Authors: Cait Forester
All Hallow's Howl (6 page)
They don’t need words; Dylan nods in understanding.
“I wasn’t sure it would still be here,” Jamie says.
“Why did you put them there?” Dylan asks.
Jamie laughs humorlessly. “There wasn’t any way the other pack could have known where to attack us,” he says. “Not without someone inside our borders. Someone betrayed us. The night before the battle that I… died in… I hid my most precious belongings here in the cave. The water helped to wash away my scent,” he explains. “I didn’t know why I felt the need to at the time,” he muses. “Perhaps it was fate nudging me in her direction. This way I’m able to give these things to you.”
The last embers of the fire are beginning to grow cold when Dylan blinks his eyes open, muzzle tucked beneath Jamie’s throat. They didn’t have to have a fire the night before - their fur coats are warm enough - but he vaguely remembers Jamie shifting back a couple times during the night in order to stoke it.
He isn’t surprised to find Jamie already awake, his mate tugging playfully at his ear with his teeth when he begins to withdraw from the protection of Jamie’s body. Dylan growls a little, not so much grumpy as agitated in the way only an impossibly short deadline can render someone.
There’s no escaping it: it haunts his every thought.
Dylan stretches forward, his front legs extended and his back up in the air like a pup begging to play. He yawns briefly, then changes back and scratches his belly.
It doesn’t take Jamie long to follow his lead. Dylan rummages through their things in order to find his jeans, and tosses the other pair to Jamie. “I want to hunt today,” Dylan says. “With you.”
Jamie smiles and nods his head, obviously pleased. “I would enjoy that,” he says, and Dylan nods.
The human sides of their nature are content with meat from the grocery store or the farmer’s market, but the duality of a were’s nature means that the animal side must also be assuaged to keep an individual happy, healthy, and well-rounded. It is only natural for them to run and hunt, to stalk their prey and pounce, to tear flesh from bone. It is an exercise in bonding - mere humans do it as well. Sharing a meal relates to the primal instincts of many species, bringing them together in ways that cross certain boundaries without words ever needing to be spoken.
“Did you have anything else you wanted to do today?” Dylan asks, and rubs against Jamie’s side when his mate presses in close to his body.
“I admit that I had been hoping for more of your company alone,” Jamie admits, and waggles his eyebrows playfully.
Dylan stifles a giggle, and without speaking a word, he reaches over with one hand to pinch his alpha’s nipple.
“Tease,” Jamie growls.
Dylan pinches him again.
*
They weren’t going to go after large prey. It wasn’t that they couldn’t take down a deer, it was only that it was more dangerous without the aid of a larger pack, and they were hunting more as a means of relaxation than out of any particular need.
But then Dylan picks up on the scent.
The buck is injured - probably from some sort of scrabble during the Run. It doesn’t smell like an infection is setting in - yet - but the creature isn’t walking very well, and aside from the aspect of an easy kill, it seems cruel to let the animal stay in pain when his chances of survival are so weakened.
Dylan signals to Jamie his intentions, then trots off around the other side of the brush the buck is hiding in. The animal knows that they are present now, and when Dylan catches Jamie’s eyes for a brief second, they share a look of grim determination.
The buck will try to run; it’s a given. When he bounds out a few seconds later, using the last of his strength in a desperate play for freedom, Jamie and Dylan spring at him, one on either side, their paws scrabbling for purchase the animal’s sides while their jaws lock at his throat.
The buck doesn’t go down without a fight, but it is mercifully short, and Dylan offers a silent prayer of thanks for the creature’s life when he breathes his last. They’ll be able to eat their fill before bringing the rest of it back for the freezer, and the hide will go to a leather-worker friend of his father’s.
*
Jamie is shocked when Dylan tells him that there won’t be any bonfires to celebrate the third day of Samhain.
“What do you mean, the
third
day of Samhain?”
His mate looks at him in disbelief. “Your generation has forgotten the old ways?” he says. “The three days of Samhain, the rituals, the purifications?”
“…I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dylan admits.
Jamie hoists the deer higher on his shoulders and continues walking. It’s clear from the expression on his face that he is far away, and Dylan wishes he could understand what Jamie is clearly upset about.
“You say that you didn’t know anything about the ceremony you used to bring me back?” Jamie asks him, and Dylan nods.
“I searched for weeks to find anything that would get me out of the run,” he says. “That guy you stopped from touching me earlier? He was one of the ones who wanted to force-mate me. Someone gave me a tip about a magic book and I ordered it off the Internet without even knowing if it would work.”
“The Internet?”
“Um…” Dylan bites at his lower lip. “It’s like a telephone, but you can see words and images on a screen? Or kind of like a library, but the knowledge isn’t stored in one book, it’s just sort of, it’s kind of…” Damn. How was he supposed to describe the Internet?
Jamie reached out to touch him lightly. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, and Dylan frowns, but nods.
“The old ways were dying even when I was alive,” Jamie says moodily. “The packs were beginning to integrate into human society.”
“Is that a bad thing?” Dylan asks him.
“It is if all of our sacred knowledge and traditions are lost,” Jamie says, and Dylan nods. He has a point.
They walk in silence for a few more minutes, until Dylan can see the edge of the forest ahead. “We could have a bonfire tonight?” he asks. “I don’t know how to make it like it was, but we could invite my friends and have food, if you’d like?”
Jamie is silent for a moment, like he’s debating the idea internally. He blows out a breath. “I want to keep you to myself,” he admits, “but I think it would be good for you to have your friends around you later.”
Dylan nods. “I’ll call them.”
*
Nash takes the deer out for processing when they get home. Dylan knows how to do it himself (and he is certain Jamie does as well) but they’ve got a sweet barter system going on and Dylan has to admit that he’s a lot better at cooking beef than venison. He’d rather cook something he’s good at when Jamie’s around to eat it, and it wasn’t as if they hadn’t shared their kill earlier before they brought it in. Max Jamison was probably going to pop a gasket at the state of the carcass.
They shower, and Dylan gives Jamie a fauxhawk with the shampoo suds that falls down pretty quickly because his alpha has a lot of hair. When they’re out and dry, Dylan grabs his camera and cajoles Jamie into making goofy faces for selfies before their photo session turns serious. All told, Dylan probably has two hundred pics on his camera with Jamie in them, and another twenty or thirty of just himself, because Jamie says, “An ass like yours deserves to be immortalized,” and takes the camera from his hands before he can protest, snapping away while Dylan undulates against the bed.
*
They come downstairs smelling like sex, and Nash coughs into his hand.
“Hey, Dad!” Dylan says cheerfully, and saunters over to the fridge. “We’re having a fire tonight for Samhain, and I invited the gang.”
Nash looks puzzled. “But it’s not Samhain anymore,” he says.
Dylan grins at Jamie. “Yeah, I guess us modern folks are a little backwards on some things?” He scratches at his nose. “Jamie says there’s a lot we’re missing out on, so.” He pauses, studying what he’s got available in the fridge. “Anyway, it’s a good excuse for a celebration.”
The false cheer in his voice makes both Nash and Jamie wince, and Jamie comes up behind him and wraps his arms around Dylan’s waist. “Hey,” he says. “It’s okay.”
Dylan slumps back against him and lets Jamie scent his neck. “I’m fine,” he says softly, and turns around a little bit so he can press a kiss against Jamie’s cheek. “Go ahead and sit down with Dad. I’ll make you the best damn sandwich you’ve ever eaten before I get started with the rest. And Dad can answer your questions about the electronics, because I know you want to ask, and I don’t know how to explain.”
Nash lifts an eyebrow. “And I do?”
Dylan points a finger at him. “Hey, you’re the one who wanted to be an electrician once, remember? Pretty sure you’re more interested in how something works than I am. I just care that it does.”
So after Dylan makes sandwiches and they all eat lunch, Jamie and Nash bond over discussions of modern technology while Dylan covers every last inch of counter space with food preparation. They’ll have to go to the market tomorrow, get more fresh foods and maybe replace what he’s pulled out from the freezer, but they’ll have cheese stuffed hamburgers and the regular kind, hot dogs and chili and salad, brownies and marshmallow pound cake. There’s chips and potato salad, green beans and baked beans, and a tiny bit of fruit salad because he doesn’t have very much in the way of ingredients but he doesn’t want anyone to go to the store for more.
Every now and again, he comes over and drops a kiss on Jamie’s cheek, or his lips, or brushes up against him just to feel his body there, warm and solid in front of him.
The sixth or seventh time he comes over, he zones out so completely that he forgets about the stuff on the stove, and the food is just beginning to burn when Nash snaps his fingers in front of his face. “Get back to work!” he says good-naturedly, and Dylan sticks out his tongue.
It surprises everyone when Jamie leans forward and bites it.
The flames from the fire are burning brightly. The air smells like oak and beech wood, and the pine cones they’d stuck in the bottom of the fire pit because Nash likes the way they smell. Rusty went a little hog-wild with the lighter fluid when he lit the fire, but most of the residual smell is out of the air now, and they’re ready to start eating.
Everyone compliments him on the food he’s made, even though some of it, like the buns, is store bought. That’s a sticking point in his head for some reason -
but I didn’t make the hot dog buns
- and it’s a ridiculous thing to be bothering him, but there it is.
He knows that his scent is glum, like the rest of him, because he can see Hannah scenting delicately when she comes near him for a hug, and because everyone’s bumped into him at some point or another - touch acting as an anchor and a way to say, “I’m sorry, bro, that sucks,” without having to get into a conversation about it. He wants to be lively and happy, and enjoy the time he has left - he knows he needs to push the rest away so that he can make good memories now - but it’s bizarre and frightening and he doesn’t like it.
People can play all of those ‘If you only had so many hours left, what would you do?’ games all they want, but when you’re staring it in the face it’s a bit harder to grip it by the balls.
He nuzzles into Jamie’s warmth and closes his eyes. His mate’s scent is thick around him, and he breathes it in. Each breath makes him feel a tiny bit calmer, and after a few minutes he’s able to feel somewhat content. He focuses on the physical, what he can pick up with his senses. Jamie smells like smoke and pine trees and leather and
man
. There’s that strong overlay that signifies him as an alpha, and the elusive undertone that is his pack scent. He thinks it’s odd that the pack scent has changed so much; Jamie was the Alpha of the same pack Dylan currently lives in, but the scent is very different in modernity.
Jamie’s body is warm and strong. Dylan reaches with his fingertips to trace the lines of his body and rest his hand on thick, muscled thighs. Jamie’s sitting down or else he’d have reached around to the back, too, to squeeze his ass.
Jamie has a very nice ass.
When he focuses, Dylan can hear the steady
lub dub
of Jamie’s heart, and he tunes out the conversations around him to memorize that steady beat.
“Dylan,” Jamie says.
“Mm?”
“Come to bed with me.”
He looks up at him surprise, sees Jamie’s dark eyes. “Alright,” he says easily, and moves to his feet. Jamie follows him, pressing hot against his back, and he barely spares a thought to his friends until Jewel speaks up.
“Dylan?”
He holds her eye for a beat in time, then scans across the backyard. “Just… stay,” he says, and they all nod, even though Dylan thinks that his father might slip away and come back later.
*
As a general rule, werewolves’ ears are too sensitive for modesty around nudity and sex to be a big deal. It almost makes Dylan feel better, to know that his tiny pack within a pack are hanging around.
When Jamie pulls him down onto the bed, Dylan goes willingly, easily, stretching out pliantly beneath him. Jamie loves him slow and steady, like a piece of classical music oozing sensuality and working itself higher and higher until it reaches a crescendo.
They lay there in the dark afterward, Dylan stretched and sated on Jamie’s knot, and he shuffles back carefully into his lover’s body.
“Do you want a shower when we get up? I can wash you,” Jamie offers.
But Dylan shakes his head. “No. I’d rather keep your scent on me.”
Downstairs, someone starts up some music. It’s too soon for them to separate, so they lay there on the bed, the only light coming from the moonlight at the window and the sliver of orange glow at the crack underneath the door.
A few songs in and they get up. Dylan feels wet and sticky and open, and he cleans up with a wet rag before he slips back into his clothes. He almost runs into Jamie when his mate begins to duck into the bathroom, but he sidesteps him and turns on the lamp.
Something niggles at the back of his mind.
The music switches over to a tango, and his lips quirk up in a brief smile as he hears the groans from half of his friends. Ivan and Rusty like to show off, and sure enough, when they slip back down the steps, the alpha and his beta are moving together in a beautiful synchronicity that Dylan hates to admit he envies. They look classy, even in their jeans and Henleys, and when Eric catches his eye the other alpha heaves a put upon sigh. Hannah was probably after him to get couple’s lessons again.
It starts to bother him, whatever he’s missing. Jamie leads him out of the way of the dancers and hands him a cup of water with a wink - “you should probably replenish some liquids, mate” - but in the back of his mind it’s like there is some puzzle and he’s missing the key piece he needs in order to see the larger picture.
He’s spent so much time chasing mysteries lately, maybe he’s hardwired himself for it.
In the middle of the room, Rusty does some sort of fancy sidestep and Dylan thinks absently to himself,
I sidestepped the rules
.
And that’s it.
He did sort of skirt the rules, didn’t he? As much as he could, anyway. So what was to stop them from doing it again? It’s not like he’s trying to hurt anybody. He’s trying to help people. Okay, so one of the people was himself, but didn’t he count for something? And Jamie wants to stay - Dylan knows it. It will hurt them both for Jamie to leave.
But it’s not up to Jamie. Every time they’ve slid around the subject in the past couple of days, it’s been clear that even though Jamie was able to choose to come back, he wasn’t in control of much else. And when Dylan performed the ritual, it wasn’t Jamie’s voice he’d heard in his head.
“Are you alright?”
Dylan smiles up at Jamie and downs the last of the water. “I’m fine,” he assures him. “Just need to pee.”
It’s not even a lie for a blip in his heartbeat to give him away; his bladder is full enough for him to go and relieve some pressure, so he walks to the half bath off the kitchen slowly, thinking. Is it possible to seek the voice out?
He pees absentmindedly, shaking off his dick on autopilot before heading back out to the others. Except he doesn’t really go there. His eye stops on a lone apple near the sink that he’d forgotten to chop up for the fruit salad and didn’t feel like adding back in, and then he remembers that when he’d bought the things he needed for the ritual, he’d dropped a pomegranate in the back of his car.
He could maybe probably do the ritual again. If he wanted. He’d sort of forgotten the mortar and pestle in the woods, but he had one of those nice wooden bowls and serving utensils, the kind they were supposed to use for company but never did. That could probably stand in for the missing items.
Of course, there isn’t any guarantee that it will
work
.
But what’s life without a little risk, yeah?
As quietly as he can, he sets out the bowl and spoon, grabs a knife from the block and the carton of salt from the shelf. The emergency candles are in the junk drawer, along with skewers - he doesn’t have another one of those long matches handy. He slides out the side door without anyone noticing and after a quick rummage in the foot well he finds the lone pomegranate.
He’s got to be quick. Jamie isn’t going to keep his distance and waste the time he has left, and he’s seriously pushing the time he’s been gone. Dylan sneaks back into the house in a hurry and draws out the salt lines; once he’s started the ritual, he doesn’t think anyone will stop him. He hopes.
It might not work. He knows that. The original ritual was supposed to be done in the ‘dark of Samhain’ and Halloween was over, but if what Jamie said was right and the old traditions meant Samhain to be a three day festival, then maybe it still counted. It would be really awkward if he accidentally summoned a different mate, of course, but he was banking on needing to talk to that voice again.
Jamie comes around the corner just as he’s opening his mouth to say the ritual words. Dylan looks up at him, wide-eyed and apologetic, but he doesn’t stop. The words come tumbling out of him in a hurry, and the pained look on Jamie’s face -
oh no no no, he thinks I’m betraying him!
- makes him feel cold to the core.
He doesn’t have any time to brace himself for the pain before the white-hot pain fills his skull, and Jamie rushes forward when he gasps with it. Dylan reaches out for him, but Jamie stops short - something is preventing him from crossing the line of the circle.
You were already given what you want
, the voice sounds in his head.
Dylan swallows. “I know,” he says. “I thank you for it.”
Then why have you performed the ritual again? Are you not satisfied with one soul mate?
“I am!” he says. His eyes lock on Jamie’s face. He doesn’t know what to say; he doesn’t have a fancy petition or speech for his request. “Please don’t take him from me,” he whispers.
The voice doesn’t speak for a long moment, but the pain still fills him. It’s not as sharp - it’s settled into something dull but undeniably present, and he can’t move much for fear he’ll need to hurl if he jerks the wrong way.
Why should we grant your request?
Dylan flicks his tongue out to lick his lips. They’re dry. He’s panting; it feels like he’s run a marathon, even though he’s only sitting on the floor of his kitchen. “I don’t have anything to offer you,” he says. “Except that I love him.”
There is always a price.
He closes his eyes for a long second. “Name it.”
The balance must be kept. A life for a life.
He shakes his head instinctively and bites his lip at the pain. Had it hurt this much the first time? “I can’t do that!” he cries out. “I can’t barter with anyone else’s life. That’s not mine to give.”
The voice is sly when it speaks again, almost considering.
Not even lives that aren’t living yet?
He swallows. “What do you mean?”
A life for a life. That is our price,
the voice intones.
Your mate may stay with you in exchange for your fertility.
The thought is completely foreign to him. Unless some terrible misfortune befalls them, omegas are fertile. It is just a fact, like the sun rising in the mornings. Even though he’s never wanted pups right away, and even though he had been prepared to not have any at all - being unable to have Jamie - the idea of being completely infertile is a shock to his system.
“You mean I would be a beta?”
No,
the voice says patiently.
You are an omega; that cannot change. Your womb will be closed, but your mate will remain.
Jamie is standing as close as the boundary will let him get. His face is puzzled and curious, his eyes blown wide in worry and fear. Dylan realizes that no one else can hear the voice; beyond Jamie, he sees his father and his friends crowding at the kitchen door, and none of them look like they have the slightest idea of what he is doing. All they can hear is him.
He reaches out a hand to Jamie. His mate. His impossible mate, who literally came back from the dead for him.
Am I selfish, to tie him here?
But no.
He takes in a deep breath. “I agree to your terms,” he says.
So it shall be.
The pain from his head courses through his body. His limbs stiffen and shake. He gasps for air when it feels like his lungs are frozen - and then the pain converges all in his belly, and he feels the gravity of what he just agreed to in one horrifying wail that bursts through his lips.
“Jamie,” he says, and whatever barrier was in place is gone, because Jamie rushes forward, holding him gently as his body seizes and he begins to fall backward.
“Dylan,” Jamie says, and there are tears in his eyes. “What did you do?”
He smiles. “I get to keep you now,” he says, just before everything fades to black.
*
Dylan wakes up the next morning to bright sunshine and an empty bed. The sheets are cool around him, and he startles up, frantic. Did it not work? Did he miss his chance to say goodbye for a pipe dream? Had he hallucinated all of it?
The door opens when he’s halfway to a panic attack, and Jamie steps inside. There’s a tray in his hands piled high with bacon and eggs and pancakes and two clear plastic cups of orange juice.
“You’re here,” he breathes.
Jamie sets the tray down on the bedside table. “I’m here,” he says.
When their lips meet, it feels like a promise.
