Slow Shift by Nazarea Andrews (best ereader for pdf .TXT) 📗

determined about Chase since then, something that doesn’t make a lot of sense, even when it mixes with Chase’s low-grade panic and worry, the pinched set to his eyes that John had grown accustomed to when it was Nora in the hospital.

He thinks, not for the first time, that there’s nothing about this that’s good for his son.

The Reids haven’t hurt him, and sometimes he sees something helpless and fond in Tyler’s eyes that makes him think he won’t, but this could. Losing Lucas so soon after Nora, that could—would—devastate Chase.

“What’s up, son?”

“We need your help.”

John leans back in his chair and listens.

~*~

When it's all said and done, it takes less than three hours for DeWitt to pull the right strings and put pressure on the right places, three hours while Chase sleeps next to him in Lucas's room, tension finally draining away now that his father is helping.

The complete trust he has in his father means something. Even though Tyler can't bring himself to trust the man who so recently took Chase from him, Chase’s faith in John does something, settles the anxious pacing thing in Tyler’s gut. He stares at his phone, waiting for it to ring and for his brother to be discharged, and for the Drakes to come crashing back into their lives, destroying and taking the way they always have.

But only John comes to him, wearing a tired but triumphant smile.

“He's all yours.”

Tyler's quiet sigh of relief makes something indecipherable cross John's face, but he doesn't comment. It's only when Chase is tucked sleepily in John's car and Lucas is secured in the Mustang that he says softly, gently, “You're going to have to explain some things to me. Soon.”

Tyler nods, and John claps him on the shoulder. “Go home, kid. We'll see you tomorrow.”

~*~

He takes Lucas home.

He isn’t sure when the little house in the woods and the RV started feeling like home, but he thinks it has something to do with the scent of Pack that fills it—when the scent of Chase fills it.

He takes Lucas home and showers him with the familiar efficiency that comes after years of taking care of him. He’s quiet, and it feel strange. Chase always makes the house noisy and Tyler likes it. He misses it when Chase goes back to John.

There is a part of him, a selfish part that he rarely acknowledges and never voices, that hates when Chase leaves. It wants to keep him here in the den, near the Pack, forever.

“John is good for him, too. Better than we’ll ever be,” he murmurs. Lucas doesn’t respond, but the pack bond that reassures him his brother is still there brightens for just a moment.

Tyler huffs and finishes buttoning Lucas's pajama shirt.

When they’re sitting in the living room, the couch too empty without Chase, Tyler calls Chelsea again.

~*~

It’s the first time the dreams are different.

He isn’t in the woods running next to his great grey wolf. He’s on an empty road, skid marks at his feet, and the grey wolf is whining, pressed against him and shaking while the black wolf howls, sounding angry and lonely, a cry that rips at him, that makes him curl close to the grey wolf and whine into the soft earth, wondering why there’s something that feels empty and aching pressing in on him.

~*~

The phone wakes him, a buzz startling up his arm, and he answers without thinking. “Chase?”

There’s a heavy pause, a familiar buzz of white noise he’d recognize anywhere, and then, crisply, a voice asks, “Who the hell is Chase?”

“Chelsea,” he breathes, bolting upright. “Holy shit, Chelsea, I’ve been calling you for days.”

“I know. My voicemail is full,” she grumps, “What do you want?”

“I’m so sorry that our brother’s health is inconveniencing you.”

There’s a long tense moment and he shuffles, imagining Chelsea on the streets of New York in a neat suit and a pinched, sour expression. “Just tell me what you need,” she demands.

“The Drake coven. They came back to Harrisburg. Lucas scented them and went into seizures.”

“You should never have taken him out of long-term care, Tyler,” she huffs. “I don’t know what you expect—”

“For fuck’s sake, Chelsea. I told you they’re back. I need you.”

“No,” she says, implacable. “I told you, I’m done with Harrisburg.”

“Chelsea,” he starts.

“I have a pack, Tyler. A pack that wants me to join them. I don’t—I’m not going to stop you from staying there with Lucas even if I think it’s wasting your life, but that was the deal. You get your life, and I get mine.”

“You’re our Alpha,” he says, his throat tight and eyes burning.

She’s quiet for a long moment, and that—that’s answer enough.

Her voice is apologetic when she says his name, but he hangs up before he can listen to her excuses. In the quiet of his empty bed, he lets himself cry.

~*~

“Chase,” John says, and Chase blinks at him, bleary-eyed and tired. “I need you to talk to me about the Reids.”

It’s fascinating to watch, because he thinks things are getting better with Chase. It’s not the same distant secrets from this time last year, when Chase spent a lonely Thanksgiving on his own, or this summer, when everything was dragged into the open and they were both too furious and distrustful to speak. They talk now. Chase voluntarily spends time with him, and he’s got a life, football and a study group and a girl he talks about sometimes, when he’s bright-eyed and excited.

But looking at him, as the question clatters across the breakfast table like a grenade, he thinks that if he pushes just a little, he’d undo everything. He’d spook Chase back into that lonely isolated shell he’s starting to emerge from, spook him straight into the Reids’ arms, and he might drag the boy away from them, but he’d lose his son in the process.

He takes a deep breath and picks his words carefully. “You asked me to help and I did, because I trust you. But trust goes two ways,