by Lola Gabriel
“Yes. And neither the parchment nor Keira and Axel’s bond would have worked alone. You needed both.” Again, the witched paused. She walked back to her chair but didn’t sit down. She just picked up a cardigan that was hung there. “I will let you see Keira, on one condition.”
“Yes,” Chance said at the same time Axel said, “Fine.”
“Tell me how you feel about one another?”
Chance and Axel looked at each other, wondering who would start. Finally, Axel was the one to begin.
“Chance cares deeply for his sister and his pack. He can be funny, but not always at the right times, and he may have slight anger issues. He leads in a different way to me, but he’s a good leader. I… I respect him, I suppose.” Axel was about to avoid Chance’s eyes, then realized how childish that would be. Instead, he nodded at the man who had been his teammate through so much.
Chance cleared his throat. “Sometimes, Axel can be… well… a wuss. Often, he’s right about thinking things through, though. He would do anything for his pack. His family seems to be strong and loving… and he is my sister’s mate, there’s no question of that.”
Agnes clapped her hands together.
“Finally!” Then she pointed at the parchment now resting on the sofa’s armrest. “And that contract is binding?” Again, the men exchanged a glance. Agnes took this as a yes, apparently. “Keira is fine,” she said. “She’s been healing since the moment she arrived. Do you see? Keira and Axel’s bond, the parchment… This all had to happen, was destined to happen, to unite your packs as they have always previously been united. You were one when you came to Alaska—all you shifters were. Petty jealousies stand in your way. You can be far too close to human sometimes.”
Both men had stood up and were barely listening to the witch. They were incoherently shouting at the same time.
“How dare you trick us!”
“Take us to her now!”
Agnes put a finger to her lips to shush them, and Axel and Chance were quiet. “It worked, didn’t it?”
29
Keira
Keira opened her eyes. She had been in and out of consciousness since she had arrived at Ambrosia House. She had been surrounded by various witches—young and old, casting incantations and removing bandages—and Byron, always sitting in the chair by her bedside, sleeping or reading, ready to say, “Hi, sleepyhead,” or “Any better?”
This time, the curtains had been opened. It was one of the few sunny hours of the day, and white fall light tumbled into the room. It didn’t even hurt Keira’s eyes. She put her hands under the covers, which were clean and fresh and must have been changed during her latest bout of unconsciousness. Nothing. No bandages, no pain. She was still drowsy, but that was about it.
Keira smiled and turned on her side to greet Byron. Instead, she found Chance in the armchair, looking beyond exhausted. His hair was greasy, and he had bags so dark, they were almost bruises under his eyes. He was smiling.
“I hate to say it, sis, but in that weird nightgown, and in this light, you look a bit like an angel.” Keira laughed, glad to find she could without pain.
“Chance.” She said his name quietly, her voice feeling very unused. “You look awful. What happened?”
Chance leaned forward. “You did.”
“Ugh, you smell as bad as you look.” Chance wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands.
“Yes, it’s tears,” he said. “You nearly died or whatever, and we had to go back in time. It was this whole thing.” Keira laughed.
“You what?” Chance waved a hand. The explanations could come later. Suddenly, though, Keira’s face went dark. “Oh, Chance, I’m sorry. This was my fault. I was shifted too long… I barely remember it. I ate a rabbit, and then I was looking for you and Axel, and when I saw you, I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted to stop you fighting, but not like that.”
Chance had a hand on his sister’s elbow. “We can talk about it later, Keira, but please know it wasn’t your fault. On this one, it’s useless to apportion blame, but we can probably shift it to all three of us.”
Keira cocked her head at the mentioning of the three of them. Chance nodded to the other side of the bed. Keira turned her head. Axel was asleep on his chair, leaning forward so that his head was on the edge of her bed, his fingers twitching with dreams, close to where hers had been lying in her sleep. Keira let out a small gasp. She turned back to Chance.
“You’re in the same room? Both alive?” Chance smiled.
“I like him better when he’s asleep, but I can deal with him awake. We got some new information while you were catnapping. And we were forced to spend some time together. I’ll let him explain.” He leaned over and pulled his sister into a hug. “That doesn’t hurt, does it?”
“No,” she said, pressing her face against his chest, “not at all.” The last time they’d hugged, Keira thought, had been their father’s funeral.
“I love you, Keira,” Chance muttered, halfway to his favorite gruff tone, pulling away from the hug and laying his sister softly back down in her pillows.
“Love you, bro,” Keira said, a cheeky smile on her lips. Chance stood up.
“I’m going to leave you two alone,” he said. “I think Agnes said something about a privacy enchantment or something, but I’ll check. I don’t want to hear anything.” Chance walked slowly across the room, clearly exhausted. At the door, one hand on the handle, he turned. “By the way, I give you my blessing. You and Axel can be bonded, whenever you like. As soon as we can sort out the details of the ceremony with Fairbanks, if you want. I think our clans are going to make a good team. And I think you’re going to be very happy.”
As Chance closed the door, Keira felt she must be either dreaming or dead. What had happened in the few days she’d been sleeping? When she turned herself to where Axel was asleep, she almost expected him to be gone. He was still there. He’d moved slightly since the last time she’d looked, so now his head was to the side, his hair falling across his face. Keira laced her fingers with his and felt that warm tingle of electricity, of light passing between them. With her other hand, she brushed back his dirty hair.
Axel’s eyes flickered open. His lips were chapped. Keira traced them with her thumb. He smiled and kissed it. “I fell asleep, I’m sorry. I was waiting for you…”
“It’s okay. You look so tired,” Keira said, pulling his hand against her chest. “I just spoke to Chance.” Axel made to sit up, to look over at the other chair, but Keira pulled him down. “It’s okay,” she said, “he wanted to give us some privacy.” She kissed Axel’s knuckles, one by one.
“I missed you,” Axel said. “I really thought— I’m so sorry.” Keira shook her head.
“Let’s not do blame, okay? How long was I out?”
“Very hard for me to say.” Axel laughed lightly and yawned. Keira followed suit.
“You’re infectious,” she said.
“You’re tired.”
Keira nodded and pulled on Chance’s hand. “Get in with me? It’s big enough.”
“I would get in a single sleeping bag with you, Keira, I don’t care how big the bed is.” Keira let go of his hand.
“Take off your top,” she said. “I want to see you. Feel your skin.” Obediently, Axel stood, pulling off his long-sleeved shirt and undoing his belt, dropping it on the floor.
“Just so it doesn’t scratch you,” he said. Keira raised her eyebrows but said nothing. Axel slipped under the covers and put his arms around her, and she nuzzled into his neck. “I must smell awful,” Axel said, “I haven’t showered.”
“No,” Keira said, “you smell extra like Axel. I like it.” She pushed her body toward his. “I like it a lot.” She wasn’t lying. The smell of her mate was intoxicating. She kissed his shoulder to taste his skin and ran her hands up and down his back to feel the muscle there, the few faint scars. To check he was real and all accounted for and hers. Every atom in her body seemed to be tingling, shining, doing new things.
“Does anything hurt, still?” Axel asked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m with you. I’m perfect. This is perfect.” Keira pulled back to look at him. “I love you, Axel. More than I can possibly say.” Axel smiled and kissed her.
“I love you, too. I went back in time for you, Keira. There were these… Well, my pack, and we got knocked out. Your brother is not so bad.”
“Axel,” Keira sighed. “Please don’t talk about my brother in bed.”
“Right.” Axel grinned. “New rule, no talking about Chance in bed. I should have guessed that one.” Gently, Keira twisted Axel’s hair around her fingers and pulled.
“You should have,” she muttered. “Are you both serious about time travel? Why?”
Now, Axel nuzzled her. She flipped over to be the little spoon, letting him push her hair away from her neck to nibble and lick. She was having a hard time not moaning. Axel paused to speak.
“I’ll tell you the story better tomorrow, I’m sure, but the coven had to show us something because they knew it was the only way we would believe it. Your father and mine fought over a girl. That’s the feud. And our grandfathers signed a pact to stay allies. It was hidden. By my father, actually.”
This was an awful lot of information to take in with the heat of Axel pushing against her.
“Also,” he went on, “you and I are part of… healing the rift?”
“Like, destiny?” Keira laughed. Axel hummed in agreement.
“Pretty much, actually. There’s something about time and it being fixed but nonlinear. But destiny is easier to say.” Axel’s hand had found its way under her nightdress and was playing with her breast. “Is this okay?” he murmured in her ear.
“Keep your hand there forever,” Keira told him, “as your other hand is here.” She pulled his free hand down between her thighs. Axel moaned at the feel of her wetness. He pulled her closer into him, and she could feel him pressing against his pants, against her buttocks. “Axel,” Keira breathed while she could still talk, “Chance gave us his blessing. If you want to—”
“Oh, god, yes.” Axel pushed his fingers into her, kissing her jawline. “Of course.”
Keira pulled Axel’s hand from between her thighs and flipped over to face him. She yanked the nightdress off over her head and wriggled out of her underwear.
“Axel,” she said, “do I have to take your pants off for you?”
“Are you okay? Are you well?” Keira smiled at his look of concern.
“Look at me,” she told him. There was not a scratch on her body, save for some silvery scars running down her sides and across her flat stomach. Axel traced them with his fingers, still damp from her. As Axel wasn’t doing it, Keira began to undo his pants. Axel helped, and he wriggled out of them and his boxer shorts. Keira stroked him, hard and warm and ready. She looked him in the eyes as she did it.
“I’ve barely been conscious,” she said, “but every part of me has missed you.”
Axel pulled her up to him, their mouths meeting, warm and wonderful. Keira wrapped a leg around him, pulling him close to her, loving the feeling of him pressing into her stomach, until he took her by the thighs and shifted her up. He slid inside her, making them both groan with pleasure.
Axel’s hand came up to her butt, pushing, controlling the slow motion of their lovemaking. They were both so sleepy, it was almost like dreaming. Slower and sweeter and fuller of warmth and light than before. Again, Keira lightly pulled Axel’s hair, watching as he bit his lip. They were on their sides, and she could feel him filling her, completing her somehow.
Keira thought she could stay like this forever: the sun on her back, Axel pushed against her, inside her, his hands on her and hers on him. In a way, she supposed she would. This thought excited her, and she began to move a little faster. Axel moaned, pulling her hair now. He said her name in her ear, full of love and want.
He ducked down again and put his mouth to her breast just as their strokes grew faster. That was it. It overcame her. The warmth below her belly extended, washed over her, became that electricity from before. She arched her back and pulled him into her, and he moaned, too, pushing his face into her neck, saying her name again and again.
30
Axel
It didn’t matter that it was happening in the dead dark of winter. In fact, that made the orbs of floating witch light (requested by Axel) all the more striking. There was a rare clear sky, and the stars were like a reflection of the ice that coated the town below.
Well, time was fixed and also nonlinear, and so maybe up was down sometimes. Axel certainly felt upside down and inside out. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t spent every moment since his return to the present with Keira, but today was going to change everything. They were going to be bonded, forever, and he had not a single doubt about it being right.
“Nervous?” Byron asked. “Your hair is getting all messed up. Bend down.”
“You’re such a dad sometimes,” Axel said, but he bent to let his friend smooth back his unruly hair.
“I am a dad,” said Byron. “Hey, and now it’s your duty to produce an heir. Try and make your first kid a girl? I think we could do with a female alpha.”
“Wow,” Axel said, “burdening me with children before I’ve even had a chance to enjoy my bonding, and now you’re killing me, too.” Byron shrugged.
“Just saying, less machismo over the last few centuries could have saved us all a lot of trouble.” Axel had to agree with him.
“You aren’t wrong. If I have a son, I’ll just get parenting tips from you, though. You had things under control pretty much the whole time.” They were reaching the town hall. Axel turned to Byron. “Thank you,” he said, “for everything. I mean it.”
Byron clapped his friend on the arm. “I know you do. And you’d better!”
“I’m showing you, aren’t I?”
The two men walked up the steps to the hall and pushed open the door. At the end of a row of chairs, by a podium, stood a group of men and a few women, mostly looking to be in their thirties or forties, along with a couple past middle age. In the middle, leaning on the podium, was Chance, who waved to Axel and Byron, raised his eyebrows, and smiled.
“Right,” Axel muttered to Byron, “let’s get this over with so we can get to the real stuff.” The elders let Axel through with no problem but huffed a little at standing aside for Byron. “Enough of that, he’s about to be one of yours,” Axel said.
“Hey!” Chance greeted him. “Nervous for later?”
“Not at all.” Axel started looking over the paper.
“Right answer. So let’s just sign this and get on with it, eh? I’ve leafed through it. Accord, blah, blah, peace and union, blah, blah, Byron initiated into the council and official Mediator of the packs, something about our heirs, male or female, blah, blah.” Byron shot Chance a look. “I’m kidding! We all got sent a copy, of course I read it all. Just checking this one’s the same. All three copies in all three safes better be watertight! I’m not having anyone burying it for a hundred years and having our kids at one another’s throats.”
“Might be too soon for that joke, Chance,” Axel said, but he was trying to suppress a smile. Byron leaned over Axel as he looked through the document.
“Looks good,” he said. Chance turned to the council members surrounding the trio.
“We good to go?” he asked. Solemnly, they nodded.
A box was opened, and a wooden fountain pen was brought out from its velvet-lined insides. One by one, Chance, Axel, and, on an earlier page, Byron, signed the document. Axel put the pen back in the box.
“Hope the next bit of today feels more exciting than this.” He turned to Chance. “Maybe we should hug?”
“Don’t push it, we’re not family yet. Is it okay if I apologize for trying to recruit your cheating ex to spite you in my speech later?”
This time, Byron laughed. “Chance, you’re so much funnier now that you aren’t trying to kill us.”
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As the three younger men walked away from the podium, the members of the council were muttering among themselves. Some of them had been covering for the actions of Chance’s and Axel’s fathers, and that was something they were going to deal with in coming weeks. But it wasn’t a thought for now.
31
Keira
Keira wasn’t waiting impatiently, or with any kind of worry. In fact, she’d helped herself to a beer from behind the bar, and now she was sitting on a bar stool, her dress tucked up under her, her snow boots showing. She hadn’t seen Axel all day, though, and she missed him. She never thought she would feel that for anyone, that she would miss them because they weren’t there when she woke up in the morning.
Keira had always been a bed hog, waking up splayed like a starfish, covers in a pile on the floor or all pulled over her, with any partner she’d had squished against the wall or freezing cold or both. With Axel, her body wanted to be close to his. It was as though their bodies remembered one another from the first moment they had touched.
She shook her head. She was about to have her bonding ceremony. She shouldn’t be thinking about sex. Or should she? She had no idea, never having done this before. She looked at her phone and drained her beer, wondered if she should have another one. Would it be uncouth to smell like lager as Agnes tied the bonding rope around their wrists? Probably not, actually—it was Agnes Ambrosia, after all.
The guests had begun arriving a little while ago, shooting odd looks at her sitting there at the bar. And by ‘guests,’ Keira meant almost the entirety of the two packs. It was about to be standing room only at Byron’s, though it seemed larger in the bar area than usual. Had Agnes done a little something extra when she and her coven were decorating?