Chapter 25
Fern joins the pack.
The following afternoon, at three-fifteen on the dot—the earliest everyone could meet—they all gathered for cocktails and cake on Liv and Ben’s back deck.
Liv assured Fern that this was not her mating celebration, that would happen on the weekend and run long into the evening. This was Fern’s pack induction.
Noa and Adam were there to congratulate Elliott and Fern on their bond and support Fern as she joined the pack.
When Olivia came in the year before, it was part of her claiming with Ben, and their ceremony was the private sort.
This time, Liv pulled out all the stops.
Really, she reused Ren’s abandoned wedding arch, told Fern to wear her orange bridesmaid’s dress, and made everyone swear never to speak of it.
“Are you ready?” Elliott asked, reaching out a hand to help Fern up from her chair.
“More than.” Accepting his assistance, she let herself be pulled into his strong embrace, and their lips met softly, then again with a quick flick of tongue, before they pulled away.
“Gross,” Adam grumbled, twisting the top off a beer.
“They’re cute, don’t be such a curmudgeon,” Noa scolded. “You want a mate, too.”
He grunted.
“Come on, let’s do this!” Liv called from her spot beneath the arch, her own flame-colored gown flapping in the breeze.
“What exactly does this blood exchange entail?” Fern asked cautiously, dragging Elliott along by the hand.
“Fitz’ll do the honors,” Ben said, joining them with a massive chef’s knife in his grip. Sunlight glinted off the blade.
“What the freaking fuck?” Fern squeaked, her otter chiming in.
Olivia balked. “You couldn’t have grabbed a paring knife?”
“The rest are in the dishwasher.” With a shrug, Ben flipped the blade and handed it over to Elliott, handle first.
“How much blood gets exchanged here?” Fern glanced around. “There’s no, like, drinking from goblets or anything, right?”
“You read too many vampire books,” Liv muttered.
It was true, she’d been expecting some vampire shit. Instead, Fern joined Liv beneath the wedding—pack initiation—arch. Elliott and Ben approached while Noa stood on a chair, recording on her phone, and Adam nursed his beer.
“Are you ready to join the Beckett Falls pack, Fern Walsh?” Ben asked.
“P,” Elliott added.
“What?”
“Her middle name’s P,” he clarified.
“Just the letter?” Adam checked, his interest piqued.
“Yep,” Fern replied.
“Focus!” Olivia called, and they all snapped to attention. “Fern, are you ready to join our pack, to support your fellow packmates, to stand beside us should we need to fight, and to keep the secrets of shifters forever and always?”
“Are those official words?” Noa whispered loudly.
“No,” Ben replied.
“Oh my god, pay attention. Fern, yes?”
“Yes, absolutely. Can I say something sappy? When I moved up here, I had no idea if it was the right choice, I just knew I needed to start fresh, to try to figure out who I wanted to be, and find what success looks like for me. I did it, with all of you. I fucking wish there was a pizza place though.”
“I think Fitz should open one,” Noa commented.
“Shut up,” Ben scolded her.
“Yeah, I have no interest in that,” Elliott murmured to Fern and Liv.
“Anyway,” Fern continued, “I think you’re all amazing, and Beckett Falls is the best. Listen, I’m not being super eloquent about this, but inside—” She tapped her chest, half expecting it to ripple like a waterbed with how mushy and gushy she felt. “I’m super sappy.”
“She is,” Elliott confirmed.
Finally, they completed the ceremony. With the tip of the knife, Elliott pricked Ben’s, Olivia’s, and Fern’s fingers, and they pressed them together, the tiny drops of red commingling.
“Welcome home,” Liv whispered as the magic took hold, coursing through Fern, raw and powerful.
It wasn’t the same as sealing her mate bond with Elliott; she couldn’t feel Ben’s or Olivia’s emotions, but the connection between her and her alphas grew thick and strong, a tether uncoiling from her mind to their will.
If she didn’t like them both so much, it would’ve freaked her out.
With that connection came a web. It enveloped her, settling beneath her skin: hundreds of touch-points to every person in Beckett Falls.
After hugging Liv and Ben at once, she spun into Elliott’s arms. His pride, his strength, filled her, and she knew she was sending pure happiness back to him.
“Did it work?” Noa asked, bouncing over as she shoved her phone in her pocket.
“I felt it,” Fern confirmed with a nod.
“We could test it?” Liv suggested before lacing her next words with what could only be alpha energy. “Go make me a chocolate milk.”
Though Fern balked, a fizzle of delightful energy, a desire to do exactly as she was asked—or told—overcame her. “Anything for you, Mama,” she said with a wink, unable to stop herself from spinning and dashing toward the kitchen.
Noa’s laughter rang out, supported by the low chuckles from the men.
“Don’t call me that!” Olivia shouted before the back door closed at Fern’s back.
Elliott followed her inside, and while Fern was happy to let him make the chocolate milk, she found she had to be the one to carry it back to her alpha.
“Welcome to the pack, sugar.” He chuckled, grabbing the door for her.
“Why do you call me that?” Fern glanced up at his rugged, handsome profile.
“Because of the song—‘Sugar Magnolia.’ It sandwiched our first kiss. It’s you—it’s your song. Our song?”
Pausing before they rejoined their friends, Elliott pressed a kiss to her forehead, then her lips, then her cheek, then her lips again.
“It is our song. And that’s super sweet. I need a nickname for you.”
“You could always call me Fitz, like everyone else,” he teased.
“Nope.”
He laughed while she gave Olivia her requested chocolate milk. At the moment of handoff, a little pop of happy energy burst behind Fern’s ribs.
“Oh, that’s kind of fun.” She said before turning to Elliott and adding, “I wish we could do that.”
He grunted, cheeks reddening. But the lusty emotion that flowed from him to her said he agreed.
Liv laughed. “Oh, it’s definitely fun.”
Elliott tossed up his hands. “Didn’t need to know that.”
“I did. Tell me more.” Fern leaned conspiratorially toward Olivia, who waved her off, promising additional insights in private, later.
“Do we get to meet her now?” Noa approached, bouncing impatiently from foot to foot.
“Who?” Fern looked around.
“You,” Liv said vibrantly. “Your otter.”
Fern’s grin hurt her cheeks as Elliott met her gaze with a nod.
“Group run?” Adam asked, finally standing from his seat at the table.
“Yes,” Ben agreed.
The warmth and breadth of her welcome to this new town was unheard of.
With a smile plastered to her face, beyond thrilled with her new friendships and the quick twists her life had taken, Fern shifted first to cheers and claps and a lot of friendly pets.
Adam even lifted her up, hoisting her into the air as he cooed over how adorable her creature was.
He might’ve carried her around all day if Elliott didn’t smack him on the shoulder and snatch her away.
Her otter chirped, and Fern only laughed from the backseat of her animal’s consciousness.
Liv and Ben changed next, followed by Noa. Fern’s otter rushed over to greet her new bobcat and fox friends. She was wary of Ben’s wolf, though, hiding in the protective swish of Noa’s fluffy orange tail while Liv’s cat guarded her side.
Elliott joined her in bear form, and while she was happy to run, her otter was in the mood for a ride. Clambering onto his back, her creature settled between his beast’s shoulder blades, feeling safe and secure with her mate.
Able shifted next, his big bear coming over to say hi to Elliott’s. With a low growl, Elliott’s grizzly warned Adam’s away from his mate, and Adam’s bear acquiesced with a submissive dip of his big head.
As she blinked at a blurry world through her otter’s eyes, Fern’s heart soared, delighted with her new life.
The alphas gave a silent command, and a fizzy promise of camaraderie and fun spread through Fern as the group took off into the woods. Beside the rush of alpha energy, Elliott’s joy—pure and simple—filled her chest.
Fern had learned about Elliott’s secret photographer side when he shot her on the front porch the day before. She hadn’t realized the extent of it though, not until he rushed her home from Ben and Liv’s and needed a solid twenty minutes to set up for a “quick” video call with his parents.
“I can hardly see,” she whined.
“Stop staring at the light. The phone will be on the tripod over there.”
“I had no idea you had all this equipment.”
“I have to sell my goods.” Elliott scooted around the coffee table to turn on his second light.
“You better be talking about your ceramics. I feel like I’m being interviewed by TLC.”
He chuckled. “I am and I want my parents to be able to see you. Let me show you off in good lighting.”
She beamed, slouching against the back of the sofa.
“Sit how you’re going to be on the call. This has to be perfect.”
“Director, too? There’s so much I don’t know about you.”
His hazel-ish eyes softened as he clipped his phone onto the tripod. “I know, and there’s a lot I don’t know about you. But we have all the time in the world to learn.”
Elliott squatted and fiddled with his cellphone for a minute before his call was answered:
“My baby!”
“There’s our boy.”
“Where is she?”
“Hey, bro.”
“Uncle Elliott!”
“Elliott, Elliott!”
He glanced back at Fern, mildly shell shocked, and mouthed a, “Sorry,” before turning back to the phone. “Hey—everyone. Didn’t expect to see all of you.”
“You never talk on the phone,” a woman, probably his mom, said. “We wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
“Well then, I’d like you all to meet Fern.”
He stepped to the left as she peeked around his big back, giving a little wave to the conglomeration of faces lumped into frame. Someone with brown curls was cut off, but her pink bow was visible at the bottom of the screen.
“Hi, everyone!” Fern greeted the family.
“It’s wonderful to finally meet you,” Elliott’s dad said.
“We’ve heard so much about you!” his mom chimed in, followed by everyone else.
The call was intense, and she was happy to get their first meeting out of the way in a virtual setting where she and Elliott could go back to quiet once they were done.
“I know you were going to wait ’til November to visit—and tourist season isn’t really your thing, but—”
“Mating celebration?” Danielle asked, a wide smile on her face.
“It’s this weekend,” Fern said with a grimace. “We completely understand if you can’t make it.”
“We’ll be there,” Elliott’s mom replied, overlapping the end of Fern’s statement. “Saturday?”
At her side, Elliott nodded. “Able has space at the Lodge, I already asked. But there’s a human wedding in town.”
“Can we still meet your otter, Aunt Fern?” a little voice asked, and Danielle reiterated the request.
“We can have a big family run,” Elliott’s sister added. “We’ll just have to hike out a ways on two legs before shifting.”
“Of course,” Fern replied with a grin, already gearing up for her second big welcome in as many weeks.
They said goodbye to his family, and Fern handed Elliott her phone. Her mom was up next.
“You never talk on the phone?” she asked, checking out his ass as he finagled her cell onto the tripod.
“Not really. Texting’s more peaceful.”
“Any time we text, you end up calling me.”
“You’re different, Fern.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too. Want me to start this call?”
“Yeah. Then get over here.”
With the ringtone coming through the speakerphone, he hurried to Fern’s side and pressed a quick kiss to her lips before tucking her in under his arm.
“Fernie, how are you?” her mom answered on the fifth ring, phone propped up on the counter as she angled a box of Franzia over her wine glass. “Oh! Who’s this?”
“Mom, I’d like you to meet my boyfriend.”