Two firm taps at our door heralded my Beta, "Did I hear the cry of a damsel in distress?"
"Ki!" Savy brightened immediately. She let him in. "We need you now!"
Ki laughed as he entered. "Sir Ki at your service, milady."
Savy and Ki had been getting along like a house on fire. Well, that was typical of Ki, but Savy very seldom opened up to anyone else. Her ease at having Ki around still surprised me. Ki's magic, maybe.
"We have a PR emergency!" Savy declared.
And then Savy began to explain the predicament that I never knew I was in until today:
Our Grandma Luna never quite approved of Uncle Louis' Luna Jade. Not only was Luna Jade a human, but she was from a poor human family, the youngest of seven sisters, and also considered the ugliest duckling of the seven girls.
In truth, Aunt Jade was rather beautiful and often reminded me of a fawn. Her daughters, who took after her, were just as beautiful, which dissatisfied Grandma Luna greatly.
Every time we went to visit, Grandma Luna would favor me above all her other granddaughters for one sole reason. I looked like Dad. In fact, it had been said that, of all her granddaughters, I was the spitting image of my grandmother when she was young.
Up until the birth of my little boy cousin Edgard, Grandma Luna had secretly hoped I would return and be the next Luna of Black Forest Pack.
"Wait, stop." I interrupted Savy's story. "Why didn't I know about this?"
"Because," Savy explained as if to a little kid, "it was a secret wish. I did say it was a secret, didn't I?"
"Indeed, you did, milady," Ki intoned.
"Well, then, if it's a secret, how did you know about it?" I argued.
"Because," Savy answered, "Grandma Luna isn't the most subtle of persons. It was quite obvious to everyone."
"If it were so obvious, why didn't I notice it?" I said.
"Because you never notice these things," Savy said. "Anyway, just let me continue."
I clamped my mouth shut.
"Where was I?" Savy wondered. "Ah yes..."
So, needless to say, we had been constantly compared to our cousins in everything. My Aunt Jade would keep asking about us as if we were the benchmark for her daughters to surpass.
What school did we attend? The White Packlands didn't have a full Lycan school like the Green Leaf Academy, so their girls were sent out to study at Black Forest High School. What? Sam is going to attend a mixed school at Winderhill? Why?
What grade is Savy in ballet now? Her girls played the violin and piano. What? Sam had quit piano lessons? What grade did she stop at?
How did the girls spend the holidays? Her girls were busy with a music recital, their school prefect camp, and cooking lessons. Had our girls performed recently? Did Mum have any videos?
Oh, what to do about boys! They kept calling. She supposed it was part of growing up. Sam and Savy must also be getting a lot of male attention at their age. How did Mum deal with it?
I can't really remember how my Mum answered these questions. Usually, the moment I heard it, I'd just turn to my cousins and ask, "Wanna go hang out somewhere else?"
And because I suspected they didn't want to hear about it either, we would all go to another room.
Sometimes Estella would get excited and tell me about her last recital, how she nearly tripped and fell.
"Because you had to be a vain pot and put on those heels," Esmeralda would scold.
Estella would giggle the way pretty girls do. "Yeah, but they were so cute."
The last time we met, Estella told us about Oscar, not the grouch but the Beta's son.
"He's so spoilt. The other day we were chatting online when he said, 'Sorry, I've got to go. My mum has made me a bubble bath.' I said, 'What? You mean your mum still makes you bubble baths?'" The two girls laughed.
"He likes her," Esmeralda told us.
"No, he doesn't," Estella said.
"He does. He chats with her every day," Esmeralda said.
"Do you like him?" I asked Estella.
"Urm..." Estella thought about it. "Just as a friend, I guess."
It's fun. Sometimes they would show us their new favorite song and force us to sing along with them. Esmeralda could be very bossy. She bossed Estella around all the time.
And if she really wanted to do something, like practice singing their favorite song on karaoke nonstop, that's what the four of us did all afternoon.
When they shifted, Aunt Jade was so relieved. She had worried they wouldn't with her human genetics mixed into it.
Of course they would have. Humans made particularly good mates because of that. Plus now, Estella and Esmeralda's wolves would be pure black wolves, even though Estella didn't even act like it.
Uncle Louis was often busy running the pack, and Aunt Jade was human and didn't know much about mothering wolves, so both the girls seldom shifted or ran in their wolf forms. They were brought up as human girls.
Estella actually quite hated to shift. She said she hated having dirt under her nails after shifting back. She also didn't like the sight of blood or raw meat.
Esmeralda didn't mind so much. She said it was fun because her wolf was fast. She liked chasing their male wolf friends and snapping at them.
"You're not afraid they would snap back?" I asked, somewhat unable to picture my feminine cousin in such a light.
"They won't dare," Esmeralda boasted confidently. "Our father's the Alpha."
"Yeah, they just run away," Estella said. "The other day, Esmeralda kept picking on Oscar. When he chatted with me that night, he kept crying that Esmeralda bullied him."
I've never met this Oscar guy before, but he sounded really wimpy.
BUT he was the Beta's son, so maybe he was just like this in front of Estella and Esmeralda.
I mean, look at Ki. Big, strong male Beta in his prime, and here he was in our room listening to Savy's rather dramatized tale of our extended family while helping match the right outfits for the weekend at my grandparents'.
Oh wait, grandparent. I only have one grandparent there now. Grandpa Alpha...
"Goddess, is something the matter?" Ki asked.
I shook my head to let Savy finish her tale.
Savy was concluding. "Every time we go, we come back having to feel bad. Not anymore! This time we are going to win!"
I shook my head again. "Actually, it's okay."
Over the years, they've been comparing us every time we met, and Estella and Esmeralda would have learned more languages, scored higher on their exams, or whatever, but whenever we met, they would compare us again.
"Don't you see? We had always been winning," I said. "When we say goodbye and return home, we still get to just be us, and everything goes back to normal. But Estella and Esmeralda are stuck there and compared to us every day of their lives. Just let it be. It'll only be for a weekend."
Ki paused. "You mean you've been knowingly tolerating this all this while?"
Savy nodded. "She even told Mum not to tell them when she wins anything."
"There's no point adding fuel to the fire," I said. It's not like I've won very many things anyway.
Ki seemed to be grappling with this revelation. "But your Alpha wolf doesn't mind this, Goddess?"
Why would my wolf mind? It wasn't a competition... Ah right...
If it were a competition, if I had something to prove, my Alpha wolf's pride wouldn't be able to take the insult of losing every time, except... I had no motivation to win this.
"It's not my fight, Ki," I said. "And my cousins aren't my enemy. It's just the way my family has always been. My Grandma Luna had always wanted Dad to be the next Alpha, and it's hard for her to change her mind. It's best to let it slide."
I sounded like Mum now.
That was how she dealt with it all these years. She went and smiled and let it slide. She answered whatever was asked and praised whatever her nieces accomplished. Aunt Jade had to deal with a lot of rejection all her life, Mum had told me.
I kind of understood. I've been told I'm not good enough to be the Alpha all my life. I'm a girl. If my grades were anything to go by, I'm not all that smart. And more recently, I'm told I'm also unstable and always messing around. No matter how hard I try, or how many people accept me as Alpha, there would always be someone who would not be able to accept me.
Plus, Aunt Jade had to hear it from her own parents, and then later from Grandma Luna. She was never pretty enough or classy enough or wolf enough.
Grandma Luna didn't feel any of her daughters-in-law were good enough for her sons. Aunt Jade didn't have to take it personally. But it's not really possible to tell someone that.
"It was alright before," Savy shrugged. "But we aren't pups anymore. You're going as the future Alpha of Night Leaf Pack and possibly the whole of the Green Packland."
This was like Mrs. Henderson saying, "You are the Alpha... etc., etc., how could you lose the motivational cheering presentation."
"It isn't a competition," I answered simply. "There is nothing to win or lose. Alpha or not, I'm still just Sam. Nothing changes."
"Yeah? Then be just Sam!" Savy had raised her voice. "Stop trying to lie low whenever we go."
And then I realized the truth of Savy's words. I always lay low whenever we went to visit Night Forest.
From the way I dressed to the way I spoke, I did everything there in a way that wouldn't draw attention to myself.
I always wore my simplest decent-looking clothes. I never ever used makeup or anything special. I never spoke about what I was excited about or anything I had managed to do.
Like Mum, I just smiled and admired my cousins from the sidelines.
It had been instinctive on my part. I was avoiding... What was I avoiding? I had no idea.