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

chest, and he grins as the voices laugh, raindrops against roses.

Silly proud creature. Trust him, Chase. Trust yourself.   

The glow around the stone, which had grown slowly and steadily while they spoke, shudders now, a tendril shifting to caress him. It feels like the gentle touch of his mother’s fingers in his hair, like Lucas’s grip on his shoulder, like Tyler’s warm hand in his. It feels like his father’s steady embrace, and he shivers, nodding.

There’s a puff of laughter and dust, the old musty air of something ancient and dry, and—

~*~

He wakes, sneezing, pawing at his nose and shaking his head.

The forest is dark and he can’t feel the magic of the Standing Stones, but there’s a familiar scent and he turns towards it, picking his way through the dark until he comes to the back door of a familiar house. He can hear footsteps inside, a worried, tired voice, and he whines, scratches at the door, then finally barks, high and demanding.

The door is jerked open and Chase falls through into his father’s familiar arms, scrambling into them and pressing into his neck with quick little pants. His dad sighs.

“Oh, kiddo.”

~*~

Lucas comes home to a quiet empty house and no Alpha.

“He’s safe,” Tyler says, “But John says he needs a couple days.”

“He’s not like her,” Lucas says, and his brother looks at him, eyes haunted and desperate, and Lucas squeezes the back of his neck. “He’ll come back. He always comes back to us.”

Tyler nods, looking so fragile, hollowed out, but not broken.

Lucas thinks he’ll stay like this until Chase comes home, but if there’s one thing he’s very sure of—it’s that Chase will come home.

~*~

Lucas slips into her bed, and Aurora turns to him.

“You didn’t kill him.”

“Not all of my work calls for killing, darling girl,” he smiles, smug.

She pinches his nipple and he laughs, catching her hand and dragging her close until they’re pressed close, legs twisted together, thoroughly caught, and he feels the tension in her spine drain away.

“Will you tell me what happened?”

Lucas sighs and kisses her hair. “No, darling. Not until I’ve spoken to Chase.”

She’s quiet as she tucks herself under his chin, and she whispers the words into the dark, a secret fear. “Everything is going to change, isn’t it? Now that he’s the Alpha.”

Lucas hums and runs a hand down her spine. “Maybe—some things, certainly. Until hierarchy is established, at least. But Aurora, sweetheart, Chase has been our Alpha in all the ways that matter since he was sixteen.”

“I know that,” she snaps, “but he killed her, Lucas. He’s a fox, an Alpha, and a Shaman, and we have no idea what kind of threats that’ll bring to our door.”

“We don’t know, but we’ll face them, same as we always do,” Lucas says, impossibly sure. “Chase would never allow someone to hurt his Pack, Aurora. And I would never allow anyone to hurt what’s mine.”

He draws her chin up, forcing her to meet his gaze. “And you might not be mine, darling, but I’m yours. Do you understand?”

She shivers, staring at him. Lucas Reid was never her plan. None of the Reids were. Chase wasn’t. But he’s watching her, this beautiful, dangerous man, his eyes shining with an otherworldly light, and—

“I love you,” she whispers.

His smile is as triumphant as it is pleased, and then he’s pushing her to her back and kissing her, and when he presses inside, she cries out and listens to him whisper, over and over like a promise, like a vow, “Mine.”

Chapter 31

In his dream, his muscles burn a pleasant ache, the kind of sweet ache he loves after he’s worked out with Tyler, and he wants to lean into that, revel in the sweet burn.

Now, though—now he runs, a quick darting shadow through the night-dark forest. He can hear the wolves on either side, and he lets his tongue loll out happily, but as Lucas presses close, he darts away, scampering and jumping over roots, darting through tiny gaps in the trees the bigger, muscular wolves can’t manage, and he can feel giddy pleasure burning at the back of his throat. Tyler huffs and snarls, before crashing off.

They’re loud tonight, his wolves.

A beta howls ahead and he screams back, jumping and twisting mid-air to run the opposite direction as his wolves charge at him.

His tail tickles Tyler’s nose as he darts past.

The night stretches dark and full of promises as his wolves sing through the woods and Aurora screams, eerie and joyful, while the Standing Stones pulse a steady drumbeat in his veins.

~*~

John gives Chase until noon before he knocks and pushes into his son’s bedroom. Chase is wrapped up his favorite blanket, staring blankly at the wall, and John sighs.

“I can’t do this, dad,” he says.

“You don’t really have a choice,” John points out, ridiculously reasonable, and Chase gives him a half-hearted glare. John smiles.

“I haven’t even had a full moon,” Chase snaps. His eyes are flaring, red flames and desperate worry, and John moves without really thinking. Chase whines, high and worried, as his father tugs him up and into his arms. “You’ve had ten years worth of full moons.”

Chase twitches in his embrace and John huffs.

“Chase, you’ve been taking care of the Reids since you were fourteen years old. You love them and they love you. You walked three betas through their first full moon and none of them have lost control, not ever. Do you really think your Pack will do any less for you?”

He hiccups and shakes his head.

“What is it, really? I know you—I know you’re not actually doubting your Pack. You’re too smart for that.”

He’s quiet, chewing on his lip, then says, “I went to the Standing Stones. Because—Dad, it’s too much. I feel like there’s four things living under my skin, and where do I fit? Even if I figure that out, the power I’ve got in me—I saw the Standing Stones, Dad. I saw them and they’re so different than feeling their magic washing into the