by SJ Himes
Jameson knew how Rael felt about him, and hoped it was more than infatuation, more than a crush. He breathed in deep, and focused on meeting Rael’s gaze, holding it. Rael had to believe him. “I want you, Rael. I want you safe, and happy, and you don’t deserve to be booted from your pack and forced from your home. I want to see you flourish and thrive, and I hope you can do all of that with me in your life.” Jameson took another breath, hoping he wasn’t coming across as too much. “If you accept my courtship and agree to mate me, you’ll make me very happy, and I will do my best to make you happy in return.”
He wanted to mention that he'd always planned to ask Rael out, but he was sure that Rael wouldn’t believe him if he mentioned that right now. Rael blinked at him, stunned, his body rigid and unmoving, eyes once again a bright blue so intense it was incomparable. Jameson rubbed his hand over Rael’s thigh, trying to soothe him.
Finally, Rael snapped out of his shock, and he looked away into the small field. Crickets sang, a gentle breeze rustling the grass and leaves lining the path.
“You mean it?” His voice was tiny and hesitant. Jameson ached to hear the doubt.
“I do,” Jameson promised. Rael blushed again, eyes darting up to look at him as if checking his sincerity. He didn’t take it personally. Rael had received little welcome in the pack as the years passed and it became apparent he would never transform. Friends fell away and pack members already uncomfortable with Rael’s parentage took the excuse to distance themselves further. Rael had little faith in his own people, and they deserved that mistrust.
He held his breath as Rael seemed to come to a decision. “I agree to your… courtship. If you’re serious about it.”
Jameson let the relief flow through him, and he smiled wide, cheered when Rael smiled back, cheeks bright and eyes aglow.
“Come on, let’s get back to the pack meeting. I think your mother needs to head to work.” Rael scampered off his lap, and Jameson stood. He reached out and took Rael’s hand, entwining their fingers, and he gently tugged, leading a blushing Rael back into the trees.
Rael rolled out of bed the next morning with a groan. His joints ached, and he rubbed hard at his face, wishing the buildup to the full moon wasn’t so draining. He might not be able to transform, but he still felt the moon’s pull, the instinctive desire to become a wolf, to run and hunt. As a result, his body ached for a week or so before the full moon, attempting to answer the moon’s call and falling short.
Scylla poked her head around the doorframe. “Heard you groaning. How bad is it?”
“Horrible, as usual,” Rael grumbled, staggering to his feet. He blinked at his mother, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
She was dressed in a white blouse, tan slacks, and heels. He stared, wondering if he was dreaming. He even smelled perfume, lavender or something. His mom was a jeans, t-shirt, and leather jacket kind of person when not in scrubs, and the last time he saw her dressed up like this was for a funeral for a coworker. She frowned, then looked down at her outfit before laughing. “I’ve got a job interview this morning.”
“For what?” Scylla loved being a nurse. She’d done it for decades. “A new job? Did you get fired? What’s going—”
“Rael!” Scylla shouted over his nervous rambling. She came into his room and rubbed his arms, pulling him into a quick hug. He gasped at the tugging on his shoulder joints, and she gentled her embrace. “Everything is fine, I promise.”
“Then what’s going on?”
Scylla pulled back and shrugged. “There’s an opening for Chief Nursing Officer at Boston General,” she said, looking nervous and excited. “I’ve been there for thirty years—I figured it was time to aim higher.”
“Sounds important?” He had no clue, but his mom was an NP, nurse practitioner, and she made an effort to keep up with current medical issues and stuff, going back for a refresher course every ten years or so. Tons of medical professionals at Boston General were long-lived supernaturals, his mom one of them. He was admittedly not caught up on everything his mom did, since blood and internal body fluids made him lightheaded and Rael didn’t need another reminder of how different he was from his werewolf kin. His mom’s stomach was made of steel.
“Very important,” Scylla said. “Come on, I made breakfast. I need to head out, but your plate is in the oven. Text me if the pain gets worse, I’ll run home. The aconite is in the fridge.”
“I’ll be alright,” he replied, following her out of his room and down the hall to the kitchen. She grabbed a suit blazer hanging from the back of a chair at the table and her purse from the counter, heading for the kitchen door that led to the garage. She hurried back, hugged him gently, kissed his cheek, then sprinted for the door. He called after her. “Good luck!”
She waved over her shoulder as the kitchen door shut behind her. A moment later he heard her car start, then pull out of the garage, the garage door shutting with a soft thump. The house echoed with the hum of the central air running, and the fridge kicked on. He gingerly went to the oven, turning off the warmer, and he pulled out the plate covered in tinfoil. He set the plate on the table, went to the fridge, and saw the six-pack of aconite tonic sitting on the top shelf.
He grabbed a beer-sized glass bottle of the tonic and sat at the table, grimacing as his hips and knees complained. The glass bottle was cold, and the bitter tang of the aconite filled the air as he ripped off the plastic top. Scylla got the formula from an apothecary in Beacon Hill, an unfortunate necessity for people like Rael.
Too human to be a werewolf, but not human enough to resist the moon’s call. Others out there had the same issue. Enough that a local apothecary carried it. He didn’t know any other first-generation hybrids with a problem like his, but werewolves were insular and stuck to their own packs. He got more information from healers and medical professionals like his mom than he did from werewolf histories. There was no shared historical archive—packs had their own histories, and that was it. And they rarely shared information.
He had no idea what was in the tonic aside from aconite—wolfsbane—but that was enough. Tiny pureed pieces of purple flowers floated in the off-green smoothie, and he unfortunately knew how bad it was going to taste. He exhaled, then chugged the whole bottle as fast as he could manage. It burned as it went down, and he struggled not to inhale, not wanting the fumes to get in his lungs until he swallowed it all.
Throat on fire, Rael forced himself to swallow the last mouthful, then slapped a hand over his mouth as he waited out the instinctive urge to vomit the poison back up. Cramps hit his stomach a moment later, and he groaned, waiting for it to pass. Pain wracked his whole body as the poison spread, dulling everything. Smell, vision, hearing, even taste all felt smothered, lessened, as the aconite reduced his inherited werewolf traits.
The side effects would last for a couple hours, and he would be sluggish and cranky, but the stressed joints as a result of the waxing moon would ease, and the pain would stop. Sometimes a whole bottle left him pain free for an entire day, and when he had first begun taking the tonic a year ago, one bottle would last him half a week.
A year later, and now a single bottle lasted only twenty-four hours.
He didn’t start getting the joint pains in a severe fashion until he was seventeen or so, and his mother could only guess it was due to the fact that his body wanted to change, expected to change, but he was missing the key genetic components in his DNA to finish the transition. Most first-generation hybrids could still transform, the werewolf DNA dominant. Except in Rael’s case. His human genes were dominant, and most of the markers responsible for the transformation were recessive. All he could manage was claws, fangs, and heightened senses and physical abilities. And the eye glow, but that wasn’t so special. Plenty of supernatural species had glowing eyes.
The pain from the tonic receded, taking with it the joint aches. He straightened in the chair and carefully went about eating breakfast, taking his time in case his stomach rebelled. He was just finishi
ng up and putting his plate in the dishwasher when a knock came at the front door.
Frowning, he went and answered it, a woman in a brown delivery uniform smiling at him from the front stoop. “Hi! Are you Rael Morrow?”
“Um, yeah?” He’d never gotten a delivery before in his life, and after she had him sign on a tablet that she held out to him, she gave him a blue silk bag with something flat and slim inside.
She left before he could ask who it was from. Heading inside, he shut the door then tugged open the strings of the bag.
He stared in befuddlement at the dark blue velvet box, and he stopped breathing when he thumbed it open. A black leather cord sat nestled in the velvet lining, and a bright blue gem in a silver filigree setting shaped to look like leaves glinted up at him. He squinted, and saw tiny silver spires of flowers, and he wondered what kind they were meant to be, but the gem caught the light, glittering brilliantly and distracting him.
He pulled out the pendant, putting the box on the table next to the door, and let the cord unwind, the pendant swinging gently. A piece of paper fluttered to the floor, and he bent down for it.
He stopped breathing again as he read the note.
The gem is no match for your eyes, but I hope it conveys how beautiful I think they are. Love, Jameson.
The pendant was silver, the gem it held the size of a robin’s egg, and he marveled at it. And the fact that Jameson knew Rael was immune to silver. Werewolves couldn’t handle silver, it burned and poisoned, but Jameson sent him a gift that Rael could wear safely.
He blushed despite no one being around. Rael clutched the pendant to his chest and tried to wrap himself around the gift.
Chapter 4
Rael headed to work that afternoon with a silly grin on his face, and he got a ribbing when he walked through the front door of the tattoo parlor. Inks & Stings was owned by a fae artist named Saoirse, and she was working on a client when he walked through the front door.
He passed her on the way to the employee rooms in the back, and she caught sight of his face before he managed to sneak past. He ducked his head and put his jacket in the break room, and then went about restocking the stations out front. Saoirse didn’t say anything, though he felt her gaze on him several times as he worked. Eventually she finished with her client, and Rael made himself busy as she rang them out.
“Alright, what’s up with you,” Saoirse demanded as she cornered him at the door of the stock room.
“What do you mean?” He tried to avoid her piercing gaze, but she was far, far older than him and way better at reading body language. Tall, with short black hair and dark brown skin, Saoirse had rich bourbon-colored eyes and spell-infused tattoos that followed her hairline and disappeared behind her left ear before trailing down her neck. Fae symbols and designs, and she wore silver studs carved with the same designs in her ear lobes and one through her left eyebrow. Clad in a sleeveless white tee and tight black jeans and shiny black leather shoes, she was eye-catching and intimidating. He only considered her scary because she once beat a would-be robber with her tattoo gun and then tied him up with an electrical cord and waited for the cops to arrive, all while reassuring her stunned client and Rael that she’d finish the tattoo she’d been doing shortly. And well, she was just a badass and he felt like a puppy who’d peed on the carpet whenever she lifted a pierced brow at him when he messed up or said something foolish.
“Quit the shit,” she crossed her arms and blocked the door. “You had a pack meeting last night, and I was expecting you to be depressed as fuck because Mercer is a bigoted fuck and he kicked you out of the pack, but instead you’re smiling and have this dreamy look in your eyes.”
“Oh, um,” he was very aware of the pendant hidden under his shirt. It almost tickled—he wasn’t used to wearing jewelry, so he was hyper-aware of the pendant hanging between his pectorals. He really shouldn’t be wearing it out since it was probably horribly expensive but the thought of putting it down was unimaginable. She narrowed her eyes when he didn’t answer, and he coughed, deciding to give her an abbreviated version of the previous night’s events.
“Mercer wanted to kick me out of the pack since he considers me human, and humans can’t be pack unless they’re mated to a werewolf, and then Jameson said I could mate with him and that way my mom and I don’t need to leave the pack, and so Jameson is courting me and we have a month to decide if we suit and then get mated or the pack might split when Jameson leaves if we don’t mate.”
“What?!” Saoirse’s jaw dropped. She held up a finger when he opened his mouth to explain, and she went to the front of the parlor and flipped over the closed sign, locked the door, and then gestured him out to the seating area near the counter. He sat, and she moved to the center of the seating area and then nodded. “Okay, explain that again, but go slow and don’t leave out a thing.”
He explained the whole evening, though he left out the kissing on the park bench. Her brows disappeared into her hairline with each word that passed from his lips and she looked ready to commit murder by the time he finished. Rael did tell her that he’d agreed to Jameson courting him, and she eyed him suspiciously when he blushed, but she didn’t mention it.
“Mercer needs a sword run through his gut. What a waste of an alpha.”
He grimaced at the gory imagery that evoked, but he agreed with the sentiment. Mercer was an asshole.
“Jameson sounds amazing, though. Is he that alpha you’ve been mooning over since you were a tween?” She smirked when he rolled his eyes, face going hot, and he stood, heading for the counter. “Oohh, he is the alpha you’ve had a crush on! What do you want for a mating gift?”
He sighed loudly at her teasing. “He doesn’t mean it,” Rael said quietly, checking to make sure the receipt printer had paper and that the display case holding piercing jewelry was clean.
Saoirse was quiet for a long moment, and he looked back at her. She was frowning at him, brows pinched.
“What?”
“If Jameson is really such a selfless person to court you in order to keep you from being kicked out of the pack, I don’t think he’s also selfish enough to cause so much potential upheaval in the pack by not going through with the mating and causing the pack to split along loyalty lines. That makes no sense. Either he genuinely cares about you and the courtship is real, making him a good person with sincere intent, or he’s a selfish dumbass who can’t see that the trouble is only delayed and not resolved when the courtship goes nowhere. Which is he?”
Rael gaped at Saoirse. “Jameson is not selfish! He’s one of the kindest, smartest people I know.”
Saoirse gave him a smug smile and headed for the door. “Well then. I think you know which is which. Maybe enjoy yourself and take this chance to see if your crush can be something more than a childhood infatuation.” She flipped the sign over to Open and checked her phone. “I’ve got an appointment in twenty minutes. Help me restock my station?”
“Yeah, sure,” he murmured, absently heading for the supply room and his interrupted duties. He felt the pendant against his skin, and it felt heavier, though it wasn’t—his awareness of it was stronger, along with the reminder of who sent it to him.
The night air was damp, the wind picking up, made worse by the buildings lining each side of the street. Athens Street ran parallel to West Broadway where the tattoo parlor was located, and home was a short walk of four blocks to the northwest. Their tiny home was nestled between new condos stacked nearly atop each other, new construction as far as the eye could see. At least most of the condos made an effort to look like houses with wooden siding and not concrete blocks of boringness. If they had to move in a month, Scylla would get a decent price for the house from the condo developers. It would get torn down, but it wasn’t a landmark. Not important.
He wondered how his mom’s interview went—she was scheduled to work a full shift, so she should be home already. It was late, after midnight, and he was tired. The parlor stayed open later than most mundan
e-run establishments to accommodate nocturnal supernatural species. A long day of wondering and worrying and overthinking everything left him with little energy.
He was two blocks from home when the wind changed from blowing hard against his back to swirling against his face, pushing back dark strands of brown hair away from his eyes. Scents went by too fast for him to parse them out, though ozone and tar were ever-present. He squinted against the wind and ducked his face into his jacket collar.
A hint of something musky zipped by on the breeze, and he paused, trying to figure out what it was, when a shadow moved along the alley wall of a building not too far ahead. Warped by light angles, he couldn’t tell who or what cast the shadow, but it was moving toward the end of the alley where it met the sidewalk. He stopped walking, taking his hands from his pockets, and thought about crossing the street to get some space. It might be someone who lived in the area just out for a late-night walk, or maybe a cat on a midnight hunt.
The wind changed again, and scents of musky fur, hot breath, and blood swamped his nose.
Werewolf.
Breath hitching, he took a step back, boot scraping on the pavement. The shadow jerked, forming into the silhouette of a long snout full of fangs with ears laid back in aggression. His brain was screaming at him that there was no reason for a werewolf to be transformed in the middle of Southie when the shadow rose up on two thick legs, claws extended, and a figure covered in dark steel gray fur stepped out around the corner of the alley.
The bipedal form of a mature werewolf was gigantic, wide shoulders, long arms that ended in long-fingered claws, a thick chest and hips that bent forward, slouching a bit, and legs thicker than any human could achieve, long feet with padded toes and claws to match the hands. Yellow eyes stared down at him from a height of about nine feet, and he took another step back. The wind died in that moment, and he was denied a chance to scent exactly who it was being dramatic in Southie by stripping naked in an alley and trying to intimidate him.