She’s trembling, her eyes red and furious, and he smiles at her, sharp and mean. Then he turns away and follows his Pack.
~*~
She stands there for a long silent moment.
The Chief clears his throat. “Ma’am? I'm going to have to ask you to leave.”
She gives him a disbelieving look that’s met with stern detachment, and she realizes—this isn't Chase’s father. It’s the Chief.
“The owners of the home have made it clear that you aren’t wanted,” he says, and it’s not unkind. “Time to go.”
She does. She holds her head high and stalks out, and watching the Chief in her rearview mirror, she tries very hard to believe she isn’t being chased away.
Chapter 21
Tyler can hear Chase talking to Chelsea, and there’s a part of him—a small part that clings to the sister he grew up with—that wants to snarl and snap, wants to drag Chase away and protect Chelsea from him.
He isn’t surprised when he hears Chase’s footsteps, rapid and sure, and he isn’t surprised when Chase slips into his room. The boy walks in like it’s his right, like he knows Tyler would never turn him away, and that—it makes something in his chest ache.
“I’m sorry,” Chase says.
Tyler shrugs. He’s sitting on his bed, hands dangling between his knees, and he knows he should care more, but he’s too tired.
“Can—can I touch you?”
Tyler looks at him and frowns. “Chase. You never have to ask that.”
Chase doesn’t say anything, just kneels at his feet and carefully tugs his boots off. He pulls Tyler to his feet and removes his shirt while Tyler stands there, shoulders slumped and passive. “Pants on?” Chase murmurs and Tyler shakes his head. Chase’s fingers tremble a little, but he unbuttons the jeans and pushes them down. Tyler gives a tiny wiggle of his hips and they pool at his feet, before Chase presses him down with light pressure on his shoulders.
“What do you want?” Chase asks, staring up at him, eyes wide and sad.
“I want our Pack,” he says, “I want—.”
You.
Chase watches him and finally nods. “Lucas,” he calls, barely lifting his voice at all. Tyler feels some of the panic in his chest loosen when Lucas closes the door behind him. He picks up a book and sits against the headboard, and Tyler sighs. Then Chase is there, pressing in, curling around him.
Tyler tucks himself into the boy’s throat, inhaling the cool familiar scent of him, listening to the rhythm of their heartbeats, of his Pack. It drowns out the sound of his Alpha driving away.
~*~
When he leaves the next morning, he drives home, then Chase sits in his Bronco for a long time before he huffs. “Fuck it,” he mutters and pulls back out without going inside.
Harrisburg only has one hotel that someone like Chelsea would bother with, and even if it didn’t, he can feel the press of her, the weak bond that ties her to the Reid Pack, and he follows that.
She looks distinctly unsurprised and even less pleased to see him. “What do you want?”
“I want to know why you’re here, the real reason,” Chase says, “Not the bullshit you fed Tyler. He’s the only one who cares, Chelsea. So cut the shit and tell me what you want.”
She shrugs and pushes the door further open. Her hair is pulled into a ponytail and she isn’t wearing makeup, making her appear more approachable. She looks like Tyler when he’s with Chase and Lucas, relaxed and content.
It makes something twist unpleasantly in his belly, so he shoves that recognition away and steps into her room.
“Dangerous, you coming here alone.”
“Not really,” Chase says, glancing around curiously. “I’m your Shaman. And I’m the Standing Stones’ scion. Attacking me is...stupid.” He turns and smiles at her. “And you aren’t stupid, Chelsea.”
She stares at him and Chase tucks his hands into the pocket of his hoodie. “What do you want?”
“I want to forget this fucking town exists,” she says frankly.
“Then why come back?”
“Because,” she snaps, “you and my psychotic brother are making it really hard to ignore.”
“You mean the Cahils can’t ignore it. Tell me, is it you or your fiance who decided you should come get a handle on your wayward Pack?”
She flushes. “I don’t begrudge you the life you chose. I didn’t force Tyler to stay with me. I let you play Shaman. Why is it so horrible that I want to live my life? I have a Pack that’s safe and that wants me. I love my life there. Why is that so wrong?”
Chase stares at her. She’s asking, and he can hear from the earnestness in his voice that she doesn’t understand.
He whistles and walks to the door. “I was wrong, Chelsea. You are stupid.” She snarls and he pauses in the doorway. “We’re going to live. We want a quiet, little life, but I will not roll over and play bitch for every goddamn threat because it offends the delicate sensibilities of your adopted Pack. And fuck you for asking.”
He steps out of the room, then pauses, looking back. “He still loves you. He wants you to come home.”
“I have a home,” she says distantly.
“I know. But you need to know—for his sake, I need to say this: Tyler loves you and he wants his sister to come home. But that won’t last forever. Eventually, he’ll stop caring.” He shrugs. “It doesn’t change anything, but because I do love him—you needed to at least hear that.”
He walks away. She doesn’t stop him.
~*~
She leaves and he can feel it, the Pack bond stretching thin and wrong between them as she gets further and further away. He wonders if it's his fault, if he started this when he left New York, chose Lucas instead of his sister.
~*~
In the days after, Tyler spends a lot of time quietly, reading and writing—he started that while Chase was in his junior year of school, and rarely let anyone see it, but Chase thought it was ok. It helped Tyler, the way that cooking helped him and plotting helped Lucas.
And at least when Tyler was writing, there were no inconvenient dead bodies to worry about.
~*~
The wolf creeps through the woods, ears pinned to his head. He can smell traces of Chase, familiar and comforting, moving through the woods, and he creeps after him, whining.
Lucas presses against his side when he slows, licks his muzzle and when gentle doesn’t work, nips at him, hard enough the wolf huffs and pads along.
The glade is thick with the scent of lighting and honey, musk and sweat, rain and new growth. He whimpers, and ahead, Chase’s head tilts and he turns—
~*~
“Tyler,” Chase murmurs, and he shivers, curls closer.
“Leave him,” Lucas says, a quiet order, and Chase presses a kiss to Tyler’s hair.
~*~
His eyes gleam in the silver moonlight, a bright familiar gold, and he’s laughing, but he’s gentle as Tyler sits at his feet, curls there like a giant puppy.
There you are, Chase murmurs, and the wolf licks at him, earning him a soft hum of pleasure, before Chase moves away. Ready?
The grey wolf yips, and Chase closes his eyes as the scent of magic swells and grows, washing through the glade, rolling out of the Standing Stones in tight concentric rings.
The wolf closes his eyes and lets Chase’s magic wash him clean.
~*~
“Is it done?” Lucas asks, and Tyler murmurs sleepy nonsense into Chase’s throat. The boy is hot, hotter than he should be, but he feels steady under Tyler’s hands, and he sighs in quiet contentment, letting his worry slip away.
“It’s done. The land is clean again.”
~*~
Aurora arrives home two weeks early, a week after Chelsea drove out of Harrisburg without a backward glance, the morning after Chase strengthened his wards and purified the land of the Alpha’s touch.
Tyler thinks it’s more than that—the Pack bonds feel stronger now, like they’re shiny and clean, not carr
ying the sick feeling of rot that’d clung to them after Chelsea’s arrival. He doesn’t thank Chase for that any more than Chase even mentions what he did, but he’s absurdly grateful.
He makes an extra portion of bacon for Chase, snarling at Lucas when the wolf comes too close to it.
Lucas smirks, like Tyler is endlessly amusing, then his head tilts and his eyes brighten, and Aurora steps into the den.
Tyler isn’t sure when the little Medusa went from someone he resented to someone he trusted, but as she smiles at them and demands to know where Chase is—he’s very sure that it happened, and even happier that it did.
~*~
“Is what she said true?” John asks a few nights after Aurora comes home, while Chase is sitting in his office eating dinner with him.
Chase doesn’t bother pretending he doesn’t know what his dad is referring to. He’s a little surprised it took him this long to ask, honestly.
“You know it doesn’t matter anymore, right? I’m a few years too late for you to complain, if I were.”
“Are you?”
Chase shrugs and looks away. “It doesn’t matter, if I were. Tyler doesn’t see me like that. I’m just the kid he adopted because I wouldn’t go away.”
John stares at him for a long moment, then shakes his head. “Kid, Tyler Reid loves you. He loves you enough that he was willing to deal with an angry overprotective father to keep you in his life. He might not be ready or able to give you the kind of love you want, but he would move mountains for you.”
And Chase knows that. He does. “Is it selfish for me to want more?”
John lowers the fork and stares at his son. What even is his life, that he’s giving him romantic advice about Tyler Reid?
“Would you demand more than he can give?” John asks and Chase’s head snaps up, eyes narrowing. His tattoo writhes, something that’s never going to sit right with John. “Then no. It’s not selfish. Your feelings are your own, Chase. It’s when you bleed your feelings all over someone else that it becomes selfish.”
Chase is quiet, then asks, “What if I can’t get over it?” He looks up and adds plaintively, “I’ve tried, and it’s like—every guy I’m with is just a reminder of who I’m not with.”
“You aren’t willing to give him up, right?”
Chase looks at him like he’s insane, and John smiles. “Then you deal with it. That’s all you can do.”
~*~
Aurora slips back into their lives like she never left. She’s sitting curled in Lucas’s chair when Tyler says, “Lucas? What did Chelsea mean about revenge fantasies?”
“You still haven’t told him?” Aurora asks, and Chase shrugs.
“Tyler didn’t need to know,” Lucas answers easily.
“I’m sitting right here,” he says grumpily.
Lucas snorts and picks Aurora up, sitting down and arranging her in his lap. She huffs but allows it, turning to look at Tyler.
“He’s killing them. Everyone who had anything to do with the accident.”
“It’s what I would have done if our Pack survived. It was my job as the Left Hand,” Lucas says.
Aurora adds casually, “He’s very good. He won’t be caught.”
“He will if he keeps leaving the Reid car wreck newspaper clippings,” Chase says, dropping onto the couch near Tyler. “I told you to stop that.”
“Does everyone know about this but me?” Tyler snaps.
Chase presses into him. “Would you have been ok with it?” Chase asks. “He isn’t doing this for you, Ty. He needs it for him.”
Tyler takes a moment to respond. “You aren’t going after the coven alone.”
“Tyler,” Lucas murmurs, “do you have your own revenge fantasy?”
“Of course I do, you ass,” Tyler snaps, “But more than that—if you go alone, they’ll kill you. And Mia has taken enough of our family.”
Lucas studies him for a long moment, then nods.
~*~
He follows her, bemused, as she struts through the mall.
“Why did you pick Chase?” he asks, while she examines a pale green bikini that he can’t think too much about.
She shrugs. “I always saw him, but for so long, he was convinced we were star-crossed lovers and I didn’t want that.”
Lucas remembers that, the afternoons when Chase would sit next to him doing his homework, feeding him bites of pudding and rambling about a goddess of a girl that he adored.
Lucas wonders, sometimes, if his adoration for the girl was because of her, or because of everything Chase said about her.
“Does it bother you?” she asks, and he glances at her in question. She’s watching him, something predatory in her gaze.
“That he loved you?”
She tilts her head, regal as ever.
Lucas hands her two scraps of cream and peach and says, “Darling girl, I really don’t care who has or does love you.”
Her smile is slow, syrup sweet and sharp as glass.
~*~
She models each of the bikinis, and her scent never changes.
He’s very sure that his does, and her smile goes knowing and smug when she sees him adjust himself.
When she’s done and he’s bought her each of them, something she doesn’t even argue with, she kisses his cheek and says, “I have a date. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Lucas watches her walk away, her hips twitching, and grins.
It’s not a revenge fantasy and his hands aren’t bloody, but he feels more alive than he has in years.
~*~
She calls him later that night, and he’s glad that Tyler is out jogging when he hears her voice—raspy and low, the way he likes it.
“How was the young officer, darling girl?”
“Jealous?”
Lucas laughs outright at that. “Of Anthony Paris? Aurora, that boy is all soft sweetness. You’d destroy him.”
There’s a beat of silence and then, her voice brittle, she says, “Maybe I want sweet.”
“Do you? If that’s true, why are you on the phone with me?” He waits a beat, but she doesn’t respond. He sighs. “You’re calling me because as handsome and good as young Paris is, he isn’t what makes your pulse pound.”
“Listening to my heartbeat, ‘wolf?”
“What do you taste, when you’re near him?” Lucas asks, and she inhales sharply. “What do you taste when you’re with me?”
He knows, but he wants to hear her say it, so he closes his eyes and waits until, softly, she says, “Death. I taste death and screams.” There’s a shuddery breath over the line. “I let him fuck me,” she breathes, and Lucas tips his head back, wraps a hand around his hard cock and strokes himself slowly. “I wanted to feel alive, so I let him eat my pussy and fuck me. I rode him, Lucas, and all I could taste was sweat. I—”
“You didn’t want to scream,” he grits out, and she makes a breathless noise of agreement. “You want to scream with me. Even when I don’t touch you.”
“Lucas,” she whispers.
He tightens his grip on his cock, just so he doesn’t come. “Don’t deny it, darling girl. You want it when you feel my eyes on you. What kind of screams could I coax from you, if I were the one touching you?”
“Sure of yourself, aren’t you?” she says, and it would be tart if her voice was anything but a breathy pant in his ear. He can hear the slick slide of her fingers and he smiles.
“You’re touching yourself,” he murmurs, and she gasps, a shuddery little noise. He can’t stop it—he groans, coming across his chest, his cock pulsing in his hand as she breathes and gasps, whining out his name as she comes.
“When you go back to the young deputy’s bed, Aurora, remember that mine is waiting for you. I won’t beg, but I won’t pretend I don’t want you here, naked and screaming in my arms.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, then murmurs, “Goodnight, Lucas.”
He closes his eyes and says gently, “Sleep well, darling girl.”
~*~
Tyler is leaning against the door of his truck when Chase walks outside, and the young man grins at him. It’s not a surprise, exactly, but Tyler usually warns him when he’s going to show up at the library to pick Chase up.
“What’s up?”
Tyler shakes his head and Chase doesn’t push, just slides into the passenger seat and changes the radio station—because they’re not going to listen to Tyler’s classic rock. There’s only so much of that Chase can be asked to accept and they passed that threshold before Chase hit driving age.
When they reach the edge of town and Tyler keeps driving, Chase glances over at him. “What’s up, big guy?”
“Wanted to get out of town for a while.”
“So you’re kidnapping me?”
Tyler tilts a smirk in his direction and Chase is never going to be able to take that look without wanting to die—or to jump him.
Possibly both.
“Where we going?”
~*~
They go to a drive-in movie four towns over, a place that Tyler says his family used to go to once a month because the kids did best if they weren’t enclosed in the noise of a theatre. It’s not very busy—maybe because the movies tonight are 80’s cult classics—so they park the truck and Tyler trots off to buy popcorn and drinks, instructing Chase to dig blankets and a small mountain of candy out of the backseat.
Then they sprawl out in the bed of the truck, propped up on a nest of pillows Tyler stowed for them.
“Did they always show old movies?” Chase asks.
Tyler laughs. “Yeah. Sometimes it was monster movies. Lucas would run around half shifted and howling until Mom got pissed and made him stop. Of course, her roaring Lucas into obedience usually freaked out the normals more than glowing eyes and fangs.”
Chase snorts and steals a Reese's cup from Tyler, grinning cheekily when Tyler growls and snaps his teeth.
Slow Shift Page 20
