is going to somehow come back from the dead and try to killme. I'm not even an Alpha for fuck's sake. I'm a Beta just like dad, so we wouldn't even be on the radar for someone like him."
