Slow Shift

by Nazarea Andrews

  Tyler frowns. “But—she—” He goes pale, and Lucas wishes Chase were here to ease Tyler through this.

  “What are you saying?” Tyler asks, voice harsh and angry.

  “When you came back to Harrisburg for me, I was trapped in my own mind and I couldn’t feel my Pack. It was driving me insane, the emptiness where they should be, where my Alpha should be—I was packless, bondless, and I was going insane.” He looks at Tyler seriously. “I don’t want to think about what I would have become.”

  Mad. Driven by his need for revenge and fury, how far would he have gone. Who would he have killed?

  “But the Cahils,” Tyler says weakly.

  “They allow her within the Pack, Tripp fucks her—maybe he’ll marry her—but she isn’t part of the Pack. She’s a pet Alpha with a powerful territory that they want. But Chelsea—Tyler, she’s a weak alpha with no pack and no bonds. She abducted her own Shaman.”

  Tyler looks sick. “You think she’s gone feral.”

  Lucas nods. “I think she’s probably been going feral since she ran away after the funerals.”

  ~*~

  He screams and the black falters as the magic that he swore himself to, that’s his by birth and blood, roars to the surface, not content to hide and give ground as this new invader toys with the bonds that Chase would die to protect.

  He can feel it when they collide, a flare of heat so strong he thinks he’ll explode from the sheer force of it, before the power shifts, rolls, twists. He vomits, black-silver vomit that paints his lips shimmering black. It tastes like metal and electricity, like his magic and something else, and it terrifies him.

  He wants to scream but his voice is choked up in his throat, and his magic is raging, furious as it rips through him, feeling like it’s knitting him back together.

  When he bound himself to the Standing Stones, it took his lifeblood and was reborn. He’s seen it, since that night, the massive tree that stands where the stump once was, ancient and strong, radiating power.

  But it gave him something in return, gave him all the raw power it couldn’t harness. It feeds that into him now, silver sweet heat twisting with his spark and lighting up his tattoos, fighting.

  Chelsea bit him and wants to claim him as her own. Chase wants to laugh. He’s been Tyler’s and Lucas’s since even before he was the Standing Stone’s scion. Their need drove him to bleed and bind himself to the ancient magic, and that magic is furious now, fighting anything that might take Chase from it, from them, from his Pack.

  Chase laughs, closing his eyes as the wild creature born in her Bite fights the ancient magic singing in his blood.

  It’s not much of a fight. The creature is weak and young, and the magic is familiar, lives in him, has for years. It could burn out the threat, the invader.

  Or...

  Chase stirs, reaching out to caress the living power, sentient and alive under his skin.

  Or...

  ~*~

  He drifts. It doesn’t hurt anymore, no more than it ever did. There’s a curious disconnect, like he’s an observer in his own body. The wild creature is skittish and shy but there, and he can feel it, feel the savagery, the curiosity and the yearning for pack mate family home.

  This dirty warehouse isn’t his, smells foreign and strange, and he whines, high and animalistic. He feels too big for his own skin, like there’s not enough room—not for Chase and magic and a wild creature he doesn’t yet trust.

  We’re all you, the magic whispers, and he wonders if that’s true.

  We all will protect them.

  ~*~

  When she slips into the room, she finds him as she expects, but he’s...different. Not whole. He hasn’t healed, and she wonders distantly if he won’t.

  Chase is strange and she doesn’t like him, but she knows that Tyler does, and she does want to keep her brother happy. Still, his scent has changed.

  She nudges him with one foot and he rolls his head back, bares his throat and stares up at her with shining white eyes that make her jerk away.

  White.

  Chase closes his eyes, and her heart pounds in her chest, her fingers shaking as she pets a hand through her hair.

  “You’re mine now, puppy,” she whispers.

  Chase flares to life, and she can feel something in her rip as he reacts.

  He doesn’t howl—he screams, high and animal and furious. She wants to snarl in answer, wants to howl defiance, but there’s a shocking emptiness in her that makes her stumble.

  “What did you do?” she breathes.

  Chase looks back at her, half shifted with sharp teeth and a feral smile, eyes shining. His tattoos gleam silver and black, and his fur—his fur looks different. Strange.

  She whispers again, desperate, “What did you do?”

  “I told you when I was seventeen,” Chase says, “You may be the Reid Alpha, but you aren’t mine.” She snarls and he grins, delighted. “They’re coming. Can you feel them? They’re coming. Lucas is going to kill you.”

  Chelsea blinks. “Who?”

  He stares, startled, then he laughs, a high barking thing that makes her skin crawl. She understands then that yawning emptiness, sudden and sick, and she does the last thing she can think to do—

  She runs.

  ~*~

  They’re turning on 8th Street, heading toward the Iron Works, when Tyler doubles over suddenly, then straighten as Lucas slams on the breaks. They spill out of the car, half shifted and eyes gleaming, and Tyler turns.

  The noise—not a howl, but a call—comes again from the east, and Tyler blurts, “The train!”

  Lucas blinks, but Tyler is already running, chasing that eerie call and the bond that is yanking him onwards.

  ~*~

  The magic settles with Chelsea’s absence, licks of heat moving along his broken bones and the worst of his injuries, putting him back together. It feels almost maternal, a low humming displeasure that he was hurt. The wild creature circles that place in his chest it’s claimed as its own and curls up to sleep, and the magic huffs.

  If a power source could be grumpy, Chase thinks his is.

  “Thank you,” he murmurs, flexing his human fingers and stretching as much as he can. The change didn’t come with werewolf strength or healing—even his magic is faltering, and he thinks he’ll be bruised and healing for a few weeks.

  He wonders if that’s because of the magic that claimed him first, or because he isn’t a werewolf. He has no idea what’s living under his skin, but he knows what it isn’t.

  The runes on his arm—Tyler’s and Lucas’s—flare briefly as the magic slips away, settling over the sleeping creature with a quiet glow.

  Then they burst into the warehouse, half-shifted and frantic, and Chase bursts into tears.

  ~*~

  Tyler skids to a halt as he catches sight of Chase. He’s wrapped in chains and duct tape and wires, burns covering his naked body and half healing scratches on his face, messy tears sliding down his face. His torso is one continuous bruise and his eye won’t focus, something that’s worrisome.

  There are long flat burns on his legs that make Tyler’s hands shake and his claws extend and—

  There is a bite, on his side, fresh, bleeding, and terrifying.

  His sister’s scent is thick and heavy in the room, touching everything, a sinister layer under the raw magic, blood, and pain.

  “Chase,” he chokes out, and Lucas is shaking in fear and fury.

  Chase shivers and twitches toward him, and something else shivers with him. It feels like something very young and impossibly ancient is peering at him through those familiar honeyed whiskey eyes.

  “Oh, pup,” Lucas breathes.

  Chase grins through split bloody lips and tear-stained cheeks. “What—I’m not a ‘wolf,” he says.

  Lucas shakes his head.

  “Sometimes the shift—-doesn’t take like it should,” Tyler murmurs, “And you’ve never been a wolf.”

  “I’d make a fuckin
g awesome wolf,” Chase says, indignant—how can he be this bloody and beaten and still be indignant? Tyler huffs and rips the arms of the chair off, freeing Chase and scooping the boy up before he can crumple, although he doesn’t quite manage to bite back the cry of pain.

  “You’ve never been a wolf,” Lucas says, “In our dreams, you’ve never been a wolf.”

  Chase blinks. “I thought I was human.”

  “No.” Tyler shakes his head, walking out of the warehouse. “You—you’re a fox, in the dreams. A corsac fox.”

  Chase jerks. “I’m a fucking werefox?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Lucas says dismissively, despite the relief and worry rolling off of him. He opens the truck door to let Tyler lay Chase in the backseat. “You’re a kitsune.”

  Chapter 29

  They take him home.

  Lucas calls John, warns him that Chase is hurt, that he’s different, and they take him home. It smells different, and he whines, burying his face in Tyler’s chest as the older man carries him inside.

  “Why aren’t I healing?” he asks, moaning as his foot jars against the door. “That’s a goddamn perk of being furry. Why don’t I get the perk?”

  “I told you, pup—kitsune,” Lucas says.

  Chase snarls, a mouthful of teeth and a vulpine note to the noise, and it startles all three of them still.

  “Shit,” Chase slurs around sharp little teeth, and Tyler has the irrational and inappropriate thought that he wants to feel those teeth at his throat while he’s buried in Chase.

  Chase sneezes and wrinkles his nose. “What—that smell, what is that?”

  “Yes, brother, do tell. What is that smell?”

  Tyler flushes and carefully lowers Chase onto their bed, then turns to glare at Lucas.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  ~*~

  The problem wasn’t his magic, and it wasn’t the Bite. Those were known entities—for a shaman, a Bite turns or kills them by burning them out under the Bite. But Chase wasn’t just a human, and he didn’t just have normal magic.

  He was the Standing Stones’ scion, the living, breathing bearer of the ancient rocks’ magic, and no one knows what that means.

  “It did this,” Chase says, and Lucas watches him. Chase’s gaze flicks to him, heavy and sad. “The Standing Stones chose this.”

  He explains it as quickly as he can, but it doesn’t make sense to him, and the wild creature—the fox—is stirring, curious and apprehensive, and he feels the sudden absurd desire to run.

  “A kitsune isn’t a shifter, in the truest sense,” Lucas says, “I don’t know much about them. They’re rare, generally found in Japan, but from what I do remember, it’s a creature of magic and wildness. Not a werewolf, but it’s—it’s a cousin to shifters, I suppose you could say.” He considers Chase, pale and sweating in Tyler’s bed, his tattoos dark against his skin, and smiles faintly. “It suits you.”

  “He has a beta Shift,” Tyler points out.

  Lucas nods. “Yes, well, that is clearly beyond me, and a question for another day, I think.” His expression goes cold. “We need to deal with Chelsea.”

  ~*~

  Chase is sleeping by the time John pulls up.

  Tyler carefully disentangles himself from him to go meet the Chief. Lucas is already there, his face that disturbing blankness he’s had since Chase forbade him from killing Chelsea. Again.

  Tyler thinks that this time, not even Chase can stay the Left Hand, and he thinks Chase knows it.

  “Is he—is he ok?”

  “No,” Lucas says bluntly, and John pales. “He was tortured, but there’s nothing that won’t heal in time. What won’t go away with time is the Bite she gave him.”

  John lets out a wounded noise that makes Tyler’s shoulders hunch.

  How much of this is his fault—because he dared to leave Chelsea, because he loved Chase, because as much as he loves Chase, he can’t protect him?

  “He’s a werewolf?” John asks, voice small.

  “He’s something called a kitsune. We aren’t sure what all that means, but he’s alive, and he will get better,” Lucas says in a voice that leaves no room for disbelief.

  John takes a shuddering breath.

  Tyler steps aside and trails after the Chief as he hurries into the bedroom, falling into the chair that’s so often where Chase curls and reads.

  Now, they wait for him to heal.

  ~*~

  Chase looks small in Tyler’s big bed. John thinks maybe all children look small to their parents when they’re sleeping—but Chase has always been too big to be contained, moving in his sleep, filling up the world with his words, enthusiasm, curiosity, and love.

  Now he lays sleeping in the bed he shares with Tyler Reid, pale and bruised against the sheets with his tattoos stark against his skin, and even that testament to the massive power that lives in his son does nothing to reassure John.

  “Do we know who it was?”

  Tyler shifts anxiously and Lucas says, “Yes. Chase doesn’t want me to take action against her.”

  John frowns. Chase is his son, and he adores the boy, but he’s never had any misconceptions about his very grey morality. Chase has never hesitated to do what it takes to protect the people he loves, the ones he claims as his. John doesn’t even expect him to anymore.

  “You know why,” Chase grits out, and Lucas snarls, a vicious animal noise that makes John want to flinch away.

  Chase rolls his eyes at the display and turns a sleepy gaze on his dad. His eyes flare with blue flames for a heartbeat, then settle back to the familiar golden brown. It’s reassuring, settling some of the unease that he’s been feeling since Lucas told him Chase had been bitten.

  Chase is different, but he’s still Chase.

  “Hey, dad,” Chase says, smiling, and John leans in to hug him, his grip fierce and desperate.

  ~*~

  Lucas is furious.

  Chase would know that, even if he didn’t have new senses going haywire, feeding him information he doesn’t know what to do with.

  It takes hours of waiting—after John relents and goes to Chase’s room to sleep on the couch, and Tyler passes out in the chair next to Chase’s bed—before he finally turns to look at the Left Hand.

  He’s watching Chase, his gaze flickering with electric blue.

  Chase sighs. “You can’t kill her.”

  “She hurt you,” Lucas says, “Killing her would be very easy.”

  “And when it’s over and I’m well, and you’re drowning in guilt? What then?”

  “That is another day’s problem, Chase.”

  He huffs. “I’m trying to avoid having problems in the future. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I need you to listen to me, to trust me.”

  Lucas stares at him for a long time. “I—I can’t promise that. Not after what she’s done to you.”

  “Will you promise to wait until I’m well? That you won’t make a decision in anger?”

  The nod he gets is slow and reluctant, but he’ll take it.

  “How did she get past your wards?” Lucas asks, changing the subject.

  Chase groans. “Because I am the stupidest mage in the world,” he grumps, and a small smile flickers on the edges of Lucas’s lips.

  ~*~

  He wakes up to the press of bodies around him, fingers in his hair, and the drip of tears on his face.

  “I’m ok,” he croaks out, and Aurora makes a hysterical little noise, her grip on him tightening just a little. “Aurora,” he says gently, “I’m ok.”

  The pups stir and watch him, human and exhausted and worried. He touches Jessica’s shoulder and gives her a reassuring smile.

  “I’m ok.”

  “You smell wrong,” Ezra says.

  Chase nods. He closes his eyes and reaches for the wild fox washed in his magic, drawing it up. The change ripples over him like a wave of pins and needles, and he hears the confused whine Ezra gives before he blinks his eyes, now flickering
white flames, at them.

  “Smelling different is sorta something we need to talk about,” Chase says around a mouthful of sharp little teeth.

  ~*~

  Tyler is careful with him.

  He’s always careful after Chase has been hurt, but this is different. He’s skittish and distant, and there’s a frown that draws his eyebrows down as he reads while Chase sips his soup.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Tyler jerks, eyes wide as they flick to Chase. He waits patiently as Tyler’s mouth opens, then closes. He shakes his head.

  “Ty, you’re reading Spanish poetry and you haven’t flipped the page in ten minutes. You’re upset and distracted. And we’re alone for the first time since before I got snatched, but you aren’t touching me. What’s wrong?”

  Tyler looks faintly sick, but he licks his lips and says, “Do you think we’re making a mistake? Being together?”

  The world drops out from under Chase. He pales so fast he actually sways. Tyler jerks forward, catching his shoulders and drawing him close.

  “Chase, breathe. I’m not—we’re together. I’m not changing that. I’m not letting you go, sweetheart. I’m asking a question.”

  Chase gasps, and it sounds panicked, even to himself. The noise he makes is vulpine and small, foreign, and he burrows into Tyler’s chest.

  “She did this to you because she wants me back, because you matter to me.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Chase mumbles into his chest, and Tyler shrugs around him. “It’s not, Ty. She’s feral. She’s not gonna make sane decisions.”

  “You’re paying for her bad decisions.”

  Chase nods. “I am, but it’s a price I’m willing to pay.” He digs the tips of his black claws into Tyler’s skin and it drags the werewolf’s gaze down. “If it keeps us safe and together, I’m more than willing to pay.”

  ~*~

  He doesn’t want to leave Chase.

  Lucas doesn’t know what’s happening to him, and none of Tyler’s many books shed any light.

  “Kitsunes don’t Shift,” Lucas bitches, glaring at the latest book that has turned up exactly nothing.