Oh Brother (Watty Awards)

Chapter 8

"Thank you for meeting me on such short notice Elder John." I said sliding onto the sofa in front of the little old man. He nodded his wrinkly head once and interlaced his fingers. He leaned back in his recliner and got comfortable.

"What can I do for you today Rafe?" He asked with a shaky voice. John is the oldest elder in the pack, he's almost one hundred years old and he is still able to get around on his own.

"I wanted to talk to you about my dad." I said hesitantly.

"Alpha Blackwood?" He asked with astonishment. Normally people don’t just go around asking questions about the Alpha of a pack. The Alpha isn’t to be questioned on any terms. I nodded my head.

"I found my mate." I stated. He smiled and showed his pearly white dentures.

"Well congratulations boy!" He said with excitement. "I bet your mother is ecstatic." I shook my head.

"She doesn’t know?" I said lowly he stopped smiling and stared at me.

"Why not?" He asked cocking his head to the side. I took a deep breath and told John about my father's mysterious ways. I told him about Lovey being a werewolf and my father refusing to tell her.

"He can’t do that!" He gasped. I paused and looked at him with curiosity. He rolled his eyes at me. "Boy don’t you know the law?" I thought I knew the law up until now. Obviously my father has been leaving something out all of these years. I shook my head.

John stood up from his chair and slowly walked over to a large cabinet in the corner of his living room. When he came back, he had a small, ancient book. The binding has started to fall apart and it looks like it will crumble if you look at it too hard. I guess I could describe John like that too.

"What's that?" I asked when he sat back down with the old book.

"This is the very first werewolf rule book." He stated. "A few things have changed now but there is one rule that can’t be changed. This is the book that I go by, I don’t go by the one's printed out today." He chuckled. "He'll I've never even read the new one." He opened the book up and flipped through a couple of pages.

He pointed down at rule #45; I read it aloud. "If any man shall come upon an unknowing shifter under the age, they must make the person knowledgeable of the existence of werewolves.

If the person fails to tell the shifter in question, they will not shift when they come of age, therefore losing their werewolf gene all together."

I reread the passage over and over again. This definitely isn’t written in the handbook today. The handbook today only has a few rules. When a new Alpha is chosen, they can throw out and add in rules. This rule was thrown out and it shouldn’t have been. None of the other elders know about it because they’re sticking to the ancient book of laws.

"Did you not read the book boy?" John asked. I looked up at him, my mind swirling with confusion.

"It’s not in there." I said. His eyes widened a bit and he leaned closer as if he had heard me wrong.