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

yelps as he slams into an invisible barrier and crumples.

“I’m gonna say this once,” Chase says, standing. “The Reid territory is claimed by the scion of the Standing Stones. The magic in this land will not recognize you. Get the fuck out of our territory, or I’ll kill you. All of you.”

Tripp gapes at him.

In the trees, Chase can hear a bird chirping.

“You?” one of the ‘wolves says, laughing. “You’re just a fucking kid. You’re a human kid.”

Chase grins at him and shrugs. “Doesn’t change the facts.”

“Enough,” Tripp says impatiently. He waves a hand and the ‘wolves at his back flow forward, sleek and deadly.

Chase smiles as he lets the magic burning through his blood out to play, lets it flare through his tattoos, turn them shining silver. He lets it take his vision, and he sinks to his knees, murmuring in Gaelic, the quiet request for aid that Caitlin taught him years ago, when she laughed and told him the boundaries of magic.

He feels Lucas at his back snarling protectively, then the world around him bucks up, roots and limbs and vines as thick as his arm snaking from nowhere. He breathes as the magic screams through him and his fox shrieks in answer, and the world shuddering as a wall of thorn and mistletoe climbs up, cutting Tripp off from his wolves. He can hear the forest moving, hear the furious snarling and the broken, choking noises—the wet ripping sounds and the sharp bursts of copper in the air.

Tripp jerks around, staring at the wall cutting him off from his ‘wolves.

Chase watches him. “I told you to leave. I told you, the land doesn’t want you.”

“You’re—you’re a fucking human. A shaman,” Tripp spits.

“What the hell is happening in your Pack, that you don’t understand just how powerful a shaman is?” Lucas asks, and Chase shoots him a look of agreement.

“Tripp?” Chelsea says, stumbling out of the house, and Tripp’s expression goes smooth and blank. “What—what are you doing here? You said you wanted me to control them, that I could handle my brother the way I wanted.” She frowns, her gaze flicking to each of them, then to the thorn barrier. “What the hell is that?”

“Lucas sent a colorful message,” Tripp says, ignoring her question. “I came to investigate.”

The alpha’s expression goes angry and tight as she turns to her brother. “What did you do?”

“What any Left Hand would when a Pack member is kidnapped. I went looking for answers. There may have been a few bodies dropped along the way.”

Tripp snorts. “Eight. He killed eight of my wolves, Chelsea.”

She snarls, prowling forward and shifting in one move, and Chase hears Tyler shouting, but she’s already moving, darting at Lucas.

Lucas, who promised not to kill her.

Lucas, who’s standing unshifted and still, watching him.

~*~

He always knew that Chelsea would one day come calling.

Just like Chase, Lucas knew—they were living on borrowed time, and one day the Pack they built out of love and necessity and sheer stubborn will would buckle under the weight of their long-absent Alpha. He knew, when Chase stood before the Standing Stones at sixteen, when he bound himself to it as the Reid Shaman, that it would come to this—that if they were going to keep their Pack, keep Chase, Chelsea would have to die.

But he never wanted it.

He never wanted to be Alpha, was happiest when he served a Pack and a leader, when he was valued for everything he could offer and nothing more was demanded of him.

He never wanted Chelsea’s blood on his hands, never wanted to be the one who killed his sister. Yet he always knew it would come down to him, that he would never allow Tyler to do that, to carry that.

Neither of them were made to be Alpha, but Lucas could carry this one thing, could carry her murder. He knew he could.

Chase, his brilliant, fierce boy who read him Tolkien and fed him oranges and whispered his secrets—Chase made him promise. And he wants to break that promise right now so badly that his gums itch with the need to Shift.

He promised. He promised Chase.

Lucas stares at him now and hopes, when Chelsea kills him, that Aurora won’t scream.

~*~

He doesn’t really think. He sees her move and hears Tyler’s shout, and sees Lucas’s quiet resignation, the way he stills and watches him as Chelsea shoves past him—

It’s easy, and he hopes in the brief second it takes that Tyler looks away, that he’ll still love him after this.

Then Chase rips out Chelsea’s throat with sharp little teeth, clinging to her body as she crumples, worrying at the raw wound until her gurgling, wordless noises finally fade and she’s still, staring sightlessly at the sky.

When he throws back his head and screams, his eyes flare Alpha red.

Chapter 30

If the Shift was like pins and needles, if his magic felt like liquid heat, this—the power surging through him while blood still stains his muzzle and teeth—this is like a fucking earthquake, like the whole world is shaking, like it’s ripping him apart and rebuilding in a way he doesn’t recognize. He screams again, high and terrified.

It’s too much.

“Chase,” Tyler murmurs, and he latches onto that, wraps himself in it as Tyler’s arms come around him and power burns through him. His Pack bonds, bright gold, flare impossibly bright. He shudders as he feels them, Tyler and Lucas and Aurora, feels the pups and their apprehension and fury—even feels his father, steady and warm and worried, muted but there.

And the Standing Stones.

He shudders as the red fades from his vision and the Standing Stones hum in the heart of him, his fox and the burning red spark of power he never wanted, never asked for, cluster.

“Chase,” Tyler says again, and he shivers, leans into the werewolf, into his werewolf.

His fox is shuddering and circling, twisting around the bright red spark. His magic is swirling around it all, and he looks up.

Lucas is standing over them, protective and watchful, and