1

Castiel

Growth Spurt

“CAS, I FORGOT HOW TO TIE MY SHOES!”

“What was that?” I asked, glancing down at one of my younger cousins, Bobby, as he tugged on my pants. He was the grand ol’ age of four and had insisted he was old enough for shoes with real laces instead of Velcro.

Unfortunately, his grasp of how to tie a shoe with laces seemed dubious at best. This was the second time he’d approached me to help him, and I was probably the dozenth adult he’d asked.

“I forgot how to tie my shoes!” He pointed down at his foot.

I didn’t know what he was doing for them to get untied all the time, because I’d made sure to double knot it as tightly as I could the last time I’d helped him. At least he’d graduated from asking people to tie his shoe for him and just how to remind him of the instructions. Baby steps, and this baby was aggressively stepping.

“Let me put this table down, then I’ll be right with you,” I said, waiting for him to clear out before I set down the punch table I was carrying.

“Okie dokie!” He gave me a thumbs-up, then raced to sit under the nearest tree.

“Hey, no running with your shoes untied!”

“Okie dokie!” He flopped onto his back in the grass and began to roll around.

With that little one out of the way, I made sure there wasn’t anyone else tugging on my pants before I set the table down. It wasn’t our largest one, but it was the sturdiest, and that was what we needed to support the sheer number of punches being made. At least, the adult punches. The kid-safe punches were at a completely different table.

Not that we had to worry about any of them trying to drink the booze. Our drinks were strong—they had to be—so all it took to warn all the other young ones off was one daring teenager every three years or so to sneak some and end up getting terribly ill.

The teens didn’t have the metabolism that all the adults in my family did, and they wouldn’t until their first shift. Yep, my family were wolf shifters. And I was their alpha.

Even at thirty years old, it was still so incredibly strange to think of myself that way. It wasn’t like it was a new thing—my father had passed me the title before his death four years ago. Yet sometimes I still felt like an imposter, like a little boy playing in his father’s oversized work boots.

“All right, Bobby, I got you. Come on over, and let’s talk you through tying your shoes.” “Thank you!” the young boy cried before sprinting right back to me. “Hey, what did I say about running with your shoes untied?”

“Sorry,” he said once he was closer, half-breathless. “Okay, I remember I make two loop-de-loops.” Bobby bent to show me, and I couldn’t help smiling. Was he a bit needy? Definitely. But he was a kid. Kids had every right to be a bit needy once in a while. In my opinion, too many people forgot that children were their own mini-beings with personalities and thoughts all of their own. And it was my job as their alpha to help them feel supported enough to ask for whatever they needed. Even if that was an impromptu tutorial on how to tie their shoes.

“Yes, very good! That’s exactly where you start.”

It took some time, but I went through each step with him, making sure to never raise my voice or sound impatient when I needed to repeat something a few times.

I knew some alphas would accuse me of being soft, that doing such menial things took away from the “important stuff,” but to me, this was the important stuff.

From what I’d heard, the alpha my father had challenged had been fairly average, but things had begun to go south when he’d gotten addicted to gambling at the human casinos in the area. Bit by bit, he’d stopped giving his attention to the pack, then his time, and then he’d begun to sell off chunks of our family’s heirloom land to the fairies.

I grimaced at the thought but quickly wiped it off my face lest Bobby catch the sour expression and think it was directed at him. My father had definitely saved the pack by challenging the old alpha, but man, it still felt like the fairies had been the ones to win in the end.

“I did it!” Bobby said, throwing his arms up into the air once the double knot was secure. I gave it an extra tug just to be sure, but other than that, he had succeeded in tying his shoes all on his own.

“Well done, little man!” I gave him a high five. In true little kid fashion, he let out a cry of delight and jumped surprisingly high before running off once again.

That was one thing done. A myriad more to go.

“Uncle Cas, where’s the bug stuff again?”

I turned to see Madison and Avery, two teens from my pack, standing a few feet away. “Bug stuff?”

“Uh, yeah. We found a wasp nest in a tree and wanna take care of it.”

Oh, good Lord! For a moment, my mind flashed with an image of a horde of wasps besetting the pack reunion. Not that any of our pack traveled or moved away. Really, the “reunion” was an excuse to cook great food and enjoy each other’s company. “No, no, that’s all right. Go grab Uncle Chris for me and have him meet me at the west storage shed.”

“Aww, are you sure? We just wanna help.”

“I ’preciate that, but if you wanna help, why don’t y’all head to Mama’s kitchen and see if anyone needs extra hands hauling stuff out after you show me where this nest is?” “All right…”

They sounded disappointed, but considering neither of them had gone through their first shift yet, they would thank me later. Because while I had accelerated healing thanks to my inner wolf, they very much did not.

I was grateful that they’d come to me, however, because when they led me to the nest, it was definitely close enough that it was at risk of getting trampled during our happy event. And sure, while it would only be an annoyance to the majority of the adults, the youngest and oldest of the pack could have a very hard time.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long for Chris and me to handle the nest, and finally, it was looking like I’d get a chance to go take a shower. I’d gone for a run in the woods beyond our pack’s land just before the sun had risen, expecting I’d be able to wash up and eat a hearty breakfast before I needed to help start setting up for the reunion, but that hadn’t happened. Pretty much as soon as I’d run up to my cabin, someone had been waiting there to ask for my help.

“Been a day already, hasn’t it?” Chris mused as we put the gasoline and blowtorch away. Not exactly the safest method of wasp removal, but with our accelerated healing, we could afford to take a few risks. “First party of spring is always a bit rowdier than the rest of the year.”

“You’re right about that,” I said with a chuckle. And sure, I supposed we could just not have the massive cookout for the whole pack—it would save a whole lot of time and money—but sometimes a shifter needed to throw down and have a grand ol’ time with their pack. For bonding’s sake. Or at least that was my belief. And as the alpha of our pack, I was dedicated to making sure everyone had a blast. “We’ll have earned our plates once we get them.”

“From your mouth to Fenrir’s ears. What have you got the biggest hankering for?”

I paused, giving serious thought to his question. There was so much to look forward to—devilled eggs, smoked meats, the ribs smothered in BBQ sauce, the pies, cobbler, and jams. And did I mention the smoked meats?

Our pack loved smoked meats.

“I’d have to say the cake,” I said with a nod. The cakes made for our parties weren’t those specialty cakes with edible glitter and immaculate sculptures made out of fondant, but they were light and fluffy, and usually had a jam or cream filling. Personally, I was looking forward to the vanilla cake with cream cheese frosting, and a layer of tart rhubarb jam and sweet cream. Dee-licious!

“Hah! You’ve always had a sweet tooth, haven’t ya? I swear, if you weren’t the alpha, Auntie Letitia would have you fully recruited to the kitchens.”

“You think so?”

“Oh yeah, I know so.”

I smiled at the thought. Although I was proud to uphold the lineage my father had established, it was nice to daydream about what my life might have been like if I weren’t destined to lead our mid-sized pack.