DAD'S SECRET PET

After that, Dad asked how we found the Gyara. Harvey dutifully reported the incident.

"What I want to know is why..." Beta Lucas paused for emphasis, "Why Ben? Why did you not call in the professional pest control to take care of the rats?"

"You gave me a budget and told me to clear out the rats." Ben answered matter of factly, "So I threw a party to clear them out."

"And look what happened!" Beta Lucas swung his arm in the general direction of the windows, "The rats have now escaped into the rest of the packhouse and beyond! If you had called the professionals, they would have gotten rid of all the rats properly-"

"If I had called the professionals, they would have found the gyara in our dungeon, and then how are you going to explain that?" Ben cut in.

Beta Lucas opened his mouth and shut it again.

Gamma Harry raised his hand, "Yes, I am very curious - how did a gyara get into our dungeon?"

Beta Lucas opened his mouth and shut it again.

Dad sighed and nodded so Beta Lucas opened his mouth and this time was able to tell us:

A long time ago, before us pups were born, Dad and Beta Lucas and some of the other adults moved to the Green Packlands to start Night Leaf. Gamma Harry was there too - did he remember building the packhouse together?

Of course Gamma Harry remembered, "It was tough, so tough."

Dad had a very limited budget, but he had to build at least one house large enough for the wolves who had followed him out here.

"You see, you have to appreciate that they had left their homes and families and jobs to come here and winter was soon approaching." Beta Lucas explained.

At the time, the neighboring warlock, Fount, had come to greet his new neighbors. When he learned that we needed stone for our foundation, he offered us a quarry at the back of his land. We could take whatever stone we needed for the packhouse as long as we did it by hand, and didn't use explosives.

At that time, the warlock's crystals did not trap or attack our wolves. We could go in and out at anytime. We built large carts that could be drawn by wolves - we had to DIY everything due to the lack of budget.

"But what we lacked in funds, we made up for with vast natural resources and a dream." Dad said, his eyes looking into the distance as he remembered, "We were going to build with our own hands, a pack that was for the wolves that ran in it."

I remembered how Grandma Luna always said that the wolf lives for the pack. Dad had always said, the pack exist for the wolves.

Anyway, every morning, the men would drag the carts over to the mountain where they mined the rocks. And then they would load up the carts in the evening, shift to wolves and drag the carts home.

"It was tough, so tough." Remembered Gamma Harry.

The women would stay back in their makeshift tentages and prepare the meals. Sometimes they had to shift to hunt for meat. They also grew their own vegetables. There were no roads out to town, there was no such thing as Gate City either.

Which was unimaginable to me.

Anyway, one of the men found a hollow carven while mining one day and Dad and Beta Lucas went to explore it. The carven was huge and winding. They took their wolf forms and smelled prey, so they went further in. To their shock and horror they found another huge carven filled with Gyaras in hibernation.

Careful not to wake them, they crept back to the mines, blocked the entrance of the carven and told everyone it was out of bounds.

BUT not before taking a small sleeping gyara out with them. Beta Lucas had smuggled it in his cart along with the other rocks.

"It was the size of a football." Beta Lucas said.

Dad nodded.

"Wait! You're telling me that the both of you smuggled a baby gyara to the packhouse and hid it in the dungeons?" I exclaimed. Talk about keeping a secret pet!

"It was a dangerous thing to do, but we were young and foolhardy." Dad said.

Suddenly the episode when Savy and I secretly kept guinea pigs in our shared walk in closet wasn't such a big deal anymore.

Anyway, Beta Lucas continued, they were building the dungeons at the time, so he kept the gyara there. It just slept and didn't wake up at all. Gyaras can sleep for years on end.

But Gyaras weren't supposed to exist outside the Colored Mountains. At least that's what all the literature we had about them seemed to imply. Beta Lucas then came up with the clever plan to putting the baby gyara into a secret room. It only had 2 foot gap from the top of the ceiling to throw food into.

Years later, Dad begin to think bringing back a live gyara and putting it under our packhouse wasn't such a good idea. Particularly since our pack had a lot of young couples expecting pups.

They went back down to kill it, but couldn't. The gyara was bulletproof. Who knew?

So the both of them decided to just seal off the underground secret room completely with the gyara inside and never speak of it again. It would probably just starve to death. This, ladies and gentlemen, would be the epic example of sweeping something under the carpet.

They didn't count on the rats finding the secret room and using it as their base. Nor did they count on the gyara consuming the rats and growing in the secret room. And they definitely hadn't expect that their kids would throw a party there and end up fighting it.

"I thought it would be dead by now." Beta Lucas admitted.

So the football sized gyara became a elephant sized gyara?

That's crazy!

Sometimes when I heard stories about what Dad and Beta Lucas did when they were young, I would be filled with hope that the guys around me would also one day grow up to be respectable wise wolves.

Because with all due respect, Dad and Beta Lucas had done their share of stupid things.

"Anyway, that was dangerous and irresponsible, Ben! Any one of your friends could have been seriously hurt!" Beta Lucas lectured.

"Says the guy who hid the gyara in the dungeon." Ben said, "Chill, Dad. Sam was there."

"That only means Sam could've been hurt too!" Beta Lucas was quick to point out.

But Ben was unfazed, "Who did you think called for the evacuation? Or figured out a way to kill that monster?"

"I would've made the kill too." I huffed, suddenly remembering how mate stopped me.

"She may look...like that-" Ben continued.

"Like what?" I demanded.

"Er, terrifying. She may look terrifying LIKE THAT, but we always win if we follow her lead." Ben finished.

Harvey coughed again, just slightly. Beta Lucas coughed harder. Dad covered his mouth.

I crossed my arms and flared. I'm actually super mad but I was trying not to show it now that I found out that it only amused them.

"Yes, terrifying." Bell agreed in deadpan because he just had to rub it in.

Actually, now that I'm writing this, getting mad was pretty immature, but at that moment I was so mad, I let Boo take over the reins.

Boo produced a saccharin smile, and at least Ben and Mate was aware of the shift of control and had tensed.

And then Boo sat back down next to Mate and thought about the conversation so far, "But I'm sure you didn't bring up the Gyara to confess your youthful folly, Beta Lucas. Exactly what is the purpose of this discussion?"

Beta Lucas blinked, "Well, yes, yes. Thank you for asking, Sam. This incident... We will let you off with a warning. Ben, get the rest of the rats cleaned up."

"We just cleaned up your gyara. Now you want us to clean up your rats too?" I asked.

"Well, you kids did release them." Dad said.

The correct response would have been, "Yes, Dad" but this was Boo who was talking, "That's true, we had released in a few minutes what was bred over years and years of neglect."

"Ha!" Gamma Harry burst out then, slapping his thigh, "She's got us there, Alpha. Hahaha!"

"Fine." Dad sighed, "I see your point. It was our neglect over the years that the dungeons had fallen to such disrepair."

I didn't mean for Dad to feel bad! Arugh... bad Boo!

I tried to cheer Dad up immediately, "On the bright side, the gyara helped us tear down the old structure for the renovations."

Dad got up and reached over to pat my head, "Your wolf... is different today."

Oh right. Dad meet Boo, my dark side. Boo, this is my Dad. Don't make him cry.

"It's because we made her mad." Ben explained. Ben had become somewhat of an expert on me lately, "The more Sam gets mad or feels threatened, the darker her wolf becomes."

So my so-called evolution/unstableness was because I was feeling angry or threatened?

"Like a kind of self-defense. Her wolf evolves in response to the demands of Sam's circumstances." Ben elaborated.

Once again, Ben had managed to make sense of my wolf for me.

Everyone considered the implication of this for a moment.

"If so, could we also say that if we keep the princess safe and happy..." Harvey ventured, "Then her wolf would retain its puppy-like state?"

I flared. What puppy like state?

Dad patted my head again and then he looked at Beta Lucas, and Beta Lucas looked at Dad. It was a "are you thinking what I am thinking look", and yes, they obviously were.

"Hn." Mate was also regarding me quite seriously, "Then the fact that her wolf is evolving so quickly would mean..."

More contemplation. You could almost see the gears turning in their heads, but no one spoke aloud.

What? Grrr... I hated being "slow"! What were they not saying? I tried to get a clue from Mates feelings. It was serious, and little regretful, cautious, determined... What did that mean? It could mean anything!

Finally Gamma Harry spoke gravely, "We just wasted a good opportunity."

"What opportunity?" I wanted to know. And what were all of you thinking about?

But Gamma Harry was thinking in a tangent again because what he said was, "We could've eaten the gyara. Imagine how many BBQs it would have lasted us!"

Oh. Even though it was completely out of point, now that he said it, he did make a good point.

"It would've been a once in a lifetime opportunity to taste gyara meat." Gamma Harry sighed, "What a waste."

In the mountains, gyara was game food. Long ago, a pack would hunt gyara in the morning, and then again in the evening. What they caught would feed their entire pack. Later on, gyara meat was only for those rich enough to hunt for fun (in human form with magical treasures and weapons) or so poor that they needed to hunt for survival (au naturale in wolf form).

Between the availability of gyara and fruit trees, no wolf on the mountain should ever need to starve. Gyara was particularly good in stews or as roast. The hind leg was most prized and often one would go to the Alpha, and the other to whoever made the kill or was MVP in some way.

I've ever read that you could sell the hind leg and the energy crystal found in its head, but the rest of the gyara was fed to real wolves or given away for free.

"Speaking about the gyara, does mum know about it?" Ben asked.

"It would be best, if you kids don't tell your mothers about this." Beta Lucas hastily said, "There's no reason to worry them."

Beta Lucas quickly concluded from here, "Well, then we'll let you kids off with a warning. Don't tell your mothers. You can leave the clean up to us."

"We could also call the professionals." Ben said.

"You used the budget to throw a party!" Beta Lucas reminded him.

"Yeah, but the party cost only a third of the pest control quote. And I charged per head and made a ten percent profit." Ben confessed.

"You what?" More than one person said at the same time.

Ben shrugged. He looked pretty damn please with himself too.

"Maybe we should get Ben to organized the pack parties from now on." Suggested Gamma Harry, "We can have BBQ every night all summer and still make a profit!"

"Well, then since you have everything under control, I guess it's all fine then." Beta Lucas was not swayed by Gamma Harry's tangent, "The gyara is dead and disposed of, we have the budget to call pest control, what else... Oh right, it would be best if everyone involved does not to speak of the gyara again."

Especially not to our mothers, and especially, especially not to Mrs Beta. I grinned. Got it.

And then I yawned again, because we had literally been partying all night.

"Energy crystal..." I managed to say, "Did the gyara have an energy..."

But I was out of energy, Mate was right next to me, and between the exertion of the hunt and... I think the punch had just left my system... Out like a light on Mate's shoulder...

I felt Mate's large hands slide under me to pick me up, "I'll take her to her room."

I was floating...

...

I can't remember what happened after that. The next thing I knew it was morning, I was encased in my warm lemony sheets, and part of Mate's large hand was in mine.