“I’m trying to decide what to take back with me. I don’t want to take too much—the airlines wouldn’t allow the weight and I don’t trust shipping companies for these. If there was, say, a good book on changing, one on maybe physiology, and something on the herbal medicines we use, those could go a long way toward helping our doctor with these things.”
Raphael nodded, looking thoughtful. “I think I know the medical ones that could help. I still don’t understand why your calator doesn’t have those particular ones, since it has nothing to do with other species or countries. I am going to speak to the calator magnus and have him contact your Prime. In the meantime, let me pick two or three out and bring them in to you.”
“I will come along and help you look into the changing books,” Anthony offered.
“Thank you,” Jamie said, relieved. “There is just so much, and it’s so….”
“Scattered?” Anthony said.
Jamie nodded. “Yeah.” He finished his latte, put the cup on the tray they kept for dishes, and the three of them started back down the hall.
When they got into the room on mating, Chad was bent over a book, squinting at the text.
“Pup? You okay?”
Anthony laughed. “You call him pup?”
Jamie grinned. “Yeah. And he’s older than me.”
“Not by much,” Chad grumbled.
“Still, it is funny,” Anthony said. “What is it you are looking at?”
“I’m not even sure, anymore.” Chad sat back and rubbed his eyes. “It’s all running together at this point.” He sighed. “I think, from what I’ve read, if it’s done carefully, changing me shouldn’t be too bad. There is the risk, of course, but….” He shrugged. “I think it’s worth it.”
“I’m not sure the chance of you dying is worth it,” Jamie muttered.
“Hey, there’s a bigger chance I’ll survive it,” Chad said, pulling Jamie in.
“Do you have any wolf in your background?” Anthony asked.
Chad blinked at him. “I don’t think so. Why?”
Anthony shrugged. “Those descendant of wolves, but not wolves themselves, have a better chance. You mentioned your mother knew one. I didn’t know if it might have been related.”
Chad shook his head. “I don’t think so. My father died before I was born, but I think my mother would have told me if he was one. And both my grandparents are long dead, so I don’t think they were either.”
Anthony laughed. “I like the way you put that. Well, it was a thought.”
“Yeah, well, I still think it’s our best bet. Besides.” He paused and smirked at Jamie. “I want to be able to lick my balls.”
This sent Anthony into a fit of laughter that took him a while to recover from. “Oh! That is too much!”
“Thank you. I live to serve.” Chad winked at Jamie, who shook his head.
“You’re something else, pup.”
Anthony finally calmed down and wiped his eyes. “All right. Let me see what I can find for you.”
IT TOOK another day to go through the suggestions, but finally they had a small stack of books to take with them. Jamie had a fairly decent understanding of the changing process. If not the physiology of it, he at least had a good grasp on how to do it. The claiming, once Chad was changed—if they decided to go that route—was no different. If he didn’t change Chad, then where he bit apparently made a big difference. Still, he wanted Miles to go through the information before they made a final decision.
Chad was quite gung-ho to go through the change. “Dude, I can’t see a downside.”
Jamie blinked. “You have to be really careful around humans. You can’t tell most of the people you know who you are. You outlive all your human friends. You’re constantly bombarded by sound and smell….”
“I don’t know that many humans,” Chad countered. “So the only one I’m worried about outliving I will outlive anyway—my mom. I can keep a secret. I was a cop, remember? And you said yourself, I’ll learn to deal with the sound and smell.”
Jamie stopped arguing, but that was as much because he didn’t want to admit it was fear more than anything else that made him hesitate. And the only way to not have Chad know that was to try not to say it. Chad would know something was up, but at least if he didn’t outright lie, Chad might not guess.
He should have known better.
As they were packing their things, Chad pulled Jamie into his arms. “I’ll be fine, baby,” he said, kissing Jamie’s forehead. “We’ll have Miles there, right?”
Jamie sighed but nodded. “Yeah. He’ll be there. And… I’ve been thinking I’d ask Tanner to do the bite itself.”
“See? I’ll be fine.”
Jamie swallowed. “I just….” He looked up and let the fear out just for a moment.
Chad’s eyes widened. “Oh, baby,” Chad murmured, kissing him. He kept it soft and short, but Jamie calmed a little when they broke apart. “I get it, I really do. But I’m not going to get hurt… well, more than I have to anyway. And you’ll be there when I come out on the other side with the ability to lick my own balls.”
Jamie laughed, relaxing a little. “I’m telling you, it’s not that great.”
Chad grinned. “Maybe not, but it makes you laugh.”
Jamie sighed. “Thanks, pup. I love you.”
“I love you. Now, let’s finish up here. I have an errand to run—Giada is taking me out. And you have some fetching to do.”
Jamie stuck his tongue out. “Fetching. I’m not a dog.”
Chad just snickered.
CHAD WAITED just inside the hallway leading to the temple and stood when Jamie came in and shifted.
Jamie pulled the shorts on Chad had brought for him and picked up the bag he’d taken along.
“Welcome back, baby.” Chad kissed Jamie softly. “Did you find everything?”
Jamie nodded. “Yeah, I think so. Will you come with me?”
“Of course.”
“Oh, one thing,” he said, and hurried across the room.
Chad watched as he disappeared into a side door and waited. A moment later, Chad laughed when Jamie emerged carrying a small espresso cup. “I didn’t think you were serious.”
Jamie grinned. “Food is an acceptable offering, actually. And since coffee means the most to me….”
Chad nodded. “I get it.”
They stepped into the temple, and Jamie turned first to Bacchus, closest to the door. He set the cup at the statue’s feet, then knelt. Chad knelt next to him and bowed his head.
“Please accept this offering as we honor you, Bacchus,” Jamie murmured.
Chad didn’t speak, letting Jamie lead them. They repeated the small prayer while kneeling in front of each statue and giving the offerings. For Ceres, they offered small pine cones—seeds of the tree; for Apollo, they lit a candle, offering light; for Mercury, they offered money; for Vesta, they added wood to her fire; for Neptune, they added water to his fountain.
“I have something I would like to do with Jupiter,” Chad said, taking Jamie’s hand.
“Oh?” Jamie asked.
Chad nodded and pulled the box he’d brought back with him from shopping out of his pocket. He opened it and offered it to Jamie.
“Oh,” Jamie breathed. “They’re gorgeous.”
“They’re handcrafted in the village at the base of the mountain. Gold and platinum.” Each open-weave band was somewhere between a quarter to three-eighth inches wide. The gold and platinum were braided together with tiny diamonds and sapphires sprinkled through them. “I called a few days ago and told him what I’d been thinking of—with Giada’s help, that is. He doesn’t speak much English.”
Jamie chuckled. “That was nice of her.”
Chad nodded. “She knew he did handcrafted work and I thought it was perfect. Do you like them?”
Jamie nodded several times. “They weren’t too expensive, were they?”
Chad hesitated, but knew he couldn’t lie to his mate.
“I spent a good bit, but I think it’s important, Jamie. These represent our commitment to each other. I wanted them to reflect it, show how important you are to me.”
Jamie swallowed and Chad smiled at the awe coming across their bond. “Thank you.” He cleared his throat. “So, uh, this is for Jupiter?”
“Yes. He is the God of Oaths, right?”
Jamie smiled brilliantly. “He is.”
“Let’s make our oath to each other in front of him. We’ll still do a ceremony at home with Fin and Tanner and the pack, but here, I thought….” He shrugged a shoulder.
“I love it,” Jamie said, leading him to Jupiter’s statue. They knelt together in front of it, and Jamie laid the acorns he held on the tray. “To Jupiter, we offer these seeds of your sacred oak in your honor. Please witness the oath we make to each other and bless our mating, helping us to keep this oath.”
He turned on the cushion to face Chad. “Will you go first?”
Chad nodded, brushing his thumb over Jamie’s cheek, then picked up the box and pulled out Jamie’s ring—which he knew because it was slightly smaller than his. He pushed it onto Jamie’s finger and took both hands in his. He’d been thinking about this all the way up the mountain. He cleared his throat. “Before Jupiter, I offer this oath: to always be true to you, give you all that I am and the best of me, always. I will love you until the end of time, Jamie Ryan, and promise to do everything I can to help that love continue to grow for the rest of our lives.” His heart was pounding by the time he finished. Jamie’s smile was huge, though, and nothing but love came across their connection.
Jamie picked up the other ring and slid it onto Chad’s finger, then cleared his own throat. “Before Jupiter, I offer the same oath: to always be true to you, give you all that I am and the best of me. I will trust in our bond and you, giving you my heart today and for always. I promise to grow that love and nurture it for the rest of our lives.” He gave a nervous laugh when he finished, and Chad pulled him in, kissing him softy.
“Thank you, baby. I love you.”
“I love you, pup. Thank you for loving me.”
“My pleasure,” Chad said, unable to resist. “No, really.”
Jamie laughed. “Two more offerings, then we need to get ready. We don’t want to miss our flight. It was really nice of them to arrange our flights to go home from here,” he said as they stood.
“It was. I’m really glad for it. Not that I don’t want to see more of Europe, but I’d rather come back when we don’t have so much hanging over our heads.”
“Exactly,” Jamie agreed.
They moved over to Mars next. He didn’t have a tray in front of his statue. Instead, he held a sword, which the temple keepers maintained and kept clean and sharp. “To Mars, we offer blood.” Jamie reached out, letting the point pierce his finger. A tiny bit of blood ran along the grooved edge of his sword, and then he stepped back. Chad did the same, and together they knelt, offering the same prayer they had to the other gods.
Finally, they stepped back. “I’ll be right back,” Jamie said, hurrying out of the temple. A moment later, he returned in wolf form, carrying an obviously dead rabbit in his teeth. He laid it at Diana’s feet, and sat, bowing his head. Chad knelt next to him, bowing as well, and offered the prayer for them.
When they were outside the temple again, Jamie shifted back. “Thank you for doing that with me.”
Chad smiled. “I told you. It’s hard not to believe when I’m staring right at the evidence, you know? And it’s important to you, so that makes it important to me.”
“I… still. Thank you. Um, so, let’s get going. I want to go home.”
“I can’t wait.”
Chapter 16
GIADA TOOK them to the airport in the same little Fiat. As she got in the car, she handed Jamie a small paper bag that had tea bags and a card. “That is the remedy I told you about. The recipe for it is in the bag. Give it to your doctor, Miles, and he will be able to put more together for you. If there is trouble locating ingredients, he can call and we will help.”
“Thank you so much,” Jamie said, carefully storing it in his backpack.
“Be sure to have a full cup at the airport. It will calm your wolf and make him sleepy. You will probably need to drink more on the plane. That is why there are so many.”
“I can’t tell you how much we appreciate this,” Chad said from the back. “I hate seeing him so upset.”
She smiled over her shoulder. “It is no problem.”
Jamie and Chad were in for another surprise when they picked up their tickets at the counter. The Italian wolves had arranged, not only for a direct flight from Rome to New York, with only a short hop from there to Pittsburgh, but for Alitalia’s first class. The seats they had converted to beds, and unlike the first-class seats Jamie had seen on British Airways, the two they had were right next to each other without a divider.
All in all, the trip back to the States was a lot nicer. Jamie’s wolf stayed calm the whole time. He felt good enough, in fact, to tap into JFK’s Wi-Fi and get a bit of work done on their three-hour layover. He showed Chad where he’d dug so far for information on Quincy, where he’d found Uther Isaacs, and the connection between the two.
“No, I think you’re right. I don’t think the connection is flimsy at all. The problem is, until we can get something concrete on Uther….”
“Yeah, that’s the problem. I’m still hunting for phone numbers and the like.” Jamie frowned as he tried a different possibility. “Hmm. Maybe….” He scowled at the information that came up, shaking his head. “Nope. Not there,” he muttered to himself. He looked up, squinting when Chad laughed. “What?”
“You’re cute when you do that.”
Jamie rolled his eyes and went back to the screen. A few minutes later, though, he cheered. “A number!”
“What kind of number?” Chad asked, leaning over.
“Phone number. Local to Pittsburgh.”
“The question is, does it work?” Chad asked.
Jamie shrugged. “Dunno, but as hard as it was to get, I’m thinking it’s more possible.”
Chad nodded, pulling out his phone. But as he started typing in the number, Panther’s name came up.
“Wait…. Panther? Your contact?”
“Yeah. Are you sure that’s the right number?”
Jamie double-checked, but confirmed the same ten digits. “Yup.”
“Huh.” Chad frowned at his phone, then blinked. “Holy shit.”
Jamie raised his eyebrows. “What?”
Chad dropped his face into his palm. “I think Quincy is Panther.”
“You do?”
Chad nodded. “Both information people. Quincy’s data was too neat, remember?”
Jamie’s eyes widened. “Oh, yeah, it was.”
“Yeah, I’d bet the cost of our wedding rings they’re the same person.”
“Please don’t. I don’t want to give mine back.”
Chad laughed and kissed him. “Well, I think I know what to do now. First, we get home and get some rest. We’ll deal with everything else later.”
AFTER THE mess that was their trip out to Rome, the return was downright mundane. Jamie was grateful they took a shuttle home from the airport at Chad’s suggestion. Tanner and Finley met them at their apartment, dropping the Challenger off. After hugs, congratulations, oohs and ahhs over the rings, thank-yous, and promises to call to get together and discuss what they found, they passed out and slept most of the next twenty-four hours.
The first thing they did after waking, of course, was have sex. Jamie’s wolf and the mate bond were not happy with the break. And being tied together for thirty minutes afterward simply gave them a chance to wake up and savor a quiet closeness they hadn’t had since they’d left. They shared a shower, then both had a cup of coffee, and things started to feel a bit more normal.
Jamie was still dealing with the fact that, legalities aside, he was, for all intents and purposes, married
. He glanced down at his ring again as he took another drink of coffee. He still didn’t know what Chad paid for them, and he decided he didn’t want to know.
The financial situation still bothered him. He wasn’t broke. He’d been very frugal with his money while at school and saved what Alpha Noah had paid him. Discovering the pack would pay for his schooling since he didn’t have a family had shocked the hell out of him. He’d tried to argue, insisted he would work it off, but finally Carol had to take him aside and explain it would appear he was rejecting the pack if he did. Since the last thing he’d wanted to do was reject the pack that had so readily accepted him, he’d finally let go of it. That meant, however, that he had a tidy savings built up. He wanted to do something, help in some way. It actually perturbed him that Chad wouldn’t let him do anything.
His mate came over to where he sat at the kitchen table and took the chair next to him. “What is it?”
Jamie sighed. He’d forgotten for a moment that Chad could feel everything. They did need to talk, and he knew enough about relationships—thanks in no small part to Finley—that even if Chad couldn’t sense lies and hesitation, he needed to be honest about it. “I… we… I’m… fuck,” he said, sighing. “The money thing bothers me.”
Chad blinked at him. “Money thing?”
Jamie took a drink of coffee as he figured out how to say it. “What is my part in this?” he asked, waving a hand around their apartment.
Chad only looked more confused. “I’m sorry, baby, I don’t understand.”
“What do I contribute? What…. Am I… I mean….”
Chad’s face cleared and he smiled. “I think I get it. It bothers you I’m paying for everything, right?”
Jamie swallowed, cheeks red, staring at the tabletop, but still nodded. “I know it’s probably stupid, I—”
Chad tilted his chin up. “It’s not stupid. It makes sense, actually.” He paused, obviously considering something, then nodded. “Would it make you feel better to be responsible for a couple of the bills or something?”
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