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

for that any more than Chase even mentions what he did, but he’s absurdly grateful.

He makes an extra portion of bacon for Chase, snarling at Lucas when the wolf comes too close to it.

Lucas smirks, like Tyler is endlessly amusing, then his head tilts and his eyes brighten, and Aurora steps into the den.

Tyler isn’t sure when the little Medusa went from someone he resented to someone he trusted, but as she smiles at them and demands to know where Chase is—he’s very sure that it happened, and even happier that it did.

~*~

“Is what she said true?” John asks a few nights after Aurora comes home, while Chase is sitting in his office eating dinner with him.

Chase doesn’t bother pretending he doesn’t know what his dad is referring to. He’s a little surprised it took him this long to ask, honestly.

“You know it doesn’t matter anymore, right? I’m a few years too late for you to complain, if I were.”

“Are you?”

Chase shrugs and looks away. “It doesn’t matter, if I were. Tyler doesn’t see me like that. I’m just the kid he adopted because I wouldn’t go away.”

John stares at him for a long moment, then shakes his head. “Kid, Tyler Reid loves you. He loves you enough that he was willing to deal with an angry overprotective father to keep you in his life. He might not be ready or able to give you the kind of love you want, but he would move mountains for you.”

And Chase knows that. He does. “Is it selfish for me to want more?”

John lowers the fork and stares at his son. What even is his life, that he’s giving him romantic advice about Tyler Reid?

“Would you demand more than he can give?” John asks and Chase’s head snaps up, eyes narrowing. His tattoo writhes, something that’s never going to sit right with John. “Then no. It’s not selfish. Your feelings are your own, Chase. It’s when you bleed your feelings all over someone else that it becomes selfish.”

Chase is quiet, then asks, “What if I can’t get over it?” He looks up and adds plaintively, “I’ve tried, and it’s like—every guy I’m with is just a reminder of who I’m not with.”

“You aren’t willing to give him up, right?”

Chase looks at him like he’s insane, and John smiles. “Then you deal with it. That’s all you can do.”

~*~

Aurora slips back into their lives like she never left. She’s sitting curled in Lucas’s chair when Tyler says, “Lucas? What did Chelsea mean about revenge fantasies?”

“You still haven’t told him?” Aurora asks, and Chase shrugs.

“Tyler didn’t need to know,” Lucas answers easily.

“I’m sitting right here,” he says grumpily.

Lucas snorts and picks Aurora up, sitting down and arranging her in his lap. She huffs but allows it, turning to look at Tyler.

“He’s killing them. Everyone who had anything to do with the accident.”

“It’s what I would have done if our Pack survived. It was my job as the Left Hand,” Lucas says.

Aurora adds casually, “He’s very good. He won’t be caught.”

“He will if he keeps leaving the Reid car wreck newspaper clippings,” Chase says, dropping onto the couch near Tyler. “I told you to stop that.”

“Does everyone know about this but me?” Tyler snaps.

Chase presses into him. “Would you have been ok with it?” Chase asks. “He isn’t doing this for you, Ty. He needs it for him.”

Tyler takes a moment to respond. “You aren’t going after the coven alone.”

“Tyler,” Lucas murmurs, “do you have your own revenge fantasy?”

“Of course I do, you ass,” Tyler snaps, “But more than that—if you go alone, they’ll kill you. And Mia has taken enough of our family.”

Lucas studies him for a long moment, then nods.

~*~

He follows her, bemused, as she struts through the mall.

“Why did you pick Chase?” he asks, while she examines a pale green bikini that he can’t think too much about.

She shrugs. “I always saw him, but for so long, he was convinced we were star-crossed lovers and I didn’t want that.”

Lucas remembers that, the afternoons when Chase would sit next to him doing his homework, feeding him bites of pudding and rambling about a goddess of a girl that he adored.

Lucas wonders, sometimes, if his adoration for the girl was because of her, or because of everything Chase said about her.

“Does it bother you?” she asks, and he glances at her in question. She’s watching him, something predatory in her gaze.

“That he loved you?”

She tilts her head, regal as ever.

Lucas hands her two scraps of cream and peach and says, “Darling girl, I really don’t care who has or does love you.”

Her smile is slow, syrup sweet and sharp as glass.

~*~

She models each of the bikinis, and her scent never changes.

He’s very sure that his does, and her smile goes knowing and smug when she sees him adjust himself.

When she’s done and he’s bought her each of them, something she doesn’t even argue with, she kisses his cheek and says, “I have a date. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Lucas watches her walk away, her hips twitching, and grins.

It’s not a revenge fantasy and his hands aren’t bloody, but he feels more alive than he has in years.

~*~

She calls him later that night, and he’s glad that Tyler is out jogging when he hears her voice—raspy and low, the way he likes it.

“How was the young officer, darling girl?”

“Jealous?”

Lucas laughs outright at that. “Of Anthony Paris? Aurora, that boy is all soft sweetness. You’d destroy him.”

There’s a beat of silence and then, her voice brittle, she says, “Maybe I want sweet.”

“Do you? If that’s true, why are you on the phone with me?” He waits a beat, but she doesn’t respond. He sighs. “You’re calling me because as handsome and good as young Paris is, he isn’t what makes your pulse pound.”

“Listening to my heartbeat, ‘wolf?”

“What do you taste, when you’re near him?” Lucas asks, and she inhales sharply. “What do you taste when you’re with me?”

He knows, but he wants to hear her say it,