Hi everyone! I hope you will enjoy this special blog tour post from author Karenna Colcroft on 5 Random Facts about Boston North Pack, as part of the blog tour of the book “Hummus on Rye”.
5 Random Facts About Boston North Pack
In my series Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat, vegan werewolf Kyle Slidell and his mate Tobias Rogan, the Alpha, are members of a pack called Boston North. In my universe, packs are named based on geography, usually something like a town that’s part of their territory or a geographic feature in the territory. Boston North isn’t technically in the northern part of Boston, though, nor is it in the North End; it’s in East Boston, which is north of a lot of the rest of the city.
Boston geography is confusing…(spoken as someone who’s lived here for over thirteen years).
I haven’t shared a lot about Boston North as a pack since I started rereleasing the series. Then again, I didn’t share much about it when the books were originally published either. So I thought I’d give readers a glimpse at the pack that Kyle and Tobias call family.
- Originally, Boston North Pack wasn’t called that. It was simply called Boston Pack. When the pack was established, its territory encompassed most of Massachusetts east of the Connecticut River, other than the southeasternmost part of the state along with Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket. (Those are the territory of Cape Pack.) Even at that time, Boston Pack was the only pack with members living within the limits of a major city. And then…
- In the late 1800s, another pack came to Boston not realizing that Boston Pack existed. At the time, there wasn’t much communication among packs, and Boston Pack had few members who were scattered throughout the territory. A larger pack, which had lost its territory in a conflict with yet another pack, came to eastern Massachusetts assuming the territory was up for grabs. When that pack’s Alpha, Chal Torres, realized there was a pack already in the area, he met with the Boston Pack’s Alpha and formed an alliance that allowed Boston Pack to claim territory around its Alpha’s home in East Boston, while Chal’s pack took over the rest of the territory. Boston Pack became Boston North Pack; Chal’s pack became known as City Pack.
- Boston North Pack and City Pack are the only two packs, at least in the United States, that have cooperated as far as territory and collaboration between alphas. It’s a very unusual situation, but it works well for both packs.
- Boston North is the smallest pack in the United States, both in terms of numbers (at the beginning of the Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat series, Boston North has thirteen members after Kyle is changed; by Hummus on Rye, that number has decreased to ten) and in terms of territory (Boston North’s territory only encompasses East Boston and the town of Winthrop).
- The entire pack lives in a cluster of three apartment buildings on the East Boston waterfront, across the street from Piers Park. The buildings were originally owned by a pack member; when he passed away, his son—who is human, since wolfiness isn’t hereditary in this universe, and didn’t know his father was a werewolf—inherited the buildings. And proceeded, much to the dismay of some pack members, to rent to humans as well as the pack.
That’s a little glimpse into Boston North Pack. If you have questions, please leave them in the comments!
Karenna Colcroft has a new MM paranormal romance out, Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat book 3: Hummus on Rye. And there’s a giveaway!
A six-year-old human child, who recently moved with his single father into the heart of the Boston North Pack’s territory, is missing–and Alpha Tobias Rogan has been framed for kidnapping the boy. Meanwhile, a new pack member with a traumatic past has drawn Saul Hughes, the rogue Alpha with a grudge against Tobias, to Boston.
Kyle Slidell, Tobias’s mate, spots Saul and realizes he must be behind the child’s kidnapping. But Saul has retained his powers and uses them to erase his presence from the minds of all of the other Boston wolves. Only Kyle, with his unusual immunity to compulsion, is able to remember seeing the rogue.
To protect his mate and save the little boy, Kyle will violate shifter law and ignore direct orders from the ruler of the Northeast Region werewolves. But will he survive the fallout?
Warnings: mention of sexual assault in characters’ pasts
Get It On Amazon
Giveaway
Karenna is giving away a $10 Amazon gift card with this tour:
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Direct Link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b60e8d47270/
Excerpt
I JOLTED awake at about two in the morning, not immediately certain what had awakened me. Not a scream this time, thank goodness. I rolled toward Tobias, hoping that he might be awake too. We could either cuddle the way he liked or work up some exertion that would hopefully put me back to sleep.
He wasn’t there.
“Tobias?” I spoke just loudly enough for him to hear if he was in the apartment. He didn’t answer.
Where are you? I asked, tapping into our mate bond to communicate with him mind-to-mind.
He still didn’t answer, but at least I sensed him at the other end of our connection. He wasn’t hurt or anything. He just wasn’t responding at the moment.
That told me something. If he’d been walking around town in human form, as he sometimes did when he couldn’t sleep, he would have answered me. The fact that he hadn’t meant he was either really, really pissed or he’d shifted.
I slid out of bed and pulled on my shorts, then pulled aside the curtain on the window that looked out to the garden. After his warning to the pack, I didn’t think he would have shifted out there, but if he’d been desperate enough to go wolf he might have. After all, it was well past the hour that most six-year-olds—or most adults, for that matter—would be awake and looking out windows.
I didn’t see Tobias. If he had shifted, he might have gone for a run in the park. I usually left him alone when he did that. This time, it seemed important to find him. I wasn’t sure why, but I wasn’t about to question the instinct. I put on a T-shirt and my shoes and headed out the front door.
Being out there this late as a human wasn’t necessarily the smartest thing. We did live in a relatively safe part of the city. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean there were never assaults in our neighborhood. Roderic’s attack had been specifically targeted at a member—any member—of Boston North Pack, on orders from Saul Hughes. Saul was still out there somewhere; I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d repeated himself by hiring other human gang members to go after our pack and City Pack. I hadn’t heard about any random attacks in this neighborhood since I’d lived there. Those could still happen, though.
I didn’t think too much about that. Right then, my goal was finding my mate. He only went wolf in the city when he was very stressed and needed to run. I didn’t know what was going on, and I didn’t want to leave him alone until I found out.
Wind off the harbor cut through my clothes, but I barely noticed. I made it across the street easily enough and into Piers Park, which closed at sunset. A police car sat at the curb, supposedly to make sure no one entered the park after dark. If any police officers were sitting in the car, they didn’t notice me.
“Tobias?” I called softly. That wasn’t the smartest thing either. If Tobias was there, he would probably hear me. So would any other wolves who happened to be there. Even though Piers Park was part of our territory, we’d been invaded by wolves from other packs before.
Tobias still didn’t answer, but I caught a glimpse of white out of the corner of my eye. When I turned to look full-on, it had vanished behind the brick building that sat in the middle of the park.
If you’re here, please just answer me, I said.
Go home.
At least he was speaking to me. Are you all right?
Go home.
When most werewolves shifted, they held onto a little bit of their human side. Tobias could communicate with me, but his side was likely to be a little bit repetitive. When I shifted, I kept most of my humanity, higher-level thinking skills and all. Apparently that was just another way I was weird in the world of werewolves.
I didn’t leave the park. Tobias wasn’t happy about having me there, but under the annoyance I sensed some relief. He didn’t like being alone.
I walked over to one of the benches and sat down. I’ll wait.
Need to run. Go home.
I won’t get in your way, Tobias, I replied. I just want to make sure you’re all right.
Go home!
This time, compulsion coursed through the words. Not that it did any good. I didn’t bother answering him. He knew I wasn’t going anywhere.
After a couple minutes, a white streak ran out from behind the building and down the park toward the sailing club docks. For a little while, he just kept running back and forth. He didn’t tell me to leave again. He just ignored me completely. I was fine with that. I hadn’t gone over there to have a conversation. I just wanted to make sure he didn’t do anything dangerous.
The wind started to get to me, and I thought about going back to the apartment. Tobias was still running and probably would be for a while. He hadn’t gone anywhere near the harbor, just kept running the same course back and forth from one end of the park to the other, so he’d probably be okay.
Just as I stood up, a furry form leaped over the wall and ran straight toward my mate.
Author Bio
Karenna Colcroft lives just north of Boston, Massachusetts, and has been in love with the city since childhood, though she has yet to encounter any werewolves, vampires, or other paranormal beings in her travels. At least none that she knows of. Though since in her non-writing life, under another name, she offers services as a channel and energy healing practitioner, it could be said that she herself is a paranormal being. The jury’s still out on that.
Karenna is a polyamorous, nonbinary human who splits time between the home she shares with her husband and the one she shares with her committed partner. She also has two adult children and a bonus son, three grandchildren, and two and a half cats. (Half in terms of time the cat lives with her, not in terms of the cat itself…)
Author Website: https://karennacolcroft.com
Author Facebook (Personal): https://www.facebook.com/riverlightbearer/
Author Facebook (Author Page): https://www.facebook.com/KarennaColcroft
Author QueeRomance Ink: https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/karenna-colcroft/
