"Did he wake up?" I walked into the manor's spacious foyer and then looked into the large dining room where Damien sat at the table playing rummy with his sister Wren.

"Not that I've noticed," answered my beta, who placed his cards face down and looked my way so I had his full attention.

"Rummy!" Wren slapped the card Damien just discarded and moved it to the various cards she had on her side of the table.

"Bullshit." He spun back around with a low growl, ready to contest her claim. However, it appeared his three of clubs could build off one of the runs Wren already laid down. He gaped and shook his head. "That wasn't there. You placed it after I turned around!"

"It's not my fault you weren't paying attention."

"Our alpha was talking to me, that takes priority!"

"Sure, blame your alpha," said Wren with a dramatic eye roll. "What kind of beta, are you?"

"Want me to show you!"

Damien rose from his seat with enough force to knock over the chair. Despite his posturing, Wren looked completely at ease.

"I'm not just good at beating your ass in cards, I can knock you out in sparring too."

My beta's growl sounded like a feral animal. With a sigh, I decided it was time to step in.

"Okay, you two. As your alpha I'm telling you not to use sparring as a way to rough each other up. Instead, why don't you do something constructive together? Like go to the pack kitchen and help Octavia with lunch."

The two siblings looked at each other and then back at me.

"Is that, uh, a command, alpha?" Wren's voice was unnecessarily submissive, but I knew she was doing it to garner pity and not because she actually felt like I was trying to dominate her.

In turn, I looked over them and then up the stairs to where my brother was either in a dead faint or paralyzed with panic.

"Yes," I said, turning around to meet their disappointed groans. "Damien, I'm going to be with my brother until lunch, so you don't need to hang around here to guard me. Go help Octavia and be nice to each other."

Wren grumbled her acquiescence, while Damien bowed his head with understanding.

"I will ask your sister if you two behaved, so I expect you to actually get along."

"Yes, alpha," said Wren in a frustrated monotone.

"Be more respectful," said my beta before slapping her in the back of the head.

"I am respectful," she hissed as they exited the manor.

I sighed and massaged the bridge of my nose, certain Octavia's report wasn't going to go the way I wanted it to. A part of me, however, wasn't bothered by this. Sure, as an alpha, I should strive to encourage cooperation amongst the pack, but as a sister, their bickering warmed my heart.

I looked up the stairs, hopeful Victor and I could go back to our own squabbling ways. Unfortunately, I knew that wouldn't be happening anytime soon. I'd just have to settle for reaching a place where my brother doesn't faint whenever he sees me.

So, I headed up to the third floor and took a breath to calm my nerves once I reached the landing.

To one side of the small hallway was the master suite Everett and I shared. On the other side were two small bedrooms with a bathroom in-between them.

It was a strange feeling looking at the doors, knowing who slept in them.

Not long ago, I was in the smallest third floor room. Since it had been Damien's room, he hated me for a good month or so. We, however, weren't fighting over it anymore.

It'd been given to Victor after his unexpected arrival a week ago. Unfortunately, he refused to consider it anything other than a guest room. Maybe he would start making it his own now that he knew there was no way he could return to the outside world. I knew that was unlikely, but I could dream.

Damien now had the other third floor bedroom. It was substantially bigger than his old room, which befits a beta. Lucinda, Everett's beta, had been living in it for years before she was relocated to a house in town.

It'd been about a month since we shuffled everyone around, well before Victor arrived. We couldn't have known we'd need an empty room back then, but we had other reasons to send Lucinda out of the house. Mainly Everett could not spend every night listening to his sister have very loud sex with her new mate.

It had been obvious that Luc had her eye on Will, who had been a Body when I first arrived in town. After his conversion, though, she no longer held herself back. Once Will became a wolf, he gained the same powerful sense of smell and potent pheromones the rest of the wolves had. With those now in play, they instantly knew they were meant for each other.

And though a lot of the wolves have a natural inclination towards being dominant or submissive, these two were in both extremes. They made that fact known to the entire household by the way they "played" at night.

It was so bad, Everett considered applying silencing wards along the walls. Luc, however, refused such members since Everett needed the ability to hear everything that went on in the house for security reasons.

So she tried to tone it down for awhile, but that failed to last. I then suggested they get a home in town to start a family in. I tried to quell her concerns by reminding her there would still be a beta in the house as Damien would get her room, but she's fiercely loyal and was adamant in her protest.

However, despite how dominant she is, she can't withstand a direct command from her alpha. So she retreated with her tail between her legs and found a cute cottage to live in the next day. And though she was sore about it for awhile, the freedom her and Will had eventually won her over. Plus a nesting instinct hit her hard. She was filling that house to the brim with kitsch.

I looked at my brother's door and sighed.

Thing was, I had an ulterior motive for moving people around back then. By freeing up Damien's old room, we had a perfect spot to put a nursery.

Not that I was pregnant.

It was just hard seeing Luc's eagerness to have pups. Plus my friend Scarlet's due date was drawing closer. There was also the fact Everett's first child was on the way. Even though, I'd found peace in Everett and Claire's pack obligations to have a child to be the next alpha, I still felt jealousy. Part of me wanted to have a child as soon as possible so his first born with me was on even footing with the one Claire would have.

That wasn't going to happen, though.

Everett and I had sex a few times since our first night together. However, that first time was the only time we'd done it without protection. After that, my mate was dutiful about using a condom. Not because he didn't want a child with me. Nor was there some sort of obligation to Claire to wait until his first born reaches a certain age.

No, it was all that damn mage's fault.

I'd been taking my time with figuring out how to nail the town's Archmage, Graham, for murdering my friend and mentor, Clementine. However, his contempt for me was not as quiet and it made Everett on edge. My mate believed me when I told him what really happened to Clementine. Unfortunately, it meant he knew what the Archmage was capable of. He worried for me and he did not want to add fear for the safety of an unborn child on top of that.

It was reasonable and I knew it was for the best, but my heart still ached.

As I wallowed in my disappointment, I heard a shuffle of sheets within Victor's room.

At least, I had my brother to keep my mind off everything. Even if he was just another problem added to my pile, it was nice to have him around.

"Hey, Victor. How you doing?" I crept into the room, fearful anything louder or faster than a tiptoe might send him into a panic.

"Oh, Delilah! I've got to tell you about this crazy dream I had."

I sighed and took a seat next to his bed. He couldn't keep moving through life with these weak rationalizations.

"Victor," I said, putting my hand on his, "we both know it wasn't a dream."

The contortions his face made in an attempt to hide his fear and feign ignorance was almost scarier than the monster he thought me to be.

"You can't know that. I haven't told you my dream yet."

"You mean the one where I turned into a werewolf, you ran away, and you met a couple ghosts in a library."

"So I did already tell you."

"Victor..."

I squeezed his hand as it trembled beneath my palm.

"Look, I know it's scary—"

"You don't seem scared." His voice lacked the over-the-top cheeriness he'd been using ever since he caught his first glimpses of Whisper Valley's true nature. Instead, his voice was low and strained. His chin dipped and his body slackened.

"I was, Victor, but I've been here since March. A lot's happened in those six months."

We both sat in silence, and I waited for him to ask me questions. Surely he'd want to know what exactly had happened during all that time. But, his questions never came.

"So," I said, breaking the silence, "my first experience here was finding a zombie eating a dead woman."

He whimpered, but when he looked at me from the corner of his eye, I flashed him a playful smile.

"I later attended that woman's wedding."

"What?"

This made him look at me in full and though he still looked disgusted and fearful, there was a glint of curiosity hiding in there.

"You see, she wanted to become a vampire and marry this other vampire, but he was supposed to be the lover of another vampire."

"That's a lot of vampires..."

He curled into a protective ball, but I knew I still had his attention.

"Yeah, but he didn't love the other vampire—Derosiers. Unfortunately, Matias—that's his name—was bound to her because she was his dam—she's called that because she turned Matias into a vampire. Anyway, Derosiers got jealous and had Gregory kill her by—"

"Gregory?"

"Oh, right, sorry. Gregory is a human doctor in town. He's the one that technically killed Calista—the dead woman from earlier."

"Kind of figured that one out on my own."

"Anyway, he was compelled by Derosiers to kill Calista so Matias wouldn't leave her. Matias knew all this, but Derosiers also compelled him not to tell anyone. So his way around it was to ask this zombie, Bungee—who's a good friend of mine—to bite Calista. Matias couldn't tell him why he needed to do that, just that he needed Bungee to find her and bite her. Which is how I ended up finding a zombie biting a dead woman."

He looked at me as if I had three heads.

"And after all that, you stayed?"

"I mean, I didn't have a choice in the matter, though some would argue otherwise. But, yeah I stayed. Trust me, I tried to run a couple times. However, the woods around here often give me a reason to head back to town."

"Wait," he said with a squeak, "are the woods alive too? Like Ents?"

"Oh, no," I said with a laugh, before pausing to consider. "Well, no one has told me the trees are sentient."

He didn't look thrilled by that answer.

"No," I continued, "I mean I tend to run into things in there that make me go back to town. Like there was the whole thing with Calista, but there was also this cult of asshole ghosts hiding there and then there was the murdered alpha that I got framed for. There was always a mess that needed cleaning up, you know?"

Victor made a strained crying noise and slid further beneath his blankets.

"Oh, Victor, you're going to have to toughen up. These little things are only scratching the surface of what I've been through. But, the point is, I've seen a lot and here I stand. You'll be okay."

"What do you mean scratching the surface? There are worse things than all that?"

I smiled at my trembling, but intrigued brother. Then I spent the rest of the morning sharing all of the adventures I'd seen in Whisper Valley.

***

It seems Victor may be accepting facts, even if he doesn't like them. Do you think Del sharing all she's been through will help or hurt the matter?

Sorry for the delay! Easter is this Sunday, and though I try not to talk about religion on here, the fact is I'm very involved in my church. This is Holy Week for us, so I've been participating in several worship services throughout the week. Long story short, I lost track of time. But it's here now! Do you have siblings? How's your relationship with them? If you were an only child, do you wish you had siblings? (This question is of particular interest to me since my son will be a one and only for us.)