Chase always knew they were living on borrowed time, that eventually, Chelsea would call her betas home, or she’d return to Harrisburg to claim what was hers. He knew that, even as he bound himself to the Reid Pack as Shaman, to their territory as the scion of some magic fucking Stones. He knew, saw the writing on the wall, and he did it anyway, because as much as he loathed the idea of serving Chelsea, he hated the idea of leaving Tyler and Lucas more.

He isn’t surprised, really, by anything more than how long they had before Chelsea came to call.

~*~

Tyler bakes when he’s stressed, because Chase forbade him from doing any more projects on the house after the third expansion. Jessica joins him more often than not these days, because she’s good at it and because it’s the only time she gets to spend with Tyler when the betas and Chase aren’t also vying for his attention.

“What’s wrong?”

Tyler shakes his head and sprinkles some blueberries into the loaf he’s making. “Chase will explain it,” he says shortly.

Jessica bites her lip but doesn’t argue, just finishes the lemon poppyseed muffins and leans into him when he brushes past her.

The Pack is gathered in the living room, Lucas sprawled in his chair with Aurora tucked into his side, her fingers curled around the nape of his neck while Ezra and Joseph sit on the floor under the picture window. Chase is sitting cross-legged on the couch, phone in his hand, playing a game. He curses as he drops it in his lap and Tyler sits next to him.

“The Cahils came to town,” he announces without any preamble, and Jessica pauses.

“Should that mean something to us?” Ezra asks.

“The Cahils are the Pack that gave Chelsea sanctuary in New York. Their Alpha heir is engaged to her,” Lucas offers lazily.

“So if they have territory in New York, why are they here?”

Chase shrugs. “Because Chelsea’s Pack is here. Because we expanded and we have a reputation, because I’m the Shaman and stronger than most, or maybe because they’ve always planned this? Take your pick. Why doesn’t really matter—that they did does.”

“We’re strengthening the wards around our territory and the Pack house. If you want the same on your family homes, let Chase know and he’ll make that happen. We move in pairs, always. We stay safe. Cahil is gone right now, but he’ll come back, and if we’re threatening Chelsea’s cozy little life, she’ll lash out,” Tyler says seriously.

“You’re strong enough to stop her,” Jessica says, looking at Chase. “So why let it get to that?”

Chase shrug again. “I won’t kill Tyler and Lucas’s only living relative. And like it or not, I‘m bound to the Reid Alpha. I could kill her, but it won’t solve anything if we don’t know who’ll replace her.”

“And if it comes to a fight?”

Chase takes a deep breath. “If it comes to a fight, we fight. But none of you can kill the Cahil Alpha. Do you understand? If you do, you won’t belong to the Reid Pack.”

Chase wants to say, you won’t be mine.

Watching Lucas, he knows that he at least understands.

~*~

Lucas is sitting in his bedroom at his father’s home when Chase slips in, his expression shuttered.

“Kinda late,” Chase says, and Lucas shrugs. He’s watching the Shaman, and Chase busies himself for a moment, stripping off his flannel and emptying his pockets before he finally turns to the werewolf.

The thing is, Lucas spent years in a comatose state, years where Chase was growing up and taking care of him, telling him every secret he couldn’t tell anyone else. Lucas knows him, knows the devious working of his brain, and he knows damn well that Chase is planning something.

“Are you going to tell me?”

Chase shrugs. “There’s not a lot of options. I’m bound by blood and magic to the Reid Alpha, and there’s no way to transfer that bond without killing her. You know it and I do.”

“I could do it, before she comes here,” Lucas says, serious. He could. It wouldn’t be difficult. He’s killed witches and monsters. One spoiled arrogant Alpha would be nothing.

“She’s your sister, Lucas—the only family you have left beyond Tyler,” Chase says softly.

“You are my family,” Lucas snarls, “Aurora and the pups. Chelsea—”

“Chelsea ran because she was a hurt, scared child made Alpha far too soon,” Chase says, “She fucked up, Lucas, I know she did, but I still don’t want that blood on your hands. Not when there is so little of it left. Not even if they were all still here—you don’t need to live with killing your sister.”

Lucas stares at him. “Do you have a plan?”

Chase gives him a cocky smile. “Lucas, come on. It’s me.”

“I suppose you won’t tell me what it is.”

Chase shrugs. “Chelsea doesn’t want Harrisburg. So we make sure that the Cahils know that Harrisburg is more trouble than it’s worth.”

Lucas smiles then.

Chase’s gaze is cold and steady. “The Cahil Pack—them, you can kill.”

~*~

Chase secludes himself in the Pack house, kicks the pups and Tyler out while he works. Lucas stays, because while he hates when Chase bleeds and reeks of pain, he doesn’t protest. He just stays nearby, reading and researching, taking care of Chase when the Shaman forgets to eat or drink, bandaging his hand every time the boy slices it open to seal the wards.

The only time he makes a protesting noise, a tiny helpless growl rumbling out of him, is when Chase prepares the ink and blood and ash, when he readies the sharp silver needle and lines the metal tube up against his skin.

“You don’t have to stay,” Chase says.

“What do they do?”

Chase pauses. “Each ward will be buried in the ground of their homes and workplaces. They’ll repel anyone with ill intent, anyone supernatural that is not our Pack or ally.”Lucas nods, and Chase adds carefully, “And these—” He touches the small identical black disks of wood, streaked with blood and burns. “—will attack anyone who attacks those wearing it. Returns the damage, threefold.”

Lucas’s eyes glitter as he touches the bowl of spelled ink. “And the tattoos?”

“The wards won’t last unless I continue to renew them. The runes tie them to my spark and the power the Standing Stones gives me.”

Lucas’s eyes narrow. Chase stares at him, waiting.

He hasn’t told Tyler, and he won’t. The werewolf would burn the wards, let the Pack meet any and every threat with no advantage if he thought Chase could hurt himself protecting them.

“This is my job,” Chase says, watching Lucas. “I’m the Reid Shaman and shamans protect their Pack.”

Lucas nods and says, “Will it hurt the spell if I take your pain?”

Chase laughs a wobbly noise and shrugs. “I don’t know, and we’re not going to risk it.”

Lucas huffs, but nods again and settles across from Chase as he begins the long tattooing process.

~*~

Chase slips into Harper’s backyard. He’s known the man long enough that he isn’t surprised to find him in his garden, surrounded by foxglove, wolfsbane, and belladonna.

Harper looks just as unsurprised to see him.

“There’s a threat coming,” Chase says, “I’m binding myself to the Standing Stones.”

Harper straightens, hands braced on his knees. “You did that. You renew your bindings every year.”

“No—I’m doing the permanent binding. I—” He looks away and takes a breath.

“Chase, you know the cost,” Harper says gently.

He laughs and nods. “Yeah, Harper, I know. But I need to be able to protect my Pack from the Cahils and they’re coming. What do you suggest I do? Cede the land to them?”

Harper is watching him with that familiar look, a mix of distrust, pity, and the tiniest bit of awe, like he can’t quite fathom someone like Chase.

“I—-this is for you,” Chase says, thrusting the black disk at the druid. For good or ill, Harper once stood with the Reid Pack and trained Chase when he was an idiot playing with something so much bigger than he could understand.

He won’t leave without at least offering protection.

Harper stares at it for a long moment, then the runes snaking up his arm, the ones that took him twelve hours and Lucas’s assistance to complete.

“Thank you for your gift and protection, Shaman Reid,” Harper says formally, tipping his head to one side and exposing his throat as he accepts the charm.

Chase blinks and nods. He takes a couple steps backward toward the still open gate and says, “Be careful, Harper.”

He’s almost out of the yard when he hears Harper murmur, “You as well, Chase.”

~*~

He dreams.

The woods are alive, and he picks his way through it, listening to the animals in the underbrush, the heartbeat of the land a slow, sonorous thing under his bare feet.

He can hear the heartbeats of rabbits and mice, the quiet rasp of a squirrel scuttling around in its nest, the impossibly quiet sound of a flower slowly opening to the shining moon. He can hear the wolves he calls his own howling, triumphant and happy and whole.

He can hear the Standing Stones whispering an elusive song that calls him closer, begs him for more, for everything, and he wants to give in, wants to slit his wrists and bleed on the Stones as their magic sinks into him, sings through him, fills him up where his life’s blood should flow.

He wants it, and the sentient Stones sing, mine mine mine.

And Tyler is pressing against his knees, pushing him back a stumbling step, snarling possessively, furious and protective, because Chase is claimed, has been claimed long before the Standing Stones called to him.

Chase leans into his wolf’s bristling fur, breathing him in until he can only hear the familiar pounding of his heart and the thrum of his blood in his veins.

~*~

The first attack comes on a cold day in the fall while Chase is leaning against Tyler’s chest, listening to him read. It’s a calm, quiet day, the sounds of Tyler’s low voice lulling him into a sense of contentment.

Then, sharp and sudden, pain sears through him. He screams.

He can hear Lucas shouting, recognizes Tyler’s hands pressing against him, grounding him, but all he can feel is pain, his arm burning, and he gasps, reaching for it, ripping the sleeve up in his haste.

“Jessica,” Lucas snarls, scrambling away before Chase can put together words, and he shoves Tyler.

“Go,” he gasps.

Tyler goes, and Chase huddles there on their bed until Aurora creeps in to wrap around him and murmurs, “I don't want to scream for her.”

He doesn’t ask who she does want to scream for. He doesn’t need to. For now, knowing they’re safe enough.

~*~

Jessica is fine. Furious about her bakery, bloody from the attack, but she’s healed before Tyler herds her into the den.

Chase watches them. “Where’s Lucas? The boys?”

“Getting rid of the bodies,” Tyler says shortly, pushing Jessica toward the shower. The she-wolf snaps at him and Tyler growls. “Now, Jessica.”

Huffing, she stomps away.

“How many?” Chase asks.

“Five. It—it could have been bad,” Tyler says carefully. “But every time they hurt her, they were attacked.” His pale gaze flicks to Chase’s arm, still bare. “What did you do?”

“What I had to do,” Chase says evenly, “I’m keeping the Pack safe.”

“Chase—”

“It’s done, Tyler. And it’s working. Now tell me about the attack.”

~*~

They try again, attacking Joseph at the college, Ezra and Lucas while they run through the forest. They attack Chase in front of the police station, plowing into the Bronco, sending it rolling across the intersection in a screech of metal and shattering glass.

Chase spends a long night in the ER before he’s released, trembling with fury and barely-suppressed pain as he waits for Tyler to pull up.

“Chase?”

He flinches, and the hand on his shoulder drops away.

Ryan smiles at him, wide and disarming, spreading his hands. “Hey, sorry, man, I didn't mean to startle you. Just saw you, thought I’d check on you. You look like hell.”

Chase blinks at him. “You are just as charming as ever,” he says.

Ryan laughs and rubs at his neck as Tyler pulls up. The ‘wolf is around the car far too quickly, eyebrows pulled down in a heavy glare pointed at Ryan.

Chase waves awkwardly with one hand and lets Tyler tuck him into the front seat. He watches, his eyes wide and dazed, while Tyler pulls away.

~*~

He comes to her with blood on his hands and death on his skin.

She watches as he strips and crawls across the bed, crowding into her and kissing her, and she wonders if he can taste her scream, the death wail pushing against her teeth, as he licks into her mouth.

She feels like she’s vibrating out of her skin, and Lucas purrs against her throat as he drags her down the bed and spreads her out, as he settles between her legs and licks and nibbles, fucking her with his tongue and teeth and lips until she’s shaking and the scream building in her throat has nothing to do with death.

While she’s still coming, her body shivering and shuddering, he fills her up, fucks deep and hard the way she likes. His hands are heavy against her skin, smearing blood there as she digs her nails into his back and her little feet into his ass, letting him take everything he needs, taking back from him everything he’ll give.

Death clings to him like a lover, and she clings even harder until it wraps around them both and burns like a scream, a building buzz of electric pleasure that burns and burns and spirals tighter as he fucks her and she opens her mouth to scream as she comes, and he snarls and kisses her, takes the scream right out of her mouth until she’s limp and spent, panting under him.

After he’s spent and licked her clean, he slumps beside her and she looks at him, his expression soft and content.

“Lucas?”

“Yes, darling girl?”

“Thank you.”

He hums against her hair, tucking her close to him, and whispers, “My pleasure, darling.”

It’s not healthy, this thing with him, she thinks as she falls asleep, but she thinks it’s the best thing she’s ever had.

~*~

He comes alone, clad in jeans that sit low on his hips and expose his tattoos. He has always done this on the Solstice, carving his wards and sigils into the Standing Stones and bleeding his spark into them, just enough that it bound him to the ancient Stones, lending his strength to the dying magic and carrying its power in his veins.

But it‘s never enough, never the sigils that would complete the binding, and his wolves circled him as he bled, holding him back, claiming him as their own.

Now, he stands alone under a black moonless sky and he can feel the eager clamor of the Standing Stones, building to a crescendo as he clambers onto the ancient rocks and carves the sigil that will bind his life force to the Stones, that’ll make their magic his.

He breathes through the excited push of raw power and closes his eyes.

The first cut is too shallow and it stings, but it’s not enough, not nearly enough, so he drags the sharp knife over his skin again, deeper, dragging it up the length of his forearm. Blood wells up, fast. He’s dizzy with the sight of it and the magic pouring through him as he slices his other wrist open, and then it’s done.

It’s done, and he has the fleeting thought that he hopes he survives, before the magic takes, grips the binding and his blood, and shakes.

Ancient power, raw and unfiltered and so potent it makes his teeth ache, rips through him as he bleeds out. He hears a roaring that feels too close and too far away, but he can’t focus, can only feel the drip of his blood on the Standing Stones, and he thinks as the blackness crowds in, Tyler.

~*~

John sits next to Chase’s bed and breathes. It’s been four days since Tyler called him, panicked, and said, “Chase is hurt.”

He still doesn’t know what happened.

He doesn’t know how Chase came to be in the forest, unconscious with slit wrists. He doesn’t know why his tattoos are gleaming, the black lines now laced with silver veins. He doesn’t know why the forest is springing to life beyond Chase’s window, or why the ancient Stones now circle a fifty-foot tree.

He doesn’t know why Chase hasn’t woken up.

Tyler slips back into the room and pauses. John can feel the man’s gaze, heavy and assessing. “He’s going to be ok.”

“You can’t say that. You don’t know.”

“His wards are holding. The protection charms are holding. And I—I can feel him, in the Pack bond.” Tyler stares at Chase, and his hand clenches worriedly, but his voice is firm. “He’s going to wake up. And he’s going to be ok.”

For the first time in four days, John thinks that maybe there’s hope, if only because Tyler Reid would kill and die and beat down the gates of Hell itself, for Chase.

He breathes and watches his son.

~*~

Lucas is sitting against the headboard when he wakes, reading quietly, and Chase is absurdly grateful, because it feels like he got hit by a fucking truck and he can’t hold back his whine of pain as he moves.

Lucas reaches down absently, draining his pain as he says, “That was the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”

“Probably,” Chase rasps, “But I’m strong enough to protect the Pack and defend our territory. I can take care of the Pack now.”

Lucas looks at him finally. “Chase, you have always taken care of everyone in this Pack.”

“I—”

“When I was in that chair, trapped in my head and body—I remember you taking care of me and making Tyler eat. I watch you do it with your father and the pups, and even with Aurora. I was the focus of it for years. It’s part of who you are, and that’s fine, but you need to remember something.”

Chase bites his lip and watches the older man.

“We’re Pack, which means you let us take care of you, too.”

Chase frowns, hunching in on himself.

Lucas tips his chin up. “No more of this, pup. No more abusing yourself to take care of us. That doesn’t take care of us. Do you understand?”

He nods reluctantly, and Lucas smiles.

“Now. You’re on bedrest for the next week. But I wanted to let you know—I found the spy.”

~*~

Chase is still recovering, but he refuses to let Lucas handle this alone. Tyler, who has barely left his side since Chase woke up, refuses to let Chase go without him. So they all go, together, and Chase smiles happily.

They’re going to kill a man, and he can barely sit up straight, but he’s with his ‘wolves, and that’s rare, these days. There’s always something drawing one of them away, a pup who needs attention—he can’t remember the last time he spent any time with just Tyler and Lucas.

He sighs a little and Tyler glances back at him.

“There,” Lucas says, slowing the car as they approach a strip of shops in downtown Harrisburg. Tyler huffs and shoves out of the car, and Chase hears a startled, “What the hell?”

Then Ryan Stroff lands next to him, pale, furious, and frightened.

Chase smiles, and it’s human, but he has never felt quite as predatory. “Hey, Ryan. I hear you made some new friends.”

~*~

The box Lucas selects, when they’re finished, is exceptionally pretty, approved by Aurora and lined with plastic before he nestles the bloody entrails in a bed of white silk with a picture of Ryan’s corpse.

He calls a bounty hunter he knows and the girl gives him a savage smile before she tucks the box in the front seat of her car and heads East.

He hums happily as he glances at the time and ponders what to make Chase for dinner.

~*~

“Have you had anything strange happen recently?” Liss asks.

Chase pauses. “No.”

Aside from the werewolf attacks and giant tree sprouting in the forest, the still-weak shaking in his limbs and the man they killed? Nothing strange at all.

She huffs. “Chase, just—we’re hearing a lot of rumors coming from New York, and the Cahil Pack is pissed.”

“Tripp came here a few months ago.  We weren’t very welcoming.”

“You should have told us,” she snaps, furious.

“The alliance doesn’t cover inner-pack problems, Liss,” Chase says gently, “And the Cahils are only a problem because of our Alpha.”

“They could destroy you. Chase, they—their Pack is over a hundred strong, and half of those are born wolves. You have five wolves—three with less than six moons under their belt, and a Medusa.”

“Liss,” Chase says, “They have to reach us to do any damage, and right now, my wards are doing their job.”

“For how long?” she demands. Chase doesn’t answer, and she sighs. “Just...be careful. You’re playing with fire, and someone is going to get burned. I don’t want it to be you or your Pack.”

~*~

He’s in the bookstore. He’s only been back at work for a week, and he’s shaking with exhaustion, slumped over a cup of tea, when the door jangles. He doesn't move. They haven’t had a customer for an hour, and whoever is here—he’ll give them time to browse before he approaches.

He hums agreeably to himself.

Then something slams his head down on the wooden counter. His teacup shatters and he feels the glass slicing into his cheek, dangerously close to his eye. He feels claws at his neck and he has a hot moment of panic, when he thinks his wards have failed, because no one outside the Pack should be able to touch him, no one—

“You little shit,” a familiar voice hisses, “This is all your fault.”

Oh.

Oh, he is an idiot.

“Don’t,” he gasps out, and her claws dig in deeper. “Chelsea, don’t.”

She snarls and slams his head against the counter again. Black rushes up to yank him under.