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

“Then why—”

“You woke it. When you bound yourself to the Pack, when you protected them and the territory—you woke the magic in the Standing Stones. And now it’s calling you.”

“I don’t—you couldn’t hold it without an alpha,” he repeats, numbly.

“But I’m not you, Chase,” Harper says quietly. “I am not a shaman who forged a pack bond to two ‘wolves who should have been omegas. I’m not a boy who drove the Drakes from his territory without the strength of an Alpha to back him. I’m not the kind of raw magic that used nothing but his will and need to rise as Shaman without an Alpha to bond to. You are strong, stronger than any mage or shaman I’ve ever heard of. And the Stone Circle recognizes it.”

Chase inhales slowly. He lets that new knowledge rattle around in him and settle before he turns his focus on the more pressing issue at hand.

“Let them out,” he says, and Harper pauses, frowning at him. Chase makes an impatient noise and scrambles to his feet, swaying just a little as he moves across the room.

Lucas is sitting with his back pressed against the wall, and Tyler leans against the door jam. He looks up when Chase approaches, his familiar gaze skating over the claw marks in his side.

“Chase, don’t,” Tyler starts, but it’s too late—Chase breaks the warded boundary with nothing but a twitch of his fingers. He steps past Tyler and slips to his knees in front of Lucas.

“Hey, big bad,” he murmurs as Lucas stares at him, shockingly blank. “I’m ok.”

“I can smell the blood on you,” Lucas says sassily, his eyes still empty.

“And I’m still ok,” he says firmly.

Lucas shudders and curls into himself, and Chase sighs. He squirms until he’s pressed against the werewolf’s side, wedged between the cold ground, a pallet of dog food, and the sulky werewolf.

“I need your help, Lucas,” Chase murmurs. “I can’t afford to have you sulking right now.”

“I hurt you.”

“You’re a werewolf with severe trauma that hasn’t been dealt with. You’re going to do that sometimes.”

Lucas stares at him, and Chase smiles, keeps his gaze steady and sure. “Come on. We need to figure out what that damn Stone Circle wants from me.”

~*~

They don’t figure it out, but he dreams of it almost constantly, and sometimes he wakes up, his Dad peering at him in worry because he’s sleepwalking and half in the road.

The night he’s found by Lucas and Tyler in the forest after a three-hour search led by his father and the police department, Chase looks at his werewolves and says, “We have to tell him. We have to tell my dad.”

Chapter 14

Tyler sits on the steps of the porch and listens.

Chase is in the kitchen with John, bickering easily over dinner and his right to drink with the others—nice try, son—and he can hear Lucas chuckling as he leafs through another of the many books on the Standing Stones that he’s pulled from mysterious sources. He wishes his brother would share some of those resources with the rest of the Pack.

Of course, more often than not, he’s found Chase curled up on his couch, Lucas reading to him, so maybe he’s just being bitchy for no reason.

Lucas does say he has the tendency.

“Tyler,” John says, stepping out onto the porch. Tyler startles, whipping around to find the chief giving him a curious look. “You alright there, son?”

Lucas and Chase are watching him, gauging him. He knows this has to happen, but John is watching him too, and there’s a warm concern there he’s come to expect, that he likes.

Somewhere along the way—over the years of suspicion and reluctant drop-offs, over worrying for the same brilliant boy, over dinners that have become a touchstone for him—the suspicion and distrust faded away. He looks at the Chief now, watching him with an easy grin and a beer extended to him, and he wonders how long he’ll get to keep this man who isn’t Pack, who isn’t not Pack, who trusts him with the one thing he loves most. He clears his throat.

“Yes, sir,” he lies, and Chase sags in relief.

~*~

They’re all acting shifty. He’s used to Tyler’s broody watchfulness, Chase’s almost manic energy, and Lucas’s smarm—he’s had enough time that he knows what to expect. He lets them get through dinner, the quiet and Chase’s fidgeting stretching into anxious tension, and he sips his beer.

His son always breaks if John waits him out, and there’s a chocolate cake with raspberry drizzle in his kitchen—whatever the hell they’re about to tell him, he’s pretty sure he’s in no rush to hear it.

“We need to talk to you,” Chase says eventually, after John’s happily eaten a slice of the cake and Chase did his best to hide his dismay over it. Even Tyler kind of smirked at that.

He leans back in his chair and studies Chase in the twilight. “Am I going to arrest one of these men over this conversation?” he asks.

Chase goes red. “Jesus Christ, Dad, I’m not with either of them!”

Well, that’s a relief. He flashes a small, not quite apologetic smile at Lucas and Tyler. “Can’t blame me for being a little concerned, son. If you had the right parts for it, I’d be sure you’re about to tell me you’re pregnant.”

Chase’s eyes almost bug out of his head and he chokes, spitting out, “Werewolves.”

John arches an eyebrow. What?

Tyler groans. “Fuck, Chase. We talked about this.”

Chase flails at him. “Yeah, well, in our talk, we didn’t account for that asshole having a sense of humor.”

Tyler makes a noise that’s almost a growl and Lucas clears his throat. Both of them go quiet and Lucas says, “Would you like to try again, or should I?”

“No,” Chase says, and for just a moment, watching his son looking at Lucas and Tyler, a silent conversation happening between the three of them, John almost feels invisible, like they exist in a bubble he can’t enter. Chase straightens his shoulders. “I have to