Chapter Thirty-Five
Axel
Axel is revved up, raring to go. Excitement slices through him as he bounds into the lodge kitchen.
“Come on, Jack, put down your shit and let’s go.”
Jack looks up from the kitchen work station with a confused look on his face and answers with a “huh?”
“Didn’t you get my text? We’re going for a run.” Axel leans on the high bar that separates the counter between them.
“You know I don’t have my phone on me while I’m working. I’ve got dinner service to prepare for. I don’t have time to go on a run.” Jack shakes his head irritably, but Axel won’t have it.
“Maurice, can you take over while I borrow Jack for a bit?” Axel asks the part-time sous chef, who turns questioning eyes on Axel and Jack. Axel had never once pulled Jack away from the kitchen when he was working, but he feels it in his bones that he needs to connect with his brothers.
“Yes, of course. Most everything is ready to go for service, and I’ll finish prepping for the salads. I got this chef.”
Axel smiles broadly, and Jack looks at him more confused than ever. Axel knows he’s usually a reserved guy, not one to come in and demand time from his brothers, and definitely not one to come in beaming from head to toe.
He makes his way around to the other side of the counter, where Jack is still working, “a run, Jack.”
Jack looks up at Axel and finally begins to smile. He gets it now. A run, in their bear forms. One that they hadn’t done in way too long.
Jack undoes his chef coat, tossing it on a chair, and when the two men are in the hallway, Jack whoops loudly into the air and bounces up, pushing himself into the air off Axel’s shoulders.
As they turn the corner, Axel sees Gunner standing there, hands shoved in his pockets, looking at the ground, and Raif coming in the lodge front door with a toolbox in his hands.
“What’s up with this message, Ax? You want to go work out?
I don’t have time for this shit right now.
” Raif grumbles and sets his toolbox down noisily on the lodge front desk.
Axel frowns at the appearance of the toolbox where they would greet guests, but he knows no one is scheduled to check in for the day.
Gunner doesn’t say anything but pushes his long hair out of his eyes with a stern look on his face. Axel huffs out a breath at his brothers’ mirth.
“A run, assholes. Let’s go. It’s been fucking forever since we’ve gone. We have no activities scheduled today, dinner service is set, and no guests are checking in. Let’s go.”
Axel can hear the excitement in his own voice, and Jack mirrors it with a big smile.
Raif huffs and scratches his beard. “It has been a while. A long while. I’m down, yeah. Let’s do it.”
Even though his voice is gruff and his tone is flat, Axel can sense Raif’s excitement. Only Gunner is left.
Gunner frowns hard at his brothers and crosses his arms across his chest. Axel knows that it is a standard defensive pose for Gunner, one that says he isn’t going to back down.
“It’s not safe,” Gunner grumbles out.
Axel tries his best not to roll his eyes.
“Gun, we each go out individually and run. There’s no reason why we can’t do it together.”
“You may go out shifted. I sure as fuck don’t.”
Axel growls under his breath. This has long since been a sore spot for Gunner.
After their father was killed by a hunter in his bear form, Gunner has a hard time being shifted.
Even when they’re assured they’re safe from prying eyes, Gunner is still wary.
When he was discharged from the Army, his paranoia got worse.
“I’ve already scouted, brother. There are no guests out.
We can trek out for a couple of miles and then shift and run.
It will be good for us to go together. And,” Axel pauses and waits for Gunner to meet his eyes, “you’re the best tracker.
If there were any people out there, you’d be the first to know. ”
Axel hears Gunner grumble under his breath before mumbling “fuck” and Axel knows he’s convinced him.
There is no changing into workout clothes.
They all have heavy-duty boots on, except for Jack, who, after a half mile, slips off his Crocs and socks and goes barefoot for the rest of the hike.
They shove each other playfully as they make their way further into the forest. All of them but Gunner, who pushes everyone off him and keeps telling his brothers, “fuck off, I’m trying to listen.
” Axel only looks fondly at his younger brother and shakes his head.
When they’ve made their way deep into the Montana forest, deeper than Axel would have gone, but he let Gunner lead so he’d feel better about them shifting, they stop in a small clearing of trees with Gunner’s nod.
“It’s been too long since we’ve done this, brothers.
Too damn long. And I know it’s mostly my fault.
” Jack sputters in indignation, but Axel holds up his hand to stop him.
“I’m the leader of this family now, and while we all stepped up after Dad died, I didn’t take over all the roles, one of which was keeping up the runs.
I can’t promise the lodge will be ok, I sure as fuck hope it will be, but I don’t know.
What I can promise is that we will be together, the four of us.
Brothers in blood, family forever intertwined. ”
Axel grips Raif’s and Jack’s shoulders as they stand in a circle, and they, in turn, grab their other brothers. It’s after a moment's hesitation that Gunner claps his hands on his brothers’ shoulders so they are linked in a circle.
“Forever intertwined,” they all say together.
When their father was alive, before they’d shift and go on a run, he would have them stand in a circle just like this and grasp each other’s shoulders.
He would tell them they were “brothers in blood” and “family forever intertwined.” Axel understands the significance of saying the same words to his brothers now.
For the first time ever, he feels himself fully stepping into the role of leader, one he should have done years ago. But he is doing it now.
They shove off each other, and there is electricity in the air. They all quickly disrobe, tossing their clothes on the ground and growling under their breaths. Axel loves it, he can almost taste their excitement.
Jack is the first to shift. As soon as he drops his pants, he steps back and shifts right in their little clearing.
“Watch it, asshole,” Raif snaps as he jumps out of the way. Even in his bear form, Jack looks like he’s smirking.
Gunner is next. Taking a few steps outside of their circle and standing statue still for a moment before letting the shift slip over him.
He lumbers around for a moment before butting his head into Raif’s chest, who then shifts and swipes a harmless paw at Gunner.
Axel watches his brother’s shift and move in their full grizzly bear forms, huge and hulking beasts.
He lets the shift take over himself, feeling his bones crack and rearrange and his skin stretch.
His senses are enhanced. His sense of smell is coming in sharper, and the focus of his eyes is extending further.
He can clearly hear the birds in the tree tops and closes his eyes for a brief second, reveling in how good it feels to be in his bear form.
They can’t speak in their bear forms, so Axel merely tilts his head and begins to walk further into the forest, leading his brothers for the first time in a long time.
They lumber onward quietly. Occasionally, bumping into one another and rubbing against a tree.
Only Gunner stops every once in a while to look around and twitch his ears, listening intently.
Axel understands that it has to be hard for Gunner to let go like this.
He’s proud of his brother for even taking this step.
Lumbering turns into slow runs till Jack rams Raif in the side, causing them to roll and tumble together.
They are playing. They snap at each other, swiping paws and huffing and growling, till Jack gets the upper hand and roars in Raif’s face.
Raif is quick to roll his brother off him, and Axel chuckles inside at seeing his brothers play like kids again.
He watches them go at it till he’s blindsided and hit hard in the side at his ribs. It takes him a second to realize Gunner has tackled him. Gunner’s playing. Axel knocks Gunner about the head, and Gunner loosely clamps down on Axel’s side.
The two groups tussle till Jack tackles Gunner, and then it is all four of them wrestling.
Axel’s ecstatic. It has been many years since they have all shifted and run together, and for him to see his brothers so free and playful tugs on his heartstrings.
He may have neglected his duties to his brothers as their leader before, but like hell he’s going to keep doing it.
He will drag them all out either individually or as a group to shift.
They need it, fuck, he needs it too. Their bears are as much a part of them as their human selves, and they can’t deny or push back their bears.
It’s probably part of the reason they’d all been grumpy assholes for so long. Never again.
And with Chloe now by his side, he feels like he can take on the world. The lodge might fail, but he knows he won’t ever lose his brothers, and he knows he won’t ever lose Chloe either. She is his mate, his forever. And no matter where they live, they’ll be together.
Between the run with his brothers and his recent discussion of marriage and babies with Chloe, he couldn’t be happier. He truly, for the first time in a long time, feels that no matter what happens with the lodge, that he’s at peace. Finally.