Owen Sinclair was a rather calm man who very rarely lost his temper in the presence of his children or his wife. Aggression was unacceptable, especially closer to the nighttime, when the closeness to the inner beast increased a hundredfold. His family consisted of people who were not or had not yet taken the form of werewolves, so such caution was understandable. Although Owen doubted that even if his wife had been a werewolf, something would have changed in this regard.
That was the kind of man he was.
Therefore, the burning rage that spread through his veins and the feeling of betrayal surprised even him, at the time it happened then. Especially when he realized what was the result of Esther and Murray's actions. They did not let their son's conversion happen when it would have happened on it's own. The reason for the rage, such all-consuming and even malicious, was the fact that his wife had a hand in it. And she didn't even realize what she had done wrong.
Well, if it hadn't happened then, it would have happened later! Or it wouldn't have - Owen didn't see this as a problem, especially after years of ostracism from especially traditional packs. To some extent it forced him to get closer to everyone who was in a similar position and at the same time wanted to maintain a relationship.
After all, their situations were fundamentally opposite in nature. He was the superfluous element for the pack, and they simply became nobody for their packs. No one would have thought of radically getting rid of an alpha werewolf who did not suffer from any dangerous mental pathologies, even if said werewolf did not belong to the pack anymore. It was a display of strong blood, even a reason for reluctant pride. But there were the folks he supported as best he could, many of whom became victims of destructive habits, bad life choices and badly needed psychiatric help after all that they had experienced in their packs... They were considered a stain on the reputation. They were abandoned to the mercy of fate as well, yes, but there was no chance of further communication or any mutual exchanges of information, resources, or even mutual aid with other werewolves, those who adhered to the same attitudes their packs did anyways. Those people were simply abandoned without explanation.
When his wife asked him to drive her and all the necessary ingredients for some ritual to the same state and city where he previously lived, nothing seemed suspicious to him. He was over the moon that he would finally be able to take a short break from the toddlers and spend a few days just with his wife. Even the fact that it was planned as a business trip did not worsen his mood. Their neighbors, the vampire Hudson family, who had already raised their children and let them go on a relatively free voyage through life, but had not yet had time to forget what it's like, were always happy to help with the kids. Outcast good neighborhood in action.
So the trip from Oregon to California was successful, it took only twelve hours at most. And in general, everything was fine until the wife gave out in passing what exactly she was called to do, after everything had already been done, and her husband watched what was happening in bewilderment. Until the very moment when something seemed to touch his insides, evaluated, then caused trembling and numbness throughout his body.
His inner wolf howled elated, as if celebrating a meeting with an old friend, but the rational part of his brain was filled with fear.
It didn't seem particularly important to the wife to tell what exactly she did before she did it.
"Business is business," she shrugged her shoulders at his confused questions and began to collect inventory, leaving him gasping for air.
Then it seemed as if something pulled him by the solar plexus somewhere into the familiar redwood forest. For some reason, he thought then, that it would've been very unpleasant if the normies, as they were going to, adapted it for some special tourist point. Yes, the lanscape was simply magical, and not only the landscape, but what would you make werewolves do if, according to the law, it would've been impossible to gather in their usual gathering point?
Owen, of course, felt rather good, having created with his wife a kind of nuclear family with a twist. But he continued to persistently argue, and this was confirmed by numerous recent studies of a certain stratum of lycanologists, that the pack was not as important in the conversion of werewolves as they thought to be. The pack is more important for protection of werewolves from external threats, this was achieved with the help of hierarchy and rules, some of which were frankly stupid.
Yes, Owen's children could not bear his surname according to the rules of the pack, but this definitely did not prevent him from loving them, especially since his wife's surname was no less well-known among the Outcast community. And about his wife's status, all living beings had a soul, so to assume that there are some kindred souls and they are available only to lycans, would be, once again, utter nonsense. All the magical knowledge that Owen picked up from his lovely wife spoke against such insinuations. Owen would beat the teeth in of anyone who would say that his wife is not his soulmate, no matter how foolishly romantic it sounds. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad - the completely stupid and almost unchangeable rules of the pack simply couldn't adapt to the changing society, although the opposite has happened in the past.
Nature did not change much, this never ceased to be true, but what people, or rather sentients, did with the nature was always different.
The distant ancestors of the Sinclairs, say, in the twelfth century, somewhere on the Scandinavian peninsula, practiced blood sacrifices for the traditional ritual of wolf presenting, supposedly so that it would definitely happen. This practice took place for a long time, we could say even for centuries, and not everyone liked it - mainly because it attracted unnecessary attention to those who could not live together with the bigger pack. And after all, at the time there were no such large and, one might even say, pent in urbanization, packs, whose members at the same time live so tightly with each other.
Everything was relatively like normies - families were formed, and either disintegrated with the departure of children to their own families, or became larger, if the dynamics between family members allowed it. Everything was to some extent even better than ordinary people, because werewolves preferred to stay in contact with each other, even if it caused discomfort due to opposing "gifts".
Urbanization ruined it.
Werewolves have always been and still remain social and curious creatures, so the close proximity to humans was more the rule than the exception. All these stories about werewolves who prefer solitude in the woods were based on certain cases, but rather were exceptions that confirm the rule. Those werewolves are usually not the best conversationalists, and they do not appear positively in such stories.
That is why once upon the werewolves gathered, took counsel and paid with both services and money to a large Witch Coven for the preparation of a ritual that could help with the transformation. According to his wife's explanations, which Owen achieved immediately after the incident let him up a bit, and that pulling feeling in the chest area was still tolerable, it was something like this. The nature spirit that was responsible for the Gift of the Moon, the one to whom sacrifices were made thoughtlessly, religiously and with a certain frequency, needed none of those sacrifices.
The call itself and the presence of a valuable natural gift were important.
After a while, this ritual was no longer actively used, because it turned out that it forced everyone around, who was mentally ready for it, to turn. His wife did not know any details, because neither she nor her notorious ancestors participated in the execution of the order from that council of packs.
It was then, when the last words of her explanation sounded, Owen vaguely understood why he was so persistently drawn somewhere. After all, if he, his wife and children were safe, then the only thing that could happen was some kind of hitch in the ritual. And most likely it meant that someone turned and did not know what to do with it. And taking into account the presence right next to the ritual of a werewolf with his biological status, a situation turned out like this. This ritual, or rather its outcome, assumed him to be the man in charge.
In any case, this is how his wife Helena explained it to Owen when he told her about what happened in the forest in more detail.
The spouses couldn't get Enid Sinclair out of their heads for a long time. Helena finally realized that she had acted recklessly without consulting her husband and without learning more about the history of this ritual usage. Even a rather cold-blooded woman had only one thought, caused by such a broken, dead and morbid look in a little girl.
This shouldn't have happened.
And they both understood that it was impossible to withhold such information from the child, otherwise she would have suffered even more when this situation would have escalated not without the help of idiotic pack rules, which were hammered into all the pack like a multiplication table. Although those rules were anything but. In the times table, twice two make four, always, after all.
That's how, by the stupid will of fate, by chance, by a twist, whatever call it, Enid Sinclair became his legacy. Otherwise, he would never have been able to relay the knowledge that helped conceal this whole situation.
But like no one else, Owen understood, felt it in the depths of his soul and almost with his bone marrow - Enid should have a choice, and he should give it to her with the same success as he gave irreplaceable help in such a situation.
Even if it's just the illusion of choice.