Fated Desire

by Noah Harris

  A couple hundred years ago, I argued, if a kid like Poppy lost control or freaked everybody out, maybe they’d lock her up, or burn her at the stake. Nobody would know what she was, but even if she didn’t shift for twenty years they’d know she was different. That legend would live on for a generation or two or turn into a fairytale about a wolf girl in the forest, or whatever. It wouldn’t leave a mark.

  But now, everybody in the world has a video camera in their pocket. It’s not sustainable. We have to decide exactly how we’re going to be known, what the legends will look like now. How secret we need to be. I think about those cubs growing up out at the ranch, with their half-beast fathers. All I want to do is show them cartoons about the alphabet, videos about science experiments. It’s okay to live apart from the world, but a whole other thing to live outside it.

  Of all people it was Dominic pushing back, at first, before I even took it to the pack. Dominic, Jonesy’s greatest defender.

  “Those guys live out there because they have to, Christian. They prefer it. It’s not fair for any of us to say whether that’s okay.”

  “I’m not saying it’s okay or not okay. I’m saying it’s not sustainable. How are we going to have shifter doctors, lawyers, educators, if we don’t give them a path to that success? How do we stay alive and hidden without those things? We can’t stay secret in a world that’s getting smaller every day unless we’re willing to connect with it. Either way, Goodboy’s way isn’t going to work for this generation. I’ve always known that.”

  There was a tremor in Dominic’s neck as he took note. Somehow, I was arguing against Goodboy, and he was arguing against Jonesy. It didn’t feel right at all. It made me want to laugh.

  “All I want to do is explore this with Goodboy. Having a friend on the outside would make everything easier and Jonesy knows everything about everybody. He’d be the ultimate advocate.”

  Dominic nodded, reluctantly.

  “I’ve had fantasies of moving him out there to the ranch permanently. Maybe he’d find whatever it is he’s been looking for all this time.”

  I raised my eyebrows suggestively, and Dominic cracked up.

  “Goodboy’s dick. Very funny. But I’m serious. He needs a place. When I look around here and think what a lost animal I was…I mean, it’s nothing compared to what he’s accomplished. All I had to do was find my way back. But Kirkendall is drawing the map as he goes. I guess I don’t want to threaten that.”

  Not too hard to fill in the blanks, then. Dominic grew up in Tooth & Claw, his entire identity was shaped by secrets, secret society, secret ritual. His entire concept of safety as a shifter is tied to that. He thinks of Goodboy’s ranch as a holy place. He’s not wrong.

  But neither am I. To protect a holy place, you need protectors. I won’t let my kids hide out there like the rest of them. Not when they have a chance to have a foot in both worlds, long before their first moon is upon them.

  “I think we’re living in a very important time. It’s nothing like the past, and nothing like the future. It’s something new being born. If we don’t recognize that, we don’t have a say in what that new thing is. Tooth & Claw, Salt Flats pack, they’re not the future. They can’t be. So we need something else,” I stuck to my beliefs concerning my children.

  Dominic threw back his head and laughed, but I could tell I’d won.

  “Jonesy Kirkendall, formerly the worst person either of us had ever met, is the only hope for the shifters of the world. That’s what you’re saying to me.”

  “Nah,” I shook my head.

  “Loving Jonesy Kirkendall is the hope. He’s just a guy.”

  So we were about a week out from Bodhi’s birthday, a month or so from school starting, when I finally got a minute with Goodboy to discuss it. Early fall is an intense time of year for him, since it involves doing basically everything on the farm that’ll support them for the next year.

  “Bodhi’s five,” he said when I sat down. Jumping right in, I see.

  “Bodhi’s five. I want him in public school. All four of them, eventually.”

  Goodboy nodded, cautious but engaged. “Even Poppy?”

  “Even Poppy. She can do it. They can all do it.”

  He shrugged. “Great. I get it.”

  The unspoken question being, why have I brought this all the way out to the ranch?

  “I have a proposal, though. About moving the pack forward. I’m not trying to be presumptuous or rude, so it’s just an idea. But I hope you’ll take it seriously.”

  I sketched it out, starting with the school idea. Reminding him how fast the world was changing. I was fairly certain he was buying in, or at least as certain as I expected I could be, when I brought up Jonesy.

  Goodboy’s jaw dropped immediately, and he snorted with a kind of horrified laughter.

  “You want to bring that guy here and tell him all our secrets.”

  I nodded, trying to emulate Goodboy’s usual silent gravity.

  “Jonesy Kirkendall. He believes in ghosts, man. He’s talked about hunting Bigfoot.”

  “Exactly! He’s open-minded.”

  “He’s wonderful, I grant you. We get along and everything. I’ve absolutely never met anyone like that guy. But Christian, that’s not open-minded. That’s unstable.”

  “So give him some stability. Guarding a secret like that, being a part of something magical, getting to put his honor on the line. Hell, getting to impress you.”

  Goodboy blushed and nodded.

  “He would guard those gates with his life, I believe that. But I also believe he would fall asleep drunk at those gates before midnight on the first night. Or casually mention werewolves to some grocery store clerk. Or…”

  But all I could think about was that night we thought the house burned down. The blood on his face, the way he interrupted us having sex without a second thought. He was all in then and not because he needed a family. It was because he chose us.

  “The whole time Dominic was recovering, every time I saw Jonesy’s destroyed face it hit me again. I was moved again. Too much to ever really say out loud. The shock of how much he was willing to give up for us. If he’d died, I honestly think he’d be okay with that. Maybe I just want to repay him with something spectacular.”

  It’s a vivid memory to bring up, especially with a shifter who was there. The copper blood filling up his bruises, swelling his cuts. The raw meat smell of him, beaten and bloody. It brought it flooding back, as I knew it would.

  “That was phenomenal. True. Fine, that’s true. But that was about your family. How do we know he’d be like that about the pack?”

  “Because you’ve met him? Because he loves you more than he loves any of us, and would absolutely die if you invited him to come live here? The werewolf thing would be like, the third most exciting thing about it. I think you know that.”

  Again, he blushed. Not a happy look. For the first time, I realized it was less of a game for Goodboy than I thought, and I felt ill, from my chest to my toes. Was it incredibly selfish, cruel, to be bringing this up? Had Goodboy accidentally gotten feelings for him?

  He grinned at my face, shaking his head wryly.

  “I am not in love with Jonesy Kirkendall. Not really. My whole body knows he’s not an alpha, and an alpha’s what I need. Especially now, when the pack rests entirely on me, everything feels like it’s on fire, saying Sex sex sex. My next heat is going to be unbearable. I’m thinking about an alliance marriage. That’s where we’re at.”

  I sat down, suddenly lightheaded. Goodboy, everyone’s dream guy, marrying some random lucky stranger. Goodboy, fighting me with everything he had to keep a time bomb like Jonesy out of his life. Goodboy, begging me not to let him give in.

  “That’s the past. That’s not the future. The future isn’t more separation, it’s less.”

  He considered it, which is the least I expected from him. But he called before I’d gotten back home, and said he was ready to discuss it further.

 
“It needs to be like a ceremony,” he said grimly. “It needs to be like Tooth & Claw stuff, so he’ll take it seriously.”

  I hung up and laughed. Jonesy Kirkendall shoved through the woods into the torchlight, surrounded by big burly shifters. Either his greatest dream or the thing that would finally push him over the edge. But also, incredibly sexy. Goodboy just has a knack.

  The ceremony itself won’t be too long. We’ve tried to shield Bodhi from the way this involves him, since that’s pretty complicated and not really true in the long haul. Still, he’s five and naturally assumes it’s about him anyway.

  It seems unlikely Felix Armistead will make it, although we all agree Jonesy would want him here if he knew what was coming. But he did have a great deal of fun hashing out the details over the phone with Dominic and promised to make every effort.

  He’s a little old for a prank kidnapping, so we’ve had to finesse that part a bit. He’s aware of the ranch, although I think he pictures more of a bathhouse than a farming co-op. When Dominic invited him out for the weekend, he went very still, like he thought we were propositioning him, and it made me feel queasy. But he laughed and asked if he should bring a fishing pole, and that was that.

  The last thing I do before leaving the house to meet up with the kids is move Dominic into my room. I want him to come home from this to a new situation. It seems like the right time to reboot, and I can’t imagine any circumstances where he’d be bothered by it.

  But it also makes me feel brave, like Jonesy’s going to be. Knowing both those things make me feel good.

  The time it takes to move his stuff is so negligible, his footprint here is still so small, for a moment I’m choked up, like he’s this cartoonish hobo with everything on his back, and it’s my fault. This is his home, I remind myself. We are his people. Not to mention the extravagant life he left back in California, which makes any worry about this ludicrous. But it’s not logical, it’s emotional. This little life. I wonder how long these aftershocks of shame will go on. It has to end eventually, right?

  Jonesy’s electric with energy when he and Goodboy arrive at the ranch. I think he’s had a beer or two. Goodboy said he was taking him to dinner first, actually, so I’m sure he has. His eyes are wide, looking around at the place in the fading sun. So different, clearly, from what he’d imagined.

  The men, too. The shifters wandering in from the fields and the smithy, still sweaty and soot-black from the day’s labor, ready for dinner and a celebration. They voted on this about a week ago, and the holdouts were few. But by now they’ve all gotten on board. It’s hard to say no to Goodboy without a very good reason, and they can’t think of one. Maybe once they meet him and see what they’re working with, it’ll be easier to understand.

  “Ready?” I ask quietly, and he gives me another wild look. Whatever it is, whatever it could be, he’s ready all right.

  Dominic dresses him in the barn, not the house, a loose robe I stitched together this morning, plain but dramatic. The kids of the pack all line up at the edge of the bonfire, my own among them. The torches make everything feel primitive and magical, as the last wind of the day blows the sun down and night stretches out over the fields.

  When they’re ready, Dominic leads him out to the fire and they stand there quietly, like statues, Goodboy appears at the edge of the forest, shirtless, and crosses to them slowly, with ceremony. The children start singing softly, I don’t know if that’s planned or spontaneous, but it’s sweet. Majestic, without being creepy.

  The firelight caresses Goodboy’s every line and curve as he turns to us, smiling.

  “For centuries, we’ve lived in our joy. On the edge of cities, defending them from the dark. For a thousand years or more, holding ourselves apart from men, in order that we might protect them better. This is the law.”

  Jonesy holds still. Presumably he experienced this kind of thing in college, or else we wouldn’t be bothering but I can tell he’s listening hard to every word.

  “A new world requires new laws. It shapes itself around us. It shifts. We shift in turn.”

  Even the holdouts agree to that, silently enough. Jonesy’s eyes dart to me, but he’s not panicking or even questioning it. Just looking at me. Then the kids, then back to Goodboy.

  “Jonesy Kirkendall.”

  He bows his head to Goodboy and I can see him start to shake. His heartbeat so strong and fast I can hear it even from here.

  Goodboy reaches down behind the bonfire, pulling something out. A crown of river-washed white branches. Jonesy turns his head and shows us they’re arranged like antlers. It’s very dramatic, and very beautiful. If Goodboy wanted to make up a ritual that would stick, he’s done it perfectly. Jonesy holds his head up high, strong under the weight, and his eyes are wet.

  “You’ve been a good friend to the pack. A brother to these men. You’ve bled for us in sacrifice and slept upon the doorstep, like a faithful wolf. You’ve treated our children as your own, and these men as your only bonded family.”

  Jonesy nods impatiently. None of this is news to him. But he knows something’s coming.

  “We invite you, humbly and sincerely, to join with us here in the pack. Our fate will be your fate, our lives will be your life. Our children will be your children. Our moon will be your moon.”

  Jonesy lets out a little holler at that, finally unable to contain it any longer, and the crowd laughs. The fraught atmosphere calms down, and we’re a family again. Already proving his value.

  “Do you accept?”

  “Will it…will it hurt?”

  There’s a rustle in the crowd. We’re all shifters, we all heard him perfectly well. But nobody knows what he means.

  “What? Will what hurt?”

  He starts to look sheepish, like he may have completely the wrong idea. But he continues. “Being a…being a werewolf. Does it hurt.”

  “Oh no,” Goodboy says, mournfully. “Oh, Jonesy.”

  He holds his hands up, adjusting the crown as it threatens to fall.

  “I’m not a werewolf? I thought you guys were…I thought that was your whole deal.”

  “And you came here to offer yourself to that?”

  He nods, easily.

  “Of course! You’re my family. I just thought it was a formality.”

  Goodboy’s face crumples in regret, and Dominic steps forward to take them both in hand, turning out to the crowd to look at us over the bonfire.

  “He came here willingly, to become a part of our brotherhood. With pain and blood, unquestioningly. Can you doubt his loyalty now?”

  The pack shakes their heads intently, even the kids, who can’t really have any idea what they’re saying. Only that it’s an important, quiet moment. And that they, like all children, fell for Jonesy the second they saw him.

  “I’m sorry, Jonesy. It’s not a gift we can share.”

  He swallows, taking this news in with no small amount of disappointment.

  “But we do want you as a brother in every other way. We’ve decided to ask you to come live with us here at the ranch. If not, then to be our emissary to the world. To bear our secret is a heavy burden, but…”

  “Totally. That’s fine. I’ve been thinking about it anyways. Bodhi’s starting school.”

  Dominic shrugs at me, eyes shining. Infinite mystery.

  “You’re joining the pack?”

  “Yeah, sure. I’ll even come live out here, that sounds nice. What about full moons?”

  The crowd titters. It’s a good question.

  “You’ll stay at ours, if you want. If you don’t mind watching the kids.”

  The twins throw themselves to their feet, cheering madly. Apparently, for Jonesy.

  “Mouse! Mouse! Mouse! Mouse!”

  The newly dubbed Mouse grins at Dominic, crown slipping rakishly, and then across the fire at me. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him so happy.

  What a funny world we make when love’s in charge.

  Bodhi makes his way around t
he fire, taking Jonesy easily by the hand.

  “I’m six.”

  Jonesy laughs, a hearty deep laugh, and picks the boy up.

  “Absolutely.”

  Dominic lies beside me, breathing softly, for a whole half hour before I climb on top of him.

  “Hi.”

  “Oh, hi,” I say quietly, pulling up his shirt to get at his abs, chest. His hard, little nipples. He groans in pleasure, but I can tell his thoughts are elsewhere.

  “When’s your season, buddy?”

  I’ve always given birth in the summer, putting it around the fall equinox moon, which is just about now. I collapse against him, giggling.

  “Oh, brother.”

  Of all the years to slip quietly into heat without a second thought, this would be it. The chaos may never settle at all. Maybe this is our life now.

  Dominic laughs. “I did think it was pretty odd of you to move me in here without a conversation about it, but I just figured you had your reasons. Makes more sense now.”

  I’m laughing, but there are tears in my eyes too. For Ernest, for Hickory. For what we could have lost in the fire. I’m so scared to try again.

  Not that he’s asking for that. But my body is, and that’s what’s confusing.

  It’s like being in two places at once. I sob into his chest, and fall asleep there, sex long forgotten. A good way to start this new phase. A good way to welcome Dominic into my bed, if not ideal.

  When he next rustles me awake it’s five in the morning, so I already feel weird from sleeping in.

  “You were making some funny noises in your sleep.”

  I laugh sleepily, remembering.

  “Very detailed sex dream. Wow.”

  He laughs, but I can tell he doesn’t want to ask who with. I have a good answer.

  Climbing back on top of him, I know he can feel the insistence of my erection against his belly. He grins, but I can tell he’s not sure. Is this me, or is this the heat?