Kara remembered when Sage taught her about dominants and submissives and for the first time she understood why she felt the way she did about SeoHyun, she was submissive and her wolf realized that even though her human half didn't and longed to make sure SeoHyun was happy and safe. She had gone to Sage after she nearly attacked a classmate who she thought was bullying SeoHyun and had her cowering against her locker. It had taken a lot to keep her wolf under control until she learned she had been mistaken. That was when she learned that it was in her nature to want to protect SeoHyun because SeoHyun was so submissive. She later went to Bran to learn more about Submissives and learned that no matter if they were male or female they were the bottom of the pack, females could move up by mating a wolf more dominant than themselves but male submissives would always be at the bottom. He also assured her that while this would bother a dominant wolf a submissive like SeoHyun wouldn't have the drive to want to move up the rankings, they would be content with that as long as the pack took care of them, which a healthy pack would do.

"Kara you need to rest, I thought you were on vacation." Her mother had said.

"I decided I want to graduate early." Kara replied.

"Why did you think of this?" her mother asked. "It wouldn't happen to have anything to do with you friendship with SeoHyun would it?"

Kara's mother had thought that maybe Kara was romantically attracted to SeoHyun until she spoke with Anna about the whole thing and Anna explained that it more like siblings than romantic. She had explained that as a dominant wolf Kara would unconsciously want to protect SeoHyun who was submissive. It had taken more effort to explain what the difference was, which boiled down to who was obeyed and did the protecting and who was protected and obedient. She did explain that SeoHyun still had free will enough to say no if it wasn't a direct order from a more dominant wolf than herself. The protective aspect of a dominant werewolf's nature kept submissives like SeoHyun from being taken advantage of most of the time as long as the dominant in question wasn't in the thralls of insanity.

Charles watched as SeoHyun climbed up onto a rock to look out over the land around her. They knew their trip would come to an end soon but at the same time they agreed that this was far from the last time that they would come out here to hike and spend time together. They had decided that they would get together every year around her birthday and go out into the wilderness together.

Anna wasn't sure what to make of the little bursts of emotions she got through the mate bond, the calm contentment she understood, being in the woods did that to him, the happiness, confusion and sadness among other emotions that flared up seemed to confuse her. She wasn't used to the mate bond being this open to her. She figured that the emotions had something to do with SeoHyun and she would learn their origins when they returned from their trip. She was pretty sure the happiness was his enjoying spending time with SeoHyun, they were very close and she knew he often wished he didn't have to leave on trips to other parts of the country to deal with bad packs or rogues.

Charles watched as SeoHyun basked in the sunlight that fell into the clearing where they had decided to set up camp for the next three nights. He liked seeing her so relaxed, he had hated seeing her the way she was when they rescued her from Sebastian and his followers, most of whom he had illegally turned. Charles had chosen not to point out he was being less than honest when he said that he'd only turned about four people he figured that was more than enough to warrant the death of that wolf. That experience had set SeoHyun back months and it took him, Anna, Bran, Samuel and Kara weeks to get her back to where she was when she left for the trip. They had worried for a while that they had somehow scared her for life, but she came around and now seemed no worse for the ordeal.

"Da... I'm worried about what the San Diego pack will think of me now." she confessed.

"Don't worry about it, most of them will be glad to see the improvements you've made over the past years, a lot of them hated to see you the way you were. The only reason they didn't interfere is that they couldn't the alpha forbade it... forbade calling my da for any reason. The only reason he was called was because their then third's human mate made the call" Charles explained.

"I didn't know that... I didn't know any of that." she replied while walking across a recently fallen log like a balance beam.

"The alpha back then wouldn't want you to know that, he would want you to think that the pack didn't care about you, not that they couldn't do anything because of him." Charles replied "I want you to do your best to put all of that out of your mind."

"I'll try, but... there is one person I want to visit while we are there, her name is Marilyn Forsythe, I haven't seen her since before I was attacked, she was our neighbor and used to watch me while my parents were at work." SeoHyun sighed looking hopefully at Charles.

"I don't see any reason we can't visit Marilyn while we're there." Charles replied not telling SeoHyun that, if they were thinking of the same Marilyn Forsythe, she was a werewolf in the San Diego pack. He figured there was a reason she didn't come to meet up with SeoHyun while she was in the pack, he figured that she was either under strict orders to stay away from SeoHyun because they feared she would revolt to protect he 'niece', or she might not have realized it was the same child she used to care for. He decided that it wasn't his place to tell SeoHyun that Marilyn was a werewolf; she would learn that when they returned to San Diego and it would be for Marilyn to explain to SeoHyun why she didn't come forward and let the teenager know that she was a werewolf

"Thank you, da, I've missed her a lot... I... I used to call her Imo Marilyn, it means 'Aunt Marilyn' in Korean." she explained "But I wasn't allowed to contact her after the attack because the alpha said it was forbidden and I lost her contact information after that so..."

"Don't worry I will find her and you will get to see her again." Charles promised

To be continued...