Fourteen: Rumor

Damon was immediately intrigued, but not alarmed. Not really. See, despite Mark’s laidback nature, he was actually a horrible gossip. He had an inexplicable ability to get his nose into everyone’s business, whether he cared about them or not.

Whatever he’d heard about Jun might be true. But it just as easily might not be. And if it was bad enough to make Mark this glum, there was a good chance someone had made it up for attention. Despite all of Damon’s concerns regarding Jun and all the questions Jun had refused to answer, Damon had seen enough of Jun to know that he wasn’t a bad person, so whatever it was he was hiding couldn’t be all that terrible.

…Right?

Either way, Damon didn’t like how constipated Mark looked right now. Better to just let him get it off his chest. “Well? Spit it out,” Damon said.

Mark took in a deep breath – preparing himself for ultimate gossip mode. “You know how Venus pack is right?”

That…was a very vague question. Ganymede pack kind of took the cake in terms of ‘weirdness’ or general abnormality in comparison to most wolf packs across the world. However, each pack had slightly different customs or hierarchical structures. Different rules regarding the Season, for sure. Some were strict. Some were basically completely integrated with human cities and didn’t have much of a structure at all.

Venus pack was fairly laidback. Egalitarian, too. They focused pretty heavily on making sure everyone of every gender designation was listened to and taken care of – taking a note from Ganymede pack, actually. Venus pack and Ganymede pack had been allies for generations. Damon and all his peers in their pack classes took a field trip to Venus pack when they were teenagers, to experience a different pack culture so they could learn to better respect others. Venus pack also sent over a group of their teens every year for the same reason.

Despite their friendly relations, there were definitely some notable differences between the two packs. For example, many of their policies regarding the Season were similar to Ganymede, just formulated better for omegas. They still implemented a lot of that respect, so omegas weren’t harassed quite as badly as they were in other packs. Still, there was a slight bias against omegas. It was a sad fact for many packs, and some were crueler than others. Omegas in Venus pack were not allowed to issue courting claims, for example. Only alphas or betas were allowed to do that in Venus pack.

It was unfair, but Damon knew things could be a lot worse. Plus, he was in Ganymede, and didn’t have to really worry about it. Damon knew the omegas in Venus pack were free to switch packs if they wished, so he figured if they didn’t like it, they could just transfer to Ganymede. Many did.

Damon couldn’t really think of anything else notable about Venus pack. Their hierarchy was pretty strict, he knew. In Ganymede, the pack leader passed down control of the pack to their children. If they had no children, or if the children didn’t want to lead, an election would be held to vote in a new pack leader. In addition, if the pack felt the pack leader wasn’t doing a good job, they could either send someone to challenge him for the position, or go the slower route and start a petition to have him removed. So while the pack leader position could become corrupt due to it being passed down through heritage, the pack could also exert a certain amount of control and ensure that everyone in the pack had a voice.

Venus pack was different. Their pack leader position had been in the same familial line for quite some time. Challenging the pack leader there – called the ‘Alpha,’ even if their gender designation was not alpha – usually ended up in death for the challenging party because Venus pack’s leadership was insanely strong. They were also generally good rulers – common values were passed down through the family so they could better serve their pack – so no one wanted them gone anyway.

They also had a stronger base hierarchy. Aside from the Alpha position, the leader, upon being made the leader, would appoint two direct consultants to help them run the pack from any family they saw fit to choose from. These consultants were both called ‘Beta,’ once again, whether they were betas or not. The Betas advised the Alpha, but also enforced laws, settled disputes, and generally handled any of the busywork the Alpha couldn’t bother with. The Alpha would also choose an omega representative for the sake of giving omegas a voice, but as far as Damon knew, they received no official title, even if they were in a respected position. The Alpha or Betas could, of course, be any gender designation, but they were very seldom omegas.

All this information flew through Damon’s mind as he thought about what Mark meant. He nodded for him to continue.

Mark bit his lips. “Do you know anything about their current Alpha? And…his only son?”

“Precious little. Why?” Damon knew the family name of their Alpha line. Hart. Unless he was misremembering. Damon had no idea where this was going, and he sank back into the couch a bit, preparing for something totally ridiculous. Mark’s gossip system was notoriously unreliable. And for someone as secretive as Jun, even if a rumor came from a seed of truth, the actuality was probably much different.

“Damon…Jun is his son.”

“…”

Damon didn’t really process this at first. He thought oh, cool, good for him. And then the implications of that came crashing in.

If what Mark said was true – and Damon couldn’t be sure it was – then Damon suddenly had a lot more questions. First, most obviously, why would the son of Venus pack’s alpha transfer packs? Second – could he transfer packs? The line of inheritance was absolute in Venus pack. If Jun was actually the Venus pack Alpha’s only child, then there was basically zero chance that he would have been allowed to leave the pack. Even if he really didn’t want the position, he had no choice.

The questions only became more concerning from there. How would no one in Ganymede pack notice that the son of their neighboring pack’s Alpha was here? Peter and Hailey would definitely have known. They had contact with the Hart family all the time. Jun’s last name was Harper. If the rumor was true, then he must have changed it. Why?

While wolves could transfer packs, usually with little problem, it became harder to reverse it. Leaving one pack for another was a huge commitment. And a huge betrayal. Your pack was your family. The reason for leaving had to be something catastrophically major. As in, abuse, injustice, or some other heinous mistreatment. That’s why Damon had tried to bring it up with Jun so early on in their courtship. Someone’s reason for transferring was usually severe. While Damon could have accepted Jun not wanting to talk about something traumatic, Jun had expressly stated that he loved his family and still visited them often. He never said anything or gave any indication that he’d left due to mistreatment.

If Jun was actually the future Venus pack Alpha, to put it simply, he would never have been allowed to leave. The simple conclusion to this was that Jun might be a second or third child, and thus, not the inheritor of the position. Then everything could be understood. If Jun didn’t want any connection to his past, he would logically change his name to avoid detection in Ganymede pack and try not to talk about Venus pack as much as possible. But Mark had said ‘only son.’

That didn’t mean too much. For all Damon knew, the Hart family could have an older, alpha or beta daughter that was set to inherit the position. But the way Mark was acting told Damon that was probably very unlikely.

Even worse? Damon had just remembered another cute little tidbit about the Hart family Alphas.

Children of the Hart family who were destined to inherit the Alpha position were assigned a future mate the minute they were old enough to present their secondary gender. Those betrothals were unbreakable, with very, very few exceptions.

So…what was Jun doing in a courtship with Damon?