“I better get you back. Your blokes will be pitching a fit.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Yep, and so is mine. They’re gonna fucking kill me.”
“No, they won’t,” I said, putting a hand on his. “This has helped me in a lot of ways. I never would have thought this would be the way things would go down when I followed you, but it’s important. It’s my pack, and I need to establish what that is before I go anywhere. I’m only mated to two of you. I’m still finding my way towards an understanding of how I feel about everyone. I’m still getting to know all of you. Some of you love other people. Some of you enjoy sex with other men. Some of you will always be having sex with other people. Who we are, how we’ll connect—if we’re going to do this thing, we’re going to need to know this. You’re in, Jack, and they’ll need to adjust or find another way.”
“Better to just pull this band-aid off, right?”
I nodded. “Right.”
I sent Slade a text on the way, as it was his messages that were the most angry. I asked if everyone could meet us in the main bedroom and then shut my phone off when it started to ring. I didn’t want to. Cutting your partner off when they really needed to talk to you was shitty behaviour, but I couldn’t do this more than once. I held Jack’s hand as we walked down the hall to our wing. No doubt, he was feeling the same as me, like we were facing a firing squad. Everyone was sitting on the bed, leaned up against the wall, or sitting on the floor when we arrived, even Sylvan. I nodded to him, and he looked oddly pleased.
“I’m sorry for taking off. I’m sorry I bailed on the plan you were putting together, Aaron, but there’s something I had to do. I’m sorry if it worried you taking Jack away, Hawk.” He waved his hand, but I shook my head. “No, really, he’s your mate, you love him, and we waltzed off without talking to you. Jack and I talked about some stuff, and it made me realise something. Ever since I bit Slade, it's been all about packs and mates and petitions and stuff I don’t understand, but I know now I don’t need to. I’m telling you how it’ll be for me. All of you are in my pack. Let’s scrap petitions and other bullshit, I think you all know I’m connected to each and every one of you.
“That vision made it clear—our Tirians see each other as mates, and we are. But what that means for us humans that spend the most time walking the earth might be different. Some of us might connect sexually, some emotionally, some both. I’m not going to let archaic processes or vague prophecies dictate that. We’ll find our way, because there’s not one person here I don’t want to go on that journey with. But to do that is going to require communication, a lot of communication. There’s going to need to be ridiculous amounts of checking in to make sure we’re all moving forward together in a way that works for us, but as of now, we act as a pack. We accept all its members, we protect them with whatever resources we have, and we give them all we’ve got to give, because that’s what packs do. I hope you’ll decide to do this, stay, be a part of this, but I’ll understand if you don’t. I wish I could.... talk this through, compromise a bit, but this is absolutely how I feel. I can’t give ground, I’m sorry.”
I stopped filling the room with my words and let them settle, let everyone process. I felt hollow as a bell, like the speech had taken everything I had and just drained it all. Even if they walked out that door, unable to consider what I said, I’d still love them, I realised. It wasn’t yet romantic love for some, but there was love nonetheless. A flurry of little memories of their hands, their words, the laughs had, the way they washed their bodies, the jokes, the comments, the touches. I was drowning in them, all that they were and all that I was. We were one big insane kaleidoscope of moments melded together. No, the truth was shorter than that. We were one.
Strangely, it was still a surprise when I felt the first touch. I jerked my head up to see Slade had wrapped an arm around me, his touch soon joined by Finn’s. I stood within the safe harbour of their bodies for a moment and just breathed. Then, the next one came. The guys shuffled over to let Aaron
in, his arm thick with muscle. Then Hawk and Jack came, two twins—one light, one dark—creating a circle around me. I was held within their interlocking embraces, my breath coming when theirs did.
“It’s time.”
I looked up to see Brandon standing at the edge of the group, and even though my view of him was over someone’s shoulders, I could see the tears in his eyes.
“Now?” I said, feeling the venom surge in my mouth.
“Now.”
The group parted to let him in, and surrounded by the lot of them, I gave Brandon my mate mark. His fingers clawed at my back as my fangs pricked my gums. I fitted my jaws carefully over the juncture of his neck and bit the sun.
Or that’s how it felt as my venom sank into him. Light exploded, filling the room with a radiance that blinded the lot of us, but I could not let go. I surged through him, and we surged through all of them. We ran as a pack on a plain of white, with one heart and one mind, arrowing towards the same point on the horizon, paws moving in perfect unison. Everyone’s fur grew wispier and wispier as we ran, until the forms grew fuzzy and indistinct. Rather, balls of grey and white light gambolled across the featureless plain, spinning around each other, faster and faster until we fused. Then, it all stopped. She stood there, the Great Wolf, looming on the horizon and looking out on all she surveyed with a gentle eye. She nodded, and we looked down. We were the same, a Great Wolf of grey, sitting on our haunches, panting lightly.
You are ready now, she said. Come for us.
And then I blinked. I pulled my fangs from Brandon’s neck, licking the blood and venom there, and he held me so tight. “I love you, my mate,” he said.
“I love you too.”
27
“What do you need, Jules?” Finn asked.
We were coming back to our bodies, and with that, came a necessary separation. It’s OK now, though, I thought. We can rejoin at any point. And somehow, knowing that helped me do what came next.
“I need Brandon.” I looked around the room. “And Jack and Hawk. Is that OK?”
It felt like after what we had just done, we should all be in the room. But I knew, even though we’d reached that level of unity then, we weren’t there yet in real life. I looked at the three of them, loosely grouped together now.
“Of course, love,” Finn replied, and he lifted my chin and kissed me. “I’ll take Buddy for a walk, give you guys some space.”
“I’m probably gonna be rubbing one out in the shower,” Slade said with that crooked grin of his. “What? I feel every damn thing you are when you’re getting off, and it’s hot. Then I’m gonna have a beer because this day....” He shook his head. “You coming?” he said to Aaron.
“In the shower or for a beer?” Aaron replied.
“Now, now, don’t start that shit. All this talk about negotiating the relationship? Well, guy on guy is Slade’s no-fly zone.”
“Still got that fantasy of you covered in cum,” I said with a smirk.
“And you’ll get it. It’ll just be all mine. You can lick it all off afterwards.” I fake retched, well, almost fake. “I love you, princess.”