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

ice in his veins and a demon in his mind. He blinks to clear them.

“It might not, but we need to try. I need to try.”

Harper inclines his head.

It’s as close to a blessing as the Druid is going to give.

~*~

On his birthday, Chase vanishes. Tyler calls twice and Ben calls for hours, but he ignores them as he sits in the passenger seat of his Dad’s cruiser on the drive to Mountainvale.

“Are you sure?” he asks, and Chase nods. He is. After all this time, he is.

There are very few things Chase is completely certain of—his mother loved him, his father would die for him, Ben is his brother, and the Reids are his.

His fingers shake as he nods again, and John sighs as they enter the little tattoo parlor.

~*~

It hurts more than he thought and less than it probably should. The tattoo artist, a pretty blonde with green eyes and a sly smile, asked if he wanted to break it up into sessions and looked vaguely impressed when Chase shook his head, nodding and going to work.

When it’s done, he stares at it, shaky and pale, and John watches him.

It sits wrong on his skin, an immense stone circle with lightning stretching up past his elbow and grasping lay lines that snake into his palm, concentric circles spinning out from it.

“Can you do one more thing for me?” Chase asks, and the artist pauses. “I want a Celtic knot,” he says, and John sucks in a breath, but where the stone circle—the Standing Stones—felt strange and unfamiliar being inked into his skin, this feels easy.

This feels like breathing.

“Here,” he says, and the artist nods, a tiny smile on his lips as Chase taps his fingers over his bare wrist where he knows a bite would be, if he were in a normal pack, if he were the Alpha’s advisor and friend, instead of the nagging voice she wants to shut up.

He thinks about another bite, low on his neck, where the tendon is sharp and visible and claiming, and wonders what Tyler would do if he marked himself there.

He shivers and shakes the thought, then extends his wrist for the needle. His father’s eyes are on him, something like pride, affection, and sorrow all warring for dominance behind his gaze. It makes Chase think that maybe he gets it, what this is and why he’s doing it.

And he’s letting him do it anyway.

~*~

When Tyler sees them a few days later, he goes very still, his eyes wide and hurt. He makes a low whine in his throat and then he’s breathing against Chase’s tattooed flesh, his hands gripping too hard on his wrist, his lips gentle and reverent on his skin where Chase has marked himself with his mark, as a Reid.

Chase pets his hair and for once he’s quiet, because there’s nothing to say.

Chase has told him, through words and deeds, for years, that he cares, that he’s Pack, that he won’t vanish one day, and he’s always known that Tyler’s still waiting.

Mia Drake took too much and Chelsea’s abandonment broke what little trust he had left, so even though it’s been five years of loyalty and care—Tyler is still waiting for him to leave.

Chase always knew that, tolerated it as part of the damage that comes with the other man, but he thinks this is it. With Tyler on his knees and the Reid emblem on his skin and magic thrumming through his veins—there is nothing more to say.

Tyler has finally heard him.

~*~

He doesn’t let himself hope it will change anything.

He isn’t disappointed when it doesn’t.

Lucas tells him he’s getting very good at lying to himself, and he almost sounds admiring about that.

~*~

In early May, he sits in an empty classroom with Aurora, dressed in a maroon robe, a cap twirling between his fingers.

“Do you think these are really the best days of our lives?” she asks, kicking her heels, and Chase shrugs. He’s watching the two blondes outside their classroom, the ones huddled close and a little skittish.

“I think we decide when that is,” he says, thinking about when he was fourteen, broken and lonely.

She hums and watches him for a few minutes longer. “Ezra Cox and Jessica Gunton. They’re good kids, Chase.” He looks at her, confused, and she smiles, sharp and sweet. “Don’t replace me before I leave, though.”

“I could never replace you,” he says honestly, and she preens at that.

“Do you remember that time, you asked us about dreams?” she asks after he fixes his cap on his head and they’re moving to the doors. They’re at the front of the processional, valedictorian and salutatorian.

“Yes?”

“I had another dream,” she says and his eyes snaps to her. She isn’t looking at him, her gaze distant and cloudy. “Chase, they were all dead. Everyone. You were—you were laughing and they were all dead.”

He takes her hand in his. “It was a dream, Aurora,” he promises.

She shakes her head. “What if it’s not?”

He squeezes her hand. “It is.”

“Were your dreams only dreams?” she asks, almost begging for reassurance, and Chase nods. She wilts a little, but he holds her up and hugs her.

“Come on. Let’s graduate, ok?”

~*~

John thinks it’s probably strange to be sitting sandwiched between Ben’s mother and Tyler Reid, waiting for his son to graduate. He thinks Nora should be here, that she’d be falling all over herself in her excitement.

“Do you think you and Chase would have become friends without my wife’s death?” he asks, and Tyler startles (because yeah, ok, where the hell did that question come from?).

“Um. Maybe. Chase was always going to explore and the house is close enough to your property that he would have found it eventually. But he might not have stayed. He might not have needed to stay.”

John nods, and the music starts playing. Chase is grinning as he walks in, pacing alongside Aurora, his expression happy but calm, and he fucking lights up when he sees them—sees Tyler, shifting awkwardly at his side.

“Where’s Lucas?”