The wall of thorns shivers behind Tripp, and the ground ripples as Chase smiles. His tattoos seem to slither along his skin as he says softly, “I don’t want to kill you. We have enough blood on this ground, and your pack has lost enough. Don’t force my hand, dude. Just go.”
For a heartbeat, just one, Lucas thinks he will, that he’ll accept defeat. Then he snarls and shifts, snapping at Chase’s throat, and Tyler howls fury and terror—
And Chase throws up a hand.
The tattoo on his arm of circles and intricate roots flare to life, and Tripp slams into a wall. It burns so bright that Lucas can’t see, but when he does—when the light and thick scent of ozone fades—Tripp is gone.
There’s a fine mist of red on the grass, coating the wall of thorns, but Tripp is gone.
Chase stares at the bloody grass and sighs. He turns to Tyler and says plaintively, “I want to go home.”
~*~
The Pack is there when they return, watching with worried eyes as Tyler guides Chase with an arm around his shoulders.
He wonders if he should step back, let the Alpha approach alone. He wonders if they know yet. There was never much in the way of a Pack bond to an Alpha, and the ones they did have were forged by Chase and the Standing Stones.
So maybe that’s why he doesn’t step aside, because they’ve never been the kind of Pack that stands on ceremony and hierarchy. They’ve never been like any other pack, not since Chase snapped at him in the woods while protectively hovering over his brother.
Ezra is the one who breaks first, while Aurora stays, frozen and wide-eyed as she watches them, while Jessica and Joseph look between the three of them, questions in their eyes.
Ezra though—Ezra whines, high and animalistic in the back of his throat, and breaks, darting across the grass to collide with Chase, wrapping long arms around his waist, pressing his face into Chase's chest, a low, happy rumble in his chest as he rubs against the other man.
Chase huffs a laugh and ruffles Ezra’s hair affectionately. “Ok, puppy. I’m ok.”
Ezra peers at him, eyes bright and golden, and breathes, “Alpha.”
Chase flinches, and his eyes flare red in response. Ezra drops like a puppet with cut strings, his neck stretched long and bare for Chase. It’s a gorgeous display of submission and trust, the most wolflike thing he’s ever seen, and it makes him ache to do the same.
Chase looks a little lost, but he fits sharp little black claws to Ezra’s throat, exerts gentle pressure that pulls him to his feet and tips his head forward, pressing their foreheads together. “My beta,” he murmurs.
~*~
She watches from the corner. They’ve explained everything, and the betas are pressed close to Chase, even Joseph, who usually holds himself just slightly apart from everyone but Jessica.
Chase is curled sleepily in Tyler’s lap and Lucas is sitting at the table, talking in low, urgent tones to Stephen while Aurora’s magic makes her itch with the urge to scream.
This is the Pack she chose, a tiny family that she wanted, and for the first time, she has no idea where she fits in it. Not at Lucas’s side, not now while he plots and radiates a cold rage. Not with Chase, the only human, now rippling with so much power it scares her. Never quite with the puppies, a trio so tightly bound together she doesn’t think she could ever fit there.
She doesn’t know where she belongs and that thought terrifies her.
She finds herself in Chase’s room, the one he so rarely uses now. Now he’s in Tyler’s room, in Tyler’s bed, and this room sits quiet and empty except when he’s deep in research or the Chief falls asleep in the den.
“Aurora?”
Tyler’s voice makes her jerk. She quickly wipes her cheeks and gives him a tremulous smile.
“Aurora,” he sighs, and she hiccups a sob as he sits next to her, pulling her close.
He doesn’t say anything beyond that. He doesn’t call Lucas or Chase or tell her that everything is fine, that nothing’s changed and they’re ok—all the useless platitudes that aren’t true but she expects to hear. He just holds her steady while she sobs.
He holds her together while she shatters apart.
~*~
He waits twelve hours, and even that feels like too long. Chase watches him as he packs a small bag and kisses Aurora goodbye, though Lucas thinks he turns away, busies himself so that he doesn’t listen as Lucas murmurs, “I’ll come home soon.”
Aurora doesn’t say anything, just stares at him with tear-bright eyes and a fierce glare, and he wonders what she would be like if she weren’t a Medusa, if Chase gave her the Bite.
Fierce and possessive and perfect.
“I’m coming back to you,” he promises, the closest either has gotten to professing feelings. Then he kisses her, a gentle brush of lips that steals the breath from her lungs before he’s turning away. He meets his Alpha’s eyes and says, “Take care of them.”
“Take care of yourself so you can come home and take care of them,” Chase orders and Lucas smiles as he slings his bag over his shoulder and leaves the little house in the woods, Stephen at his side.
~*~
Everyone—not Aurora, but everyone else—seems to accept it, without blinking, without even thinking. He doesn’t understand that, because he tore out Chelsea’s throat, and how the hell had that even happened? How was he—
He doesn’t understand and now Lucas is leaving, and he does understand that, the ruthless practicality of him that understands Lucas in a way Tyler never will, recognizes the need and even approves of the Left Hand doing what was demanded.
But the fox in him is pacing, anxious and screaming for the wolf to come back. He wants his Pack here, where he knows they’re safe, where he can scent and touch and protect.
Tyler watches him, his gaze unwavering and devoted, and he doesn’t understand that either.
He shivers in their bed, the scent of Pack and mate and home seeping in, with his magic, the Standing Stones, and the wild fox that feels so foreign yet so much a part of him.
It’s too much, too much power and too much change happening too fast. He shuffles on the bed—and he knows that the Pack will want to him to stay, want to go with him, desperate to be near their Alpha in the same way he’s desperate to be close to his Pack.
But he needs this, too.
He touches a rune on his hip as he strips, masking his scent before he slips out the window and the fox chitters with excitement, Shifting before his paws hit the ground.
~*~
He goes to the Standing Stones.
It’s not the start of everything, but sometimes he feels like it is. It feels like every good and bad thing circles back to these damn rocks, that they’ve carved a place for him that he never would have had otherwise—that it shredded him while carving that place, and the scars it left behind were more than he thought he could carry.
So he goes to the Standing Stones now, quick feet eating up the few miles between the den and the rocks. He can’t feel his magic like this, but his senses are blown wide open, and the closer he gets, the more he can feel something.
Ancient, alien, familiar, welcoming.
He yips and scampers right up to the stone, scratching at it with sharp little black claws. The magic wraps around him and he hears a distant howl—Tyler—before the world slips away.
~*~
Chase blinks, looking at the cave spreading high and immense around him. He groans and pushes to his feet, the sound echoing and pressing close.
He’s in a wide empty space, so dark it’s blinding. The Standing Stones are the only thing in the massive cave, and he pads closer, wary. But even now, he feels safe. Comforted and cherished, like the warm welcome he feels in his father’s home and in the den, and he touches the Stones gently, a brush of his fingers over the ancient rocks.
You’ve changed, Chase DeWitt, a musical voice says. It sounds like wind in the trees, like birds singing and the slow, ponderous thrum of magic in the forest.
&
nbsp; Knew. We knew.
“Knew what?”
You’re special. We knew you’d heal the land, heal the Pack.
“I don’t want to heal anything,” Chase argues stubbornly, and the magic flares hot and amused.
Don’t you understand, little fox? You never wanted anything but your wolves safe. It’s why you bound yourself to us as a child. You burn so bright and beautiful, and you would give it all to them.
“They’re my family,” he says lamely.
We know. You’re special, child. You don’t seek power for yourself. You bound yourself to us without knowing the consequences because you love them. That is the true magic.
“You realize that’s idiotic, right? You’re a bunch of fucking talking rocks. You brought me to this dreamspace to tell me the power of love is the true magic? Love didn’t kill Tripp Cahil.”
Didn’t it? The voices turn teasing, sly. You killed Chelsea to protect your wolf. To protect Lucas. You bound yourself to us to protect Tyler from the witches and threats that would take a ripe, unclaimed territory.
Chase is still, watching, and the magic warms, swirling around him, ruffling his hair.
You believed that you could protect them. Believed you could make them whole again. And you gave everything you had to make that belief real.
“I’m—I’m not special. I’m a kid playing in a world that was never meant for me.”
Do you think we care anything about goodness? We know that you are cold and cruel when necessary. That you will kill to protect, and use the magic we gave you to do it. It’s why we gave you the kitsune.
“I don’t understand.”
You don’t have to. You have the family you wanted and the ability to protect them, and the land is healing. You don’t have to understand anything more than that as of now. You have a lifetime to understand, and your wolves to help you.
“It scares me,” Chase confesses.
The voices sigh, like the winds before a storm rushing through leaves. You’re still fighting it. The Bite—we never wanted that, because you never wanted that. It would have killed you, if we hadn’t intervened. But the kitsune—it’s not something separate living inside you, no more than our magic is. It’s yours. It’s you, brave boy. It is the wild unfettered part of you that will never second guess or question instinct, and will die to protect your Pack.
He feels it stir, a warm preening in his chest, and he grins as the voices laugh, raindrops against roses.
Silly proud creature. Trust him, Chase. Trust yourself.
The glow around the stone, which had grown slowly and steadily while they spoke, shudders now, a tendril shifting to caress him. It feels like the gentle touch of his mother’s fingers in his hair, like Lucas’s grip on his shoulder, like Tyler’s warm hand in his. It feels like his father’s steady embrace, and he shivers, nodding.
There’s a puff of laughter and dust, the old musty air of something ancient and dry, and—
~*~
He wakes, sneezing, pawing at his nose and shaking his head.
The forest is dark and he can’t feel the magic of the Standing Stones, but there’s a familiar scent and he turns towards it, picking his way through the dark until he comes to the back door of a familiar house. He can hear footsteps inside, a worried, tired voice, and he whines, scratches at the door, then finally barks, high and demanding.
The door is jerked open and Chase falls through into his father’s familiar arms, scrambling into them and pressing into his neck with quick little pants. His dad sighs.
“Oh, kiddo.”
~*~
Lucas comes home to a quiet empty house and no Alpha.
“He’s safe,” Tyler says, “But John says he needs a couple days.”
“He’s not like her,” Lucas says, and his brother looks at him, eyes haunted and desperate, and Lucas squeezes the back of his neck. “He’ll come back. He always comes back to us.”
Tyler nods, looking so fragile, hollowed out, but not broken.
Lucas thinks he’ll stay like this until Chase comes home, but if there’s one thing he’s very sure of—it’s that Chase will come home.
~*~
Lucas slips into her bed, and Aurora turns to him.
“You didn’t kill him.”
“Not all of my work calls for killing, darling girl,” he smiles, smug.
She pinches his nipple and he laughs, catching her hand and dragging her close until they’re pressed close, legs twisted together, thoroughly caught, and he feels the tension in her spine drain away.
“Will you tell me what happened?”
Lucas sighs and kisses her hair. “No, darling. Not until I’ve spoken to Chase.”
She’s quiet as she tucks herself under his chin, and she whispers the words into the dark, a secret fear. “Everything is going to change, isn’t it? Now that he’s the Alpha.”
Lucas hums and runs a hand down her spine. “Maybe—some things, certainly. Until hierarchy is established, at least. But Aurora, sweetheart, Chase has been our Alpha in all the ways that matter since he was sixteen.”
“I know that,” she snaps, “but he killed her, Lucas. He’s a fox, an Alpha, and a Shaman, and we have no idea what kind of threats that’ll bring to our door.”
“We don’t know, but we’ll face them, same as we always do,” Lucas says, impossibly sure. “Chase would never allow someone to hurt his Pack, Aurora. And I would never allow anyone to hurt what’s mine.”
He draws her chin up, forcing her to meet his gaze. “And you might not be mine, darling, but I’m yours. Do you understand?”
She shivers, staring at him. Lucas Reid was never her plan. None of the Reids were. Chase wasn’t. But he’s watching her, this beautiful, dangerous man, his eyes shining with an otherworldly light, and—
“I love you,” she whispers.
His smile is as triumphant as it is pleased, and then he’s pushing her to her back and kissing her, and when he presses inside, she cries out and listens to him whisper, over and over like a promise, like a vow, “Mine.”
Chapter 31
In his dream, his muscles burn a pleasant ache, the kind of sweet ache he loves after he’s worked out with Tyler, and he wants to lean into that, revel in the sweet burn.
Now, though—now he runs, a quick darting shadow through the night-dark forest. He can hear the wolves on either side, and he lets his tongue loll out happily, but as Lucas presses close, he darts away, scampering and jumping over roots, darting through tiny gaps in the trees the bigger, muscular wolves can’t manage, and he can feel giddy pleasure burning at the back of his throat. Tyler huffs and snarls, before crashing off.
They’re loud tonight, his wolves.
A beta howls ahead and he screams back, jumping and twisting mid-air to run the opposite direction as his wolves charge at him.
His tail tickles Tyler’s nose as he darts past.
The night stretches dark and full of promises as his wolves sing through the woods and Aurora screams, eerie and joyful, while the Standing Stones pulse a steady drumbeat in his veins.
~*~
John gives Chase until noon before he knocks and pushes into his son’s bedroom. Chase is wrapped up his favorite blanket, staring blankly at the wall, and John sighs.
“I can’t do this, dad,” he says.
“You don’t really have a choice,” John points out, ridiculously reasonable, and Chase gives him a half-hearted glare. John smiles.
“I haven’t even had a full moon,” Chase snaps. His eyes are flaring, red flames and desperate worry, and John moves without really thinking. Chase whines, high and worried, as his father tugs him up and into his arms. “You’ve had ten years worth of full moons.”
Chase twitches in his embrace and John huffs.
“Chase, you’ve been taking care of the Reids since you were fourteen years old. You love them and they love you. You walked three betas through their first full moon and none of them have lost control, not ever. Do you really thin
k your Pack will do any less for you?”
He hiccups and shakes his head.
“What is it, really? I know you—I know you’re not actually doubting your Pack. You’re too smart for that.”
He’s quiet, chewing on his lip, then says, “I went to the Standing Stones. Because—Dad, it’s too much. I feel like there’s four things living under my skin, and where do I fit? Even if I figure that out, the power I’ve got in me—I saw the Standing Stones, Dad. I saw them and they’re so different than feeling their magic washing into the forest. It’s ancient unchecked power, and it’s got no guidance. It’s just—there, renewing the magic in the land and the health of the land.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” John says.
Chase jerks upright out of his father’s arms, flailing a little. “No, it’s great, right? Except now that power is living in me and I’m not a neutral sentient Stone, Dad. I’m—I’m me, and I want to be good, I want to do the right thing like you and like Tyler, but I get it when Lucas kills people. I understand the practicality of it. And I think, if anything threatened you or the Pack? I try to think about what I wouldn’t do, and I can’t. Do you get that? There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to protect you.”
He sounds hysterical, terrified, and John wants to shake him as much as he wants to drag him close and protect him from the rest of the world. Neither are really an option.
He sits up and says, “I think about what I’d do to protect you, and I scare myself, Chase. I bet that if you ask, Tyler would say the same. That’s what love is, kiddo. And you’ve always loved deeply, to the point of obsession, and it’s scary. But you—you’re a good person. You might be feral and vicious when threatened, but you’re still a good person.” He pauses and adds carefully, “I think it’s what makes you a good Alpha.”
“What if I can’t do this?” Chase whispers.
John squeezes his shoulder. “You can. You can do anything your Pack needs. You’ve always been able to do anything they need.”
~*~
He can feel them, the familiar golden bonds that tie him to his Pack, the ones he created for the betas and Aurora, the ones that bind him to Lucas and Tyler that he never meant to create but that are there, thick, strong, and unbreakable.
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