The ride home from the temple was a blur. Still reeling from the ceremony and the realization that his new status and responsibilities weren't going away, Lee followed his family back to the car and stared out the window while his parents gradually stopped asking him questions and even his normally-cheerful sister lapsed into silence. Once his father pulled into the driveway of the main house, Lee wandered into the kitchen and pulled out his phone as the text messages from old classmates and casino coworkers flooded in. Sawyer attempted to engage him with an article she found online about his new city, but he ignored her, focusing more on a headache that grew in intensity.

Heeding a call from their mother, Sawyer got up from the table, leaving her cell phone open on the webpage. Tiredly, Lee shifted his eyes to his sister's screen: Silver Rush, Silver Rush, Silver Rush ... Ugh.

"Here."

He looked up as his father slid a glass of water and an Advil across the table. A chair scraped back as Dad took a seat. "The High Priestess just emailed me all the legal documents you need to sign." He leaned forward and peered at Sawyer's phone. "Is that the place?"

"I guess so," Lee grumbled.

"Let me see."

Without a second's thought, Lee slid Sawyer's phone to his father, popped the Advil, and chased it with a large swig of water.

"Hmm," Dad murmured, scrolling through the page. "Interesting little place. Founded in 1887 as a silver mining town by Arthur Wilcox and Shane Humphrey, two English immigrants. Seems Arthur ended up killing his partner in a duel when he found out that Shane was sleeping with his wife."

Lee groaned and rolled his eyes. "Great history," he muttered. Even though he wasn't hungry, he stood up and wandered over to the refrigerator, just to do something.

"It gets better," Dad promised in a tone that Lee suspected was to pique his son's interest. "It appears that the silver mine the two had staked their claim on dried up rather quickly, so most people packed up and moved to nearby Winnemucca, which provided better employment opportunities in the form of railroad work and a larger mining operation. Those who remained took advantage of the newly-available acreage and started potato farming, which they then brought to Winnemucca."

"Potato farms ... in Nevada?" Sawyer asked, wandering back into the kitchen with Mom. "I thought that was an Idaho thing."

A murderous past and a dying town filled with potatoes.

Great.

Mom walked up to Lee as he was letting cold air escape the fridge and waved him off. "I've ordered delivery from Mancuso's," she told him firmly, misinterpreting his intentions. She peeled his hand off the door handle and shut it. "It'll be here in a half-hour. Sit down."

"How the hell am I supposed to survive?" Lee wondered, returning to the table with a sinking feeling in his stomach. Every city ruled by an alpha was a thriving metropolis that raked in millions of dollars for the family every year. "You're telling me there's absolutely no industry?"

He wasn't a prideful man, but there was no way he was going to be some sort of werewolf potato baron.

Dad's brows furrowed and he scrolled through the page. "Doesn't look like it," he replied with a sigh. "There are only about a thousand people and most of them commute to Winnemucca to work at the casino, the potato dehydration plant, and the mines. There's one large Quarter Horse breeding farm in town, but other than the farms, that's it."

So, he couldn't even open a casino. This day was getting even better. Groaning, Lee cradled his aching head.

"At least the landscape's pretty," Sawyer offered, holding out her hand to their father. Dad passed her the phone and she quickly flipped through some pages before turning her phone around to show Lee a photo of a vast field of yellow and purple wildflowers. "This is the Copper Basin, which is part of the Humboldt–Toiyabe National Forest," she added, stumbling over the pronunciation. "Maybe you could do something with tourism? Like, open up a camp?"

Lee stared at the photo. Of course, his sister would gravitate towards the landscape and pretty flowers—she was a green faerie. Plants called to her and she could make things grow like you wouldn't believe.

"Hey."

Lee looked up to see Dad staring at him from across the table. "Don't you think for a minute that we're going to let you go through this alone," he said, stabbing the table with a strong forefinger for emphasis. "You may be an alpha now, but you'll always be our son. We'll get through this together, do you hear me?"

Lee took a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah," he replied, rubbing at his temples. The Advil was just starting to kick in and his thoughts no longer felt trapped in cotton. "I know."

Mom pulled out a chair and sat down so all four of them were around the table now. "I'm sure things will pick up once you're in town," she told him, squeezing his upper arm. "You're an alpha—people will want to be around you."

"For all the wrong reasons," Lee replied with a wry laugh. As an employee of the Stillwater Casino, he'd seen what people were willing to do to get close to an alpha. Then again, the former alpha was not an upstanding citizen or family man, either.

"There will be people like that, too," Mom agreed, "but I know you're smart enough to not let them manipulate you."

Lee sighed and rubbed his head.

"What about real estate?" Sawyer asked.

Lee's eyes flicked across the table to his sister. "Sav ..." he began warningly.

Mom immediately put a hand in the middle of the table. "Okay, let's drop this conversation for now, okay?"

"Okay," Sawyer agreed, sitting back in her chair and drawing her phone towards her. Her eyes slipped down to the table.

Seeing his sister deflate like that instantly made Lee feel contrite. She'd only come back home after five years of self-imposed exile and here he was making her feel like shit for offering to help. "Sav ..." he said again, this time more gently.

"We'll talk about that later," Mom interrupted with a small smile. "Because I need to bring up an equally-unpleasant topic right now."

Lee raised his eyebrows. "What's that?"

"The ball."

"Ugh," Lee groaned and leaned back in his chair, clapping a hand over his eyes. "From bad to worse, Mom."

"I know, sweetie. You don't think we want you to find a wife on your own terms?"

"Stupid rules," Lee muttered, fists clenching. "Stupid, stupid rules." He was going to live in a podunk town with only potatoes and horses with a woman he didn't love, forced to have children for the sake of the alpha bloodline like some member of medieval nobility. Fuck me.

"I know," his mother repeated understandingly. "But we do have to go over things."

"Fine," Lee said, throwing open his arms. "Let's get it over with." It's not like he had anything better to do.

Mom favored him with a sympathetic smile and pulled some papers out of her back pocket. Lee groaned and steeled himself for a long night.