Chapter 40
Aiden
The sun sets over the pack with shades of lavender and orange. Kids tear down the streets like they’ve got spare batteries, nowhere near out of energy, even though the dirt on their faces promises that they’ve been out all day.
I smile as I walk by them, and as they gawk up at me, I decide to take a detour.
Ignoring the aches in my shoulders from a day spent behind my desk, I swoop down and scoop the closest one up. The little girl squeals as I set her on my shoulders. Her friends are tugging on my clothes in seconds, and I laugh before I hoist each of them up in my arms.
I march down the street with the trio of howling passengers while neighbours grin and shake their heads.
Pack life has been my only life for the last couple of weeks, except for days like today where I have to drag myself to school first for Julian and I, but even so, it’s been great. Work didn’t feel like work when it’s what you love, and I love my pack, including the new wolves that are now mine.
The merge had gone smoother than expected. Our enlarged borders made for more than enough room, and though some wolves had been hesitant at first about crossing into former Black Moon packlands, they soon got over that.
Small gatherings helped and slowly but surely, we were sewing a new pack bond from our old threads.
The pups enjoy their ride until I reach the packhouse and set them down, only leaving me be when I promise to give them another go around tomorrow. They go running off and I head inside.
Up the elevator, to the end of the hall, and I barely open the door before I’ve got two armfuls of blonde warmth in my arms.
“Hello to you, too,” I mumble against Julian’s neck as I give him a squeeze. “What’s this for?”
“I just wanted to.” He steps back, hair a little feral, eyes bright. “I guess I’m getting clingy.”
“Getting?” I echo, and he shoves me before turning on his heel. Chuckling, I kick the door shut behind us and follow after him. “What did you get up to today?”
“Nothing crazy,” he replies over his shoulder. “I checked in with everyone who moved into a new home and then visited our stores. Both of us cleared out last winter, so we need to start early this year.”
“Ah, yes,” I sigh as I crack my neck. “Our annual cosplay of squirrels hoarding nuts.”
Julian snorts but doesn’t refute it as he slips into the kitchen. “Are you hungry, or did you eat?”
“I skipped lunch—on purpose,” I clarify and he frowns until it clicks.
“Emitt and Beckett?”
“Emitt and Beckett.”
When I’d realised our best friends were mates, I’d counted down the days until everyone else would find out.
I thought they’d slip up in front of someone else. Instead, Emitt and Beckett let the news drop in a very … open way.
Emitt’s parents were odd about certain things, and even though there was no need for a formal moon-door opening for a wolf to find their mate when they turned eighteen, they wanted precisely that for their beta son.
Julian had been a bundle of nerves the whole way to the Hall.
“Aren’t you scared? I’m scared. What if he has no mate like Beckett? What will we do then? What will he do then?” The questions never ended.
Really, I was shocked Julian even cared, given the rocky start they’d had, but he did. It was nice to know, but his concern made it harder to keep from blurting the truth.
“It’ll be fine,” I’d promised instead as we’d walked into the hall already packed with girls hoping to be the beta’s mate.
They, of course, had all been disappointed when the clock struck midnight, and Emitt hadn’t even blinked before running straight into Beckett’s waiting arms to lay one on him.
“Those two …” Julian had said, the most shocked of all. “But Beckett—two guys, again? What?”
I’d rubbed his shoulders while I steered him and everyone else out of the hall since Emitt and Beckett had shown absolutely no signs of stopping. For all I knew, they mated right there, but I didn’t stick around to find out.
Since then, they’d been joined at the hip, overly tactile, and we all suffered for it.
“It’s already close to dinner, so what do you say to us going out tonight?” I suggest, and Julian pauses with his hand on the lid of a pot of something that smells divine.
He blinks owlishly at me, surprised and already trying to work out what I plan to keep from him a little longer. “What for?” he asks carefully.
“A date,” I say, casual, reminding myself to breathe easily. If I slip up, he’ll catch on in a heartbeat. “We’ve already done the classics—restaurants and movies. Now, I’ve got a surprise for you.”
Suspicion knits his eyebrows together.
“It’s in pack borders,” I add, and that relaxes him.
“Should I be scared?”
“No. I think I’m going to make you cry tonight,” I gloat and he scoffs, offended. “You’ll see.”
“Uh huh,” he drawls, still smiling, still blissfully unaware, which I thank Goddess for.
I’m not really a surprise person.
I’m not as anal as Julian about things being in a particular order, but surprises still weren’t for me.
They make me feel out of control, off kilter, and I have enough of that in my life as it is.
But Jewels is different—he loves them. I realised that after the big getaway he arranged for us and the way he stared at me at every interval, watching for my reactions and then beaming when they were positive.
It seems only right I do the same for him, and at least try to make him just as happy as he makes me. I just hope he likes it.
He’s going to love it, Max promises quietly, but his presence is loud enough to make me growl.
Not another word from you, I snap, tugging an apologetic whine from him as our bond trembles.
I said sorry! he complains.
Not going to cut it, I growl, and his sulking hum fades to the back of my skull.
The morning after those two beasts had their time together, Julian and I couldn’t walk.
I knew wolves were a bit rougher than us when they were intimate, but they’d gone at it so hard that even our natural healing couldn’t save us. I recovered quicker, since I’m not the one on the receiving end, but poor Julian … I’d had to carry him to the kitchen to get some food.
Imagine my fucking surprise when there was no kitchen to go to.
The sink’s pipe was burst with water flowing out of it like a fucking fountain.
The fridge doors had a body-sized dent on one side, and the other half was lying across the room.
The kitchen counter was littered with imprints of their hands, and the island had a crack running straight down the middle.
I went to put Julian down in the dining room, and you know what the fuck I found?
Wreckage. Pure wreckage.
The dining table was shattered, every chair broken. Why every chair? Only Goddess knew.
Claw marks scored the walls all the way to where the bookshelf had been before it toppled like a corpse.
We only just got the place and they’d already fucked it.
I was pissed, but Julian was much angrier since he was the one who couldn’t walk for the entire day.
Instead of facing the wrath they surely knew was coming, those two little shits disappeared for a week—found the darkest corners of our minds and buried themselves in them.
There they waited for our rage to die down before slowly creeping back in with a, “Hey there, my favourite best friend I’ve had for my entire life … ”
Animals.
And yet, I’d felt partially responsible since, with all that had been going on, we hadn’t given them time alone with each other. Of course they’d be making up for lost time when they finally came face to face.
That’s why Julian and I already agreed to give them every weekend from now on. Do whatever the hell they want. But they were on our shit list for now, so they didn’t need to know that.
“I’m going to shower and then we can head out,” I say, catching Julian’s hands in mine. “And it’s really important that you join me.”
A sly smile spreads across his lips. “Oh yeah?”
“Mhm,” I hum, kissing his knuckles. “That way I can make sure you’re squeaky clean.”
Julian throws his head back with laughter, and I pull him after me.
“Is this our thing now? Blindfolds?”
I glance down at the familiar black cloth in my hands and shrug.
“Apparently.” I dangle it, and with a sigh, Julian turns so I can tie it over his eyes. Once it’s secure, I lean in close. “Next time, I’ll use it in bed.”
A shudder runs through him, and I grin as I take his hands. He takes baby steps, walking like a newborn fawn even though the road’s flat.
“Come on, Jewels,” I prompt. “I was going uphill and I went faster than this.”
“Well, it’s a lot harder than it seems to be on this side of it,” he shoots back, taking another hesitant step.
“Alright, how about a distraction?” I tug him forward, forcing him to match my pace. “We still don’t know what happened to Ramon and Jessica.”
“Oh yes!” he cheers, head snapping up. “Let’s do that!”
“Where did we stop? Something with a fire?”
“Ramon tried to kill her by burning down the house, but she escaped, and that’s where we left it,” Julian recalls instantly.
My brows lift. “You really liked it, huh?”
He nods fast. “Yes, I did, and I hate cliffhangers, so let’s get back to it. You start.”
I chuckle as he walks after me, too invested now to worry about tripping.
And then one night, while Ramon was sleeping with one of his favourite rhinoceroses in the house he bought off the black market. Jessica snuck in and kidnapped Ramon. When he woke up, he was in a warehouse filled with candle wax.
“Wait a second, wax?” I pause while Julian bursts out laughing. He’s beautiful in the early evening light, even more when he’s happy.
“Yes, wax,” he insists, “now continue!”
Jessica forced Ramon to eat all the candle wax before drowning him in a bucket of hot candle wax that killed him. When she went to the new home, the rhinos were mad ’cause they couldn’t find Ramon.
“Where’s my Ramon?!” one rhino said.
“They talk?” Julian chokes between giggles.
“Accept it,” I reply, and snorting, Julian does.