"I know I am that person. I am the first, Father. The first wolf. The first shift. Every Fae who follows me into this will look to me for the answer to a question that nobody else can answer, and the question is whether this thing inside them is a curse or a blessing, and the answer I give them will define an entire species."
The word Father had left his mouth without permission. He called Atlas Your Majesty in formal settings. He called him Father in private, and the private was a distinction he maintained with the rigid discipline of a boy whose gratitude for the title was so vast that using it carelessly would have diminished it.
He had used it now because the conversation required it. Because Your Majesty was a king receiving a report and Father was a man losing a son.
