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

“I’ll handle it,” is all Chase says, and Tyler nods, melting into Lucas’s side.

“How,” he asks, repeats, over and over, grateful and shocked and demanding and wonderous.

They don’t know.

“I think, when you bound yourself to us as a shaman,” Lucas says slowly, “it made me stronger.”

Chase narrows his eyes and nods. “Wolves are stronger as a pack—it’s why Chelsea hasn’t cut you off.”

In hindsight, he realizes, it’s probably why Chelsea didn’t stop him when he called her and demanded he be a shaman. He wonders, idly, just how much stronger she is now, with his bond to back her. If she has a bond to him. He thinks sometimes he can feel where it should be, but there’s nothing there, a gaping hole that begs to be filled.

He dismisses it, the way he always does when Chelsea comes up, and focuses on his pack, finally awake and whole and together.

~*~

He leaves early and under protest while his wards tingle and burn across his skin. He hasn’t forgotten the witches who should be leaving his territory, but he thinks Tyler might have in the commotion of Lucas.

Just for now-—he’ll remember by morning. Chase can’t even blame the older man. So he rubs his cheek into Tyler’s shoulder and ruffles Lucas’s hair, grinning when that earns him a snarl and snap of human teeth before he retreats.

He sits on the steps in front of the high school and waits, because he can feel his wards tightening, feel the pain it’s burning into the intruders—Mia’s—skin, and it makes him a little bit lightheaded, dizzy with it.

He hasn’t told Tyler that the wards will make him feel the pain he inflicts. Tyler would never tolerate it.

He doesn’t have to wait long.

“It’s a neat trick, your little wards,” she says, strutting up to him. She’s alone and Chase wonders where her sisters are. “You can’t sustain it, though,” she grits out, “You’re just a kid, playing games you don’t understand.”

Chase tilts his head. “You have no problem using kids, though, do you?”

She smirks. “Did he tell you that? About how he gave up everything I needed after a quick fuck in the back of my car? That he told me he loved me? God, can you even believe that? Seventeen year old mutt and he thought a girl like me would actually want to be with him, that I’d stay.”

Chase doesn’t flinch, even though he wants to.

“He told me enough. And so did you,” he says, pulling his phone from his pocket.

Mia freezes, then a slow smile spreads over her lips, almost like respect. “What are you gonna do, kid? Call the cops?”

“I might. Or I might leave this with your brother and let the Council handle their own rogues.” He shrugs. “Or I might let my ‘wolves handle the issue because Tyler isn’t a kid anymore, Mia. And I’m not someone you should underestimate.”

She stares at him, still and assessing, and he snarls, “Get the hell outta my territory. Or I will kill you.”

He stands up and brushes past her, his wards crackling to life when she comes too close. And then he leaves her there.

~*~

John watches as Chase stumbles into the house. He’s shaking, and something in John lurches as he scrambles up and catches him before he collapses. Chase makes a low noise, an almost silent whine, as John hauls him to the couch, snagging a blanket and wrapping it around him, and holds him close.

Chase lets him.

He doesn’t do this often. Chase doesn’t let him do this.

Even as good as things have gotten, since he relented about Reid, there’s always a...distance, a wary caution in the way Chase holds himself, just slightly apart and away. But right now—right now he presses close, almost desperately, and shivers.

It takes almost two hours before he relaxes, so fast and complete it makes John’s gut clench in terror. Chase sighs and nuzzles into him, slurring, “Thanks, Dad.”

He doesn’t know what he’s being thanked for, or even what happened, but he huffs and presses a kiss to the kid’s sweaty hair before he leans back and holds his sleeping son.

~*~

He doesn’t tell Tyler or Lucas about his meeting with Mia at the school.

He just tells them she’s gone and for now, it’s enough.

~*~

Chase turns seventeen a few weeks later. He lies in his bed, rubbing at the fading ink on his wrists, the rune Tyler drew on him the last time he was training with Harper.

He wants to get them tattooed, ink them there with Reid family’s Celtic knot, something permanent and indelible that marks him as theirs—as Tyler’s.

His phone buzzes and he reaches for it, reading through the messages lazily—an imperious demand for his presence from Aurora, a enthusiastic happy birthday from Ben, a promise to see him for dinner from his Dad.

And a simple text from Tyler.

<<If you need anything, I’m here.

That’s the thing about Tyler. He’s always been there.

Even before Chase realized he needed someone to be there, Tyler was, giving him space and holding him close, letting him grieve with everything he destroyed and rebuilt, every fading bruise he left when they practiced together.

He’s always been there.

He takes a deep breath and types quickly.

>>Just you.

The response is almost instant, and it makes him smile, almost dizzy with pleasure.

<<I’ll be there in ten. Get dressed.

He takes a quick shower but not so quick he doesn’t stroke himself off, Tyler’s face floating behind his closed eyes as comes.

~*~

They spend the day at a comic book store Tyler found a few weeks earlier, that he was saving for Chase.

Chase grins at him as they pull up, a giant iced coffee clutched in his hands. He trails the boy as they enter, and Chase bounces off the walls, cooing at the colorful posters and chattering excitedly at Tyler as he reverently runs his fingers over the plastic slipcovers. Eventually he curls in a chair near the back with a stack of comics and Tyler sits on the floor, leaning against his knees as he