“We should pull him.”

“I want him educated,” Leah declared. “I want him to have what I couldn’t.” Even if it was not the education of her people, she wanted Rowan to have something. He looked like a human. He looked like he might not grow up to become a skinwalker like her. He might have a chance. He might have an easier life than she ever could. A life free of ostracism. Free of isolation.

Free of the Red Cord.

Free of everything that kept her awake night and day.

They had moved many times, and had moved again to this town. Moving was a regular part of their lives, but they were still concerned over how changing schools so frequently affected Rowan. It was easier for their child to go to school if they called him a boy. Rowan was not opposed. He was insistent he was neither girl nor boy anyhow, but a wolf. When wolf had become a gender, Erland became just as determined as Leah had for the child to fit in.

Rowan could fit in. Leah never would be able to, but Rowan could fit in with his father. It just required they keep living the new lie that Erland and Leah had set up for their family. They portrayed Leah as an absentee mother, convincing those who asked that she had become a monster and wanted no part of Rowan’s life. They easily concealed the truth by hiding out in the woods where prying eyes couldn’t find them. They only hoped everyone they spoke to believed Rowan was never to become whatever it was that his mother was.

Rumors circulated about a gray wolf haunting the town they had settled in. The gossips easily connected her to the child who growled more often than laughed. Would that they were less focused on superstition, persecution, and nosiness and more focused on actually keeping the children safe. Especially her child.

“Education won’t matter much if they keep picking on him,” Erland argued.

Leah gazed momentarily into her son’s bedroom, where Steven watched over their child like a protective parent himself. She then turned back to Erland, her nocturnal, golden gaze sad but reserved. “Did the teachers listen?” Erland had to handle all of the conferences. He had to listen to every concern the teachers shared about their child’s progress. So far, there was no concern for his work. Rowan finished all of his assignments on time and passed with flying colors. Leah and Erland were more than a little astounded at how easily Rowan completed every bit of work given him. It was the social aspect that seemed less appealing.

“They told me children will be children,” Erland remarked bitterly.

That elicited a furrowed brow and a snarl of Leah’s own. “They what?” Rowan had come home sadder and sadder since starting school at long last. He had been hard to interrogate, refusing to open up. That was odd. Rowan had never been afraid to share before. So when their son opened up about how kids picked on him for ‘not having a mother’ and being ‘the child of a monster,’ she and Erland had been upset. When they saw evidence of Rowan having been in a fight, they had been furious.

And that was all the teacher had to say? That children would be children?

Erland let out a sigh of aggravation. “I told the teacher about Rowan’s change in behavior. His response was that Rowan was frightening to the others.”

“Excuse me?!” she raised her voice without meaning to, vocals becoming more feral as she grew more upset.

Erland held up a hand, reminding her not to wake Rowan up. His own eyes drooping, he struggled against a yawn as he explained, “He said Rowan makes noises, and it disturbs the other students.”

That froze Leah solid. She looked upon her spouse in disbelief. She was almost afraid to ask . . . but she had to. “What kind of noises?”

Erland shrugged, like it was of no consequence. “A few barks. Maybe a yip. He growls at times, but we both know that.” She was starting to shake her head. Her eyes were wide in shock and upset. His own started to widen at her reaction. “Leah, it doesn’t mean━”

“What else is it supposed to mean?”

“He could just be imitating you.”

“Or he could be a━”

“Leah,” Erland was standing, moving over to her.

She backed up at first, an almost instinctual response to someone attempting to embrace her abruptly. She held up her hand, cuing Erland to wait till she was together enough for him to approach. He obeyed. He waited patiently for her to stop snarling and breathe. She breathed slowly, in through her nose and out through her mouth. She squeezed her eyes shut.

As soon as she whispered, “He can’t end up like me,” and dropped her hand, Erland resumed his approach.

And she let herself be held by him.

There were so many things she didn’t want for Rowan. So many painful things. She didn’t want her former partner to ever find and draw him into the Red Cord. She didn’t want him to mature into a skinwalker, but instead to stay free, human, respected, loved. Ultimately, what all her fears and desires for her only child boiled down to was so, so simple.

She never wanted Rowan to know the cruelties she had faced.

She would sacrifice everything to keep him from those cruelties.

--

Steven listened to the kid breathing, counting his breaths and ignoring the discussion in the other room. All that mattered was that Rowan didn’t hear them.

And, given the topic at hand, that they didn’t hear Rowan whimpering in a very canine fashion in his sleep.