by Bru Baker
“It was okay.”
Max put down the bag he’d been holding open so Anthony could throw trash into it. “Just okay?”
“Liza said she was coming, but she never showed up,” Anthony said.
Max panicked. He loved his nieces and nephews and all the kids in the Pack, but he was shit at giving them advice.
“And Liza is a friend? A girlfriend? A mortal enemy?” he asked, trying and failing to get Anthony to smile.
“Liza is clearly a crush,” Danny said, stepping up beside Anthony. He sat on the stairs and Anthony sank down next to him.
“Duh, Uncle Max,” Anthony said, rolling his eyes.
“Yeah, duh, Uncle Max,” Danny parroted, winking at Max. “Why don’t you finish cleaning up while I talk to Anthony about the lovely Liza?”
Max took the life raft Danny was offering, hurrying off to give them the illusion privacy. He kept an ear on them as they talked about Anthony’s crush and analyzed the last conversation he’d had with her to figure out why she hadn’t come. Anthony was sure it was because she found out he liked her and hated him. Max had always thought of Anthony as a kid with unflappable confidence, but all his insecurities came pouring out as Danny gently probed.
Max had never heard Anthony say more than two or three words to an adult who wasn’t Pack, but here he was pouring his heart out to a complete stranger. His mate bond with Danny was still forming. It definitely wouldn’t be strong enough for the Pack to feel connected to Danny through it.
Anthony was smiling again by the time he and Danny were done talking. The kid was practically beaming, happier than Max had seen him in the last year.
“You’re like the preteen whisperer. How did you do that?”
“Talking to kids who are struggling and helping them brainstorm solutions is literally my job, Max.”
“Troubled kids,” Max said, watching Anthony go in the house. He gave Phil a big hug, then moved on to Kathleen.
“All preteens are troubled,” Danny said. “Some more than others. Puberty is hard. Their hormones are going crazy, and they feel split between being a kid and being an adult. Add in Supe stuff and yeah, there’s going to be things to work through. Just because a kid comes from a loving family doesn’t mean they don’t have problems. Granted, not on the scale that the kids the Janus Foundation helps, but their feelings are still valid.”
“You sound like a therapist.”
Danny scoffed. “I’m a licensed LCSW. I am a therapist. I’ve gotten away from one-on-one therapy as the foundation has taken off and I’ve gotten busier, but I do still provide counseling on a case-by-case basis, usually family therapy when kids are having a hard time settling in with a foster family because they don’t know how to communicate their needs in a way that is human-friendly. Plus I lead group sessions for the kids twice a week at the day center.”
God, no wonder Danny was always so busy. Max knew the basic story about what the foundation did and how it came to be, but he wanted to know more, both about Danny and the organization he’d created to help Supe kids.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you where the foundation got its name,” he said.
“Janus is the Greek god of new beginnings and transitions. That’s what we hope to give these kids. Plus he’s usually depicted with two faces because he’s always looking into the past and into the future. I liked the symbolism for Supes. We all have to wear two faces, whether we physically shift or not. These kids have had to learn how to act human in order to survive, and the Janus Foundation helps them get back a piece of their other side.”
Max reached out and wrapped a hand around Danny’s neck, urging him in closer until their lips met. It was a soft, sweet kiss, but Max hoped it told Danny just how incredible he was. He was the most compassionate person Max knew.
“It’s the perfect name,” Max said when he stepped back. “Thanks for talking to Anthony. Whatever you said to him really seemed to help.”
Danny grinned. “That’s the best part—I didn’t say anything to him. I don’t have all the answers. Hell, I don’t even know all the questions. Anthony helped himself. He just needed someone to listen.”
Max didn’t believe that for a second. Anthony needed the right person to listen, and that person was Danny. The Pack was so lucky to have him, and in a few weeks it would be official. Tonight they’d run with the Connoll Pack to celebrate Danny’s last full moon with them. They needed to leave soon if they were going to be settled in by moonrise.
“We’ve got to get on the road,” Max said when they popped into the kitchen to say goodbye. He pressed a noisy kiss on the top of Anthony’s head. “Happy birthday.”
Anthony shoved him away, laughing, and his sisters came up to get their own hugs and kisses from Max.
“Can you stay? We’re playing Aggravation,” Jessica said. She was fourteen, but she hadn’t outgrown family game nights like most of the teenagers Max knew. He hoped she never would.
“Maybe just a quick round?” Danny said. “It’s only an hour and a half to the Pack house.”
The kitchen erupted in laughter, leaving Danny with a look of startled confusion.
“We play a little differently than you’re probably used to,” Max said. “There’s no such thing as a quick round of Aggravation in the Torres family.”
“They play for money,” Kathleen said, shaking her head. “And they’re ruthless. Even the kids.”
Danny turned to Max. “We’re talking about the kids’ game, right? With all the colored marbles and the holes in the board you move around?”
Max put his hands on Danny’s shoulders and steered him out of the kitchen. “Yes. I’ll explain in the car. If you start down this road with them, we’ll miss moonrise. Say goodbye to Danny, guys.”
Danny returned the chorus of goodbyes as Max steered him out to the car they’d parked at the curb. Their overnight bags were in the trunk, since they’d planned to leave straight from the party.
Alpha Connoll had invited them to run with them and spend the weekend at the Pack compound on the edge of the Sterling Forest State Park. Max was excited to check it out. He wouldn’t be able to afford anything big enough to accommodate the whole Pack at once like Alpha Connoll’s compound, but he wanted to get a feel for how something like that was set up. It would be nice to have a permanent home base for Pack runs.
“So, playing kids’ games for money?” Danny prompted when Max had pulled away from the house.
“It’s sounds off the wall, but I swear it’s fun. My family puts money on pretty much all the board games we play. I learned to count losing all my good Halloween candy to Pop playing blackjack. We’re not allowed to play Monopoly anymore. Ma banned it in the nineties when Phil stabbed one of our cousins with his claws.”
Danny shook his head. “I’d love to see it.”
“Oh, you will. It’s a Torres tradition. We have a board-game night at least once a month with most of the family. Trust me, you’ll get the hang of it pretty fast. It usually ends when someone throws the board. Last time we played Aggravation, it was Kathleen. So even though you’re not Torres by birth, you can be taught.”
“That sounds weirdly aggressive but also fun,” Danny said.
Max reached over and squeezed his knee. “That could be my family motto.”
Chapter Eleven
MAX was fast. Granted, Danny only ran once a month in his shifted form, so he was out of practice. But even adjusting for that, Max was fast. Only Alpha Connoll and Jackson could keep up with him. The three of them were practically a blur in the distance, racing each other to the lake.
He’d googled pictures of binturongs so he’d know what to expect Max’s shifted form to look like, but it hadn’t prepared him. Those things were small and almost cuddly, with whiskers longer than their faces and long bushy tails that curled around them when they walked. Danny hadn’t been too far off with his grizzly comparison. Max was massive. He did have the fluffy tail, though. One Danny wanted to pet some time when
he was sure Max wouldn’t bite him for trying.
Danny dropped back and trotted alongside Sloane, who didn’t like the feel of the soil beneath her paws, so she always minced her steps. Running with Sloane was like watching a wolf play Frogger, jumping between patches of foliage or piles of dead leaves whenever she could.
This run was so different from the ones he’d been on in the past. Before, it had been a chore. Something he did because his body needed to do it, not because his mind enjoyed it. But now that he was more connected with his wolf and his wolf senses, the forest was a fascinating place. The dirt Sloane hated was rich and loamy, and the dry leaves she jumped through made his nose twitch. He could smell his Pack all around him, their scents mixing with pine sap and fresh night air and making him feel invincible with every lungful he drew.
Would it be like this with Max’s Pack too? The thrum through the Pack bond filled him up in a way he hadn’t known he needed, and he was reluctant to lose that after he’d just found it.
He led Sloane through the trees, following Max’s trail. Danny’s wolf was half-drunk on the heady scent of its mate. Max smelled the same in shifted form as he did when he was human, but it was amplified. He radiated power and authority. It had been all Danny could do not to bare his neck to him when he’d shifted, but that would have been a grave insult to Alpha Connoll during a full-moon Pack run, so Danny had reeled himself back in.
Sloane nipped at his leg, and Danny turned to look at her. He hadn’t realized he’d sped up as he chased after Max’s scent, but Sloane was panting and giving him a murderous glare. Danny wasn’t out of breath at all. He wondered if that was a benefit of the bond too. He’d never had this kind of stamina before. Did an Alpha Mate get a power boost?
Sloane snapped at him again, and Danny stopped. She shifted, and Danny turned his face away. Nudity was a normal part of Pack life, but he was about crotch level with her in his wolf form, and there were some things a cousin didn’t need to see.
He closed his eyes and concentrated, but he couldn’t hear anyone. The nearest Pack member had to be at least a quarter mile away.
Danny shifted and turned around. “Did you need something, or are you just being pissy because we’re actually running this time?”
Sloane made a face at him. “I wanted to talk to you while we had some privacy.”
Standing naked in the middle of a state park wasn’t his idea of the best place to talk, but he motioned for her to continue.
“Are you leaving the Pack for real? I heard you and Alpha Connoll talking about it earlier. You’re joining Max’s Pack permanently?”
Shit. He’d meant to talk to her about it before she found out through the grapevine. He’d told her he intended to switch, but he hadn’t put a timeline on it then because he hadn’t been sure it was the right move.
“He’s planning to do the ritual at the next moon.”
Sloane looked away, and Danny caught the salty smell of her tears. “I’m happy for you.”
“They’re a great Pack,” Danny said.
He hesitated, wondering if he should tell Sloane that Max was planning to invite her to join as well. It was really Max’s place to do it, but she was upset, and Danny didn’t want to cause her any unnecessary angst. Fuck it. He was going to be Pack’s Alpha Mate—he could extend an invitation too.
“We’d be honored if you would consider joining the Pack as well,” he said. The word we hung clumsy and strange on his tongue, but it felt right in his heart. “You’d make a great addition to the Torres Pack.”
“You can’t invite a stranger to a Pack you haven’t even officially joined yet,” Sloane said.
“Max and I have already talked about it. He was planning to invite you after I joined. You’re family, Sloane. If you want to join my Pack, you can join my Pack.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said after a few beats of silence. “Uncle Daniel is thinking about leaving the Pack too.”
He hadn’t spoken to his father since the blowup in the lobby. He’d seen his mother once, but she’d been more focused on learning about him than talking about his father. Danny knew his father’s loathing for the Pack was bad, but he hadn’t realized it was that bad.
“Max would never let him join,” he said quietly.
Sloane’s laugh was bitter and sharp. “Uncle Daniel wouldn’t be caught dead in a shifter Pack. You know that. He’d be unaffiliated.”
Alpha Connoll would never allow that. His father was an Alpha, which meant the only way he could stay in this territory was as a rank-and-file member of someone else’s Pack. An unaffiliated Alpha in New York City would set Supe tongues wagging everywhere, and Danny could think of at least four groups that wouldn’t allow it.
“Has he talked to Alpha Connoll about it?”
“No. Aunt Veronica is trying to talk sense into him. It’s been different since the gala, Danny. She stands up to him more than I’ve ever seen. She won’t hear a bad word about you. Or me, for that matter.”
Danny could have used that when he’d been a kid, but better late than never. Especially if it was helping Sloane. He knew his parents were here, but only because Alpha Connoll had told him when he and Max had arrived. Apparently they’d chosen to stay in a cabin instead of in the main house like they normally did.
They were here because Alpha Connoll required attendance at the Pack moon runs, but he didn’t require anyone to actually run. Most did, but Danny’s family often didn’t. He and Sloane usually made a somewhat ceremonial attempt, gathering with everyone and running a bit before looping back and spending the rest of the night at the house waiting for everyone to return.
There would be a huge meal around sunrise, and then everyone would find a place to sleep for a few hours. They usually had breakfast for lunch in the late afternoon before everyone started to trickle out to return to the city.
He used to hate full-moon nights because they left him exhausted. But this was different. Exhilarating. If resisting the moon’s pull felt like draining a battery, embracing it was like getting a recharge. He had more energy than he knew what to do with. Suddenly it made sense why the wolves who came back from the all-night run were perky and refreshed, even though they hadn’t slept.
“I’m going to head back to the house,” Sloane said.
He didn’t want to maroon her there with nothing to do, but he also wanted to catch up to Max so they could run together.
Sloane laughed at his indecision, which he knew was written all over his face. “It’s okay. I brought my textbooks. You should stay out here. I’ll see you when we all meet up to eat.”
She shifted and trotted off toward the house. Danny shifted as well. He’d never enjoyed the process of going wolf before, and he didn’t particularly enjoy it now. But he was faster than ever, probably because he wasn’t focused on the pain of it. He wanted to go find Max.
Without Sloane slowing him down, Danny flew through the forest, wind ruffling his thick fur as he rocketed toward Max. It wasn’t that his human worries disappeared when he was a wolf, but it was easier to lose them for an hour or two when he gave himself over to it. His instincts were more feral, and his senses were overwhelmed by the smells and sounds of the forest. Getting to Max was at the forefront of his mind, but that didn’t mean he’d forgotten about the text he’d gotten from an unknown number on the drive up. It had been signed Sulkie, which was the nickname Danny had given Joss when they’d first started working together and Joss had been a moody preteen. Joss had warned him to stop going to pawn shops, but it hadn’t sounded like a threat. It had been more pleading. He was worried about Danny getting too deep into something dangerous.
Danny snorted, which sounded the same in both his wolf and human forms. If Joss thought for a second that Danny would leave him in a situation that he admitted would be too dangerous for an adult, he had another think coming. Actually, he had Danny coming. Because the private detective said she was positive she was close to finding an address for him, and once she did
, nothing was going to stop Danny from going in after him.
Max’s howl shook Danny out of his thoughts. He was close, closer than he’d realized. Danny took off at a sprint, his heart thundering in his chest. It was his turn to run with Max, and he couldn’t wait.
Max was alone when Danny caught up with him. The rest of the Pack was nearby, but they were giving Max a wide berth as an unfamiliar Alpha. Danny didn’t care—it meant he had Max to himself. He darted forward and nipped at Max’s hind leg, drawing a noise that sounded almost like a laugh from him. Max turned and pounced, making easy work of catching Danny and pinning him to the ground.
Danny squirmed his way out, fully aware that the only reason he escaped was because Max let him. Power poured off of Max in this form. Instead of making him cower, it made Danny feel ten feet tall. This glorious, powerful creature was his mate, and he was done fighting it.
Everything was so much simpler in shifted form. He was himself, but he didn’t feel any shame giving himself over to his baser instincts. He wanted Max, and that was enough. His wolf didn’t care about moving too quickly or losing part of himself by bonding to an Alpha—it knew that Max was its mate, and that was enough for Danny to bare his neck and present himself to his Alpha.
His instinctual posture must have been the right choice because Max nipped lightly at his neck and shot up, circling around Danny twice before taking off into the trees. Danny followed, his muscles burning as he strained to keep up. He lost sight of Max twice, but he didn’t panic. His scent trail was like a beacon. Danny had no trouble following it.
He stopped short when he realized Max had led them back to the main house. He shifted and walked into the house naked, his human nose still easily able to distinguish Max’s scent. Sloane sat hunched over a pile of books and notes at the kitchen counter.
“He’s upstairs,” she said without looking up. “If you’re going to do what I think you’re going to do, please take it outside.”
