Slow Shift by Nazarea Andrews (best summer reads of all time txt) 📕

“You should remember I’m your Alpha, too.”

“No,” Chase says, defiant and sure. “You aren’t. You’re barely their Alpha and you know it. You don’t have a pack bond with me, because you’ve never been around to form one. And you don’t share our dreams.”

She makes a wordless noise, something that sounds furious even to him, and he wants to laugh.

“Watch yourself, little wolf. I might not be your Alpha but they’re mine and one day you might well be.”

Chase snorts. “I really won’t. Now, will you let me train? Or are you scared?”

“What the hell do I care what some idiotic kid wants to do in Harrisburg? Do whatever the hell you want,” Chelsea snarls.

He smiles, tight and vicious. “I will, Alpha.”

He hangs up before she can and wavers there on his feet for a few minutes, fear and nerves twisting in his gut. Then he bolts to the bathroom and is thoroughly and messily sick.

~*~

Chase finds Leon Harper on a Sunday, shadowed by Tyler as he steps onto the Druid’s lands. It’s strange being here instead of seeing the older man at one of his father’s crime scenes, processing the evidence. For a moment, he considers turning around and going home.

His hands shake and he thinks of the terror in Tyler’s eyes when he told the older man about calling Chelsea, about the violent dreams he’s had since then, something pressing on them.

They never talk about the dreams, but Chase knows they’re part of running with wolves, part of being Pack.

He knows they’re a kind of magic a human like himself shouldn’t be able to touch.

“Chase DeWitt,” Harper says as they slip into his backyard, carefully skirting the garden lined with holly and aconite, “and Tyler Reid.”

He eyes Chase for a long moment and then stands. “We can talk inside,” he says mildly, leading the way.

~*~

“You can’t rush this, Chase. We’re fine.”

“We were fine,” Chase says tightly, “But now Mia is coming to Harrisburg.”

“We have a peace treaty with the Drake coven,” Tyler says, like standing in the frozen food aisle with Andre Drake can make a binding treaty.

It’s lasted for three years though, so hell, maybe it can.

“Andre isn’t Mia,” Chase says.

Tyler’s stomach turns. “You know,” he whispers.

Chase stares at him, still and unmoving, waiting, and he’s never wanted to run as much as he wants to in this moment.

“How?”

“Were you ever going to tell me?” Chase asks, and Tyler gives him a disbelieving sort of glare. “The dreams.”

Tyler closes his eyes, because of course. Chase would trot out Mia and the fucking dreams at the same time.

“I trusted her and she killed my family,” he says dully. “And the ones she didn’t kill—Lucas and Chelsea—they’re broken. I trusted her and she destroyed everything I’ve ever loved. And she’ll do it again if she has the chance.”

Chase crowds him, stepping into his space with the quiet sureness that he’s welcome here, that he will always be welcome here, that he belongs here. Tyler doesn’t push him away, doesn’t do anything but settle his hands on Chase’s shoulders, thumb brushing against his neck, scent marking him.

Chase says softly, firmly, “She won’t. She won’t touch me, Tyler.”

“You do this, you can’t undo it. You know that, right? You’ll be tied to the Pack and I can’t take it back.”

Chase smiles then, young and sure and bright, “Who the hell said I wanted you to?”

Tyler whines, a broken little noise, and hauls him into a hug, burying his face in Chase's throat. The boy makes quiet shushing noises as he lets himself be held.

“Will you tell me? One day?”

Tyler shudders, but he nods against Chase.

One day.

But not today.

~*~

Do you know what you’re asking for?

Chase breathes and closes his eyes.

It isn’t a game, Chase.

He can feel his senses stretch, can feel the warm pulse of Tyler and Lucas.

You are opening yourself up to a world that isn’t yours.

He can feel the preserve, the house they built, his father’s heartbeat, steady and familiar.

You won’t be able to go back if you do this.

He smiles.

You will belong to them. To their world.

He slices into his palm. He can hear a thousand wolves howling as he chants and the wind rustles through the trees, the runes he carved flaring to life with a flash of white-hot heat as the ritual completes and the bonds of Pack and Shaman snap into place. He screams as Tyler howls.

You’re wrong, he’d told Harper calmly, They’ll belong to me.

~*~

“You should have trained,” Tyler grumbles, fussing over his bandages, and Chase nudges him aside. Tyler huffs but relaxes into the porch swing as Chase leans against him.

He feels different, electric and alive, something powerful crackling across his scent.

“You know why I couldn’t.”

Because of Mia. Because there was a threat to the pack and without the ritual, Chase had no real standing in their sham of a pack. Now he does.

Now, he’s an untrained human boy without anything to hide behind and they’ll target him.

Fear clenches in Tyler’s chest and he squeezes Chase close, a whine in his throat.

Chase pets his hair softly and says, “Shh. It’s ok. Nothing will hurt us. Not ever.”

Tyler thinks it’s very stupid, but he believes Chase.

~*~

The ritual that Harper taught him to bind himself to the pack was hard and draining, and Chase glares at the runes he’s carving—for the fifth fucking time today—and thinks maybe he should go back to that.

“You don’t believe in what you’re doing,” Harper says serenely.

“I believe you’re an ass,” Chase mutters. Harper slaps him lightly against the back of the head.

“I just—the ritual wasn’t this difficult,” Chase bitches.

“The ritual you believed you could do. The one you believed you had to do, to keep Tyler and Lucas safe. That ritual.” Harper’s voice is dry and empty, devoid even of the placid amusement that so often colors it, and Chase flushes.

“It can’t be that easy. Believing in shit doesn’t make it happen. I believe I can fly, doesn’t mean I can.”

“Chase, you believed you could help a broken man and