Pack Ivory Emerald

by Stunich, C. M.

  Gods.

  How bad would it be if she found out I was a werewolf? Now that, that would be a doozy.

  The boys and I spent most of the day dragging boxes in out of the rain.

  It sounded like a terrible chore, but when actually faced with it, I found that I was having an amazing time. Each time I opened the cardboard top of a box or the plastic lid of a bin, I found little pieces of my mates’ lives frozen into solid objects.

  Based on smell and sight alone, I had yet to mess up a guess as to what stuff belonged to each guy.

  “What about that one?” Tidus asked, crossing his arms over his chest and narrowing his gray eyes on me. His mouth was twitching so badly though that I’d have known this was his box even if it hadn’t smelt like sandalwood and amber.

  “Let’s see,” I said, kneeling next to the box and reveling in that delicious soreness between my thighs. I picked through the items inside and found … a stuffed wolf plushie? It had chew marks all over it, making my heart clench painfully as I thought of Hugo. My youngest brother was too sweet to survive in the big house all by himself; he needed me. I’d have to pay him a visit sooner rather than later. “Pretty sure we all have one of these somewhere,” I said nostalgically, hugging the destroyed little plushie to my chest with one arm. I used my other hand to keep digging, finding a stack of … Playboy magazines. “Tidus!” I scolded with a laugh, pulling them out and tossing them his way.

  “How do you know these are mine?” he asked, gathering them up and carefully smoothing out a wrinkle. “Or that they’re not old and worth a lot of money.” He made a little moue as I grabbed a tangle of braided surfboard leashes and held them up with a raised brow. “These were my Alpha-Father’s,” he said defensively, but then he smiled at me anyway.

  This guy, he was sent here to keep my spirits up. If I believed in any way that the fates really were guiding my destiny, I would absolutely believe that. Tidus was so cheerful, so easygoing, it was easy to get sucked into his orbit. I could spend weeks just lying in the sun and talking to him about nothing. He could keep a room entertained with a story about cupcakes if he wanted.

  “This is your box,” I said definitively, digging out a few pictures from the bottom that showed the Amber Ash Alpha-Son and a boy that looked so much like him, he could only be his brother. “Even without these, I knew.”

  Tidus grinned when I glanced back at him and pretended to wave a little, white flag of surrender.

  “Okay, okay, I give up,” he said, moving over to the edge of the couch and rewarding my accurate guess with a warm kiss to my mouth. It was so full of excitement and curiosity, of eagerness, that my toes curled against the wood floor of the Pairing House. “You are way too good at this,” Tidus added, picking up his box and heading upstairs with the rest of his treasures. Even werewolves who enjoyed human comforts—like Nikolina, for example—had relatively few possessions compared to humans. The house was small, but I was still hopeful we could comfortably fit all eight of our things in it.

  I stood up and put the plushie on the couch with a few of the decorative pillows that’d come over from my own room, carefully placing Tidus’ photos on the fireplace mantle with so many others. There was a shot of me, Nic, and Faith standing in front of the high school the first day of freshman year. Next to that, one of Montgomery and his entire family—all those cute little siblings including Patience and Virtue, the one we’d summoned demons to save.

  Even with an angel on our asses, it was well worth it.

  All of the guys had photos, even Silas. His, though, was of me and him, that same fateful summer when we’d shared our first kiss. The only one of my mates that didn’t have a single photo was Jaxson Kidd, the Alpha-Son of Pack Azure Frost. I didn’t think that had anything to do with his relationship to his family, just that his pack was a bit … wild.

  While Pack Ivory Emerald was known for being ‘old-fashioned’ with their long hair and weapons, Pack Azure Frost was a little out of balance, more wolf than human. It was rumored that their refusal to embrace modern society or technology was some sort of silent protest against the damage humans had done to the environment, the callous way they used and disregarded nature’s greatest treasures.

  “Jax, is it true,” I started as I opened yet another box and let the sweet scent of tobacco and cloves tease my nostrils, “that Pack Azure Frost purposely chooses to embrace their wolf sides over their human ones?”

  He sat there in a chair with one leg propped up, his blue eyes staring straight into mine, smelling of citrus, this sharp lemon and grapefruit scent that actually made me kind of … hungry. In more ways than one actually. A secret smile curved my lips as I dug through Silas’ box and found it stuffed full of shoes, belts, and leather bracelets. I pushed it into the pile that Monty and Nic were slowly carrying upstairs.

  “Wolves don’t cut down old growth forests to build shoddy new houses; they don’t create floating heaps of plastic like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch; they don’t take bribes from big coal or big oil.” Jax glanced at his cell phone, sitting quietly on his palm. “And they don’t create near exact replicas of old products, pass them off as new, and encourage consumers to dump the old.” He curled his fingers around the phone and dropped it into his lap.

  “So the answer then, is yes?” Che asked, standing in the archway that led to the dining room, sipping from a blue, red, and white soda can. He finished it off, wrinkled the aluminum up in his hand, and then tossed it into a box of recycling near the front door. “Look, I’m totally eco-conscious.”

  “Most recycling is worthless because the amount of energy required to clean, transport, and repurpose the material far exceeds that required to create it new. Unfortunately, what’s happened in society is that big business has pushed the burden of recycling and cleaning up the environment on the consumer when really, changes need to be made at the manufacturing level. We need to go back to using and re-using glass bottles like they did a hundred years ago.” Jax stood up and walked over to a small stack of three wooden crates near the front door.

  “Wow,” Che said with a whistle, his eyes following the Pack Azure Frost wolf, “who’s the geeky one now? Anubis, I think this one might have you beat.”

  “How is it geeky to be aware of the issues plaguing the earth?” Anubis asked, adding a few books to the stacks surrounding him. Most of his boxes were filled with dusty old tomes which, I noticed had been placed into two different boxes: one labelled Uploaded to Cloud and the other Emergency Upload Required! At least we were on the same page with that one. All this old stuff, it could be stolen, could go up in flames, get damaged in a flood. But if it were uploaded to the internet? It was virtually impossible for us to ever lose it.

  “Okay, never mind,” Che said with a roll of his eyes, heading back into the kitchen for another drink. “Anyone else want a soda?”

  “I’ll take one,” I said as I stood up and moved over to the couch to help Jax with his things. I’d been through a good two dozen boxes and had yet to find any of his. I was starting to wonder if he even owned anything besides the small duffel full of clothes that he’d been using. “Need some help?” I asked, sitting close enough that our thighs touched.

  Jax stiffened up slightly and ran his tongue over his lower lip.

  “Why not?” he said, turning his head slightly to meet my eyes. As soon as our gazes locked, I was reminded of our first time in the kitchen, that crazy blowjob, that wild rut, the broken glass windows and the magic. “But this is all I have, and there’s nothing fancy in here.” He lifted the top off the first box. Inside, there were some more clothes, a few folded blankets, and several wooden toys covered in toothmarks.

  “Childhood toys?” I asked, and Jax nodded. I took the small wolf, deer, and owl from inside the crate and stared at the them, chills chasing across my skin. These were the three forms I now possessed. I was more than just human, just wolf … I was other. And it wasn’t something I was at all close to gett
ing used to.

  I stood up and moved to the mantle again, placing the wooden toys amongst the pictures. If Jax didn’t have any photos, this would do. I fingered the edge of Anubis’ Popsicle stick frame, a pack of beautiful wolves on a glossy magazine page highlighted in the center. He’d explained that once, his mother had felt bold and let a nature photographer take a picture of her pack. According to her son, she’d never been so proud to see this photo nominated for a half-dozen awards.

  Che appeared from behind me, handing over a cold can of soda and then smoothly transitioning his favor into a bit of flirting, sliding his palms around my waist and placing them on my hip bones. His breath was hot as he ran his tongue up the side of my neck and made me shiver again.

  “I always knew I’d be a big fan of sex,” he purred, nuzzling against me and sending my hormones into a frenzy again. You’d think we hadn’t … gone all the way last night. Me and all my boys. We’d really and truly completed the circle of mating, hadn’t we? It didn’t feel real, all of this newness, almost like I was asleep, living half my slumber in lush dreams … and half in nightmares.

  “What a shocker, right?” I asked, not bothering to amend that I also happened to be a huge fan of sex. I pulled away from Che’s arms and spun back to face Jax, popping the top on my soda and taking a drink as he set one crate aside and started in on the other.

  This time, the only items inside were notebooks, binders, and school supplies—pencils, erasers, an old calculator. Jax went through them with this slow, easy nostalgia, reminding me that unlike the other boys, he’d never stopped being homeschooled. Instead of transitioning to a human school in sixth grade, he’d continued on with a pack education.

  “Zara,” Anubis said, as the boys from upstairs came back down to join us. My wolf growled and pressed up against the surface of my skin, pleased to have all her mates—her own, miniature pack—in one place. She, and in extension me, was happiest that way. “Look at this.”

  I knelt down next to Anubis, his crimson eyes shimmering as he flipped open a tome with a purple leather front and a glass eyeball in the center that really, was probably not made of glass and was instead somehow preserved with magic. He opened to the first page and turned it around so I could read it.

  A History of Witches was the name of this one. And I only knew that because someone had, at some point, written it out in black ink in the center of the page. The rest of it … was blank.

  “Witch blood,” Anubis said, low and growling. He really was happiest when he was making a scholarly discovery. Well, okay, maybe he was almost at his happiest. Because I’d seen pure bliss in his eyes when we coupled.

  I bit my lower lip.

  “We still have some, don’t we?” I asked, and he nodded again. The two of us exchanged a triumphant look before we rose to our feet in near unison. Che rolled his eyes at the discovery of yet another shitty old book, but most everyone else looked excited as we entered the dining room, removed the rest of the witch blood from the built-in with the glass front, and dripped it across the pages. As we did, black letters swirled into place. And yet, I still couldn’t read the damn book.

  “It’s Seraphim again,” Anubis confirmed, thumbing through the pages with scholarly fascination on his face. “A history of witches written by angels.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidences,” I said aloud, shivering slightly as I ran one finger along the edge of the book. “Not ones like this.”

  “How about ones like this?” Anubis asked, pausing on a page with a massive scrawl of tiny, black text … and a single illustration.

  It was a cauldron, sketched out in black and gray.

  Anubis touched it with a single finger and flicked his eyes over to meet mine. As we looked at each other, I knew. I knew something strange was afoot, something that tied in my demigod ancestry, my grandmother’s bargain with the Crown Aurora Blood queen, and this ridiculous war that I was fighting with every ounce of my spirit …

  … and seemingly losing against.

  Battle after battle, I avoided an ultimate conversation.

  Unfortunately, it felt like one was sneaking up on me whether I liked it or not.

  If only this book might help, I’d deal with arrogant angel assholes who wanted to slit my throat—who did slit my throat. And at least pretend to be nice about it.

  The mini golf place was on the opposite side of town, this sprawling wonderland of art and creativity that’d been erected only two years ago. It was one of three such places in the Eugene-Springfield area and by far the best. Of course, it was slightly more expensive than the others, and I was damn near positive I saw Nic rolling his eyes as he paid both Faith Cassidy’s—my best friend’s—and her boyfriend’s—Owen Tiaffay’s—way in.

  “Can’t he even pay for his own mate?” Montgomery asked, tilting his head slightly to the side, long white braid swaying. He had this noble, king’s heart, one that would not have allowed a stranger to pay his or his mate’s way into anyplace.

  “It’s … complicated,” I said with a small sigh. At least Faith and Owen had driven themselves over here, using Diya’s car, of course. As soon as I’d seen it pull into the parking lot, I’d felt sick to my stomach.

  The funny thing about truths and lies was that no matter how hard you tried, eventually they always caught up to you. I could feel this particular truth nipping at my heels like an angry pup.

  “Doesn’t seem so complicated to me,” Montgomery said, straightening up and giving Owen this look, like he so didn’t approve. I was pretty sure that none of my mates did, but at least a few of them were pretending to give two craps about what Owen was saying.

  “My best friend, he’s this small-time drug dealer,” Owen continued, waving his hands around while simultaneously winking at the brunette girl handing out clubs and balls. Faith elbowed him playfully in the side, but let him get away with his douchery anyway. It was her biggest flaw, perhaps, how easily she trusted and how simply she forgave. But we all had flaws, and I wasn’t about to write my friend off because she could be hypocritical at times.

  My friendship didn’t come with a set of expectations.

  Although, perhaps, it should come with a warning and a spell of protection maybe?

  “Your best friend is a drug dealer?” Tidus asked, crinkling his face up as we paused and each tested out a few different heights of clubs and a color of golf ball. I managed to snatch up a bloodred one while Nic got black. Jax quite literally growled at Owen when he stole the pale blue one, forcing the Azure Frost Alpha-Son to grab a rainbow colored ball instead. Monty took green, Tidus gray, Silas yellow-gold, Anubis crimson, and Che purple. Faith juggled an orange one and cast me a hopeful look as she drifted over and took my arm in hers.

  “Do you think this is going okay so far?” she asked, far too nervous for such a simple outing. I gave her a look and a raised eyebrow as we walked down the small path toward the first hole, spotlights highlighting the course and banishing the shadows from the outdoor area. I just hoped it didn’t rain. Wouldn’t have bothered me, but Faith refused to play during a sprinkle, let alone a monsoon.

  “Well, not a drug dealer exactly,” Owen clarified, changing his story and ruffling up his blonde-streaked-brown hair. He’d dyed it since I’d last seen him, putting these thick frosted streaks into his short locks that I wasn’t a particular fan of. “I mean, not now that pot is legal and all that.”

  “He’s a pot dealer?” Anubis asked, not at all judgmental, just trying to make sense of my best friend’s boyfriend’s crazy story.

  “He makes lotions,” Nic inserted, shoving his way past Owen to the front of the pack and dropping his ebony ball onto the Astro turf. “He makes fucking lotions with marijuana. That doesn’t at all make him a drug dealer.” Nicoli Hallett made me proud by knocking his ball down the curved path in just the right way that it bounced off the stone walls and ricocheted into the hole at the end. He smirked as he stood up straight and cast Owen a super
ior look. “Top that.”

  He sauntered off as Owen muttered something under his breath and put his own ball at the starting point of the course, knocking it so hard that it flew up and over the bushes and into a sand trap.

  Che chuckled as Faith’s boyfriend jogged off to grab it and moved to take his own shot.

  “I’m glad we’re here,” I told her truthfully. It was nice to have a little normalcy in my life, even if I knew we couldn’t technically afford it, that we shouldn’t have it. Even standing here next to my best friend, all I could think about was that book and the single line Anubis kept repeating from within it.

  “There is no end to something if you cannot locate the beginning.”

  It was so poetic and yet, so true. If I wanted to stop Coven Triad for good, then I needed to figure out how and when they’d gotten the cauldron, started stealing my people’s magic in the first place. Perhaps Majka had more information, perhaps not. Either way, I’d sent word with Lana that I was interested in having my grandmother over for tea on Sunday. She wouldn’t have asked me to have her over if she didn’t have information to share. Of course, I’d better damn well serve good tea or I’d find myself in serious trouble. For a werewolf to drink boiled plant water, it had to be the best of the best.

  “I’m glad you’re here, too,” Faith said, a certain measure of melancholy finding its way into her voice. Her long, dark braid was hanging over one shoulder, her brown eyes downcast as she let her mind wander for a moment. It didn’t help that I knew exactly what she was thinking about. What else but her missing mother and beloved dogs?

  My throat tightened and my mouth soured with bile.

  “I didn’t even know if you were going to show up, to tell the truth,” she continued, glancing up at me. Faith always had to glance up at everyone, she was so damn short. But she wore her height well. She only ever looked up in terms of practicality; she didn’t let being small make her feel inferior. “Not that I’m complaining or anything,” she rushed to say as Montgomery politely drifted away and took his place in line for the first hole.