This is probably where you expect me to say I saw her and instantly felt a connection. If I was writing a story like Scout seems to think I should, then I would, but this is a report, not a Disney movie. The truth of the matter is, she did grab my attention. It’s pretty much impossible to ignore Scout. When you see a girl in real life who looks just like the dragon chick from Game of Thrones, you notice. You stare. You try to figure out if she’s for real or not, because it shouldn’t be possible for a girl to look like that. You get so distracted by the pure white of her hair and the ice chips posing as irises it takes you a long time to look at the rest of her and notice if her face is pretty or if her body has the right curves to it. I didn’t make it to her face or curves that first day. Once I moved past the distraction of her hair and eyes, I was sidetracked by something far more important - her scent.
I spent years wandering across the United States, making contact with different Shifters who might be convinced to attempt an overthrow of the Alpha Pack. During that time, I encountered a lot of Shifters in various stages of their life. Like with humans, it’s possible to determine a lot about a Shifter simply from their scent. Some of the differences were subtle - like the more pronounced musk of a Dominant - but others were pretty obvious. For example, a Shifter who hasn’t completed his first Change smells completely different than one who has. It’s like how a baby has a unique baby smell instead of B.O. And female Shifters smell completely different than male Shifters. I had only met two by that point, but their smell was softer and more appealing than any of the guys I’d met. Even though both of them were older than my mother, I found myself drawn to them. Alex said it had something to do with pheromones and nature’s drive to procreate.
Scout didn’t have that immediate, intense pull of a Changed female Shifter, but there was something enticing there. Like a pup, her scent was muted, more so than any other pre-Change Shifter. In fact, it was so faint I almost convinced myself it wasn’t really there at all. I was close to believing it was all in my head when she looked up and her eyes caught mine.
Dominance is one of those things that is incredibly simple to define, yet so complicated a simple definition will never suffice. Everyone who has ever been associated with a Pack can tell you that a Dominant is a stronger Shifter. Dominants can hold their wolf or coyote form longer, they retain their canine senses further into the moon cycle, and they win any Challenges thrown their way. But there is more to it than that. It’s also the way others react to them. Even humans who have no concept of dominance tend to treat Shifters who have it with more respect, or they’re properly leery of them. It’s in the way a Dominant moves and talks, as if they expect the world to bend to their will. And it’s in the power they radiate. For most Shifters, that power is only a theoretical thing. They know it’s there. They might even notice the hairs on the back of their necks rising when they’re near a Dominant, but it’s not a tangible thing for them. For me it is. I can feel it, see it, and taste it. Sometimes I think I can even hear it whispering to me, telling me how powerful it is. Even the most submissive of Shifters has some amount of power they radiate. Jase was giving off a fairly strong signature, especially for a coyote, but the Dominance I saw in Scout’s eyes was more than ten times stronger than his.
The moment was cut short by her brother. He grabber her shoulder, and acting on the dominance play that had building between the two of us, she took a swing at his face. Jase caught her hand in what would appear to the casual observer as little effort, but I knew better. She hadn’t been kidding with that punch. It was hard and fast. Too fast.
Shifter fast.
“Did you see that?” I asked Alex.
He didn’t look up from his book. “Mmmhmmm…”
“I think she’s a Shifter.”
“Yeah. Uh-huh.” After the second it took for that information to sink in, his head snapped up. “What?”
I started to repeat myself but didn’t. I don’t know what it was that made me stop. Really, I don’t, so it’s not going to do anyone (meaning Scout, who is still reading over my shoulder) any good to keep asking me. I just know that I couldn’t seem to form the words again, so instead I said, “I think he’s a Shifter. That guy over there.” But of course, Jase was already gone.
Alex stuck a gum wrapper in the book to mark his spot, and then laid it on the bench. His eyes scanned the crowd quickly yet thoroughly. My brother may have been a head-in-the-clouds kind of guy about some things, but when it came to Shifter business he was serious and astute. “In line over there? The one in the blue Hollister shirt?”
“That’s him.” He was in a crowd, facing away from us, leaving only the back of his head and shoulders visible. Scout was with him, I could tell he was talking to her by his posture, but her body was hidden by the masses waiting for their heart attack on a stick.
“Clear out or approach?”
The smart thing to do would have been to clear out. We needed more information on the Hagans before we made contact, if we decided to do so at all, but Scout had intrigued me. Even though I knew it was a bad idea, I said, “Let’s wait for a minute and see what happens.”
Alex didn’t question me; he rarely did. He just nodded and kept his eyes on Jase. I wanted to tell him how proud our dad would have been of him, but the words got stuck in my throat just like they always did. We never spoke about our parents. It was too hard, although some days I thought not talking about them was even harder.
I expected Jase to head back to his friends after he and Scout got their food, but instead they headed the opposite direction. They only made it a few steps before the building blocked them completely from sight.
“Should we follow?” Alex asked, already picking up his book from the bench.
We could have both gone after them. Even though it was just the two of us, Alex and I were still a pack and always operated as one. Taking a pack mate with you when you approach a potential enemy is a standard practice. At the very least, you keep one nearby as backup. Instead, I said, “I think we’ll spook him if we go in together. Why don’t you head back to the car so he doesn’t pick up on your scent? I’ll get a closer look, and then we’ll head home.”
Again, Alex complied without hesitation. His willingness to follow my lead was due in equal parts to my Dominance and his God-given personality. There were times when I resented him for it, like when I was in a particularly bad mood and looking for a fight. Alex never took the bait. Sure, he might bicker with me on occasion or spar when I asked him to, but he never had a knock-down-drag-out with me. My wolf saw it as weakness. My human part, however, heard our mother’s voice. “A Dominant wolf with compassion who isn’t afraid to follow someone else’s lead,” she would say to our father, a look of pride on her face. “The world is a better place with him in it.” And I knew she was right. While I saw the world in black and white, Alex saw the entire rainbow, and cared about each and every color. Without him and his multi-hued world, I would have become nothing more than the pre-programmed soldier many people thought I was. Still, at that moment, I wanted him to be different. I wanted him to be more like a normal Dominant and challenge me on my order to just walk away. There was no reason for me to go after them on my own, and in fact it was an exceedingly stupid idea. I needed someone to force me into doing the right thing since I couldn’t seem to do it on my own.