Fated For The Wolf: A Fertile Shapeshifter Romance (Werewolf's Harem Series Book 6) (11 page)

His mind wandered from the scene before him, his reflections turning inward. The twinge in his lower back, the ache in his bones, they warned him to take things easy, not to push so hard. Not that he’d obey, but with every passing year Josiah found it harder and harder to silence his body’s complaints.

Most simply put, Josiah was growing old. He was older, more tired, and seemingly crankier with each passing day. His hair was going from salt-and-pepper to white, his once-glorious physique slowly diminishing. Though he didn’t think of himself as a vain main, after a lifetime of bodily perfection, it was difficult to accept that he was in decline. In a few years, he would have to either relinquish his spot as Alpha of the Montana clan or wait until some young punk challenged him for it. That young punk would almost certainly be one of his own sons, and such a fight was something he didn’t much relish. Win or lose, there was no good outcome of that match.

Josiah crackled his knuckles. Usually the serene countryside calmed him, pacified both man and bear in equal measures. Today, though, he’d gotten into an argument with his son Wyatt, and it had lit a fire under Josiah’s ass. Josiah was the Alpha of Pacific Northwest Berserker bear shifters, and the patriarch of the Beran clan.

As an Alpha Berserker with plenty of life experience under his belt, Josiah knew well the cost of letting his temper get the best of him. When he let his anger rise to the surface, he shifted into his bear form… After that, all bets were off. There was no controlling the bear, no reasoning with him, no mitigating the damage he might do. Berserkers were fearsome to behold, nearly unstoppable, and chilling in their frenzied fits of rage.

Today, he promised himself, he would carefully rein in his rage. Use his words, as Genny would say. This day would likely test his patience far beyond what Josiah would normally tolerate, but it had to be done.

He’d called all six of his sons back to the Lodge, the sprawling Montana estate Josiah’s father had constructed over a hundred years ago, and he expected compliance from his sons. One day each of them would be an Alpha, though whether it would be of one of the six major bear clans or of a smaller private pack had yet to be seen. As Alpha, they too would be called upon to made difficult and unpopular decisions.

There was a knock at his office door. Josiah turned to find his mate Genny in the doorway, giving him a long look. She wore what Josiah teasingly referred to as
her uniform
: steel-gray hair pinned up in a high bun, one of Josiah’s old button-up shirts tucked into tan breeches, black leather riding boots that came up to her knee. Her cheeks were pink, as if she’d just come from a ride, and she smelled pleasantly of horse and leather.

She leveled him with her sea-green gaze, her lips pursed. Without a word, Genny made it clear that the plans he’d laid before her only three days ago did not meet with her approval. In more usual circumstances, Josiah deferred to Genny in matters of child rearing and social issues. Boys would be boys, and grown or no, his sons were a wild bunch better left to their mother’s care.

Unfortunately, today was not the usual circumstance. Josiah set his cigar aside, reckoning that Genny had something on her mind. His mate wasn’t one to hold back her feelings, not from him anyway. Plain speaking had always one of the keys to the health of their mateship.

“Gen,” Josiah said, pushing up out of his chair. His bones creaked as he rose, but he ignored the twinge of pain. He might be ailing and aging, but damn if he wasn’t going to get to his feet whenever his beautiful mate entered the room.

“Sit down,” she waved him off, cocking her hip to lean against the door frame. “You barely slept last night, or the night before. I want you to rest. Remission doesn’t mean you get to go back to the way things were before, burning the candle at both ends and running yourself into the ground. You’re going to take it easy, just like Dr. Canning told you to. I’m not ready to be rid of you yet.”

Genny crossed her arms and gave him her most no-nonsense look, a formidable expression indeed. Josiah opened his mouth to argue, but forty years of mateship made him shut it again. He pinched the bridge of his nose, nodding as he admitted the truth to himself. He was tired, without a doubt.

“Joe,” Genny prompted him after a moment.

He looked up, apologetic. He couldn’t help but smile, thinking that his mate was the only person in his life that got to see this easygoing, neutral side of him. As Alpha, there was little time for socializing outside his family, and no room for weakness or submission. Genny was the only soft spot in his life, the only person in the world that Josiah Beran yielded to on any matters of importance.

“Who are we waiting on?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Well, let’s see,” Genny said, ticking off her sons on her fingers. “Luke and Gavin are out in the stables, moving some tack around for me. Noah and Cameron are in town picking up groceries, seeing as we don’t have the kind of stock to feed seven of you. Finn is at the airport, just waiting…”

She trailed off, but Josiah knew just what she meant.

“Waiting on Wyatt. Of course he is,” Josiah groused. “We don’t even know if Wyatt’s coming or not.”

Wyatt was the second oldest of their sons and the most stubborn, too independent to see past his own nose. Finn was the youngest, gentler than his brothers, and one of the few people that Wyatt allowed to get close. That Finn should be at the airport, waiting patiently for Wyatt’s potential arrival, spoke volumes about their relationship.

“You quit ragging on Finn,” Genny piped up, defending her youngest son. “Just because you’ve given up on Wyatt doesn’t make Finn a fool. I’ll have you know that Wyatt actually called me to let me know he’s arriving this afternoon.”

“Does Finn know that?” Josiah asked, crossing his arms.

Genny’s expression darkened, her gaze narrowing.

“I’ll be in the barn with the boys,” she snipped, turning on her heel and vanishing into the hallway.

“So it begins,” Josiah murmured to himself. Half his sons hadn’t even been in the house yet, much less all gathered at the table together for what they would undoubtedly view as bad news.

Josiah looked at his watch. He probably had at least an hour before they were all here, plenty of time to catch a little shuteye. He hoisted himself up and hobbled over to his recliner, sighing as he sank into the buttery leather. Closing his eyes, he let sleep wash away his worries, if only for a short while.

“Joe, the boys are all here,” Genny’s voice came from behind him.

Josiah stood staring out the window of his office, watching the very last fingers of light retreating from the sky. He’d hardly slept at all, tossing and turning before rising once more to stare out at the fading twilight. His conscience was weighing him down, making him second guess his decision to intrude on his sons’ lives.

“Joe?” Genny asked again.

He turned, giving her a soft smile.

“I’m coming. Just girding my loins,” he teased.

She smiled, making his heart flip in his chest. One look from his mate, and he was a teenager again. Falling all over himself to woo her, giddy with the slightest waft of her scent, desperate to please her. The fact that she didn’t approve of his plan truly bothered him, but now wasn’t the time to show indecision.

“I’m ready,” he said, catching her hand as he reached the doorway. He rolled his shoulders and straightened to his fullest height, now a few inches shy of the 6’5 he’d been in his prime. He steeled his expression and gave Genny’s hand a final squeeze when they reached the Lodge’s meeting room.

Josiah swung the double doors wide open, ushering Genny inside first before following her. The room was dominated by a massive pine table, an antique from Josiah’s own grandfather’s arrival and settling in Montana. His sons were all seated at the table, no doubt on Genny’s explicit orders.

Though he’d never admit it, Josiah did like seeing his sons all in one place like this. All big, lean, muscular men, the same as Josiah had once been. Half of them were dressed in the ranch’s typical attire of dusty jeans and old work shirts, half in slick city attire. All were dark-haired, a deep sorrel color they’d inherited from Josiah. They ran the spectrum of facial hair, from clean-shaven to shadowed to fully bearded. But the eyes… each man had bright, brilliant eyes of green-blue, with yellow-rimmed irises. Those eyes marked each and every son of Genny Beran. They were her more striking feature, and her sons were blessed to be marked with it.

Josiah looked his sons over. On the left side were Noah, Luke, and Cameron. On the right were Gavin and Finn. And at the very end, leaning back in the most casual of poses, was Wyatt. The second Josiah met Wyatt’s gaze, a challenging smirk lit his son’s lips. Wyatt held his gaze without a trace of discomfort, letting Josiah know how little Wyatt liked being summoned to appear. Wyatt, ever the troublemaker in the family, never had done well with demands.

Genny cleared her throat, drawing the attention of every man in the room and diffusing the stare down.

“Ma,” Wyatt said, giving Genny a slow, respectful nod.

“Does anyone need something to drink?” Genny asked, making her way over to the room’s sideboard and picking up a couple of bottles of water.

A chorus of “no, ma’am”s resounded through the room, and Josiah saw the expression of pleasure that lit Genny’s face. Genny loved that she’d raised her boys to be so respectful, though Josiah doubted that most other people got the kind of devoted admiration that Genny herself did.

“Let’s sit, then,” Josiah said, drawing out a chair at the end of the table for his mate. Genny settled herself, putting two bottles of water before them, and Josiah took the seat next to hers.

“If we’re going to talk about the Alpha succession, Ma should leave the room,” Wyatt drawled.

Four voices burst into the ensuing silence, rewarding Wyatt’s condescension with the chaos he always sought. Twins Noah and Finn, ever the momma’s boys, protested the idea of Genny’s exclusion on any grounds. Gavin, the family peacemaker, jumped in to dismiss any succession talk before it ended in an outright brawl. Cameron raised his voice, trying to talk over everyone, mostly because he resented the Beran clan’s assumption that Wyatt would be next in line for the Alpha position. Luke, the oldest and most reserved of them, was silent; no surprise there, as Luke had always held his cards close to his chest.

Josiah’s gaze snapped back to Wyatt. Josiah reached out and patted Genny’s hand, giving his second-oldest son a quelling glare.

“That’s not why I called you here,” Josiah said. When his sons continued to argue and wind one another up, Josiah stood. Putting two fingers to his lips, he gave a long, sharp whistle that brought the bickering to a grinding halt.

“Shut up,” Josiah warned them. He came to his feet, crossing his arms and giving them his best Alpha stance. He’d spent a lifetime guiding and disciplining his sons, teaching them respect and boundaries, with moments just like this one in mind. As Alpha, he had the power to physically demand their attention, but he preferred to let them choose to obey rather than force them. True to their upbringing, they all followed his command and kept quiet.

“There’s been a meeting of the Alphas of all six major clans,” Josiah began. “The slowing rate of population growth has become epidemic. The Alpha of the Missouri clan had some statistic, something like fifty births per year. Our kind can’t be sustained that way.”

Wyatt perked up instantly, his interest in Berserker politics rearing its head. Wyatt loved to argue in general, but the backwardness of Berserker politics was a kind of nirvana to him. His mouth opened, a smart retort on the tip his tongue.

“We know all that,” Cameron said, cutting off Wyatt’s surely similar words before he got them out. “But the clans have been intermarrying in themselves for so long that it’s hard to find a girlfriend in our territory who’s not a close cousin, much less a mate who doesn’t share your bloodline. What are we supposed to do?”

All the boys but Luke murmured in assent, nodding.

“We had our reasons then, trying to keep the gene pool strong by keeping our kind from mating with humans. Half-breeds are very weak, if they can transform at all.”

“You’ve seen one?” Finn asked, looking surprised. “I thought they didn’t exist anymore.”

“I’ve seen many born, and almost as many die. Like I said, they’re weak. Of the clans, only Washington and Georgia even allow half-breeds in their clans.”

“This is all a very nice little history lesson, but I’m not seeing the point,” Wyatt interrupted.

“Berserkers are no longer taking mates at the rate needed to keep our numbers up. Taking a mate is an expected part of growing up in an Alpha family, a duty that your generation seems to have forgotten. Only a handful of the current Alphas’ children have taken mates, though nearly all of you are well beyond the acceptable age,” Josiah said, coming to his point. “You six are perfect examples. That’s why the Alphas have decided that all their offspring will mate within the year. Any Berserker woman of good breeding and the right age is acceptable.”

“What!” Luke yelped, leaping to his feet. His brothers all stared at him, shocked at his reaction. Shocked, really, to hear him speak without being directly questioned. Josiah turned to him, taking him to task.

“You got a better option? I don’t see you bringing home a mate, giving me grandchildren. You’re the oldest, you set the standard for your brothers. And yet, you’re the worst bachelor of all of them. So I took things into my own hands. Six of you, ten US Berserker clans. Six grandchildren by next year, I would assume.”