packmate in a stable relationship didn’t mean he didn’t need the occasional physical sign of affection from the most dominant wolf in the den.
Every wolf needed to know he or she was valued.
Popping in to see the pack’s overall chief of education afterward, Garnet affected a mock-stern expression. “Putting up your feet on the job? Tut-tut.”
Ruby poked out her tongue in Garnet’s direction. “I think my baby is going to be a twenty-pound sumo wrestler.”
Chuckling, Garnet walked over to where her sister was stretched out on the sofa placed against one wall of her office. “I thought I authorized your maternity leave.”
“I’d go mad if I wasn’t looking out for my kids.” Ruby moaned as Garnet sat down and began to massage her feet. “Did I ever tell you you’re my favorite sister?”
“You can never tell me enough.” Kissing her older sister’s belly with the easy skin privileges that existed between siblings, Garnet said, “Talk to me about Eloise. Any connection to Russ?”
It turned out that Russ had been Eloise’s senior adviser—the man who was meant to guide her through her studies. It also meant he’d held a certain power over her.
Deciding she now had enough to go to Eloise, Garnet left her tardy nephew with a pat on his mother’s straining belly and tracked down the young woman to her room in the section reserved for junior soldiers. “Russ was your adviser,” she said bluntly when Eloise opened the door.
Face paling under the warm tone of her skin, Eloise nodded jerkily. “That’s why I was by his room,” she said without prompting. “I was going to see him about—”
“About what?” Garnet prompted when a look of pure panic flashed across Eloise’s features, her hand tightening to bone whiteness on the edge of the door.
“I swear I didn’t hurt him,” the younger woman said in a pleading tone, her wolf rising to turn her eyes a tawny golden brown. “I wouldn’t.”
Going with gut instinct, Garnet leaned in to cup Eloise’s cheeks. “Talk to me, sweetheart.” As lieutenant, she had to be tough, but she also had to be flexible. SnowDancer wasn’t a pack that ran on fear—it ran on respect and affection and loyalty.
Shuffling closer when Garnet lowered her hands, like a pup seeking contact, Eloise all but whispered her next words. “He was blocking me from progressing to a graduate degree, even though I’d met all the requirements.” She bit down hard on her lower lip. “He said I needed to do another year of undergraduate papers.”
Garnet wrapped an arm around the girl. “I see.” Technically, Russ couldn’t have stopped Eloise, but his words would’ve held weight with the SnowDancer education board.
All SnowDancer pups had an automatic right to education up to and including an undergraduate degree—or comparable courses outside the tertiary system. Anyone who wanted a graduate education or further training could also get it on the pack so long as they then worked for the pack for a certain number of years, ranging from three to five. However, to access the graduate fund, students had to keep up their grades throughout and report regularly to their advisers, which advisers then in turn apprised the board.
“He only did it out of spite,” Eloise rasped, her eyelashes wet and clumped together. “I solved an equation he couldn’t. I didn’t mean to show him up. I just thought that was what I was supposed to do, so I did it.” She hiccuped and sniffed, rubbing at her tears with the sleeves of her sweater—which she’d pulled over her hands like a child. “I could tell he was mad, but I never thought he’d be vindictive. He was meant to be my teacher, my support.”
Garnet felt sick, her wolf standing at tense attention inside her. Wrapping Eloise in both arms and rubbing her cheek against the younger woman’s, she said, “Why didn’t you come to me?” If her packmates didn’t feel like they could talk to her about such situations, then she had a serious problem on her hands. Protecting the vulnerable was her job and her responsibility.
The idea that she might’ve failed rocked her very sense of self.
Eloise cuddled into her, tall and strong and suddenly as needy as a hurt pup. “I put myself in your diary for next week,” she said. “But I wanted to talk to Russ one more time, try to figure things out on my own. I’m old enough.” That last was said with a mutinous edge that made Garnet’s stomach stop twisting.