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

He exhales, his breath a frozen white cloud. He smiles when he sees the response.

<<Excellent. Good work, pup.

Chase pockets his phone and wonders if it’ll be done in time to celebrate the holiday with Tyler.

Chapter 24

Aurora is shivering when Lucas pulls up to the house. She spills out in a graceless tumble, scooped up and tugged along by his arms and Chase’s voice. She’s barely standing, her hair a messy tangle around her face, her eyes wide and almost blank. She’s so far from the strong beautiful girl they know and love that it’s almost terrifying.

“Come on, darling. Tyler has a nice warm blanket for you,” Lucas hums in her ear, pulling her into the house.

She snarls softly. “I don’t want a bloody blanket, Lucas. I want this fucking hissing to stop.”

Lucas looks at Chase over her head and the Shaman sighs. Aurora twists, giving him a searching glare.

“Eat first, Aurora,” Tyler orders, nudging the plate of cheese and crackers at her. She huffs but nibbles at the cheese and sips her tea obediently until Tyler relaxes, looping an arm around Chase's waist.

“Tell me,” she orders.

“You’re a Medusa, Aurora. A handmaid of vengeance,” Chase says, “And I’m a Shaman to a werewolf Pack. I don’t know if it’s because of me or because of Lucas, but I do know that you’re Pack.” He licks his lips. “You dream, don’t you?”

Her eyes narrow. “You three have been running around my dreams?”

“Darling girl, you’re smart. You know we have.”

“Then why do I want to scream?” she snaps, “What changed?”

Chase sighs as Tyler ducks to inhale against his hair, eyes pressed closed.

“The Drakes are in Harrisburg,” Lucas says simply.

~*~

It was Chase’s idea. He knew Ben, knew he’d propose soon, and knew Brielle—the Drakes—well enough to know that when she did get engaged, it would be the excuse Mia and the cousins needed to come back.

It was easy, the work of only an hour, to take down his wards, to clear the way for the bitches to strut back into their territory, then less time than that to convince Ben that Thanksgiving was the perfect time to propose.

It was easy and flawless, and Lucas had smiled at him, slow and proud, so dangerous he shivered when Chase told him the plan.

~*~

Mia is smart. She’s evil, psychotic, a fucking rapist—but she’s smart, and no matter how many bodies Lucas drops and taunts her with, she isn’t going to come back. She would never come to them on even footing.

Not for a sociopathic werewolf with revenge fantasies, and Chase knows it. She doesn't even know Lucas is awake, which makes Chase wonder sometimes who she thinks is killing her accomplices and coven.

“So we bring her here for another reason. We give her a reason that’s got nothing to do with us, with the car wreck, and while she thinks we don’t care or notice...” Chase starts.

“We rip her throat out,” Lucas finishes easily.

Aurora has stopped shivering, but her narrow eyes are assessing, and Lucas drags her close, eating the slice of cheese in her fingers.

“Ben doesn’t know, does he?” she asks.

Chase shakes his head.

~*~

“Are you really ok with this?” Chase asks later that night when Tyler slips into his bedroom and curls behind him on his bed. It’s not small but it always feels like it is when Tyler is in it with him.

He’s quiet, so Chase tilts his head back and says, “You don’t have to. We can find another way.”

“I’m ok. We need to do this,” Tyler says.

Chase nods. He touches the runes tattooed on Tyler’s ribs, the ones he marked Tyler with, and Tyler arches into the touch. “Remember you’re mine, Tyler. Whatever happens, whatever she says, you’re mine. And I won't let her hurt what's mine.”

Tyler shuffles into him, presses his face into Chase’s throat, and they cling to each other as the night deepens around them.

~*~

Chase is normally with him when he goes to the bakery and grocery store. There’s many reasons—because Chase likes the shy blonde girl at the bakery, because Chase is particular about their vegetables, because he has to shop for the Chief, and most of all, because Chase likes doing things like this together, likes being domestic and normal after all the years isolating themselves in house in the woods, when Tyler worried about being seen, about how a boy as young as Chase would be viewed in his company.

But today, oddly enough, Tyler’s alone as he steps out of the bakery. He’s got a bag with fresh baguettes and peppermint chocolate chip cookies in one hand, his phone in the other. When he looks up from the shopping list on his screen, he freezes.

Mia Drake is lounging against his Mustang, clad in skin-tight black pants and high boots, a thick peacoat buttoned over her chest and a smirk on her lips.

For a moment, as he inhales the sticky sweet scent of her perfume laced with aconite and gunpowder, all he can smell is blood, ash, and death. He sways, the bag swinging precariously at his side.

“Hey, handsome,” she says, sly and wicked.

He shudders. He hasn’t seen her since before accident, when she let him fuck her in a quiet hotel room, whispering how much she loved him and taking every secret that she could—and then she used it all to rip his world to the ground.

“Look at you, Ty—all grown up and still so pretty.” She pushes off the car and stalks toward him. He plants his feet because if he doesn’t, he’s going to bolt.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says dully.

She laughs. “Oh, c’mon, Tyler. My niece is here. You can’t really think you can keep me away forever? Besides, you used to want me close. Couldn’t get you to leave me alone even if I tried.”

His stomach twists. “What do you want?”

She smirks. “Wanna see how my pet grew up, Ty. And I want to know if you’re going to be a problem while I’m here.”

Tyler shifts his bag and glares. “I’m