Chapter Twenty-one
TRISTAN
The sun was sinking when the bell rang once, announcing dinner. They washed up and headed over to the house.
Tristan had been full of excitement at introducing Colby to his pack, but as he opened the back door and saw Bryce standing at the counter, talking to Riley, his stomach flipped over. In the joy of spending the day with Colby, he’d somehow managed to forget the argument with Bryce.
Not just an argument. It was a difference so profound that the only way it would be sorted would be by one of them changing their mind. And it wouldn’t be Tristan. There was no way he could change his mind about Colby. He let his hand drift against Colby’s and smiled at him.
The relaxed happiness that had been slowly but surely growing in Colby through the afternoon had disappeared. He was holding himself tensely, shoulders curved down, as if he wanted to disappear.
“Heard you beat Leather Mountain,” Jesse said, not even glancing their way. He was too focused on his silent but deadly battle with Jason over the Hasselback potatoes.
“Dunno about that—I don’t even know what some of those things are—but we cleaned most of it,” Tristan said. “Couldn’t have done it alone.”
He squeezed Colby’s hand, and then looked up to meet Bryce’s eyes.
They were on him, measured, unreadable, and a world away from their usual warmth and teasing.
No nod of welcome, not even the smile he kept just for Tristan, the one that had seen Tristan through missing his mom, exam panic, and getting dumped by his first real boyfriend. He simply looked disappointed.
Tristan swallowed painfully, and Bryce’s gaze moved to Colby. Not openly hostile, perhaps, but definitely not welcoming.
Jason batted Jesse’s wandering hand with the spatula, making Jesse yelp, mock-offended, and Colby’s hand spasmed in Tristan’s. Like he thought it was real violence, real hurt.
Tristan drew him over to the table and pulled out his usual chair.
It looked like Jason—or Riley, who often set the table while Jason cooked—had been thoughtful enough to set an extra place, so Tristan gestured to Colby to take the chair beside him.
Everyone would just have to move down a place. No great hardship.
Jason was serving out, and Matt still wasn’t here.
“Where’s Matt?” Tristan asked Bryce. Maybe if he could get Bryce talking to him on neutral subjects, things would go back to normal.
“Making some calls.” Bryce’s words were clipped, and Tristan couldn’t tell whether the tension in his voice related to the phone calls or to the fact he was speaking to Tristan.
As the others sat down, Jason put a dish on the table, and Tristan grasped at a change of subject. “Is that lasagna? Alongside roast beef and potatoes? Not exactly what I expected but good to know we’re not skimping on the carbs.”
“I’m trying out some new dishes for the diner,” Jason said. “Anyone want to give it a whirl?”
His words were scarcely out when Jesse reached over.
“It’s made with sweet potato sheets, not pasta,” Jason added, and Jesse’s spoon hung motionless in the air, poised over the dish he’d grabbed.
“Why?” he asked, sounding plaintive.
“Because I’m trying out dishes for people with intolerances,” Jason said.
“If it’s come out of your kitchen, it can’t be all bad,” Jesse decided, and began levering spoonfuls of it onto his plate.
“Does Sam know you’re using us as lab rats?” Bryce’s voice was rougher than usual, but it was a good approximation of his usual teasing. He took the dish from Jesse. “God’s sake, Jesse—you could have left me enough to taste.”
“Ain’t my fault you’re slow,” Jesse mumbled where he was licking the serving spoon. “Getting old, Bryce.”
Bryce snorted. Normally, that would have been the start of a long, teasing back and forth, insulting one another in a way that sounded brutal to anyone who didn’t know them.
But not today. Bryce wasn’t himself, Tristan knew it.
Knew it, and hated it. But he still wasn’t going to change his mind.
Not about something as important as Colby, who was sitting very quietly beside him.
Like he’d shrunk in on himself, trying to take up as little space as possible so he wouldn’t be noticed. And while everything in Tristan longed to announce to his pack that they were mates, he had the feeling Colby would hate that right now.
For the first time, Tristan thought he fully understood Bryce’s point. He was going to have to make a lot more adjustments, to think a lot more with Colby as his mate. But that was okay, because he wouldn’t change Colby for the world.
He nudged him gently. “If you see Jesse’s fork heading for your plate at any point, just growl. That usually works.”
Colby nodded but said nothing, not even a flicker of a smile.
A slightly awkward silence fell around the table as they waited for Matt.
Awkward in a way it never usually was. Glancing around, Tristan could see Bryce was ignoring him, while Jason was flicking nervous glances at Colby.
Riley had picked up on Jason’s tension, and Dave seemed fascinated by a loose thread on his fluorescent green and pink shirt, winding it around until it cut into his finger.
It wasn’t like Dave to be so closed in on himself, and Tristan wondered if all was okay between him and Christian, who was out patrolling with Karl.
As he looked, he found himself seeing his pack through new eyes. Before Cale, before Colby, he’d never questioned how they were. They were his pack and he loved them with all he had.
Now, he was beginning to see them more as individuals. Without Matt’s steadying, unstinting leadership, he wondered if they’d even be together. But they were. They’d forged bonds and trust, and love. The only problem was, the pack bond was so strong, it didn’t allow anyone in easily.
Tristan felt about twenty years older as he realized that he’d seen the pack through a kid’s eyes all these years.
They weren’t actually perfect. And if he did what he wanted and announced Colby was his mate, they wouldn’t all be pleased for him.
Jason would try for his sake, Dave too. But there was too much hurt there, inflicted by Cale’s pack, for them to truly welcome Colby.
He reached under the table and found Colby’s hand, twining their fingers together.
Colby didn’t look at him, didn’t smile, but he didn’t let go.
COLBY
Colby was exerting every bit of self-control he possessed to stop himself staring across the table. Because the sharp-eyed blond guy sitting next to Jason wasn’t a shifter. He was human, sitting and eating as one of the pack.
Colby must have looked over once too often because Tristan nudged him. “Riley is Jason’s mate.”
Colby stiffened in shock. “But—” He swiftly bit off his question. Too late.
“One point four percent,” Jason said, sounding resigned and as if it was something he’d said too many times before to count. “One point four percent of shifters have a non-shifter as their mate.”
Colby had no idea that being mates with a non-shifter was even possible, let alone that it happened often enough to be a statistic.
He looked back at Riley, who was staring at him, looking pissed, but also something else.
Colby finally realized what it was. He was wary of Colby.
He guessed it must be difficult being surrounded by people who could transform at will into something that could kill you without even trying.
And then there was the fact that Colby had been part of an enemy pack.
He dropped his gaze and tried to make himself look small and unthreatening.
Colby was still focused on his plate when the atmosphere around the table changed. He looked up, and Matt Urban was standing in the doorway, watching them all.
His eyes swept the table, resting briefly on each of them in turn. When his gaze landed on Colby, it took everything he had to meet it, forcing himself not to look away. He was too used to keeping his head down and his eyes on the ground, avoiding conflict.
Once Urban made his way to the head of the table and sat down, everyone around the table fell on their meals.
Colby sat frozen, unsure what would be worse—failing to follow the example of the rest of the pack, or to go against everything he knew was right.
Tristan glanced sideways at him, then turned more fully to look at him.
“You can eat, you know,” he said, his low voice way too loud in the near-silence that was broken only by the scrape of silverware on plates.
Colby tilted his head meaningfully toward Urban.
“What?” Tristan asked, confused.
“Alpha Urban hasn’t started eating,” Colby said, his voice as low as he could get it and still be audible.
“So?” Tristan still looked puzzled.
“So I guess Williams was raised in a better-mannered pack than the rest of you,” Urban said, and Colby tensed even further at the realization he’d heard.
“We’re not that formal here, Colby.” He picked up his fork, then gave him a small grin.
“And while I could get used to the whole ‘Alpha Urban’ thing, I think it might just kill Jesse. ‘Matt’ is fine.”
Jesse paused with a weird mix of lasagna and apple chutney halfway to his mouth. “Alpha Urban sounds like a cheap perfume—notes of pine, power, and bossiness.”
Even knowing that Jesse was Urban’s mate, that disrespect felt terrifyingly reckless. But Urban—Matt—just rolled his eyes and sent Jesse a glinting smile.
Colby didn’t understand this pack at all. A non-shifter, and now this? Not knowing the rules made him feel unsteady, on dangerous ground. Nico used to do that. Change the rules without warning, just to keep him off-balance, always on the defensive.
He picked up his silverware and started to eat, not wanting to mark himself out as different, even though his appetite seemed to have fled. The food was good, he could tell, but it felt like chewing cardboard.
“Good, isn’t it?” Tristan said next to him. “Jason’s the best cook ever. I keep telling him he should go on one of those shows, like Iron Chef or the British Baking Show. He’d crush it.”
Colby nodded, his eyes darting around the table to check who was listening and how they reacted to Tristan’s statement. And then he swallowed slightly. If he were staying here, for however long Matt said was necessary, he couldn’t sit in silence the entire time, putting all the work onto Tristan.
“It’s great,” he said hoarsely, then looked across the table to Jason. “Thank you.”
Jason’s cheeks pinked slightly, and he ducked his head shyly.
Someone that gentle wouldn’t have lasted two seconds in Cale’s pack. There, kindness got eaten alive—literally, sometimes. Here, he was both valued and protected. Colby couldn’t understand it.
But he wanted to.