How to Flirt With a Naked Werewolf - Molly Harper [72]
I got the impression that was probably the most detailed explanation I was going to get at this point, which was maddening. So I switched tactics. “What about your dad?” I asked carefully. “Was he happy being a foot soldier?”
“I never really got to talk to him about it.” Cooper stared down at our hands. “My dad died in an accident when I was little. He was running with the pack, and one of my uncles was caught in one of those cage traps. Bunch of scientists were tagging wolves, tracking their movements for research. Pretty harmless, really. We’re usually able to avoid them, but my uncle, Samson’s dad, wasn’t very bright when it came to stuff like that. Dad volunteered to stay behind to try to get my uncle free, when the researchers came back to check the traps. Dad was still a wolf, and he got aggressive. They had a rifle. My uncle got free, but my dad, he was hurt pretty bad—shot in the head. He managed to make it into the woods so my uncle could bring him home. They couldn’t do anything for him.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “The humans didn’t know what they were doing. It took me a while, a long while, to stop being angry with them. They were being attacked by a huge, angry wolf. You’ve seen what I can do. Can you blame them?” When I didn’t answer, he seemed annoyed by my silence but continued. “Samson’s dad took off a while after that. He couldn’t stand seeing us every day, feeling like it was his fault that we didn’t have my father anymore. Samson’s mom died when he was a baby, so he moved in with us. He was always more brother than cousin, anyway.”
“Don’t you miss that? Would you ever go back, do you think, to be part of the pack again?”
He shook his head. “My mom comes to visit. I see Samson every once in a while. And our cousin Caleb helps me with hunting parties whenever he’s in town, which isn’t often. My sister . . . it’s pretty complicated with her. I haven’t been home in a couple of years. Every time I tried to visit, it just ended in an ugly scene.”
“Why?”
Cooper looked as if he was on the verge of telling me something important, then switched mental lanes before it could come out of his mouth. “She feels betrayed, like I left just to spite her or something. And she’s always been so damn pigheaded. Once she makes up her mind that you’ve screwed her over, you’re on her shit list for life.”
“And I assume that she doesn’t settle for the time-honored Southern tradition of passive-aggressive comments and insulting your cooking?”
“The last time I was home, I lost part of an ear and three fingertips.”
“Jesus!” I exclaimed, tilting his head so I could inspect both of his perfectly normal ears.
He butted his head against my hand playfully, pushing it away. “They grew back. It stung like hell, but they grew back. Maggie’s always been pretty hard-core. She had to run the fastest, fight the hardest, kill the biggest game. As much as I loved Samson, she was the one I wanted at my side and covering my back. Being in the pack, that’s her whole existence. There aren’t a lot of places in the world where a girl like Maggie can feel normal, accepted. I mean, there are lots of women in the pack but no one like her. And instead of feeling like she has to apologize for it, she’s admired. She knows how rare that is, so she puts what’s best for the pack above anything else. I left the pack, so I’m no good to her.”
“But that’s crazy.”
He shrugged. “That’s life in the pack. Maggie serves as second to a guy named Eli. He’s running things now.”
“I’m sorry.”
He pulled me close, tucking his chin on top of my head. “There’s nothing anyone can do about it.”
“Industrial-grade sedatives for your sister sound like a good place to start.”
He snorted. I pressed my face into his throat. I didn’t want to look up at him for what I was going to ask next.
“So, on to more recent history. I get why you pretended not to know me when we were introduced at the saloon. I mean, what were you supposed to say, ‘Hey, I remember you from bringing