Logan Chapter 127: 127

-Logan-

“I haven’t read anything about humans becoming shifters in any of the records of fated mates here. Granted, we don’t have an abundance of records about fated mates, and even those have almost exclusively been between shifters only. We haven’t written much as a species about human-shifter matings because of the subliminal prejudice against humans we tend to carry. We believe them to be lesser in our subconscious, and so why would we write about them? Really, I should do more research on that subject as well- it’s simply fascinating how the cognitive dissonance of them greatly outnumbering us and being a danger to our existence as a whole contrasts with our instinctive contempt of them when faced with individual subjects. I wonder if…” I can feel my attention drifting as Arthur’s monologue continues down the rabbit trail he’s gained interest in.

Arthur has been like this our whole lives- the beginning of his speech will mostly answer the question you bring to him, but if you interrupt the rest of the resulting dissertation he gets pissed and won’t answer any followup questions you may have. So you’re pretty much held prisoner for the verbal vomit of any thought your question sparks. Usually, I just leave this part for Deek. He can get the answers to my questions and then pat himself on the back for spending the rest of the time being a good little brother. Or something. Landon and I have a much easier relationship than Derek has with his siblings.

Deek elbows me in the side when he senses my attention wandering too far, and I tune back in. “... stands to reason that if she has shifter blood in her on her father’s side, that she would inherit whatever he had to give. If his mother was the shifter rather than his father, it would influence his appearance but it’s often not enough to cause the children to fully shift. It’s like a partially recessive gene. If Mr. Davis had enough siblings, I bet one of them would actually have been a full shifter. Of course, he would have had a lot more to say on the subject than you told me about if that were the case. Is there anything else he said that could have hinted at him knowing about shifters before now?”

I blink for a second, thinking through the limited conversations I had with Bill while they were in town, but I couldn’t remember picking up on anything that would have alerted me to the possibility. “No, I don’t think so. If he knew already, he did a great job acting.”

Arthur nods decisively. “Somehow his mother must have hidden her shifter nature from him. Fascinating. Why deny the wolf for such a large fraction of your life like that? I wonder what the environment of her pack was like. They must have been even more racist than we’ve been against humans. Hmm. How closely would that mirror the Civil Rights Movement the humans had in Mr. Davis’ childhood? I’ll have to pull some resources on…” I tune back out, waiting for the thoughts to become relevant to me again.

Emory asked Deek why he was Alpha instead of either of his siblings, but anyone who met Arthur would know why he didn’t want to be Alpha. It was actually Derek’s sister who was more closely contested, but it’s still vanishingly rare for a pack to have a female Alpha. Some still call them Luna, and when or if she mates, her male becomes Alpha and immediately outranks her. Some of them are Luna of all-female packs. Luna-led packs have gathered a notoriety for viciousness. They take no prisoners, and they tend not to listen to reason. They fight over things that Alphas would normally hold reluctant discussions for. It’s terrifying, frankly. I’d rather have my nice, soft, Emory by my side than be trying constantly to tame a feral Luna.

I shake my head when I realize I’m starting to ramble as much as Art is. He’s starting to peter out, so I take the brief pause in his words to confirm. “So it’s possible that Emory’s grandmother was a shifter, and with our mating I’ve… awakened those genes, or something?”

Arthur nods. “In genetics, we tend to use the term activating for genes, but yes. Perhaps the mating alters the genetics just enough to change the longevity of the human half, but with Emory already possessing some wolf genetics, it was actually enough past the tipping point to offer her access to a true shift. She also might just “Hulk out” as I’ve heard Derek muttering about. Only time and effort to shift will tell if she has an actual wolf. Most of us shift as children before we can feel the difference in our thoughts versus that of the wolf. It will be interesting to see how she and a potential wolf get along or if she just doesn’t have one. Keep me posted.”

“Will do.” Derek and I chorus as I think back over the not very much I actually learned. It sounds like we’ll have to try and help Emory actually shift if we want to know whether or not she even can. I’m not sure how ready she is for that at this point. We’ve been slowly dismantling our problems one at a time, but it seems like new ones keep popping up as soon as we resolve the old ones. Just when I was thinking we’d only need maybe one or two more public encounters before we could focus on us and our pack, it looks like now we’ll have to pioneer the study of half shifter genetics. If anyone’s qualified to do it, Arthur is.