by C. T. Adams
Adam leaned back into the motel’s chair and sighed. He understood now why Lucas had selected this motel. The thick, adobe walls allowed them to speak freely without anyone outside the room being able to hear—unless they were standing right at the door. He’d discovered it just this morning, when Tommy told him Jill had been up crying all night again. He hadn’t heard a thing, even though he hadn’t been sleeping either. “I should have just told her. It was the perfect time. But I chickened out.”
Tommy shrugged. “It’s not like you had any choice in the matter either. And it’s not the whole group that’ll be here tomorrow. Just Mike and Sheila. They were the only alphas who could travel on the full moon.”
“And Cherise,” Adam corrected. “Even if she’s only going to stay a few days, long enough to talk to the people at the economic development board, she still needs to hunt. But that’s still six people, which just about doubles Cara’s current pack. I can’t believe Lucas would decide to do that!”
Jill’s expression was worried, but the scent wasn’t much different from the profound sadness that masked her normal flowery aroma. “Is there maybe somewhere else we could hunt this month… just our pack, that is?”
“This is our pack now, sweetie. We’re not part of the Minnesota pack anymore.” Tommy’s voice was gentle, but it still had a startling effect. She jerked as though struck and started to shake. Tommy closed his eyes and pulled her head closer to his chest. “It’s going to be okay, Jill. You’ll see.”
She broke into sobs that nearly tore out Adam’s heart. “But I can’t feel them anymore, Tom. They’re all gone, and I’m… alone!” She touched his face with trembling hands. “I mean, you’re here. I can see you, but I can’t feel you anymore. I can’t tell if you really forgive me, like I always could before. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I have to feel you again.”
Tommy sighed and looked up at Adam with desperation plain in his face, and his scent. “We need to be bound again, Adam. You know it—you have to be feeling it, too. We’re all pining, but Jill and Sheila are the worst. We can’t exist like this forever, no matter what this new pack does.”
Adam stood up, walked to the small refrigerator, and pulled out a 7-Up. He silently offered one to Tommy, but he shook his head. “I know, Tom. I really do. But I’ve talked to Cara about this twice now. It’s just that she’s never been attached to a pack before. She doesn’t understand how hard it is for us. She really thinks of it as a horrible thing, and unless I can find some way to convince—”
A knock on the door made Adam put his fingers to his lips and Jill wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. He stepped the few paces to the door and opened it. The tall, slender Latino on the other side was one he recognized, but he was certainly surprised to see him. “Eddie? What can I do for you?”
Eddie swept off his cowboy hat and held it nervously in front of his ornate belt buckle, his gaze firmly fixed on the turquoise and green shag carpeting under Adam’s feet. “May I speak with you, Alpha?”
Adam exchanged a surprised look with Tommy and Jill before responding. “Oh. Uh, sure.”
Tommy pulled away from Jill and started to stand up. “We were just leaving. Adam, we can finish this another time—”
Eddie’s head raised and he nearly shouted. “No! That is… um, this concerns you both, too. I’d like you to stay, if, urn, the Alpha is willing to allow me to speak.”
He sounded very timid, much more shy suddenly than the charming, engaging man Adam had spoken to twice now. His scent was thick with worry and bordered on ammonia panic. Sadly, they matched what was already in the room. Adam stepped back and motioned him forward with a sweeping gesture. “Fer sure. We might as well make it a party, that is… a fiesta, right?”
That managed to even pull a small smile from Jill and caused Eddie to laugh and step inside the room far enough for Adam to shut the door behind him. “Sí! Except not so happy of a fiesta as we would like, Alpha.”
Adam snorted and then let out a sad sigh. “No. You’ve got that right.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, offering Eddie the last chair. He sat down on the very tip of the cushion, tense and nervous, and started to spin the brim of his hat as it hung down between his slightly open legs. “So, Cara finally told the pack about us, huh?”
Eddie shook his head. “Not the pack, Alpha. Just me. She asked my advice, because I know how Paco thinks.” He tapped his temple with one hand while continuing to rock the hat forward and back with the other. “Sometimes it works that way with twins, you know. She told me about everything and, well… maybe she shouldn’t have told me as much as she did, but I was grateful because I need your help. I haven’t got anywhere else to turn.”
Adam started slightly. What could he possibly do that Cara couldn’t? “What’s the problem, Eddie?”
He took a deep breath and glanced at Tommy and Jill again, then spoke directly to Jill. “You’re sad, sí? You feel something missing… here—” he tapped fingers over his heart. “Inside you?”
Jill nodded, tears just below the surface again, but couldn’t speak. She didn’t need to, though, because Eddie kept on, his words tumbling over each other now as though he was afraid to stop for fear of never starting again. “See… I feel that same thing and I need to make it stop.” Another deep breath and then he looked Adam straight in the face. “I did something bad, Alpha. I didn’t know it was bad at the time, but now it’s done and I can’t fix it. I only hope, God willing, that you can make me not do it again.”
Drugs? Alcohol? Adam could think of a few things that would qualify in what Eddie just admitted. He raised his chin in understanding. “You fighting an addiction, Eddie? Something you don’t want Cara to know about? Is it drugs or something?”
The other man let out a slow breath. “Sí… an addiction. But not to something. It’s a someone.” Embarrassment rose from him in a dry, dusty cloud that chased away the cloying, wet scent of tears. He clutched his hat a little harder, causing the starched straw to crackle under the pressure. Another deep breath and he continued. “I think you’ve already figured out I’m gay.” Adam nodded but the fact raised brows on both Tommy and Jill, who looked at each other in surprise. “I don’t know if there are any other gay Sazi. I’ve asked around, but, cautiously, if you understand. There’s one or two women who are bi, but I haven’t heard about any other men.”
“I’m sure there probably are.” Adam knew there weren’t any in his own pack, but there were rumors that had drifted in from other packs. He leaned forward, toward the man, and put a light hand on his shoulder, just a touch, before releasing. “But it can’t be easy for you.”
Eddie let out a small smile and smelled of gratitude. “It’s not. At least in Texas. But I thought you might have a more liberal attitude coming from a big city. Anyway, I’ve been spending a lot of time in bars in Dallas, with… mayates.” He froze for a long second with rising panic, obviously waiting for a rebuke or worse, but Adam didn’t understand the situation well enough to do either. He held up his hands and shrugged.
“Is that bad?”
With a sharp bark of laughter, Eddie suddenly sat up straighter. “Jesus bambino! That’s right! How could you know what’s good or bad down here?” He paused again, but this time it appeared to be to put his thoughts in order. “Okay. Mayates are newcomers from south of the border. There’s no distinction to the word in whether they arrived… legally if you know what I mean.”
Sudden understanding flooded through Adam. Eddie was flirting with danger—the sort that could get him killed. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “And you got involved with one.”
Worry and fear flooded the air around the slender Latino again. “Sí. He has a green card, though.” He stopped and got an odd look on his face and then sighed heavily. “Or maybe he doesn’t. He’s lied about everything else. Anyway, Juan Carlos and I have been dating for months now. I go up to Dallas most weekends lately—I’m the ranch manager for Cara, so I have a more flexible schedule
than he does. It’s easier for me to go there.”
Adam put up a hand. “Cara runs a ranch?” That was news to him. “I mean, I know she has some land, but—”
Eddie nodded. “Oh sure. We raise whitetails and javelenas—wild boars—and do guided hunts every year. We charge five grand a gun for a trophy hunt.” At the incredulous look from Tommy and Jill, and probably himself, the other man continued. “You have to understand—there’s hardly any public land in Texas. Most of the larger ranches that don’t want to run cattle or goats had to do something so they didn’t get taxed out of existence. Property taxes pay for everything down here. There’s no income tax. With as much land as the pack owns, we would have lost everything unless we converted the use to wildlife conservation. The guided hunts are just a by-product, but they pay for the upkeep and my salary. I earn it, too. There’s growth management and tagging the herds, testing for disease and lots of other stuff. Of course, the whole ranch is fenced to keep the deer inside, so we have to cull periodically—the moon hunts take care of that, and add breeding stock. It’s a real job to keep up with all the paperwork I have to send the state and feds.”
Ah! Now the ear tags made sense. They weren’t experimental animals—they were livestock. Wow. Apparently there was still a lot he needed to find out about life down here. But that was for another time. “Okay. Good to know. But let’s move on. You go up to Dallas—”
Another deep breath said Eddie would have preferred to continue talking about the ranch. “Sí. I’ve been spending more time there, because… well, I fell in love. The real kind, where I’ve been seriously thinking of asking him to move down here—tell him about us.”
Meaning the Sazi. This was pretty serious, because none of them did that lightly. To bring in a human to become family—it was a big step.
“That’s nice for you.” Jill’s voice made Eddie look at her and flash a smile filled with straight, white teeth.
“But something went wrong, didn’t it?” Adam’s voice sounded flat, because he knew full well there was another boot yet to drop. Might as well get it over with.
Eddie tensed again and readjusted his feet on the floor. “Sí. The last time I was up there, I was helping him clean his apartment, and he asked me to throw away the junk mail. I set aside the bills, but underneath the last envelope there was a letter from his family down in Mexico, dated just a few days before. Maybe I shouldn’t have looked, or maybe he wanted me to see it. I just don’t know. But, I read it. His mother wanted him to come home. They appreciated the money, but—” He looked up at Adam with the same pleading desperation in his brown eyes that had been in Tommy’s just a few minutes before. “He’s only… sixteen, Alpha.”
Adam winced just as Tommy let out a harsh swear. He put a hand to his forehead to ease the sudden headache that was pounding his skull like a triphammer. How many laws had Eddie just broken? Of all the things he might have encountered as his first official act, this hadn’t occurred to him. “Shit, Eddie. How in the hell—”
The other man looked truly stricken and fairly green. The shame that rose from him was thick enough to choke. “I swear I didn’t know. He has an adult driver’s license from Mexico and it looks real. Nobody at the bars has ever questioned it. He has a green card, he has a good job that he’s held over a year now. Jesus bambino —he shaves every morning!” He looked nearly ready to cry and his voice started to crack. “I feel like shit, Alpha. Lower than dirt. I swear to you I have no interest in children. I’m not a predator.” He sighed and hung his head. “I can’t see him anymore. I know that. But… I love him. If he calls, I know I’ll go to him. I’ll find some way to rationalize it and if we’re ever caught together—so, I need your help.”
Jill spoke up quietly, her voice soft and sad. “But what if you’re wrong, Eddie? What if you misunderstood?”
He turned his head and now a single tear traced down his cheek before he wiped it away with a flick of his thumb. “I hoped I had, so I asked him. He denied it, but he doesn’t know I’m a wolf and can smell emotions. He lied so hard I sneezed from the cloud of black pepper. Lied about everything… that is, everything except that he loves me, too.”
Adam ran fingers through his hair and raised one knee onto the bed so he could face the other man better. “What can I do to help?”
Eddie turned to him and squared his shoulders. “I want you to bind me.”
Adam frowned and opened his mouth to reply, but Eddie raised his hand. “Please just hear me out. I can’t ask Cara to do this, any more than I could ask her to change who she votes for at the polls. She believes what she believes, but I think she’s wrong. I told you I talked to other people, other Sazis. I know all about binding and it would be a wonderful thing for our pack. I think it’s just because people here don’t understand what it is… so they don’t know what they’re missing. But Senora Taylor needs it—I can see it in her eyes. She looks like I feel. We could help each other get through this.” He moved his gaze to look at Jill. “Sí? You want to be bound again?”
Jill nodded, her face moving from panic to sure, defiant belief. “Yes. Yes, I want to feel my pack mates again. And I’d be honored to help you through Ulis.”
Adam let out a frustrated sound. “There are more things to consider than—”
“What things?” Eddie’s voice was growing more sure, more confident. “Really. What things are more important than helping people who need help? You’re the Alpha. You have power and strength. You would know when I was getting weak and could stop me from falling.” He moved his head from side to side briefly. “Maybe it wouldn’t have to be forever. But at least until Juan Carlos is twenty-one. If it’s real, he’ll wait for me. And if you bind me now, before the pack meeting tonight… then people here can see that I’m just the same as before. If they don’t notice anything, and I’m happy, then maybe they’ll reconsider. Maybe Cara would reconsider. It’s not the same as mating, but—”
“He’s right, Adam.” Tommy spoke up again. “It’s not the same as mating, but I do miss feeling Jill in my head, even a little bit. It’s like I’m missing part of a sense, like being deaf in one ear.”
That described it just about right. Adam only noticed it not being there, and only at odd moments. “And really, Gara hadn’t noticed it before she knew, so why would it matter if some members were bound and others not?”
“Sí,” Eddie said with a sharp movement of his head that was too strong for a nod. “It doesn’t affect my brother and the others any more than my being gay. They can like it, or not like it, but what is… is.”
Maybe he was rationalizing it because he really missed being bound, too, but Adam found himself looking down at his faded jeans and Pig Eye beer T-shirt, and then scoping out the room. “Well, this ritual is normally a more formal affair, in the deep forest where there aren’t any people around, but I can’t see any reason why we can’t do it right here. The walls are boundary enough and with the thick adobe, nobody outside the binding circle should notice. And I suppose I don’t have to break skin with my teeth to mix our blood for a mild binding.” He looked at the three people, who were staring at him with enraptured attention, then sighed. “If you’re all sure—”
The bright, penetrating tang of citrus chased away the tears, accompanying the shouts of “Yes!” “Thank God!” and “¡Sí, sí—por favor!”
Adam stood, centered himself between the three chairs and took a deep breath. He looked at Eddie. “You don’t have to do a thing, except not leave the room. It might feel a little strange at first, since you’ve never been bound, but it’ll pass. Just try not to fight the power when it starts to pull.”
“We trust you, Adam.” Jill’s voice was soft and nearly reverent. When he looked that way, her eyes were filled with tears, but there was a smile on her face. Tommy winked and gave him a thumbs-up sign. Eddie had already closed his eyes and leaned back into the chair, his breathing slow and deep.
Closing his eyes, Adam turned his attention inward and bega
n to focus on his own heartbeat. In moments, the traffic outside disappeared and he felt a cool wind caress his skin. It was the first night of the moon, and the weight of it pressed against him, filled him and boiled his blood. He let it burn through him, and called on the power deep inside him to raise up until it danced over his skin like invisible fire. He pointed his face toward the source of the magic—the ceiling being nothing against the pull of the moon, and let out a low, quiet howl.
Three howls joined his own, answered the call that pushed aside their humanity. His nostrils flared, drawing in the scent of the others. They were strong, healthy—worthy of becoming pack. He let loose the crackling fire, threw it out like three solar flares and felt the first resistance of their own magic. But they weren’t strong enough to resist and he easily slipped through their unconscious defenses. Then he began to pull them toward him in his mind, pulled a tiny thread of their own magic inward, like twine attached to a post.
Now came tricky part. He had to bind them into a single unit, braid the threads into something that was stronger. He raised more magic and fed it back out, hearing the gasps of pain as Tommy, Jill, and Eddie suddenly became aware of one another. Adam could see their minds now… and their hearts. Yes, Eddie was wounded, his heart was scarred and bleeding from deep, searing grief and fear. But he could be healed and the pack would make him whole.
Adam opened his eyes and dizziness wrenched his stomach and threatened to drop him to his knees. He managed not to vomit, but only just… a nice change from the last time. The world appeared in multiple focus, layered with shades of color that hadn’t existed a moment before. But now he was no longer just seeing through his eyes. The eyes of the pack were his to command as well. He looked at them and he could see himself through their eyes. But it still wasn’t done. He flooded them all with power a second time and this time, their whimpers were of near pleasure, rather than pain. They were beginning to taste unity.
