But when he wakes, all he can remember is the pressure of his wolves on either side of him and the scent of gasoline and rain in his nose, the ache of the run in his legs.
He dreams he can hear a whisper, familiar and strange, Soon. Soon. You’re coming home soon.
~*~
Chase and John come back to Harrisburg on a Saturday in late July, a day that is unremarkable in every way, except that it brings Chase.
>> I’m home.
>> I’m coming over.
<< See you soon.
He rubs his palms over his thighs, wiping away the sweat as his nerves build. The sound of an unfamiliar vehicle on the drive registers first, and he laughs as it clatters into view, an ugly green Bronco that looks older than Chase.
“What do you think?” Chase shouts from the driver’s side window.
Tyler smirks, coming down the stairs to greet him. “I think it’s just as loud as you are,” he says easily and gets a yelp of indignation. Chase kills the engine and slides out of the Bronco with a wide smile and Tyler—
Tyler freezes.
Chase isn’t the small, wide-eyed little boy he remembers. He doesn’t reek of grief and loneliness anymore. He isn’t hunched in on himself and afraid.
Somehow, even watching him, Tyler managed to miss that Chase has grown up over the years. He’s grinning, wide and happy, his shoulders broad and straight as he bounces in place, muscular arms long and lean like the rest of him, glee written all over his face, confidence radiating from every gorgeous inch of him.
And he’s gorgeous.
The boy who forced his way into Tyler’s pack and family has grown up into a gorgeous man with distractingly pink lips, strong arms, and hair the perfect length for pulling, and—how the actual fuck had he missed this?
He’s still frozen when Chase throws his arms around Tyler, squeezing hard and strong, completely confident of his welcome, and Tyler shudders because Chase is home.
He has no idea what to do with the ridiculously handsome man he’s become.
Chapter 10
“You’re Chase DeWitt.”
He stares at Aurora Black, standing in front of him with curling dark red hair and an arch smile, and nods, a quick bobble of his head. She eyes him, the kind of searching look he imagines she gives a pair of shoes when deciding if she’ll take them home or not.
“You’re ranked second in our class. I need someone who gives me a little bit of a challenge. We’ll be studying together this year,” she says decisively.
Chase blinks. “Do I get a vote?”
She flashes a smile that’s all teeth. “No.” She snatches up his phone and taps her number into it. “Text me your schedule and I’ll put together time for us to meet.”
She swirls away in a clatter of heels and swishing skirts, and Chase stares after her.
“What the fuck?” he mutters.
~*~
Three days later, he hasn’t still hasn’t figured it out, but he’s sitting across from Aurora in the library, chemistry books spread out across the table, and he can’t stop staring.
“I thought,” she says, exasperated but crisp, “that you were over your obsession with me.”
Chase gapes at her. “You knew about that?”
Aurora doesn’t even look offended, just vaguely annoyed and impatient. “Of course I knew. Why do you think we haven’t studied together before? You’d get like this and it’d be all—uncomfortable.”
Chase winces. She isn’t wrong, but hearing it put like that—it’s blunt and almost painful.
Even Lucas had heard about Aurora. His infatuation with Aurora was a quiet steady thing in his life, something that was almost comforting, even at the worst points in his life.
“I’m sorry,” he says sincerely, “I never meant to make you uncomfortable.”
She lowers her pencil and for the first time since they sat down, the pretty brilliant girl gives him all of her attention. “You haven’t. But before now, you’d never have been able to focus on studying, and that’s what I need you for.”
Chase flinches. Her expression tightens, then goes as close to soft as he has ever seen from her. “You don’t like me, Chase.”
“No,” he agrees softly, thinking about Tyler, “I haven’t for a long time.”
Aurora smiles then, all quiet satisfaction. “Good. Then we can be friends. And we can finally study together.”
She tugs the books back in front of her and gives Chase an expectant stare. Chase grins, wide and bright and eager. “Yeah. Ok.”
~*~
“It’s weird,” Chase grumbles.
“You’ve been trying to get Aurora to notice you since before we met,” Tyler says, and his voice is dry, his expression quiet and easy.
“But that’s why it’s weird,” Chase persists, “It’s not like she’s noticing me the way I wanted her to. It’s just—a friend. It’s like Ben or Lucas,” he says. He pauses and shakes his head. “Like Brielle, wary but friendly.”
“Who is wary?”
“Me,” Chase says immediately, scooping chili into a bowl for Lucas and then himself. Tyler carries their drinks and his own chili to the table, then studies Chase, his brow furrowed into a frown.
“Why?”
He shrugs. “When am I not? It’s Aurora Black. She has to want something.”
Tyler pauses. There’s a part of him, the insistent part that refuses to stop seeing the changes in Chase, the part that notices and wants to drag the boy close and never let go—that doesn’t want Aurora anywhere near him, that wants to keep Chase away from the girl he’s pined over and that has so completely ignored him.
He forces out the words, “Maybe she just wants a friend. Give her a chance.”
Chase gives him a doubtful look and Tyler sighs. “You can bring her here if you want.”
Tyler has been very vocal about who he doesn’t like since Ryan, even if Chase never brings anyone but Ben to the house. Chase had laughed and teased him about being a stalker and Tyler had shrugged, unbothered, because even if that was an accurate accusation, he’d wear it to keep Chase safe.
“Maybe,” Chase hums, thoughtful, but then his attention is drawn to Lucas, and Tyler relaxes into his presence, totally and completely focused on them, for now.
~*~
He spends a lot of time on his tablet, reading through the lore and pack law that Tyler gave him. There’s a whole world of supernatural, a hierarchy of pack and werewolf politics that makes him anxious and curious at the same time.
It’s frustrating because he has a lot of questions, but Tyler doesn’t always have answers. Sometimes Chase will burst into the house rattling off questions about why the Alpha can heal and not just steal pain and will get a blank-eyed stare in return.
It’s especially encouraging when the blank stare is accompanied by alphas can do that?
He has a whole list of questions for Lucas when he ever wakes up.
“What is it?” Aurora asks, one day when they’re alone at the lunch table. Chase glances at her, that familiar tug of surreal pulling on him.
“Nothing,” he says, sliding the tablet into his bag and giving her a wide grin.
She eats a grape and studies him. “The same kind of nothing that keeps you busy Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday?” she asks archly and he flushes. “I’m not Ben or Brielle, Chase. I have noticed.”
“I have a life,” Chase says dryly.
She gives him an unimpressed look. “So what is it? A secret girlfriend?” Her eyes turn wicked and playful. “A secret boyfriend?”
He thinks about what Tyler told him about Aurora, about how the house is his as much as Lucas and Tyler’s, about how he still hesitates to take Ben there, and his father only goes for their twice-monthly dinners.
He grins at her suddenly, his heart pounding. “You wanna see?”
~*~
The knock on his door startles him because he doesn’t get a lot of visitors on Saturday at ten o’clock at night, and the ones he
does get usually don’t require knocking.
He’s considering the wisdom of opening the door in his faded HPD shirt and Spiderman PJ pants above bare feet, when he does open the door and immediately decides this was a mistake.
In the years since the Drakes came to town, he’s managed to keep his distance from them, only spending time with Brielle during school and when Ben made it impossible to avoid her.
Tyler’s been less violent when the Drakes came up, but he still didn’t seem inclined to let them near Chase.
He knows there's more to the story, to the history between the Reid pack and the Drake coven, but he hasn't asked, and now he thinks that’s monumentally stupid because Andre Drake is dressed in black and standing on his doorstep, the Drake emblem—silver pair of snakes twisted together—the only spot of color he wears
“I request a meeting with the Reid Alpha and Pack Shaman in regards to the peace treaty,” he says formally.
Chase blinks. “Uhh.”
Drake stares at him while Chase stands there, milk on his lips from his cereal and no idea what the hell is happening.
“Gimme a sec,” he mutters and flails a bit before he locates his phone. He dials easily and hears a distracted hum in his ear as Tyler answers.
“Hey, big guy, Drake is here. Wants a meeting with the Alpha and Shaman.”
Tyler spits a curse and hangs up.
Chase sighs. “Come on in.”
They’re just sitting there, Chase finally having wiped his face, when Tyler bursts into the room, half shifted, eyes bright and claws out.
Andre is up and across the room before the door bangs shut behind Tyler, power sparking along his fingertips, but the werewolf doesn’t even notice, stalking to Chase and pulling him up, pressing into his throat for just a moment while Chase pets his shoulder uselessly.
“I’m ok,” he murmurs, low and easy.
Tyler huffs, a touch of a whine in the noise, before he lets go and falls back a step. His claws slide away as he places one hand on Chase’s shoulder and focuses on the hunter. “I told you to stay away from him.”
“I didn’t come here to do harm.”
“Why did you come here?” Chase cuts in, and tugs on Tyler’s shorts a little, urging him to sit.
“Because I wanted to meet with the Reid Alpha and his shaman. But you aren’t an alpha,” Andre says slowly.
“And I’m not a shaman,” Chase finishes. He grins. “We’re not exactly a normal pack.”
“I see that,” Andre says. His gaze cuts to Tyler. “Do you want him here for this?”
Chase bristles and Tyler shrugs. “I don’t keep secrets from my pack. Chase is fine.”
Andre nods and says softly, “My nieces are coming to Harrisburg.”
~*~
Tyler doesn’t tell him anything.
He calls the Chief and asks if Chase can stay with Lucas for a few days, then he vanishes. Chase is left with more questions than ever and a catatonic Lucas with no answers for company.
~*~
The dream is different.
“It wasn’t always like this.”
The voice startles him so badly he yelps and falls over, scrambling over charred bits of wood and twigs, leaves sticking against him.
“You would have liked the pack, before.”
Chase looks around but the voice comes from everywhere, echoing and strong, powerful and playful.
“What was it like?” he asks.
A laugh answers him. “Like our little pack, but bigger. Fuller.”
He thinks of that, and tears sting his eyes, because they lost that.
Tyler had clawed the pack and house together through sheer will and stubbornness, and once it had been his, a birthright he hadn’t thought to question or value because it’s the way things had always been.
“What happened?” he asks, and the air is cold against him. He shivers and nestles into the ground as his grey wolf lopes out of the trees, circling him and pressing close, his fur bristling familiar comfort against him. He feels the words as much as he hears them, and shudders, burrowing into his wolf.
She killed us. Mia Drake and her coven of witches—she killed us all.
~*~
Lucas sleeps for almost thirty hours, something that would bother him, except he’s used to Lucas, used to the long jags of sleep that seem to play to the cycle of the moon.
He situates Lucas in Tyler’s big bed. He curls against him and dozes there, comforted by the closeness of Pack.
~*~
Tyler comes back after three days and finds Chase and Lucas curled up like puppies in his bed. He doesn’t even bother to shower the sweat and dirt away, just crawls in with them and lets his eyes close.
“Better?” Chase asks, his voice a deep rasp, and Tyler nods, squeezes the hand that has landed on his hip.
“Thanks,” he murmurs. Chase hums sleepily.
~*~
It’s strange, waking up in bed with Lucas and Tyler.
They moved around in the night, and Lucas is a warm line against his back, his breath steady and comforting against his shoulder. He’s curled into Tyler, his hands fisted in Tyler’s shirt, their legs tangled together, one of Tyler’s big hands on his hip and the other at the nape of his neck. He pulls away just a little so that he can see Tyler, and Tyler’s grip on his neck tightens, just enough that Chase gasps. The soft noise makes Tyler move, a whole body roll against him, before he rolls away completely, yawning and stretching.
“You can get some more sleep,” he mumbles.
“Can I get some answers instead?” Chase asks, and Tyler goes still. “Why did he come to my house, Ty? What the hell am I in this pack? What’s a shaman?”
Tyler huffs and stands. “Get dressed, Chase. I’ll make breakfast and answer your questions. All of them.”
Chase catches his wrist and stares up at Tyler. “What about what just happened?” he asks, voice shaking a little, and Tyler’s gaze shifts, goes bright and shining for a split second.
He pulls away gently. “Get dressed, Chase.”
~*~
Over pancakes and scrambled eggs, Tyler says, “We aren’t a normal pack. We don’t have an alpha and we—Lucas isn’t a healthy werewolf, he can’t shift. You aren’t a shifter at all. And it’s—most packs have a place for humans within them, but ours isn’t a normal pack. It makes everything... complicated.”
“What’s a shaman?”
Tyler scrapes his eggs together and eyes Chase. “You read the lore and pack structure I gave you?” Chase nods. “So the Alpha is the head of a pack. But most packs have a support structure around the Alpha—the left hand, the second. A human fills the role of shaman. They’re...advisors, Mom used to say. We connect them to magic. And they keep us from becoming animals.”
Chase breathes out, slow and easy. “You were supposed to be the second.”
Tyler closes his eyes and nods, thinking about the life he was supposed to have as his sister’s closest confidant, the one who makes treaties and keeps the pack’s history and secrets. There is a part of him that still wants that, that wants Chelsea to come back and make them a real pack, instead of this bastardized version of it.
“Would I be the shaman?”
Tyler shrugs. “They’re—shamans are magic, Chase. They can do things we can’t, with blessed wood and wolfsbane and runes. I don’t know if that’s something you’re born to, or if it can be taught—I just know it’s different from the witches. Shamans aren’t elemental the way that witches are, but I don’t know much about them.”
Chase smiles then, bright and eager, and Tyler has a feeling that the wild boy with bright gold eyes is going to find out.
~*~
He loses some time to researching, enough time that he doesn’t realize he’s due to study with Aurora until she’s in his room, her nose wrinkled in something like disgust, and he’s staring at her from over dusty tomes he borrowed from Tyler and a computer that’s almost buried in paper and notes.
“Aur
ora,” he mumbles, “We’re—shit. We’re supposed to study. I’m sorry, I lost track of time.”
She takes neat little steps into the room, sitting herself primly in the desk chair, and studies Chase critically.
“You look like shit,” she says, and he grins. “Chase, what are you doing?”
“I’m trying to protect someone,” he says.
Later he’ll wonder if it’s because he’s so tired, or because he wants desperately to be honest, or if it’s simply because, under her steely green gaze, he can’t possibly lie. But in the moment, while she stares at him and his fingers shake with exhaustion and caffeine, he’s painfully honest. “I want to protect someone I love.”
She stares at him, then nods and puts her books aside, giving him a small smile. “How can I help?”
~*~
Tyler hears the Bronco two miles out, and Chase, chattering happily, from a mile away. He smiles, listening to him, a smile that turns into a slight frown as he realizes—Chase isn’t alone.
Ben comes with him sometimes, but it’s rare and he always gives Tyler a warning before he shows up.
Chase’s heartbeat is going double time and his voice is—different. It’s warmer and softer than it is with Ben.
A low female voice filters through to him, and Tyler sighs.
He steps onto the porch, jumping down as Chase pulls to a stop in the front yard and clambers out. The girl slips down with more grace and a small smile for Tyler, her sharp gaze taking in every detail of the house.
There is something so alpha about her, it makes him want to snarl.
“Where’s Lucas?” Chase asks, glancing at the house.
“Watching a movie,” Tyler answers, “Who's your friend?”
Chase gives him a bland look, one that says eloquently that Chase isn’t buying his shit, but maybe she is.
“Aurora Black,” she says coolly.
Tyler nods and twitches. Chase huffs, snatching his wrist and dragging Tyler inside. “C’mon, Aurora. He’s kinda hopeless with new people.”
“Am not,” Tyler mutters, quiet enough that only Chase hears him, and it earns him a huff of laughter.
The only time Aurora falters is when she comes face to face with Lucas, his blank eyes bright as she stares at him, her heart pounding heavily in her chest, and Tyler watches, Chase twitching anxiously at his side.
Slow Shift Page 9
