9. Nine
Nine
March 2022 - Present Day
Phoenix Campbell
M y stomach drops as we step into the drawing room of my parents’ house. Jade’s sister, Iris, sips red wine as my dad talks her ear off by the fireplace. I have no idea why my mother invited Iris to this, of all dinners.
For the past couple of days, there’s been a tentative peace between the two of us. We’ve only got this one dinner to get through with my family before we head to the Peak District tomorrow.
Cee manages not to flinch as I gently press my hand to his lower back, nudging him out of the doorway. Jasper wanders over to us with a sleepy-looking Henry resting on his hip.
“Look who it is, Hen. You want a cuddle from Uncle Nix?” Jasper says to his son in a sing-song voice. Henry seems to debate it for a moment before reaching out his chubby little hands to me. He rests his heavy head on my shoulder and settles back down again. I might be biased, but I have the cutest nephew ever . His skin is quite fair, similar to Jasper’s, but he has tight black ringlet hair just like his mum’s, and his dark lashes frame big brown eyes that always look remarkably thoughtful for a toddler.
Before I get a chance to ask Jasper what Iris is doing here, my mum appears behind me. She runs a hand affectionately over Henry’s head before asking us all to make our way into the dining room for dinner.
Starters have just been served when Jade joins us at the table, having put Henry down to sleep. My mum, as Alpha, sits at the head of the table. My dad, Cee, and I are on one side, and Alfie, Jasper, Jade, and Iris sit opposite us.
A painfully uncomfortable knot forms in my stomach. Other than the highly unlikely scenario that Iris happened to be visiting Jade and Jas when this dinner was organised, I can’t think of a single good reason why my mother would have invited her tonight.
We make it through the first course relatively unscathed, with nothing more than inane small talk. Things start to take a turn as we wait for Claire, their housekeeper, to serve the main course.
“I hear Alice Graham is thinking of leaving us,” my mum says.
“What? Where did you hear that?” I ask. Alice is my best friend, and while I know she’s not particularly happy in this pack after everything that went down last year, she’s never mentioned leaving.
“She’s been spending significant time with the Eastwood pack, isn’t that right, Iris?”
“I wouldn’t say so. She visits her cousin, Oliver, fairly frequently, but since the rest of his family are human, they haven’t spent much time around anyone in the pack, except for maybe Calvin,” Iris replies. I’m grateful she’s not throwing Alice under the bus.
“Calvin, as in the future Alpha of your pack?” My mum’s tone is baiting as if she’s trying to catch Iris in a lie.
“Calvin, as in mine and Jade’s older brother, and Oliver’s best friend.” Iris’ firm response brokers no room to continue the conversation—she’s braver than I am when it comes to my mother. I suppose she benefits from my mum not being her Alpha.
The awkward silence that follows is brief because Claire appears with large plates of food. Mum has clearly gone into full show-off mode with sirloin steaks and lobster tails. Cee's eyes go wide when the dish is placed before him. A wave of embarrassment washes over me because while it may appear my mum has pulled out all the stops for a special guest, this is just another way for her to flaunt our pack’s wealth.
I’m chewing on a mouthful of steak when my mother decides to start the one conversation I was dreading.
“It’s such a pleasure to have you with us this evening, Iris. It feels as though we’ve hardly seen you since you and Nix broke up.” Iris’ face goes scarlet red, and I pinch the bridge of my nose, wincing. Cee is white-knuckling the cutlery in his hands and glaring a hole into his dinner plate. While I don’t want to give my mum the satisfaction of knowing she’s caused a rift, I also really don’t want him to think I have a secret ex-girlfriend.
“Mum, Connor is right there; what a weird thing to bring up,” Jasper says. He thinks he’s helping, but he’s kind of not.
“Will you come and speak to me outside for a minute?” I whisper into Cee's ear.
“We’re in the middle of dinner,” he replies through gritted teeth.
Great, he’s definitely pissed off.
“I need to speak to Connor privately; we’ll be back in a moment.”
“Phoenix, you will not be so rude as to get up in the middle of dinner,” my mother retorts as though we’re dining with royalty, and it’s not just a room of mostly my own relatives.
“Is that an order?” I ask, and she visibly blanches.
“Of course not.”
“Right. Okay then. We’ll be back in a moment.” I grab Cee by the arm and pull him out into the hallway. It’s still not private enough for wolf shifter hearing, so I tug him further down the hall into the downstairs guest bathroom.
Connor Kelly
My mind is still reeling as Phoenix pulls me into what appears to be a guest bathroom. What's with rich people and their overabundance of bathrooms? How posh do you have to be before the idea of sharing a porcelain throne becomes scandalous?
Anyway, I digress; back to the issue at hand.
Phoenix has an ex.
Either he omitted to tell me that when we were younger, or he dated her in the year we spent apart. I feel physically sick at the idea of him with someone else. In the year we were separated, Phoenix never stopped reaching out. Was I naive to think that meant he hadn’t moved on? It’s not like I didn’t try to. The first six months after we broke up, I was barely going through the motions, dragging myself to work and back, hardly seeing or speaking to anyone.
Was he with her then?
This was a mistake. This whole marriage is a mistake. I can’t protect my heart when he’s literally everywhere .
“Stop, please stop spiralling, and let me explain. I’m begging you.” Fee’s back is to the door, but he’s giving me space like he knows I’ll scratch if he comes too close.
“What’s to explain? We’re just havin’ dinner with your ex-girlfriend. Nothin’ weird about that. Out of interest, though, did you wait a whole forty-eight hours after we broke up before you got back out there?”
“What? No. She was never my girlfriend, and it was long before I’d ever even met you.”
“Oh, so you were just fuckin’ her and invitin’ her around for family dinners, then? Sounds an awful lot like a girlfriend, Phoenix,” I snap at him.
“I told you that when I was eighteen, I got really drunk at Jasper and Jade’s wedding, and I slept with Iris. My mum overheard me and Jas fighting over it. He was pissed off with me, and my mum asked me to go on a couple of dates with her so there wouldn’t be a rift between our packs.
“We went on no more than five dates, purely to get our families off our backs, and then we’ve hardly crossed paths since. We never even slept together again, I promise. I didn’t go into all the details with you back then, but I didn’t lie. We were never together. I don’t know why my mum made it sound as though we were.” He lets out a breath, and his big brown eyes plead with me to trust him.
I keep clenching my fists at my side, I have all the adrenaline from being ready to fight with him, but I believe him.
I think his mum is a total bitch—but I do believe him.
“You promise?” My voice comes out all weak and shaky. I hate how much I need the reassurance.
“I promise. Do you want to leave? We can leave. We should leave,” he rambles on.
“No. We should stay.” I stalk towards him and grab his face between my palms, pulling him so his lips crash against mine. I kiss him aggressively, tugging on his full bottom lip with my teeth until it’s rosy and swollen. I mean for the kiss to be brief, but the taste of him is addictive. My body remembers precisely how good it feels, and my brain struggles to remind me why this is such a terrible idea. My fingers tug at his wavy brown hair, mussing it up, and I rub my lightly stubbled cheek along his jaw and neck.
When I eventually pull away, I’m panting for breath, and so is he. He shakes his head like he’s trying to get his brain back into gear.
“We should go back in there and finish dinner. Wouldn’t wanna be rude,” I say, not remotely hiding the smirk on my face. Phoenix smiles and rolls his eyes at me.
“You sure you don’t want to pee on me while you’re at it?” he asks.
“No. I think that’ll do,” I gesture at the mess I’ve made of his hair and rumpled shirt.
When we return to the dining room, everyone immediately stops their conversation as we retake our seats. There’s a faint blush along Fee’s cheekbones, but we both pick up our cutlery and finish our meal as though the interruption never happened.
Dessert is homemade profiteroles, and I hate to admit it, but they’re amazing. I could have eaten ten portions of them.
Once dinner is finally over, we’re invited to stay for another round of drinks, but I’m grateful when Fee makes our excuses.
On the drive back to Fee’s house, my mind wanders to the heated kiss in the bathroom, and I start to harden in my jeans. Subtly, although evidently not subtly enough, I try to cover the evidence with my hand. Fee glances over and snickers at me.
“Fuck off,” I say, without any real bite behind the words.
“Ugh,” I groan. I feel like I've only been asleep for twenty minutes when there's loud knocking on the front door. Since we’ve both been woken up, neither of us can pretend we haven’t spent the night a tangle of limbs, with me using Fee’s chest as a pillow.
Fee lets go of me and tugs on some jogging bottoms before going to see what all the noise is about. Right before I burrow back under the duvet and go back to sleep, I hear Jasper downstairs. Overhearing the mention of Sam and Niamh’s names, I drag myself out of bed.
I pull on Fee’s t-shirt from the floor for no other reason than the fact it’s at least thirty inches closer than mine. It is not because it smells of him. When I trudge down the stairs, Fee silently hands me a mug of hot coffee.
“Thanks.”
“Your brother and sister are on the edge of our land. They’re here to escort the two of you to the Peak District territory. Their presence has a few members of our pack getting twitchy, so it’d be better if you went to meet them sooner rather than later,” Jasper explains. I had no idea we were being escorted; it seems drastic for two fully grown shifters to need escorting across neutral land, but whatever.
Once we’ve each filled a duffel bag with our things, we go outside and shift, scooping up our bags with our mouths and heading to where Jasper told us we’d find my siblings.
I’ve been living with Niamh for the past year, and we rarely spend more than a day apart, so after the weirdness of the last few days, I’m excited to see her. When I spot her and Sam in the distance, I speed up, bounding towards them as fast as possible.
“Niamh?” I try to send the thought down the bond but can’t find it. Where is it? “ Niamh?? Niamh?! Sam??” My heartbeat speeds up. Why can’t they hear me? I slow down my approach as my brain tries to catch up. Fee tilts his large head at me with a confused expression.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, and it’s only then I realise why I can’t communicate with them.
They aren’t my pack anymore.
When I’m close enough to see Niamh’s face, I can see the realisation dawn on her. She lets out a low whine, and I drop my bag, unable to fight the pained sound that escapes me in response. Niamh’s been by my side almost every single day of my life; I never thought there’d be a day we weren’t pack anymore, and my chest cracks open at the sudden loss.
“I can’t communicate with them anymore. The bond is gone,” I explain to Fee.
He must be able to sense my distress because he leans close, pressing his head into my neck and nuzzling me.
I might not be able to talk to her through the pack bond any longer, but she’s still my twin and my best friend, so I walk up to her and rub my face into her fiery red fur. I always used to joke that Niamh wasn’t actually a wolf shifter but rather a giant fox shifter instead.
We press our heads together and allow the feelings of sadness at what we’ve lost. Sam comes over and joins us. Fee steps back, collecting my abandoned bag and letting me have this moment with them.
When we eventually make it to Will and Niamh’s house, the place I’ve called home up until now, we don’t even reach the front door before Will comes bounding out with a big grin. Right before he launches his arms around my neck, Phoenix steps in front of me and growls. I roll my eyes, but I can’t deny the bit of satisfaction I get from him being territorial over me. Especially after I basically rubbed my scent all over him in his parents’ guest bathroom during dinner.
Will’s cheeks pinken in embarrassment, we’ve always been very affectionate with each other, and I don’t want him to feel shitty. I nudge Fee out of the way and press my muzzle against Will’s chest. He strokes the fur on my forehead before reaching around to scratch behind my ears, exactly where I like it. Fee growls again when I let out a satisfied sigh, and Will drops his hand. Fee presses up against my side and bumps his shoulder into mine.
“Want to piss on me while you’re at it?” I ask down the bond, repeating his words from last night.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind, actually.”
He pretends to cock his leg like he’s going to pee on me, so I knock into him while he’s off balance. I have him pinned to the ground, and he tilts his head in a surprising act of submission that pleases me more than it should.
“Come on. Let’s shift and act a bit more civilised.”
We all shift back and throw on some clothes before heading inside. The five of us occupy too much room in the small kitchen we’ve gathered in. Sam is taller than I am and much broader; he looks more like Niamh with his auburn hair and the dusting of freckles covering his nose. It’s at odds with his demeanour, which always comes across as severe. He’s a big softy, really, but our da has spent his entire life preparing him to take over as Alpha, and the pressure has meant he’s serious more often than he’s not. I’ve never envied the burden and responsibility that was put on his shoulders at such a young age.
“Sorry. I was rude to you outside,” Fee says, extending his hand out to Will, who shakes it and looks fairly bewildered.
“Um. No problem. I wasn’t trying to... erm… step on your toes or anything. Sorry,” Will stammers out. Sam and Niamh both look faintly amused by the exchange.
“Has my good little house husband prepared dinner for my arrival home?” Niamh says, winking. Will lets out an irritated huff before replying.
“Till death do us part is going to come around sooner than planned if you keep calling me that. But yes, there’s a pie in the oven; it should be ready in around twenty minutes.” In spite of the fact Niamh and Will are in a platonic marriage, thanks to yours truly, they’re a bit of a power couple. Will is halfway through his second training year as a junior doctor, and Niamh is a solicitor in employment law.
“Thanks, hubby.” Niamh plasters a big kiss on his rosy cheek. “Can I get anyone a drink, tea? Coffee? Beer? J?gerbomb?” In unison, we all make a disgusted sound at the mention of the latter. Sam leaves then to go see Da, presumably to report back that Phoenix and I were retrieved from Campbell land unscathed.
Phoenix Campbell
After we finished lunch, Will excused himself to bed since he’s currently on night shifts. Niamh left shortly after, heading to a meeting in the office that afternoon.
As Cee and I make our way into the living room, we’re alone for the first time since we woke up. I feel an odd sense of relief and dread.
Cee sticks on some Parks & Rec , presumably to give us some privacy from wolf shifter hearing. We sit side by side on the small, grey two-seater sofa. Our thighs are touching, and I daren’t move a muscle in case he notices and retreats away from me.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, breaking the heavy silence between us since we sat down.
“Nothing,” I reply, unable to find the words I really want to ask but probably don’t want the answer to.
“Mm. Seems like nothin’. Everythin’ from the tense shoulders to the grimace on your face really screams 'nothing' is wrong.” I sigh and then twist on the sofa to face him.
“There’s nothing romantic between Will and Niamh, is there?” I ask. He looks surprised at the question but shakes his head. “Have you and he…? I mean, you’ve been living with him for the past year.” The pie we had for lunch threatens to re-appear at the thought, but I need to know.
When he looks away from me, my heart is in my throat.
“We weren’t together anymore, Phoenix,” he whispers. Even though I suspected as much deep down, the confirmation hurts even more than I anticipated.
My mind is assaulted with visions of him and Will in bed together. Him and Will kissing and cuddling.
I think I might be sick.
“Have you been together this past year? Am I… am I in the way of something?” I can’t stop the tremble in my voice. I didn’t realise how much hope I was holding onto that this could be our second chance until right this moment.
“No. It wasn’t like that. It was one night, we were both drunk, and it was a mistake for both of us. But you don’t get to be mad, okay? We broke up because you agreed to marry my sister. I didn’t owe you anything after that,” he replies, his voice firm. I nod and bite down on my lip hard, trying to fight the tears threatening to spill. A part of me is relieved that he and Will aren’t a thing, but I can’t move past the images of Will having a piece of Cee that only I ever had. When I try to blink away the tears, one drops down onto my cheek. I quickly look the other way and wipe it off with my hand but I know he saw.
“When?” I ask, praying my voice will hold steady enough.
“A couple months after.”
“June?” I ask, already suspecting the worst.
“Yeah.”
“When in June?” He doesn’t reply, and my stomach drops out again. I know it’s not totally rational because it’s my fault he doesn’t know the entire story, but I suddenly feel furious. Of all the days he chose to move on, our anniversary? Really? Did he do it to spite me and hurt me? “So when I texted you that day, begging you to talk to me, you ignored me because you were with him?”
“I was hurtin’ that day, and no good would have come from answerin' your texts. We got drunk to take my mind off it, and I took comfort from a friend. Don’t turn it into somethin’ it wasn’t.” His words cause some of my anger to dissipate. Still, the part of me that always felt slightly insecure about his relationship with Will isn’t so easily appeased.
“You were practically engaged to him the entire time we were together. Did you have feelings for him all along?”
“You know that I didn’t.”
“Do I? Because you weren’t in a hurry to call off the engagement to him, were you?” Suddenly, the idea of him and Will together that way has me re-framing our entire relationship. Was I the idiot that thought we’d end up together? If the engagement to Niamh hadn’t occurred, would he have left me for Will eventually anyway?
“Fuck you, Phoenix. Don’t twist that now. From the day we met to the day you left me, I was loyal and faithful to you, and you know it. Don’t you dare turn this around on me. And don’t you dare take any of this out on Will, okay? He’s not in the wrong here.” He stands up and storms over to the window with his back to me.
'The day you left me,' the reminder that my decision to keep Cee in the dark about why I couldn’t call off the engagement to his sister, sits like lead in my stomach. He slept with Will because he didn’t know the truth, and the reason he didn’t know the truth was because I kept it from him. It’s all my fault, yet if I tell him the truth now, it will only make things worse.
Unable to fight them off any longer, the tears track down my cheeks. My breath hitches loudly as I try to stifle a sob. I’m surprised when Cee comes over and tugs me to stand up. He pulls my face onto his shoulder and wraps his arms around me. I don’t deserve for him to comfort me, but I don’t have it in me to walk away. As I silently cry into his black cotton t-shirt, he cards his fingers through my hair.
“You get to be upset, but you don’t get to be mad at me,” he says quietly. He’s completely right, I probably don’t even deserve to feel this devastated, but I can’t control that.
“I know, I’m sorry,” I whisper before an embarrassing hiccup escapes me.