15. Fur BetterFur Worse
Fur Better or Fur Worse
Ten Years Earlier
Cian
Both grooms wore brown suit trousers, blue shirts, blue dickie bows, and no jackets. The only difference was that Zach wore a brown leather belt and Chelsea boots, and Kai wore pink suspenders and shiny brown brogues.
I had accompanied Mash as his plus one to his brother’s mating ceremony. A marquee had been erected in the grounds of the Howling Pines estate, and in a large clearing of the eastern woods, hundreds of ribbon-adorned chairs pointed towards a half-naked archway.
It was the middle of the day in the middle of July and the sun beat down heavily on our backs. Mash and I had been roped into decorating for the ceremony, which was due to happen in approximately four hours and thirty-seven minutes.
We were securing the floral arrangements to the arch to make things prettier. Mash sat cross-legged beside the left-hand column, I knelt next to the right one, and we tied sunflowers and bunches of leaves to the metal structure. Every time Zach or Kai tried to help us, we waved them away. They were already in their fancy mating attire, and I was sweating through my second T-shirt of the day. Mash was shirtless. His shoulders had freckled under the sun’s caress, but he never burned.
“Clem’s looking into a place in town,” he said. “For her B&B.”
“That’s cool.” I snipped the excess stem away from a sunflower. “Will Kai become a beta now?”
“He already is. They’ve already given each other the mating bite in private. This is the formal ceremony to show everyone he’s been accepted into our pack.”
“How come Kai joins your pack and not the other way? Why doesn’t Zach join Kai’s pack?”
Mash shrugged, scratched his chin with the handle of his secateurs. “Well, he kinda does. They join each other’s pack, I guess. But the wolf with more . . . um . . .”
“Dominance?” I suggested.
“Sort of. More like . . . influence. The wolf who has the highest standing within their own pack and the wider werewolf community will remain where they are, and the other wolf or wolves will join their pack. Does that make sense?”
“A little.” I was beginning to understand were culture, though it was all still extremely confusing to me. “Will Zach become the next alpha?”
Mash sucked in a breath and jerked his hand away from the arch. “Fucking spider,” he said. “Um, no, he won’t. Or, I dunno. Maybe he will.”
I stared at him for two whole minutes. I’d forgotten Zach wasn’t the oldest Cassidy sibling. “Will it be Clem? Clem’s the eldest, isn’t she?”
“It doesn’t work like human monarchies.” Mash laughed, but I’d known him long enough to recognise that laugh as a cover for nerves.
“How does it work?”
He shrugged again. “I’m not sure. It’s just something intrinsic, I think. I think most packs know for certain who the next alpha will be on the successor’s first shift.”
But everyone in his pack had already had their first shift, so they must know who the next alpha would be. Unless it was one of the grandkids. But Felix was what . . . three, four? He wouldn’t have his first shift for at least another eight years.
I wanted to ask Mash more, but I could see it was distressing him so I kept my mouth shut.
After a few seconds of pinning more sunflowers to the arch, he turned to me.
“Yes, it’s Clem. Clem will be the new alpha.” He said it in a way someone might say, “Happy now?”
Mash clearly wasn’t happy about it. Which was odd. I’d figured he’d be stoked for his big sis. It wasn’t as though Mash was an ambitious guy wanting the glory all for himself.
“And,” he continued, his tone evidently still pissed. “It has to happen before Nana dies. The power transfer is supposed be done on the first full moon after the successor turns twenty-five. It’s called the call of the alpha.”
I did the mental calculations. In theory, Mash’s sister should have accepted the call ten, eleven years ago. At least a hundred and twenty full moons had passed in that time. “Clem’s . . . thirty-six, isn’t she?”
“You can reject the call. Like, she doesn’t have to say yes to being an alpha until she’s ready.” He absentmindedly plucked a petal from a sunflower.
“What happens if she rejects it indefinitely?”
Mash said nothing. He stripped the flower of even more petals.
“Can she do that? Or will the duty pass to someone else?” Seemed a little selfish to me, but what did I understand about it all?
“Fuck knows,” was all he said.
“What does your nana have to say?” I asked.
The sunflower was now bald. He tossed it back into the tub and started shredding another. “She’s the most ridiculously patient woman you’ll ever meet. On the outside she’s always like, ‘We will wait. These things take time,’ blah blah blah. But I overheard her talking to Mam once. She said she’s getting old, and doesn’t have long left, and if she dies before the new alpha takes over, then . . .”
“Then what?” I said after it became clear Mash wouldn’t finish his sentence.
“Then chaos.”
I scooted over to him, removed the third sunflower from his hands before he defoliated another. “What kind of chaos?”
“A pack needs a leader, Ci.” He didn’t elaborate any further on what chaos meant. Whether it would be an internal power struggle, or there’d be outside interference from other rival packs.
“Hey, check this out.” I took the two petal-deprived sunflowers from the tub and tied them together with ribbon. Then I pinned them to the middle of the arch.
Mash stared at me like I’d lost my mind.
“That’s us, that is. Me and you. Even if everything falls apart around us . . .”
You’ll always have me. That was what I wanted to say. No matter what happens, there will always be us. I couldn’t get the words out.
Mash seemed to hear them in my silence, or my flushed cheeks. He wrapped his hands around my neck and dragged me to him. “I fucking love you, man,” he said, whilst attempting to crush my head against his sweaty chest. “You’re literally my favourite person ever.
“I know,” I said.
“Good Boys Club forever.”
Only Felix and the other kids seemed to notice the two bald sunflowers tied to the arch. They pointed and giggled, but the adult wolves sshed them as Zach and Kai walked down the aisle together, looking handsome in their mating outfits.
Mash and I had showered and changed into our suits. I’d helped Mash shop for his, and fuck me sideways, he looked exquisite.
We were twenty-four years old, and all the girls from the other wolf packs made zero attempt to hide their curiosity of him. In the twenty minutes since we’d been seated, he’d received no fewer than seven hastily scribbled phone numbers. He tucked each one into his back pocket without looking at it.
In a couple of months, he’d be twenty-five and “of age,” meaning if he wanted to, he could become mated with any one of them.
I couldn’t think of anything less Mash, so good luck to them. Though I had been playing a mental game with myself and taking bets on which of the girls he’d slink off with that evening.
The handfasting ceremony was beautiful. Clem read out a poem, and so did Kai’s older brother. They had written their own vows, and everyone cried. Especially Mash.
“Fated mates is bullshit,” he leaned over and whispered to me. “But I’m so fucking happy for them.”
We had hankies, with Kai & Zach and the date along with a sunflower motif embroidered onto the cotton. They were party favours, I think. Mash wiped his eyes on his and blew his nose.
After the ceremony, everyone gathered outside the marquee. We had burgers and hot dogs and sat on hay bales while a band played up-tempo folksy songs. Mash spent the evening rebuffing the advances of what seemed to be every single werewolf girl in existence. And if he wasn’t finding some excuse to say no to a drink or dance, he was denying he and I were in a relationship.
“That’ll be you two next,” the fifth old person in a row said to Mash and me. They all meant it in a jesting, teasing way, but it was beginning to get a little too much.
Nobody would accept that we weren’t a couple, so eventually we just started laughing and nodding.
“Come with me,” Mash said.
I followed him because I’d follow him anywhere.
He took us inside the marquee. “Four pints of lager, please,” he said to the barmaid. He handed me two. “This way.”
“Hey, Mash, what are you doing right now?” said a girl with waist-length black hair and very precise eyeliner wings. She placed her hand on his forearm.
He looked at me, then back at her. “I’m going to go for a walk in the woods, drink two pints of beer, and fuck my boyfriend under the light of the moon.”
She removed her touch and gracefully bowed out.
“Oh my gods, that was genius,” I said to him as we left the marquee.
“I have to show you something.” His legs were so long I had to take an extra half step for every three of his. I took a big glug from each plastic pint glass so my shuffling wouldn’t spill it. “I have a place which is . . . it’s my place. Like, a special place. I go there when things are overwhelming, or when I want to be alone. I . . . I’ve never taken anyone there before.”
We walked for twenty-five minutes, which gave me a glimpse into just how large the Howling Pines estate was. Wasn’t surprising that Clem didn’t want to become alpha. There was so much to look after, and that was only the land. It didn’t include any of the people or animals.
Eventually we reached an unremarkable-looking hedgerow. Mash paused, and lifted a section of the bush for me to climb through.
“Mash,” I said, unable to summon any other words as I emerged out the other side. Instantly I got why this was his special place.
A flat dirt-covered area stretched out a few metres before us, that dropped away into a rocky but lush ravine. Trees towered around on three sides, cocooning us, making the space feel both private and like you could see the entire Eight and a Half Kingdoms all at once. It was beautiful. The gorge below morphed into the banks of an endless lake. The sky, now a glittering blanket of stars, reflected off the calm water.
It was one of those places where you could both lose and find yourself. Where you could panic about your existential insignificance, and at the same time, feel like anything was possible.
Mash sat down. He let his legs dangle over the edge of the rocks, and he placed his two beers to the side. I copied him, sat next to him.
“I spent so much of my youth here. Just being alone, you know?” he said, and I nodded. “And wanking into the ravine.”
I laughed and rolled my eyes, because of course he did that. And of course he saw no issue sharing that info.
“What’s up?” He nudged my fingers with the tips of his.
“Huh?”
“Come on, dude, I know you. You’ve been quiet all day.”
“I’m always quiet,” I countered.
“Not with me.”
I looked at Mash. Observed the perfect way his blonde lashes brushed the underside of his brow, the divot between them that I almost never saw, the stiff set of his jaw. I hesitated.
He turned away from me, glanced out to the lake, at the reflection of the crescent moons rippling gently on the surface.
As long as he was looking in the other direction, I could talk. I wasn’t about to tell him the full truth, but I could share a little of my worries. “It’s all the stuff Kai was saying about finding the other part of his whole.” It was a beautiful speech. Achingly beautiful. “I just wonder . . . if that’ll be me one day.” I puffed out a breath. “Will I ever find the other half of my whole?”
I expected Mash to make a joke about my hole. He didn’t. Surprisingly, he remained serious when he said, “But mate, you’re twenty-four. Why would you be worrying about something like this?”
“Zach and Kai met at school. Clem and Sean met when they were nineteen. My folks were already married at my age. I feel like, if I am ever going to get married, I should have met my husband by now. I’m twenty-four and my longest relationship has been eight months.”
A pair of bats flitted over our heads, no doubt hunting for bugs. In the distance, a tawny owl hooted.
“You know I think this fated-mates stuff is all bullshit, right?” Mash said. He still wasn’t looking at me, he was gazing out over the water.
“Maybe. But I don’t want to be lonely any more. I want someone who makes me excited to share the mundane details of my life, like grocery shopping, or going on train rides, or like how the MOT on my car went.”
“Like a friend? I do all those things with you and we have a riot.”
“Exactly, but . . .” Someone who feels the same way back. “Someone who is . . . mine, and I’m theirs.”
“Oh,” he said. He picked at some dirt from beneath his thumbnail. “What happened with you and Guy? I thought you two were getting pretty serious? Last I heard, you were going to Bordalis with him for a weekend.”
“Yeah, no . . . we broke up!” I said.
“What the fuck? When did this happen? Why didn’t you tell me?” Mash was already pissed off on my behalf and he had none of the background details. I loved it when his loyalty was this unwavering. Or perhaps he was pissed I hadn’t told him sooner.
“Not yesterday . . . day before. I didn’t say anything because you were . . .” Being weird. “Nervous about Zach’s wedding.”
“Hmm,” he said, evidently deciding not to expand on the weirdness, thereby making it that much weirder. “Why’d he break up with you?”
“No, I broke up with him.”
“Why?”
I pursed my lips together and shook my head. No way I could tell Mash the reason. “It’s not important.”
“Yes it fucking is. Tell me.”
“No, I don’t want to.”
“Well, you have to. We don’t keep secrets from each other.”
I stared at him. I knew in my heart Mash was keeping something from me, and possibly had been since we met five years ago, but I chose not to mention it. Another thing I was too afraid to ask him about.
“Tell me,” he demanded.
I groaned, scrubbed a hand down my face. “Fine, okay. Guy said I was terrible at kissing. He said it was like . . .” I puffed out a breath. “Like kissing a sheepshead fish. You know . . . one of those fish with human teeth.”
Mash snorted his laugh out through his nose. “Oh my gods, that’s hilarious.” He sobered up the instant he clocked my scowl. “I mean, he’s a fucking liar.”
“Guy’s fae. He can’t lie, even if he wanted to.”
“Well, fuck,” he said. I could see the cogs turning in his mind. “He obviously has shit taste in kissing partners then because you’re not a crap kisser.”
“How do you know, Mash?” I said, my voice elevating by an extra octave with each word. “You’ve never kissed me. For all you know, I could be the Eight and a Half Kingdoms’ worst kisser.”
He was shaking his head. Resolute. “Nuh-uh. I know my boy and he’s a good kisser. Not some freaky toothsome quag dweller.”
“Toothsome?”
He shrugged. “Toothsome, toothful, toothy . . . whatever I don’t know the proper word, I’ve never heard of the fuckers. Fish with human teeth? That sounds terrifying as fuck, mate.”
“I hadn’t heard of them either. Then I looked them up on my phone and I knew I had to break it off.”
Even in the dim light of the evening, Mash’s smile was obvious. “First off, I wanna say, does this wankbasket know what kissing one of those things is like? And secondly, nah, you’re not like that. Okay, he’s fae, but he’s fucking lying.”
“He can’t lie,” I whined again.
Mash smoothed down the lapels of his suit jacket. “No further arguments will be accepted, thank yew.” He flipped imaginary locks over his shoulder. “He’s a liar and a chode, and you’re a great kisser.”
“You don’t know that.” I elbowed him.
“Fine, kiss me then, and I’ll know for sure.” He elbowed me back. Harder.
My heart threw itself against my windpipe. “Fuck off, I’m not—no!” But I wanted to. I really, really wanted to.
“Go on, kiss me.”
Shit, was he being serious? The smirk on his face told me he wasn’t.
“Mash, no.”
“Kiss me.”
“Mash.”
“Do it.”
“Mash?”
“Kiss me, Bangers. Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, kiss—”
Before I’d thought it through, I grabbed his face and smashed our mouths together.
Mash stiffened, his eyes grew twice their size, and he made an adorable surprised squeak. And we simply stared at each other . . . both of us holding our breaths . . . our lips still connected but not moving.
I let him go and sat back on the dusty surface.
Mash said nothing. His gaze bounced between my lips and my eyes. His chest heaved.
“Listen, I’m sorry,” I began. “You just . . . I didn’t know what else to say to shut you—”
But then he was on me. His hands either side of my face. His mouth on mine again. Only this time he was moving it. Lips sliding against lips, hands snaking into my hair.
Mash moaned, and my cock responded. I couldn’t push him away, couldn’t stop this even if I wanted to. I never wanted to.
He inched his huge body over mine, his kiss relentless. His tongue slipped into my mouth, brushed against my own, and I surrendered every ounce of control to the moment, until he was lying on top of me, our feet still sticking off the end of the rocks.
I needed him to slow down, so that I could savour it, remember every detail. Who knew if this would ever happen again? His stubble scratched my chin, but I wouldn’t stop. His hips squashed mine into the ground, but I wouldn’t stop. I would never stop. I’d simply let myself waste away under Mash’s skilful caress.
He whined again and rocked his hips, humping me. Fuck. His knots pushed into my pelvis. I was going to die from happiness. Or more likely, I was already dead and in heaven. Was I dead?
I let my hands travel over his body—over his neck, down his back, up under his jacket, along his ribs. I wished he wasn’t wearing the fucking thing. I wished there were no clothes between us at all. Wished we were skin on skin—hot, naked, sweating. I preferred to top, but I would let Mash fuck me out here under the stars.
He broke the kiss, lifted his head up, and trained unfocused eyes on mine. He was out of breath, we both were.
“Mash,” I started to say. The word was nothing more than a whisper. I didn’t know what I planned on saying. All I knew was that I never wanted him to stop. I wanted all of his kisses. Forevermore.
But the next second, something large and heavy sounding landed in the pine trees directly to our left. A tawny owl hooted, jump-scaring both of us.
Mash laughed, moved off me.
I couldn’t think of anything to say, and he was either shell-shocked or struggling to articulate himself. The owl called out again.
“Oh, piss off,” Mash yelled, lobbing an acorn or a pebble somewhere in the direction of the noise. “Scared the shit out of me. If I wanted to crap my pants tonight, I’d’ve eaten chocolate.”
He leant back on his elbows, took a deep shaky breath, and looked at the sky. “You’re a good kisser, by the way. Guy is a loser.”
“Thanks,” I replied, shuffling backwards on the rocky surface so I was also staring up at the glittering velvety night. “You’re not, though. You’re actually shit at kissing.”
Mash laughed. From the corner of my peripherals, I saw him tilt his head towards me. “This isn’t going to make things weird between us, is it? Have I just fucked five years of friendship in the bin because I’m a horndog?”
“No. We’re bald sunflowers, remember?” I said.
“Good boys forever,” he whispered. “Hey, would it be gay if we held hands and watched the stars together?”
I smothered my laugh. “Yeah, maybe a little bit gay.”
“I thought so,” he said, but he slipped his hand under mine and curled his fingers around my fist regardless.