NaNoWriMo- Brave Season- Trace's Character sketch

I was born Kevin Austin Trace. I was born at Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington Maine on November third 1972. I am the seventh son of a wolf shifter and as such inherit the genetic mutation that allows me to change from human to wolf whenever I want to. I guess that makes me a werewolf even though the full moon has nothing to do with the change. Wolves gave up eating humans in the Middle Ages, but that’s another story all together.

I have 12 older brothers and sisters. I also have four younger siblings. Packs become extremely important when you have broods that big. I loved growing up with the pack. I love my family. We weren’t the Cleavers by any stretch of the imagination. A family tradition is to get the younger brother to pee on an electric fence. The older ones laugh the victim cries, but not enough to keep from getting the next younger brother. I hear that some of my nephews are carrying on the family tradition.

My father is a doctor, a heart specialist, good thing because with all those kids Mom worked inside the house. Man did she ever run a tight ship. I’ve accused her of being a military man in a former life. We all had chores and she made sure we all could take care of ourselves before we left her house. She was there with a firm hand and a loving heart.

I wouldn’t change a thing about my upbringing. I am who I am because of them and the way I was raised. Dad and I have always been close. He and I share the ability to shift. The change itself is painful, but running in the woods, well it’s more than worth the pain. There’s nothing like a run. You can run for miles without getting winded. You can smell the other animals as the scamper out of your way scared that they might be on the menu. I love it.

I was shocked to find out that not everyone could hear other people’s thoughts. I have always been able to. Saved me from peeing on the electric fence when I was eight. Nice family tradition isn’t it? The older boys trick the younger ones. I heard them laughing as they tried to convince me it would be okay. I heard their anxious thoughts as the anticipation of the zap made them giddy as girls.

I refused, duh. I heard them thinking about the pain. Not me no way. Momma didn’t raise no fool. Still didn’t stop me from getting Patrick, Eli, or Shane when the “came of age.” Everett, my oldest brother, asked me about what kept me from doing it, I told him. He didn’t believe me at first until I said out loud what he was thinking. He marched me right into Dad. From then on I was the truth barometer when anyone in the family was caught in a lie or needed a story checked. Imagine, being ostracized because you’re telepathic, not because you can change into a wolf.

If there is anything you can say about me, I don’t lack for self-confidence. I tend to be cocky and being a shifter doesn’t help. I mean it’s hard to not feel good about yourself when you get a full scholarship to college because you score more touchdowns than anyone else in the state. No one knows about the shifting, but a side effect is that I have quicker healing and am a little bit athletic than the non-shifters. Only Hunter was faster than me, but he played quarterback so he got a scholarship too.

I was smart enough to earn scholarships to cover medical school and became a doctor too. Dad was proud of me even when I took up a different specialty. Pathology. I’m currently the Coroner for the State of Maine. The position allows me flexibility and I really love my job. I help the dead speak. I give them the final say when foul play is involved. Fortunately, in Maine, most of the deaths are accidents, disease, and such. There are only about 70 or so murders here each year. Drug overdoses are far more common.

I’m stubborn, smart, athletic, good looking if you listen to the girls I’ve dated. I’m not too sure myself. I’ve broken my nose twice, once in football, once by Hunter. I deserved that one and a whole lot more. I don’t want to think about that. Anyway, my nose is a bit big and a bit flat. The girls don’t seem to mind it, so neither do I. The girls fawn over the red highlights in my brown hair too. I don’t get what’s so great about it, my quick temper used to get me into a lot of trouble. Fortunately, I’m older and wiser now.

I have a revved up metabolism so getting fat is never a problem for me either. Hopefully it lasts well into old age. I don’t know what else to say about my looks. I don’t spend hours in front of a mirror. I have brown eyes that match my hair. Does that help?

I’m not a loner. Never have been. You can’t grow up in a large family and ever be alone. I’ve never gotten used to it, not really. I love to go off by myself and get some piece and quiet, but I’m never truly alone. I can pick up the phone and call whomever I want. I can jump in my car and go visit a bunch of different people.

I bought an old yacht, fixed it up, and added a motor for tooling around when the wind isn’t great. I love it. I’m free to go where I want when I want. I live on the boat in the summer and mooch off the guys in the winter. Someday when I retire, I’m going to sail around the world.

I’ve been quite the ladies man all my life. Another side effect of being a wolf shifter is that I don’t get sick. My immune system kills everything that I could catch. I’m sterile too, well until I meet the right woman for me. All wolf shifters are although we didn’t know that until last year. When I think of all the sex I could have had without the damn condoms… Sorry, guy thing.

I’m not seeing anyone seriously. Haven’t in a long time. I like the freedom. Going to the clubs is a smorgasbord of tasty delights. I don’t have to wake up to the same face everyday just yet. I know that will need to change someday. Someday I’ll settle down to have the kids and continue my bloodline. I’ll have to have seven boys. I hope there will be girls sprinkled in around them too. Although with guys like me out there…

Someday, I’ll find the right woman, the one I can spend the rest of my life loving. Not Wynter. Definitely not her. She is the most infuriating, stubborn, bigoted woman I have ever met. There are so many things about her that piss me off. Yet she is loyal, beautiful, a shifter too, she makes me crazy. I’ll admit sex with her left me wanting more, but a lifetime? Nope.

I’m as normal as the next guy. I don’t cry, but I do have feelings and emotions. When my mother died, I made it through the funeral and everything else. I hurt like hell, still do, but you have to continue living. Mom would hate it if we didn’t pick up and carry on. I did.

I’m not superstitious again kind of funny since I’m a werewolf, but I know there is a scientific explanation for everything. Be it a trick of the eye, or being able to access more of your brain than other people. That’s what the doctors say about my telepathic ability anyway.

I’m afraid of deep water. Funny since I live on a boat, but I believe in facing your fears and I did. I conquered it too. I suppose, if I’m really going to be honest, I’m afraid of being alone. I mean truly alone. Life has a way of checking attitudes all on it’s own. I made a huge mistake once and almost lost everything because of it. I went after Hunter’s girl. Katie was all over me like bees to honey. She flirted, I flirted. I knew better, Hunter was a chosen brother, a pack mate. I don’t know what I was thinking. Well, I do know but then, no I wasn’t thinking at all. Katie made me feel superhuman, as if being a shifter wasn’t enough to evoke that in my personality.

I caught on as she went from flirting to touching me, to hinting that I should challenge Hunter for the Alpha position. Alarm bells rang in my head, finally and I turned to Keagan. The two of us arranged a little incident to show Katie for her true colors. I had no idea Hunter was thinking of marrying her. It was a perverse blessing that we all found out what kind of manipulator she was. Wolves mate until death do us part. I almost lost my self-respect, my pack, my best friends I the world. I walked away with a busted nose and a deeper respect for my weaknesses. I’ve strived to never repeat that mistake.

Glimpse in Present Time:
I stood on the deck of my sailboat. The gentle rocking of the boat usually relaxes me but not today. Today has changed my life forever. I’m going to be a father. The though both terrified him and excited him. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans. The worn jeans had holes in the knees and probably ought to go into the garbage, but they were just so darn comfortable, I hang on to them.

I think I handled Wynter’s announcement well. I didn’t flip out, didn’t say I didn’t believe her or ask who the father is. She’s no virgin, but I know that she wouldn’t come to me, to tell me something like that if she wasn’t sure. Wynter knows as well as I do what that means for me, for her, for us. Truth be told, I’m glad. I knew the night of Corbin’s and Haylie’s renewal of vows that I loved her. She’s strong, loyal, determined, bigoted, stubborn, and a myriad of other traits that both please and piss me off. She drives me crazy, but I love her just the same. It’s getting easier to think. Someday, I may even be able to tell her. She doesn’t believe in love.

What I didn’t like was her proposal. Girls don’t matter to you anymore than boys matter to me. So I propose that if it’s a girl, I’ll raise her. If it’s a boy, you get him. No way I’m going to go along with that but the desperation in her voice, the scared timbre, I let it rest. There would be plenty of fighting later. I smile in spite of the knot in my stomach. I want to be a part of my daughters’ lives as much as my boys.

Family is everything to wolf shifters. I grew up in a huge family of both birth siblings and pack mates. My kids, male or female will do the same. Wynter’s a hyena one of the few creatures to be matriarchal instead of patriarchal. Wynter’s mother gave up all her male children. Wynter met one of her brothers last year. She doesn’t call him much, but he hasn’t gone away either. She’s warming to him.

I sucked in a quick breath and blew it out with much frustration. How am I supposed to show her that family is good? How am I supposed to prove to her that she is needed to help parent the boys? That I’m needed to help with the girls?

The phone on my belt rang. I pull it from my belt and check the number. Not work. Good. The last thing I want to do today is an autopsy. I know I’m the voice of the dead, but it’s living where I want to concentrate my energy today.

“What?” I say into the small phone.
“Trace,” Wynter’s voice shook. “I’m okay, but I need you. I’m at the hospital. Someone tried to run me off the road. Someone tried to kill me!”