by Kari Gregg
Heart thumping with nerves and lust, Jamie did as he’d been bidden, sliding onto the goose feather mattress and under the thin wool blanket. The ropes beneath supporting the mattress between the frame of the bed squeaked under his weight, then again when Kenneth joined him. Kenneth reached for him, not to make love, but to nestle their bodies together, to rest. Surprised at how right Kenneth felt tight against him, Jamie’s back to Kenneth’s front, Jamie sighed in equal parts consternation and bliss.
Kenneth kissed the back of his head. “Sleep,” he said, his voice a warm rumble that made Jamie tremble anew.
“I’m afraid to.” He said, pushing in as close to Kenneth as he could, skin on skin, and enjoyed the hard press of Kenneth’s muscle. “What if I dream?” He gulped. “I mean, of him again. Or the cat.”
“I’ll wake you.” Carding his hair, Kenneth grunted. “You won’t doze through your first whimper. No more scary dreams, I promise.”
Jamie shuddered, as afraid of Kenneth’s care as Jamie feared his nightmares. “What if—” He stopped, the words tangling in his mouth. “When I open my eyes...” Jamie tipped his head to stare over his shoulder, squinting to make out Kenneth’s returning gaze in the darkness. “What if I say terrible things, taunt you.” He trembled. “Try to hurt you.”
“Then I’ll win you again.” Kenneth sighed, squeezing Jamie tight in his arms. “And again and again.”
“Please don’t give up on me.”
“Never.”
Trembling, Jamie slid into a deep, and this time untroubled, sleep.
Chapter Ten
KENNETH DIDN’T LEAVE him to do whatever he did with the pack the next day. They breakfasted together on catfish Kenneth caught before Jamie woke and bathed in the same river from which the fish had come as the sun crept above the horizon in gauzy blues and golds. Kenneth had dressed afterwards in readymade denim jeans and a blue flannel shirt, both having been acquired by trade with human settlements outside the Appalachian Mountains to the west.
Jamie had no such luxuries and never had, not since he was a boy. Because his skills as pack trainer were valued by parents in the pack, the pants and shirt he pulled on weren’t homespun, the cloth a durable hemp produced from Bitter Creek pack’s farm mixed with cotton. Only frequent washing had made the scratchy fabric tolerable. After, Jamie washed his pants and shirt from the day before, his typical morning routine to start the day. The kids wouldn’t show up until afternoon. While humans bused Bitter Creek’s children to human schools, Burnt Fork was farther from the city. Parents homeschooled their kids. Burnt Fork children learned to read and write, at least enough to become familiar with laws governing shifters. Some were tutored on the stringent laws that faced shifters who left pack territory to mix with humans, as Kenneth would’ve undoubtedly been taught. Few learned math beyond simple addition and subtraction. Intense study was generally reserved for alphas who would need those advanced skills to facilitate trade between the pack and wily humans. Most pack kids required no more than a couple hours, three at most, in the classroom. Families invested the remainder of their days building the skills needed to tan and work leather, which was Burnt Fork’s primary export product. Every den produced leather and leather goods for trade. Even Jamie had contributed to that while Ian was still alive. What else were they to do with the skins of plentiful rabbits and deer that most often fed families? Leave those skins to rot? Other traditional skills were also taught, though, like his sister’s talent with ceramics.
Jamie, for all his skills in shifter craft, had learned to carve bone.
Since Kenneth was busy tapping away at his computer, Jamie grabbed his box of supplies and headed outside, where the dust wouldn’t settle in a fine layer over the den. He laid out his tools—awls of different grades and sizes, hacksaws, polishing cloths, sacks of alder, maple, and black walnut barks for dyeing. Underneath it all rested his current inventory of supplies, mostly odd pieces of bone the whelps had brought to him. He’d passed a cache of larger pendants to one of the whelps to give to the pack elders for trade not long ago. He worked with the leftover scraps. Wasn’t as pretty as the more intricate work, but still fetched a decent price among other shifters and in the human settlements too.
Carved bone beads were best, but the few he had left of the bones several convenient ant hills had stripped for him was most suitable for pipe beads. Fortunately, he’d been soaking the bone leftovers in jars of oil while he carved the other designs. The pieces would be workable without splintering.
He built a small fire outside and spread out the bone he meant to work with today. Once the fire was hot enough, he slid the end of a wire coat hanger into the red coals. Technically, he didn’t need to do this. The ants had been as industrious as ever and he’d already cleaned out the marrow of this batch once. He liked the interior of the bone cauterized, though, and the straight line of the heavy wire produced the best beads for stringing.
When the tip of the coat hanger glowed red, he grabbed metal tongs—which had cost dearly but were easier to handle small objects with than the fireplace gloves he’d used while Ian was still alive. He lifted a stretch of bone from the canvas. He jabbed the wire through the tip of the bone, shoving it through.
The work wasn’t hard, just tedious. By the time Kenneth exited the den, Jamie had finished the lot and had moved on to shaping each bit of bone, shaving off and rounding each end. Oil cut down on pulverized bone dust. He hadn’t bothered wearing a mask. Kenneth sat on a convenient tree stump, watching him work. When the beads were done, Jamie checked the pot he’d strung over the fire to make sure the maple bark had steeped. He used a polishing cloth to wipe at the beads as he dumped them in, one by one. “Red,” he explained to Kenneth. “Black from walnut bark takes the longest to soak in for the deepest color, but I’d already finished a batch of those. I don’t suppose you have tea? Or coffee?”
Kenneth shook his head. “But I can get some.”
“Soaking bone in tea gives a nice honey color, coffee a darker and richer shade.”
“You didn’t carve these?”
“The scraps suitable for carving were turned over to the elders with the bigger pieces. All these are useful for foundation beads for jewelry and embellishments, but they’ll bring a nice price.” He smiled. “You probably know more about that than I do.”
“You’re right,” Kenneth said. “Beads won’t win a fortune, but I can usually trade them for scraps of copper wire and odd bits of steel to make knives that can be sold for damn near anything.” He tilted his jaw toward the den. “eBay.”
Beads soaking, Jamie washed his hands and shook off the dust. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“No, come. I want you to see and understand your worth.”
Jamie humored him by following him back inside and squinting at the bright glare of the laptop screen as Kenneth turned the infernal machine back on. They’d raised the shades of the windows to let in the morning light after breakfast, but the interior was still dim in comparison. Not that either one of them moved to turn on a light. The solar panels on the roof of dens only provided so much power.
“Here,” Kenneth said, pointing at the computer. Several pictures of a fine cutting knife perfect for skinning animals crowded the screen, one shot showing off the engraved antler grip, another a closer shot of the rawhide fixing the blade and yet another of the steel, sharp and deadly. Jamie recognized it instantly.
“That’s one of mine,” he mumbled, shocked at how pretty the weapon shined against its background of midnight blue velvet. He’d even made the sheath, leather he’d sewn, stamped, dyed and embellished with horsehair and beads no different than those steeping outside.
Kenneth grunted and swiped with his finger, moving the pictures down. “Look at how high the bidding is.”
Jamie stared at the numbers and sighed. “I don’t understand human money.”
“It’s a lot. Enough to buy new clothes for you.”
Shaking his head, Jamie backed away. �
�I have enough, more than I need.”
“Stop it. Do you believe you aren’t a highly valued a member of this pack—”
“I know I’m not.” Outside, the sounds of young boys calling to one another, resounded from the woods. The loud teasing and, judging by the grunts, roughhousing reached them even inside the cabin.
“They think so highly of you, they gave you a pack’s most precious resource.” Kenneth jerked his chin toward the screen door and the playful sounds nearby. “They entrusted you with their kids.”
“I have to go.”
“Jamie—”
“No! All right? No.”
The kids emerging from the forest mobbed Jamie when he marched outside, the boys ringing out boisterous congratulations at Jamie’s imminent mating and grinning with infectious happiness. Even the girls, normally more withdrawn and unwilling to touch any shifter of the male persuasion at this age, hugged him and beamed wide smiles. He mattered to them. He had value to the kids. That was all Jamie cared about. Yes, they were wild. They were kids, not short adults. They picked on each other, wrestled, argued and competed against one another, but their hearts were good, their zest for life contagious.
The pack hadn’t saved Jamie.
The kids had. They’d dragged him back from the brink and he’d hung on, when he couldn’t believe he’d last one more second, because the whelps counted on him. Loved him. Gave him hope.
When he unearthed from the tweens and teens who had enthusiastically piled onto him, a parent stood at the edge of the woods, hands on his hips in mock consternation. “Jason, get off the man. No wiping the ground with your trainer now that he’s become an alpha’s mate or you’ll answer to Kenneth.”
Jamie’s heart pounded. Brushing off the dirt of the yard, his hands shook. Swallowing to wet his suddenly dry mouth, Jamie retreated several steps from the parent who had surprised him. Nervous and unsettled, he glanced away.
Biting his lip, Jason pivoted to Jamie. “It’s okay. My dad followed us to leave your mating gift on the porch,” he said, pointedly glaring at his father.
Jamie quietly panicked.
Kenneth appeared at the door behind him. “Stop where you are,” he growled at Jason’s dad. Jamie didn’t glance his way, but shivered at the menace in his tone. “After he started talking to parents picking up kids from training, I warned you all to give Jamie time, not to push him too far.”
“Jamie wasn’t the only one who lost Ian. He was my cousin.” Jason’s dad stared at Jamie. “We lost you, too.”
“You turned your back on him, on me.” Jamie stiffened in affronted outrage. He glared. “You didn’t lose us. You threw us away.”
“Jamie,” Kenneth said, leaving the door to join Jamie in the yard. He squeezed Jamie’s shoulder. In comfort or warning?
“Dad wanted to see you. When I was small. he hid in the woods on the other side of the creek. I went with him once,” Jason said. “Ian drove us away and after Ian was gone...”
“You wouldn’t tolerate any of them,” Kenneth finished. “Just the kids. Only the ones who hadn’t rejected your mating with Ian.”
“They had no right,” Jamie said through clenched teeth, voice tight with his fury.
“No, they didn’t,” Kenneth said. “If they could change what happened, they would.”
Jerking from Kenneth’s grasp, Jamie glared at Jason’s dad. “You were his family, his blood. Ian drove you out?” He laughed, a cold bitter sound. “You did it first.”
“I’m not saying you have no reason to be hurt or angry,” Kenneth said. “You do, but all that bitterness is eating you up inside. For your sake if no one else’s, you have to let it go.”
Jamie rounded on Kenneth. “I have to mate again. The seer saw that. Otherwise, I have to do nothing.” He marched into the woods, tearing his shirt overhead and shimmying out of his pants. He shifted. And ran.
The kids followed. Jamie raced faster, but the whelps were younger, faster, more accustomed to moving as wolves. Of course, they overtook him.
He ignored them for a while, as long as he could, but he couldn’t forever deny Jason’s sadness, nor their concern. The wispy stench of fear. Eventually, Jamie slowed and circled around, leading the whelps back toward Kenneth’s den at an easier cantor. He didn’t want to return, though, not to the untamed cacophony of emotions and problems he could barely wrap his human mind around, much less his senses as a wolf. When he reached the tangle of wild blackberries that grew near Kenneth’s den, Jamie stopped and laid down, the crispy dead leaves and shoots of wild grasses his bed.
The shifted whelps joined him, snuggling close as they offered and sought comfort. In time, they shifted and persuaded Jamie to shift to his human form too.
Jason’s body trembled as he tunneled into Jamie’s embrace. “Don’t be mad at me. Please don’t be mad.”
Jamie rubbed his knuckles on the crown of the boy’s head. “I’ve been mad at you before.”
“I knew my dad was coming.” The boy sniffled.
“We all did,” one of the other kids confessed.
That gave Jamie pause, but more over how upset the kids were, clinging to him, shoving noses into his armpits and clutching onto whatever part of him they could reach. “I was upset, not expecting anyone, and I panicked. That wasn’t your fault. What happened has nothing to do with you.”
“Yes, it does. It has everything to do with me, and Lil, and everyone else,” Jason tearfully argued, “because if you got mad enough to cut the pack out of your life, who says you won’t do the same to me? To any of us?”
“It’s not the same, Jason. It’s not.” When Jamie looked at the other whelps, his heart fell at the identical fear in their gazes, though. He scrubbed a hand down his face, trying to ignore that his hand trembled. “I’m not even mad at your parents anymore.”
Jason snorted in disbelief.
“No, I’m not. At least I don’t think I am. Mostly...It still hurts. You don’t know what it’s like to be accepted and loved, then to have all sense of warmth and safety stripped away. When Ian and I mated, it wasn’t like everyone else. No one sent gifts. No one helped us build our den or gave us advice on how to make it through our first winter. No one talked to us. No one would even look at us. They thought if they pushed us away, made it hard for us, that we would return to the pack and do what they told us, but we’d already mated. It was too late.”
“Nobody mates at sixteen anymore. That isn’t allowed,” one of the girls said. “You’d skin any of us for even thinking about it.”
“The pack didn’t reject our mating because we were too young.” Jamie’s squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. “I’m different from you, Lil. From all of you. I have more than one true mate.” He worked at a smile, proud when it wobbled only a little. “None of us understood what was happening then. Ian and I had quickened for each other, but the Goddess had given a vision to our seer that I would mate the next alpha. Ian was by no means an alpha. No one could make sense of he and I mating. That’s why they tried to separate us. Maybe they wanted more time to understand what the prophecy meant. Forcing us apart triggered Ian’s ripening too early, though, and missing him was a constant ache. I had to be with him. I—I—couldn’t be without him.” He sighed, shoulders drooping. “When we defied our alpha by refusing to reject the mating, Da ordered the pack to shun us.” His mouth quirked. “That’s why we moved into the Between and why we kept our distance from the pack.”
“Ian didn’t—”
“Fine, why I kept a distance.” He jerked an awkward shoulder. “I didn’t stop talking to them. They stopped talking to me and later, when Da made it clear the pack could treat with us at our den away from the pack and off pack lands…I was angry, yes, but I was also too hurt by them turning their collective backs on us when we needed them most.”
That afternoon, Jamie didn’t teach the kids a lesson. They taught him and he learned bottling what had happened inside had only let the wounds fester. The longer he spo
ke, the more questions he answered rather than evaded, the lighter he felt. The burdens he’d carried too many years finally began to slip away.
Chapter Eleven
SENDING the kids on their way, Jamie returned to Kenneth’s den alone. When he walked into the cabin, Kenneth hunched over his laptop, hardly sparing Jamie a glance. Gingerly, Jamie sat on their bed. “I think—” He fidgeted, plucking at the quilt with trembling fingers. “I think we should tie.”
Kenneth didn’t even stop typing.
“The physical intimacy might make it easier for me to...” He lifted his hands to gesture vaguely around them.
Closing the lid of the laptop at least, Kenneth didn’t look at him. He didn’t speak for what felt like epochs either. Then, he finally said, voice tight, “How romantic.”
Jamie flinched, as though he’d been struck. “Da is dying.”
“He’s been dying for over two years.” Kenneth frowned. “He’ll hold on. As long as it takes.”
Jamie glowered at him. Where did he get off turning down sex? Worse, repeatedly turned down sex? Irritation flooded through Jamie and he glared at Kenneth, silently rescinding Kenneth’s Dude Card, but being mad wouldn’t get him what he wanted, what he thought they both needed. He blew out a choppy breath, shoving his fingers into his hair in frustration. “Why did I move into your den, exactly?” he asked, trying a different tactic.
“I didn’t force you to move in. You choose to fetch your stuff from your den in the Between.” Kenneth lifted his hands, palm flat. “Why did you? I don’t know. You tell me.”
“Proximity better facilitates ripening and progresses a mating along.”
“I ripened the moment I saw you two years ago.”
“Moving in hurried along my ripening then.” Jamie scowled at Kenneth. “Da is dying. Sorry I didn’t have a couple years to grow accustomed to that idea, but he is. Worse, he’s suffering. You say he’ll hang on.” Jamie sprung to his feet and marched to the desk Kenneth had been working at. He pounded the oak surface with his fist. “He shouldn’t have to.”
