by Sam Hall
I heard Mason’s growls in the background as my face broke into the first real, true grin since I arrived. But I didn’t look at Mason, I couldn’t. Zack’s eyes, warm and dark as a massive cup of coffee, as sweet as chocolate, held mine, and I didn’t want to look anywhere else. I should have been asking questions, shouting something about the big reveal, but I just couldn’t. He was here. He’d followed me all the way back to hell, and Zack was here.
“I don’t have that problem, at all.” He reached over, rubbing his thumb on my chin. “I knew some shit was holding you back, that you’d have unfinished business before we could take things further. I was OK with waiting, knew it’d only be a matter of time.” He leaned down, slowly, so slowly, while Mason had something to say, but I couldn’t hear it. When my eyes closed, when Zack’s lips brushed mine, something shifted. An aching, clawing, keening thing—my wolf. She rubbed up inside me, pushing, trying to get at him. He pulled back slightly. “Now’s that time, babe. I’m not leaving this town until you’re mine.”
“What the fuck, Zack?”
Mason’s voice had our heads whipping around, but Zack paid it little mind, steering us inside the front door, assuming this was my place.
“So, brother?” I asked, arching an eyebrow.
“When I heard you talking about a Mason when you first came to town and you mentioned this place, I wondered.” Zack shrugged. “I guess now I know. We aren’t close, obviously.”
“Obviously. You never said you had a brother?”
“What was I gonna say? We grew apart. Maybe we were never really close. Mum died, he went his way, and I went mine.” He wavered a little on his feet, looking punch drunk. “I’ll answer any question you like, babe, but right now?”
“I’ll take you upstairs, settle you in,” I said. “You must be trashed.”
“I am that, but you need your rest too. Have you slept since you…?”
Got back from the hospital. This reticence to mention what we both knew was the reality, I remembered it from when Mum was sick.
“A little. I had to organise a family meeting.”
As if summoned, the tribe of Spehrs spilled from the conference room into the big foyer that made up the front of the house. Everyone was very quiet, very still—the wolf’s way of assessing the lay of the land.
“So you’re a friend of Paige’s then?” Nancy said, stepping forward. I saw where Selma got her smile from as Nance plastered one on, holding out a hand for him to shake. Zack did without letting go of me.
“I’m Zack. Friend, trainer, boss. I’ve fulfilled a lot of roles in Paige’s life since she left. I don’t see what’s happening down here changing that.”
“Trainer…?” Uncle Alan asked.
“Your girl’s a fighter. A damn good one at that.”
But they weren’t listening to his responses. No, their eyes were trained on the way Zack’s fingers played with the end of my plait. Fuck, I was focussed on the way he was doing that. On the ticklish feeling on my scalp, on the press of his body, on that fragile sense of wellbeing he brought with him, but mostly, those words reverberated around in my head, not letting any others in, even my family’s.
I’m not leaving this town until you’re mine.
Jesus, what the fuck did that mean? Like, it was plainly obvious what it meant, but…Zack and I, we kept things simple, easy. We were always there for one another, sexually if that’s where we needed to be, but he’d never said anything like this before. But I knew Zack, knew that mulish look in his eyes when he was determined to do something, and right now, that was me.
“You’re a fighter? Fucking—”
“That’s enough, Bridget.” Nance’s voice was sharp, sharper than she usually allowed in front of ‘company.’ “It appears we have a lot more to talk about. I’ll take the girls home, get them to pack a bag, and then come back here where you can explain—”
“Not today, she won’t.”
When Nance’s eyes snapped up to meet Zack’s, they were blazing.
“And who are you to be making orders in this house?”
“Here? This town? I’ve got nothing to say about that, but Paige? Yeah, you’ll find I have a lot of words to share. She drove all night to get down here. She’s been to see her dad in hospital. Anyone with half a brain can see she’s maxed out emotionally and fucking exhausted to boot. Whatever pissant bullshit you got going on here can wait until she’s had a decent sleep. With me.”
I felt my muscles sag, my body drooping slightly, but he held me tight against him. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do this, couldn’t stand up to my family or whatever, it was that I wanted to not need to. I needed them to remember that Dad and I, we were living breathing people as well as pivotal players in the town political landscape. I needed someone to put up boundaries and say enough, even if just for today, because I hadn’t been raised to do so.
“Fine,” Nance snapped. “Mason, have the maids set up rooms for both the girls. We’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Of course, Nancy,” Mason said much more calmly, giving her a respectful nod.
“C’mon,” Zack said with a tug on my hand. “Show me where the fuck the beds are around here, because I’m dead on my feet.”
So I didn’t stick around, saying goodbye to everyone in that long, protracted way families often do. Instead, I turned my back on them and walked up the stairs with Zack.
“This is my room,” I said, pushing open the door. “You can sleep here and I’ll—”
“Sleep right beside me.” He yanked his shirt up over his head, stopping me in my tracks when those massive slabs of muscles were revealed. I saw them most days at work, but it said something about the sheer fucking beauty of Zack’s body that it made my brain go offline each time I did.
He took a deep breath and shot me a sleepy smile. “That damn scent. It’s been one of the few things that kept me going, that hot flush of receptivity.” But when he walked around the bed, he just pulled me into his arms, holding me against his chest. “But I’m beat and so are you. You’ve been stretching yourself thin again, haven’t you?”
Zack likened the uncompromising attitude I’d learned at my father’s knee as treating yourself like a rubber band—you just stretched yourself and kept on stretching until the goal was achieved, your own needs be damned.
“Look, I have to—”
“You don’t have to do shit,” he said, pushing me towards the bed, then he went around the other side and peeled back the covers before sliding his sweatpants off.
He was hard. That often seemed to be the case when we were in a room together, though he’d shown himself more than adept at ignoring it when required. He just grinned when he caught me checking him out and then got under the covers.
“Get in the bed, Paige, before I get out and drag you in.”
“Fucking bossy shifters.”
He just watched me strip down to my underwear with heavily lidded eyes, as I pulled a loose T-shirt on instead of the compression top, that lazy smile getting broader as I did what he asked.
“Mm…” he said, pulling me in close when I tried to stay on my side of the bed, tangling our legs together, dwarfing me with his huge frame. “That’s it. That’s what I needed.” A few long breaths from him had my own regulating against it, something he’d trained me to do so many years ago. “That’s it, baby, slow and steady. Everything will be there, ready to be picked up when our eyes open. Just let it go for now. Just let go.”
I always fought this, the soporific hum of his voice, the stroke of his hand on my back, the regular thud of his heart, because mine knew no such peace. When the quiet came, so did the rest of it—all the worries and the pain and the bullshit I fought so hard to keep at bay. Just like in the ring, if I let my guard down, the crap came in swinging.
“Listen…” Zack mumbled. “Feel… Be…”
It should have been as inscrutable as a Zen koan, but I knew what he meant. I had to focus on what was, the feel, the sound, the smells a
round me, not the endless hamster wheel of my worries. With him, I’d learned how to get on and off it, but coming back here made that easy to forget. He made a pleased rumble when I snuggled into him, my hand going up almost tentatively to his collarbone. He covered my hand with his, our breaths becoming longer and longer, and the tidal hiss of them tugged me down into the blackness of sleep.
“Daddy!”
My eyes flicked open, for a moment disorientated by the dense darkness around me, my gaze flicking around as my heart thundered. As if to provide further evidence to support my panic, there was a sharp rap at the door. I struggled to sit up, to reach out for the lamp and turn the light on, but a heavy weight held me down.
Zack… my mind supplied belatedly. It was Zack.
“Hey…” he rasped, but then another knock came.
“Paige, we gotta go.”
Mason’s voice was muffled, but we both threw back the covers and pulled our clothes on, hearing the urgency there. Mason jerked back when the door was wrenched open and took in Zack’s bleary eyed state, but he forced his attention to me.
“Your dad… The hospital called.”
I heard the jangle of Zack’s keys as he grabbed my hand, pulling me out the door and down the stairs towards the front door.
“She comes with me,” Mason growled.
“Fuck off. You can walk in the door with her and do whatever it is you gotta do, but if you think I’m letting her get beyond five feet of me while this goes down, you’re dumber than I thought, brother.”
“We don’t have time for this,” I snapped, grabbing his keys and walking out. “Dad’s had a turn for the worse?”
“Yeah, we need—” Mason started.
“Get in the back. I’ll drive.”
“Oh no, sweetheart. I remember what you did to my gearbox last time.” Zack lunged for the keys.
“Then get us there as fast as you can. I don’t have time for family dramas.”
We piled into the car silently, another car following behind us. That’d be some of the enforcers coming up the rear.
“Paige—” Nance said as we rushed into the hospital ward reception area, but I brushed past her, Bridget, everyone to find the room he was in. I flew down the corridor, hearing the raised voices, the frantic pace of the machines surrounding my father, and knew I’d done everything wrong.
I’d let myself be distracted, by the contenders, by Mason, by the family, even Zack. I’d let all the minutiae of the living bog me down, because that’s what we did. Nance asked for my time, Mason wanted to talk to me, I wanted to see Stevie. That great spider web of relationships had surrounded me, ensnared me the minute I got into town, and kept me from this.
“Ms Spehr, I’m afraid things aren’t looking good,” a harried doctor told me, trying to stand between me and my father. Because they all scurried, scurried, scurried to try and keep the reigning alpha alive. Because there was no heir apparent waiting in the wings.
I’d come back home, thinking things were like they were in the city, that the only expectations on me were my own. I should’ve been here, parked my arse in that chair, and refused to leave until Dad either walked out of here or was carried out. That was my duty. I pushed past the doc, not willing to accept any other barriers right now, and plastered myself against the wall as the medical professionals compressed his ribcage, trying to make his heart take over and do the work, despite the high-pitched whine and the disturbing flat line on the vital signs monitor.
But it was too late. I’d known that when I heard Mason’s knock, his terse words. I’d known it when I saw Dad for the first time in the hospital. I didn’t understand medical procedures, but respirators, that was never a good sign. Fuck, I’d known it in that terse call in the middle of the night, but there was something else too.
When I’d walked away, when I’d refused to come back. When I’d stopped taking Dad’s calls. When I’d ‘moved on with my life’ and allowed myself to enjoy my existence. That had to come with a price, didn’t it? The doctors and nurses worked and worked, the screaming sounds of the monitors a wretched soundtrack. They worked until finally one, then another, pulled back, the reality hitting all of us. But some of their eyes darted to me, and they took up the fight again, compressing and placing those electrical paddles on his chest, shoving his body over and over in the dim hope it would come back to life.
But it wouldn’t, would it? I’d been given opportunity after opportunity to make things right, mend the breach. Shit, work with Dad to change his mind and transfer the designation of heir to one of the other girls as Zack had urged. Do something. But I hadn’t wanted to, too much of the here and now keeping me busy, keeping me from thinking of him.
Well, I wanted to now, didn’t I? But I was too bloody late.
“It’s OK.” My voice didn’t sound like my own, echoing around in my head. “You did your best.”
That appeared to be the absolution the people in the room needed, their breaths coming in sharp rasps as they stepped back from my father’s body. Alpha Adam Spehr was dead.
I threw my head back, my throat struggling to make the noise in this form, the urge to take fur too much. I let out a long, mournful howl, one that reverberated throughout the room and down the halls as others joined my wild dirge. The door slammed open, and Zack came running in, red marks on his skin making it evident he’d had to fight past someone to get to me. I looked at him for a second before I released my hold on this form and gave in to the other.
The stink, of humans, of bleach, of death, all smothered in layers of human lies, was too much. Fleet of foot, I ran from the room, careening across the too slick floors, smashing into walls, into IV stands, into chairs before scrabbling out of this too bright, too clean, too horrible place. I paused only for a minute when I got outside, sniffing the air and listening to the stories on the breeze, and then I was off, running with a sure and steady gait.
More howls filled the night, some long and sad, some much more frightening in their intent. They announced challenge, let the pack know a hunt was on. My feet tore on the asphalt as I ran and ran and ran, the devil chasing me now, or they would be. I veered off, down familiar alleyways and long quiet streets, past houses and cars until they bled away to paddocks and sheep. They skittered at my presence, those soft creatures kept locked up and vulnerable, but I ran past them too. Ran until I stumbled into the peace of the softwood plantations, the huge stand of radiata pines covering the ground in a thick blanket of pine needles, the hush of the breeze through their leaves enough to cover my rasping breathing.
We needed to hide, that’s what my beast’s instincts told me, or get in one of those metal boxes man liked so much and drive until we were well beyond Lupindorf. To another pack’s territory, that would stop them. Packs didn’t invade other packs’ turf, only lone wolves could pass through unmolested. My whine was slight, weak, as I considered just how far that was. I got few chances for my wolf to run in the city, reduced to slipping out with Zack and our workmates when the press got too great, taking off on a camping trip to allow us the opportunity to take fur. But it was too late. The howls, they grew louder, closer, the bloodlust up.
With the ancestral memories my kind carried in fur, I realised this was how it always was. Not in animals, not even in other packs, but in ours it was thus—the female of the line was the key to power, and as such, a commodity that could be taken, stolen, fought over.
So they did.
My muscles quivered as I heard them approach, announcing to all and everyone their aim. Some refuted, snarled their violent objections, but which set of paws were theirs and which were my attackers? My furred ears flicked wildly, trying desperately to predict what they’d do, where they’d come from, before my body exploded. All the pent-up adrenalin I needed to use in the fight to come flooded my system as my animal brain grasped what was going to happen.
Grandma Spehr had told us one night, when all us girls were on the brink of womanhood, of the old ways. When the daughter of
the moon, Mother Moon, was set before the strongest and fastest males of the pack and chased to ground. Run until her legs gave out, pursued until her heart beat too damn fast, the males falling upon her, upon the other males with a viciousness that signalled one intent—he who was still standing at the end took control of the pack.
“This is how we know we are not truly the animals whose forms we take. What lives within us is some kind of inscrutable magic, but it is not a wolf. The females fight amongst themselves far more viciously in actual packs. Males are content to snap and snarl, bare teeth and bluster, but not the females. It is for them the vicious pleasure of sinking fangs into haunches and tearing, writing clearly on the other female’s flesh your will to power. She who emerges on top, it is she the alpha male ‘chooses.’”
Grandma smiled then, her old yellowing teeth seeming too sharp in the dim light of her front room.
“This is why you must heed your alpha, ensure the path of succession is clear.” All my female cousins’ eyes swung around to look at me, something that just made me shrink down against the floral flounce of Gran’s lounge suite cover. “Without it, the old ways will return. Friend fighting friend, brother fighting brother, chaos and blood and terror reigning until one emerges, red of tooth and claw. But what of those he stepped over to take that position?”
She shook her head and picked up her knitting, her fingers working the needles swiftly. “I saw a hunt when I was younger than you, saw the chaos and the pain it created. Heed my words and start casting your eyes now over the contenders. Know your own heart, so that by the time the choosing comes, you’ll be happy with your mate. It’s all any of us want for you girls—to find the other half of your heart and live happily in peace.”
The memory racketed around in my brain, like a pebble in a shaken bucket, Gran’s words repeating over and over and over until…