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Christophe

Iwatchedthe police load the omega into the back of the ambulance while party guests gawked from their cars as they left. Strapped onto a stretcher and still in wolf form, the stubborn idiot had refused to shift back to his human form, even though it would’ve helped them heal the nasty wound he’d gotten from where I’d dropped that fateful whiskeyglass.

If he’d succeededwith his little heist, he would’ve made off with an incredible amount of money and valuables—two full bags’ worth—including Perennia Whitefang’s precious gifts. She was furious, of course, and if it hadn’t been for her relatively lower status she probably would’ve made a larger scene than she had. Her husband seemed amused about the whole thing, just watching quietly with a smile on his face. They’d left not too long after the police showed up, with Perennia saying she no longer felt safe in our home. I didn’t try to stopher.

Still—shehad a valid reason to feel unsafe. I couldn't believe that we’d been robbed. Even though we had a state of the art security system, he’d managed to bypass everything by slipping into the air conditioning system, and to make things worse, the coat room didn’t have any kind of monitoring system inside it. There’d just never been a reason for it. There were acres and acres of wild forest on every side of our home, and that was security initself.

“The guy knewwhat he was doing,” Loch said. He, Arthur, and I stood in the now-empty coat room, and I went over to the safe and examined it. Nothing of ours had beendisturbed.

“Obviously,”I said. “He knew how to access this room. He must’ve had information about thehouse.”

“Not to mentionhe was able to crack the safe,” Arthur said. “Is this the same thief that hit the BlackwoodDistrict?”

“Iwonder,”I said. “The Blackwood thief never stole anything big, though. Nothing on this scale. Though they had to be as well prepared as this guy was, to be able to get away with being undetected for solong.”

“Ibet they’re the same,”Lochsaid.

“Christophe.”

We all straightenedat the sound of Father’s voice. He was standing in the doorway of the coat room, his hand on the door frame. The door hung loosely on one hinge, broken after I’d kicked itdown.

“Yes, Father?”

“Come with me.”

Ifollowedhim out of the room. I couldn’t shake the feeling of smallness, like I was a child again and Father was about to reprimand me for my mistakes. And I had made a lot of mistakes. Making sure the party went smoothly had been my responsibility, and even though the incident wasn’t my fault, I could’ve arranged for better security. Also, after leaving them alone, my two little cousins had gone off and somehow managed to get their hands on some bear honey whiskey, so we not only had upset guests, a stain on our reputation, and a broken door, we also had two drunk kids vomiting in the bathroom. Thankfully, Mother volunteered to care for them. She seemed shaken by the break-in, and I think she needed something to take her mind off of itanyway.

“You did well,”Father said, and I looked at him insurprise.

“Thank you, Father,”I replied. “I don’t feel the sameway.”

“It wasan unfortunate situation that could’ve happened regardless of the preparation. You took care of everything, and not to mention, you caught thethief.”

We walkedout to the front of the house, where a police crew was milling about out and around the property collecting evidence. Father put his hand on my shoulder. “You are ready to lead this clan,” he said. “Just as you’ve been to destinedto.”

“Thank you, Father.”For some reason, his words didn’t make me feel as much pride as I would’ve expected themto.

“I’m grantingyou full clan powers on this matter,” Father continued, with a smile. “Follow up with the chief inspector about thissituation.”

Now Ireallywas shocked.Full clan powers. That meant he was giving me permission to act on hisbehalf.

“Put the thief behind bars,or have him exiled. Your judgement, I leave the decision toyou.”

“Yes, Father,”Isaid.

He squeezedmy shoulder and went back inside, leaving me standing alone outside. The police were spraying down the path the thief had taken, where his injured paw had left a trail of bloody paw prints. I traced the trail back towards the house, the prints now nothing but a smeared haze of rust-colored water. I stopped at the side of the house, near where he’d stepped on the broken whiskey glass. The glass had been cleaned up, brushed away along with all the other evidence that anything had taken place here tonight. Soon, everything would be back to normal. The house security would be upgraded, we’d send condolence gifts to all of the guests, and everything would beforgotten.

It was nowmy responsibility to deal justice to the scumbag who decided it’d be a good idea to steal from theLunas.

Ileanedmy back against the wall, feeling the sudden weight of this new responsibility. These were the kind of decisions I’d be making as clan leader. Real things. Deciding the fate of people who betrayed the rules of the clan, or those who crossed us. Determining what was best for not just my family, but for an entire clan. Hundreds and hundreds ofpeople.

Now I really felt likeI could use thatdrink.

Isankdown onto my haunches and buried my face into my palms. I needed to hold it together. Of course things weren’t going to be easy. I never expected them tobe.

Through the cracksof my fingers, I saw something on the ground that nearly made my heart stop. I leaned forward to get a better view of the single bloody paw print that the cleaning crew had missed. It stood out to me, because I knew that print as well as I knew my own. Was I imagining it? It couldn’t be possible, could it? But no, it really was there, right down to the single missing pad. It was the same paw print that I’d carried on my right thigh since birth. My fated matemark.

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