Chapter 20: Cold Hard Truth

Tyler

We had Bann join us after Alice got dressed, Tegan sitting it out, staying in the corner loveseat reading her book quietly. Every now and then, I’d catch her peeking up, apparently The Pride and The Prejudice not halfway as interesting as our extreme game of Texas Hold Em. We were betting real money, Bann and Alice getting swept up. I wasn’t kidding when I said I had the best poker face. I had them on the ropes, down to Bann’s last few chips, where my tower was blocking Alice’s embarrassing pile as well. I snatched at least 800 bucks between the both of them from the hours we’d played, that pouty face Alice tried to swindle me with ineffective.

“You got me lookin’ at ya funny now, son,” Bann grunted, popping his bottle of beer with one hand, and holding his cigarette between the fingers of his other. “Me mum had an ol’ sayin’.”

“What? Don’t get into a battle you have no business being in?” I taunted cockily.

“Heh. She said, ‘A man who never bluffs never wins.’”

I chuckled. “Are you saying that I’m not bluffing?”

“A bit of reverse psychology there, mate,” he said, tapping the edge of his cards against the table, leaning back into his chair. “You want us to believe you are when you aren’t.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Heh, no amount of talkin’ to you is going to make you break, Tyler.”

“Maybe the both of you are doing a little too much show and tell,” I hinted, studying their body language. It could be a little bit of both, actually. But I would never tell; my mind game was clearly at another level compared to these two.

“Oh, shoot! I can never win anything with these cards!” Alice fussed.

“Keep talkin’ like that, doll, and ol’ boy Tyler here will rob you of all your pretty little chips,” Bann warned.

It wouldn’t matter anyway, showing them my spread. I took the pot again, the disappointment in Bann’s face priceless.

“Fuck me,” he growled, scratching at the back of his head.

“Okay! Another round! Tyler just got lucky!” Alice beamed.

“I just want one win under me belt. That way, I can say I hadn’t had my back bent ova’ for the entire game, getting fucked.”

“It was a valiant effort, Bann,” I teased, letting Alice shuffle the cards while my arms raked in their cash.

Bann took one long deep breath, sucked in some fumes, and turned my direction again. “So, when are ya planning on catching the Moonlight Wolves?”

“You mean, Stephan Romano?” I followed, Alice jumping up on her seat next to me.

“Oh! I know where his pack hangs out tomorrow! In this industrial slash goth club down by the docks, called Van Pier. Safe to say it’s more goth than industrial.”

Tegan crept her eyes up over her book, intrigued.

“He goes there every Monday with a few betas and omegas.”

“You know that for a fact?” Bann questioned.

“Yeah, I was there on two occasions. It was… umm, one time out of curiosity, and the other time off a dare. Both times, feeling totally grossed out.”

“Grossed out?” I asked.

She giggled. “It’s basically an orgy mosh pit. If you were in desperate need of some omegas, you’d definitely find some there. Might lose an arm and a leg for it, though. But I guess if you get there early, you can enjoy yourself. Gets pretty packed on Mondays… and Thursdays, and Fridays.”

Bann smiled. “Well, there’s your lead, mate.”

“I, ugh, can’t go tomorrow night,” I admitted.

“I’m sure your evening class won’t suffer without you, Tyler,” Bann protested.

“It’s not that.”

“Don’t worry, babe, I can go with you!” Alice volunteered.

“It’s not that either.”

“Well, Alice here is sayin’ that this bloke goes out to the clubs on Monday nights—why aren’t we taking the bait?”

“I’m… just busy. Another night would be better,” I followed, and that’s when Bann caught on, noticing I glanced over at Tegan.

He made it dead obvious, stretching his neck out there comically as he connected the dots. “No shit,” he chuckled, reeling himself back over the poker table. “You takin’ my daughter out on a date?”

“What?” Alice said, her eyes growing wide at Bann’s comment, before everyone turned to the exaggerated response from Tegan.

“It’s not a date!” She blared, jumping on her feet from the couch, being defensive. “It’s just a birthday outing!”

“Ah! Birthday? Oh my gosh, happy birthday, Tegan!” Alice cheered. 

Tegan pouted, crossing her arms over her chest. “Thank you, Alice.”

“Well, we can’t miss out on a birthday event, can we? But I don’t want to impose. We’d just have to celebrate another night, won’t we, Beau? Have a father and daughter brunch?”

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“Dad, I was sure you forgot about my birthday, again, until Tyler said something.”

“Again? Nonsense! I remembered the last one, didn’t I?”

Tegan gave Bann a flat and unimpressed look. “All right, all right. But you know me, when I do rememba’, we go all out!” He turned to me, defending himself. “Was never good with remembering birthdays, boy-o.”

“Well, I hope you guys have fun!” Alice said, dropping her fingers over the deck of cards in a nervous steeple.

I turned to her, reading the concern off her face. “Don’t worry, Alice, we’ll be fine,” I said to her gently, taking her hand into mine with a promise.

“Oiy, seeing that your stake out has been postponed, we might as well get some work done to prepare you for it,” Bann suggested, getting up on his feet. “Besides, I’m getting bloody tired of bleeding my money down the drain.”

“Nah, you’re just fattening my pockets, uncle Bann,” I jested.

“Keep talkin’ like that, mate. See how much of that hubris you have left on ya once we spar.”

“Heh, hey listen, if it’s about the money—”

“Oh no, don’t start chickening out on me now, Tyler,” he grinned, cracking his knuckles at me. “Come on, then.”

Shit…

I wasn’t trying to go another round with my obviously strong alpha-matched uncle. The last time left me broken in more ways than I wanted to admit, his confident strut out that back door keeping my ass glued on the chair. Alice noticed I was getting nervous, even though I tried to hide it behind a straight face.

“Are you going to train with uncle Bann?” she asked.

“More like acting like his punching bag,” I sighed, Alice taking my joke to heart. “N-n-no, I’m just kidding, Alice. Don’t worry! I’ll be fine.”

“Remember to block your face, Tyler,” Tegan sang as she passed by, taunting me with a proud smile on her mischievous face.

I got up on my feet from another vibration at my hip, that same mysterious number calling me. Again, I ignored it, pressed with more important issues to distract my mind with.

Like keeping my anger in check.

I joined Bann out in the backyard, leaving the girls inside, the familiar scene triggering some disappointing memories. This time I needed to try harder at taming the beast, fighting Bann head on outside of my werewolf form. Easier said than done, but I was hoping that he’d go easy on me with those happy flying fists.

“You’ll have a great advantage if you can take your man down,” Bann boasted, feeding me the impossible. “I don’t want to see that thick coat of fur, Tyler. No transforming this time.”

It was more of the same, keeping myself well defended, and waiting on my angle to swing. He didn’t waste any time, and once he fixed his footing, he waited for me to get to it.

I might have been Alistair’s son, but I was far from a skilled fighter. I think Bann was expecting too much from me, like somehow, I’d adopted my father’s ‘natural’ duelist genes. Sure I had some canine instincts and skillsets imprinted in my DNA, but I was also human, and I think he was forgetting that part of the equation.

Regardless, I needed to fight like I was a hundred percent hound, and let my body’s fluid movements make an impression on my uncle.

I didn’t want to fail again, not fully committing to the swing I went for right off the bat. It wasn’t a careless move, perfectly timed, except that Bann managed to read it a mile away. I had a funny feeling I was still fighting like a human and less like a beast, failing to utilize my senses to the fullest. I paid for it, Bann landing a clear shot for my rib, one that I tried to step dodge away from.

He was a little off three-fourths of the way from that landing, a successful miss in my book.

I felt the sting, but I knew it could have been way, way worse.

The thing with Bann was that once he landed a punch, he kept on swinging. There was no off switch with this guy, being roped into acting more defensively and less offensively. I could kiss my next opportunity to swing goodbye, Bann quickly stacking the pressure.

Block my face, don’t let him get to me, keep that guard up, watch your footing—my thoughts were getting muddled with instructions of how to keep up with him. I knew Bann meant well, trying to facilitate a realistic combat session that would most likely mimic that of my enemies, but I couldn’t keep up!

Maybe I could use the turbulence in his punches to map out this insane speed of his…

I tried, pushing myself beyond my limits. It wasn’t about applying more strength behind my punches, but getting a clear shot at him. I swung, side stepped, and swung again, falling short every time. Hitting the surface of his muscular arms was growing more and more painful as I tried landing a shot at his face, something I couldn’t do no matter how hard I tried. And then, Bann caught me being careless, lingering a little too long on that opening I swore I saw on his left, my uncle jabbing me straight into my jaw.

No question about it, I fell down like a sack of fucking potatoes.

Bann launched me, my back colliding hard into the ground. The back of my head went numb, and on cue, the painful ringing in my ears settled in. My head was throbbing, the afternoon sky spinning overhead as my vision tried to adjust. I couldn’t slack though, feeling the terrain shake underneath me, Bann surely charging my way.

I rolled, evading his heel strike. I made a sloppy effort in getting back on my feet, scrambling my arms to my face a second too late. Again, I found myself on the beating end of this fight, Bann’s fists too fucking quick for me to track!

Shit! Bann was just too fucking powerful! What was I doing here?

Without triggering my beast, I had no fucking chance!

I was sick and tired of this bullshit, this waltzing back and forth! I was making a fool of myself, tarnishing my father’s name! I was done, letting out a hellish cry, charging toward Bann, ready to bulldoze right into him! My face was hot with rage, screaming blood, while my chest burned inside. I grappled him with all my might, clenching tightly around his back, the heel of his shoe scraping along the course dirt from the friction. He was resisting my pressure, applying his own, where I had no choice but to bend to his power.

Instead of grappling him down, he flipped me over his head, and into the backyard, body slamming me.

I might have kept my rage inside this time, long enough to control my beast, but I was fuming inside.

“THAT’S IT!” I roared, as did the onset of thunder, clapping with the torrent of might. I quickly got up on my feet, this dreary fog rolling in fitting for the maddening fury bubbling inside me. “I’m done,” I growled, my voice shattered, my spirit was too. There was only so much abuse I could take, and this shit wasn’t making any sense! “You’re the true fucking alpha!” I bellowed, my call out to Bann rumbling in the base of my throat. “Why the fuck do I have to take the throne? When it’s so fucking obvious that you’re stronger than me!” It was an emotional outpour I wasn’t planning on. It broke me to say those words, my knees falling to the floor, my heart dropping to my stomach. I panted, sweat dripping down my temples, physically and mentally exhausted. I was trying to find the bridge between fact and fiction. Because honestly, what I had said made sense, and not even Bann could deny that.

He rolled back his shoulders, my uncle relaxing his pose. His chest dropped, making his way to me in a casual yet serious gait. The look on his face, I was familiar with it, waking up to it every morning of my life. I let him down, falling too easily. “I will not disrespect my brother’s name like that. His son is the rightful heir. This is your pack!” He retorted, power booming in his voice. “The Sire Wolves belong to you and you alone. And the fact that you can sit there and bounce that title around all willy-nilly proves to me that you have more preparing to do. For both mind and body.”

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