They take him home.

Lucas calls John, warns him that Chase is hurt, that he’s different, and they take him home. It smells different, and he whines, burying his face in Tyler’s chest as the older man carries him inside.

“Why aren’t I healing?” he asks, moaning as his foot jars against the door. “That’s a goddamn perk of being furry. Why don’t I get the perk?”

“I told you, pup—kitsune,” Lucas says.

Chase snarls, a mouthful of teeth and a vulpine note to the noise, and it startles all three of them still.

“Shit,” Chase slurs around sharp little teeth, and Tyler has the irrational and inappropriate thought that he wants to feel those teeth at his throat while he’s buried in Chase.

Chase sneezes and wrinkles his nose. “What—that smell, what is that?”

“Yes, brother, do tell. What is that smell?”

Tyler flushes and carefully lowers Chase onto their bed, then turns to glare at Lucas.

“What the hell is going on?”

~*~

The problem wasn’t his magic, and it wasn’t the Bite. Those were known entities—for a shaman, a Bite turns or kills them by burning them out under the Bite. But Chase wasn’t just a human, and he didn’t just have normal magic.

He was the Standing Stones’ scion, the living, breathing bearer of the ancient rocks’ magic, and no one knows what that means.

“It did this,” Chase says, and Lucas watches him. Chase’s gaze flicks to him, heavy and sad. “The Standing Stones chose this.”

He explains it as quickly as he can, but it doesn’t make sense to him, and the wild creature—the fox—is stirring, curious and apprehensive, and he feels the sudden absurd desire to run.

“A kitsune isn’t a shifter, in the truest sense,” Lucas says, “I don’t know much about them. They’re rare, generally found in Japan, but from what I do remember, it’s a creature of magic and wildness. Not a werewolf, but it’s—it’s a cousin to shifters, I suppose you could say.” He considers Chase, pale and sweating in Tyler’s bed, his tattoos dark against his skin, and smiles faintly. “It suits you.”

“He has a beta Shift,” Tyler points out.

Lucas nods. “Yes, well, that is clearly beyond me, and a question for another day, I think.” His expression goes cold. “We need to deal with Chelsea.”

~*~

Chase is sleeping by the time John pulls up.

Tyler carefully disentangles himself from him to go meet the Chief. Lucas is already there, his face that disturbing blankness he’s had since Chase forbade him from killing Chelsea. Again.

Tyler thinks that this time, not even Chase can stay the Left Hand, and he thinks Chase knows it.

“Is he—is he ok?”

“No,” Lucas says bluntly, and John pales. “He was tortured, but there’s nothing that won’t heal in time. What won’t go away with time is the Bite she gave him.”

John lets out a wounded noise that makes Tyler’s shoulders hunch.

How much of this is his fault—because he dared to leave Chelsea, because he loved Chase, because as much as he loves Chase, he can’t protect him?

“He’s a werewolf?” John asks, voice small.

“He’s something called a kitsune. We aren’t sure what all that means, but he’s alive, and he will get better,” Lucas says in a voice that leaves no room for disbelief.

John takes a shuddering breath.

Tyler steps aside and trails after the Chief as he hurries into the bedroom, falling into the chair that’s so often where Chase curls and reads.

Now, they wait for him to heal.

~*~

Chase looks small in Tyler’s big bed. John thinks maybe all children look small to their parents when they’re sleeping—but Chase has always been too big to be contained, moving in his sleep, filling up the world with his words, enthusiasm, curiosity, and love.

Now he lays sleeping in the bed he shares with Tyler Reid, pale and bruised against the sheets with his tattoos stark against his skin, and even that testament to the massive power that lives in his son does nothing to reassure John.

“Do we know who it was?”

Tyler shifts anxiously and Lucas says, “Yes. Chase doesn’t want me to take action against her.”

John frowns. Chase is his son, and he adores the boy, but he’s never had any misconceptions about his very grey morality. Chase has never hesitated to do what it takes to protect the people he loves, the ones he claims as his. John doesn’t even expect him to anymore.

“You know why,” Chase grits out, and Lucas snarls, a vicious animal noise that makes John want to flinch away.

Chase rolls his eyes at the display and turns a sleepy gaze on his dad. His eyes flare with blue flames for a heartbeat, then settle back to the familiar golden brown. It’s reassuring, settling some of the unease that he’s been feeling since Lucas told him Chase had been bitten.

Chase is different, but he’s still Chase.

“Hey, dad,” Chase says, smiling, and John leans in to hug him, his grip fierce and desperate.

~*~

Lucas is furious.

Chase would know that, even if he didn’t have new senses going haywire, feeding him information he doesn’t know what to do with.  

It takes hours of waiting—after John relents and goes to Chase’s room to sleep on the couch, and Tyler passes out in the chair next to Chase’s bed—before he finally turns to look at the Left Hand.

He’s watching Chase, his gaze flickering with electric blue.

Chase sighs. “You can’t kill her.”

“She hurt you,” Lucas says, “Killing her would be very easy.”

“And when it’s over and I’m well, and you’re drowning in guilt? What then?”

“That is another day’s problem, Chase.”

He huffs. “I’m trying to avoid having problems in the future. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I need you to listen to me, to trust me.”

Lucas stares at him for a long time. “I—I can’t promise that. Not after what she’s done to you.”

“Will you promise to wait until I’m well? That you won’t make a decision in anger?”

The nod he gets is slow and reluctant, but he’ll take it.

“How did she get past your wards?” Lucas asks, changing the subject.

Chase groans. “Because I am the stupidest mage in the world,” he grumps, and a small smile flickers on the edges of Lucas’s lips.

~*~

He wakes up to the press of bodies around him, fingers in his hair, and the drip of tears on his face.

“I’m ok,” he croaks out, and Aurora makes a hysterical little noise, her grip on him tightening just a little. “Aurora,” he says gently, “I’m ok.”

The pups stir and watch him, human and exhausted and worried. He touches Jessica’s shoulder and gives her a reassuring smile.

“I’m ok.”

“You smell wrong,” Ezra says.

Chase nods. He closes his eyes and reaches for the wild fox washed in his magic, drawing it up. The change ripples over him like a wave of pins and needles, and he hears the confused whine Ezra gives before he blinks his eyes, now flickering white flames, at them.

“Smelling different is sorta something we need to talk about,” Chase says around a mouthful of sharp little teeth.

~*~

Tyler is careful with him.

He’s always careful after Chase has been hurt, but this is different. He’s skittish and distant, and there’s a frown that draws his eyebrows down as he reads while Chase sips his soup.

“What’s wrong?”

Tyler jerks, eyes wide as they flick to Chase. He waits patiently as Tyler’s mouth opens, then closes. He shakes his head.

“Ty, you’re reading Spanish poetry and you haven’t flipped the page in ten minutes. You’re upset and distracted. And we’re alone for the first time since before I got snatched, but you aren’t touching me. What’s wrong?”

Tyler looks faintly sick, but he licks his lips and says, “Do you think we’re making a mistake? Being together?”

The world drops out from under Chase. He pales so fast he actually sways. Tyler jerks forward, catching his shoulders and drawing him close.

“Chase, breathe. I’m not—we’re together. I’m not changing that. I’m not letting you go, sweetheart. I’m asking a question.”

Chase gasps, and it sounds panicked, even to himself. The noise he makes is vulpine and small, foreign, and he burrows into Tyler’s chest.

“She did this to you because she wants me back, because you matter to me.”

“It’s not your fault,” Chase mumbles into his chest, and Tyler shrugs around him. “It’s not, Ty. She’s feral. She’s not gonna make sane decisions.”

“You’re paying for her bad decisions.”

Chase nods. “I am, but it’s a price I’m willing to pay.” He digs the tips of his black claws into Tyler’s skin and it drags the werewolf’s gaze down. “If it keeps us safe and together, I’m more than willing to pay.”

~*~

He doesn’t want to leave Chase.

Lucas doesn’t know what’s happening to him, and none of Tyler’s many books shed any light.

“Kitsunes don’t Shift,” Lucas bitches, glaring at the latest book that has turned up exactly nothing.

Chase taps his sharp black claws on the table and drawls, “I would have to disagree.”

Lucas snarls, and Chase gives him an unimpressed look.

“He’s healing faster than he should,” Tyler says abruptly.

It’s true. It’s been three days since they found him and the bruises on his face are almost gone. His ribs still ache and the burns on his legs aren’t fully healed, but he’s in much better shape than he should be.

“But not as fast as a werewolf,” Chase points out.

“You said the Standing Stones chose this,” Lucas says slowly. He makes a noise, frustrated. “Kitsune are elemental spirits, and the Standing Stones are raw, elemental magic.” Chase makes a protesting sound and Lucas waves it aside. “It’s complicated, yes, I know, but it’s closer to elemental than anything else, right?”

“Yeah,” Chase admits begrudgingly.

“And a kitsune is the elemental closest to a werewolf,” Lucas continues.

Chase straightens. “You think it made me a kitsune because of the Pack?”

“I think it got you as close to being a shifter as it could while weaving its own magic deeper. You aren’t a werefox—you don’t heal or have the superior senses—but you aren’t a kitsune, either. You Shift, you have accelerated healing, and your magic isn’t bound to one element.”

“So what the hell am I?” Chase demands, gaze flickering blue.

“You’re a bridge,” Lucas says, “Not human or mage or shifter, but a little bit of all of them, which is exactly what you need to be, given the Bite and your place in the Pack.”

“But why the hell do the Standing Stones care?” Tyler snaps, “Why didn’t they burn the Bite out?”

“It hid,” Chase says softly, “Until the creature—my fox?—came near my Pack bonds, my magic wasn’t going to interfere. It was waiting, watching... But then it did, and my magic attacked it. It would have killed me.”

“It should have killed you,” Lucas contributes helpfully.

“But instead—” Chase sits up. “I need to go to it. I need to see it.”

“Absolutely not,” Lucas says, tone pleasant.

Chase growls and the werewolf leans forward, still smiling, his eyes the only clue that he’s furious. “You forbade me from killing her, and I haven’t, but I will not let you put yourself in her path just to satisfy your curiosity.”

Chase cocks his head, studying Lucas, then he nods. “Ok. Tyler?”

Tyler startles, blinking at him. “Yes?”

“I think it’s time you go find your sister.”

~*~

He goes back to the old Reid House.

Chelsea might be feral, might be dangerous, might even need to be put down—after everything she’s done to Chase and how she’s abandoned them, he’s not arguing any of that, would happily stand aside and let Lucas kill her—but she’s still his sister, and he knows her. When Chelsea was upset, she always went home, into the tunnels where it was dark and cozy and quiet.

He finds her there in the decrepit ruins of the once great house, curled up around her phone and a tiny black bear. It smells of rot and rain, years of decay from it’s abandonment after the car accident, and under it all is the barest trace of Brittney, baby soft and innocent. It makes his heart clench in pain, the reminder of his late baby sister.

“Where did you find it?”

“In the corner, behind a couple loose bricks. She liked to hide things there.”

He blinks back tears and moves to sit across from her.

“I thought it’d be Lucas,” she says, and Tyler stares at her. “I hoped, you know? I didn’t want you to be the one I have to fight.”

“You don’t have to fight at all,” he says.

“So you’ll let me walk away after I tortured your mate? After I bit him?” She frowns.

“No,” Tyler says softly.

She hums and tilts her head back, staring at the rotted wooden walls, the mold growing black through the flaking white paint. “I feel empty. He did that. I don’t know how, but he took my bonds. I can’t feel any of my Pack bonds.”

“Chelsea,” Tyler sighs, “Why did you do it?”

She blinks at him. “For you. I did it for you.”

~*~

Chase stirs on the couch, and Aurora makes an anxious noise in the back of her throat that makes Lucas stiffen. His gaze flicks to the shaman, and Chase smiles, sharp and predatory.

“The Cahil Pack just entered our territory.”

~*~

“You bit and tortured the man I love, the man who cared for me and Lucas when you couldn’t be bothered, who built us into a Pack when we had nothing—and you want to tell me it was for me?” Tyler says, tone incredulous.

“Why the hell else would I bite him?” Chelsea asks grumpily.

Tyler stares at her, wide-eyed, his heart pounding an uneven rhythm.

“Chelsea, that's—that isn't why you Bite someone!”

She huffs. “But he's a werewolf now. He can be Pack and you can bring him back with us to New York.”

“He was always Pack,” Tyler snarls, “And I'm not going anywhere.”

~*~

“You can’t,” Lucas snaps.

Chase shivers in his grasp. “Lucas, they’re here.”

“And my darling sister still wants you dead.”

“She doesn’t!” Chase shouts. “It was never about killing me—it’s about Tyler, and they’ll kill him, so let me go.”

Lucas looks at Aurora, at the fear in her eyes. “Is it him? Is the scream for him?” he demands roughly, and Chase whines, low and frantic.

“I don’t know,” she whispers.

Lucas snarls. “Shift,” he orders, and Chase lets the magic free. The fox, pacing and anxious in that place where his magic rests, bursts to the surface. Lucas howls and they run.

~*~

It’s strange to run like this, but familiar, like something he’s done a thousand times, in a thousand dreams. Lucas bounds along beside him, and he has a fleeting thought that he wishes Tyler were here, that he was running for the sheer joy of it instead of the panic and fear beating a rhythm in his blood.  

Lucas leads and Chase lets him, trusting his superior senses to get them to Tyler. He can feel the Cahils, the malevolence of them, but his magic is quiet, the Standing Stones still and waiting as he runs a familiar path that Chase has never walked, not in the waking world, until they burst into a clearing and the old, rotting ruins of the long abandoned Reid house loom above them.

~*~

“I never thought you’d stay,” Chelsea says. She’s standing now, pacing, and Tyler watches her. There’s something off about her scent, something that makes him want to twitch and run, makes him want to snarl and fight.

“You weren’t supposed to stay,” she says petulantly. She twists to glare at him, eyes are burning red and furious. “I needed you and you left me.”

“You hated me,” Tyler says, “After I told you about Mia, you couldn’t stand the sight of me. You ran off and found the first Pack you could that would take you in, and when I realized you didn’t want me... Yeah, I left. We had Pack, family, here, undefended and alone, and I couldn’t stay there with you when you hated me.”

“But you were supposed to come back. You were supposed to realize that you were wrong, that you needed me, but you didn’t. You found that stupid boy and you got distracted by how much he needed you. You forgot about me.” She growls, a low, subsonic noise that makes him flinch and almost bare his throat. “I want him dead for that.”

“Then why didn’t you kill him?”

She stares at Tyler for a long moment, then snaps, “I should have. But you—it would’ve upset you. And Tripp said not to. He wanted the whole Pack.”

Tyler stares at her, not quite comprehending that, and then he hears them—footsteps overhead and a high, barking scream.

“Shit. Chelsea, what did you do?”

~*~

Lucas sits on the steps of the old house and tries to contain how much the damn place bothers him.

“We should burn this place to the ground, let it go like the rest of our Pack went,” he mumbles.

Chase, wearing a pair of jeans and t-shirt that hangs off one shoulder, bumps him companionably on the shoulder. His magic is crackling under his skin again and he files that little tidbit away for future reference. “Can you hear Tyler?”

“He’s in the tunnels,” Lucas murmurs.

A low howl fills the air, joined by four others. Lucas huffs as he stands. Chase doesn’t move, waiting. He’s completely content to let Lucas take the lead on this—he has more experience with other Packs, and the longer the Cahils underestimate him, the better.

They step into the clearing in front of the house with no fanfare, just quietly emerging. Tripp looks odd here, like a fish out of water, but still sleek and predatory, still dangerous.

“Lucas. Where is my darling fiancee?”

“I don’t keep up with her these days. Tell me, Tripp—did you know she was going feral?”

Tripp shrugs, a loose roll of his shoulders. “The kind of loss she sustained when her Pack died, when what was left of it left her? Going feral was unavoidable.”

“Yet you’re engaged to her. Why did you not bind her to your own Pack?”

Tripp smiles, spreads his hands helplessly. “I couldn’t very well bond a foreign alpha to my Pack, Lucas. It would disrupt the whole Pack.”

Chase whistles and shakes his head. “You drove her to this. Let me guess—you marry her before she goes completely feral, and when she does, when she has to be put down, you get the Reid territory and Pack. Is that about right?”

Cahil cocks his head, that superior little smirk confirming everything.

“Bet it’s really fucking annoying that the territory isn’t just lying around waiting to be snatched up, that the Pack doesn’t need you.”

“You have no idea what a Pack needs,” Tripp says, his voice dripping disdain, “Werewolves can’t function without a Pack, without an alpha.”

“But you aren’t, are you, Tripp? You’re only an heir. Was that part of the plan? Take her power when you kill her? Become an alpha before your time?”

Tripp doesn’t answer, but one of his wolves fidgets uncomfortably behind him.

Chase nods. “Well, it’s a good plan. Really. Your problem was picking us. This land has a Pack, and alpha or not, it’s never going to recognize you.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tripp snaps.

Chase sighs.

“You should go,” Lucas says, a trace of amusement in his voice.

Tripp snarls, and one of the werewolves breaks ranks, lunging at Lucas. Chase looks up and the power living inside him flares, his tattoos warming but not quite shining. He flicks a glance at Lucas, and the ‘wolf lunging for his throat yelps as he slams into an invisible barrier and crumples.

“I’m gonna say this once,” Chase says, standing. “The Reid territory is claimed by the scion of the Standing Stones. The magic in this land will not recognize you. Get the fuck out of our territory, or I’ll kill you. All of you.”

Tripp gapes at him.

In the trees, Chase can hear a bird chirping.

“You?” one of the ‘wolves says, laughing. “You’re just a fucking kid. You’re a human kid.”

Chase grins at him and shrugs. “Doesn’t change the facts.”

“Enough,” Tripp says impatiently. He waves a hand and the ‘wolves at his back flow forward, sleek and deadly.

Chase smiles as he lets the magic burning through his blood out to play, lets it flare through his tattoos, turn them shining silver. He lets it take his vision, and he sinks to his knees, murmuring in Gaelic, the quiet request for aid that Caitlin taught him years ago, when she laughed and told him the boundaries of magic.

He feels Lucas at his back snarling protectively, then the world around him bucks up, roots and limbs and vines as thick as his arm snaking from nowhere. He breathes as the magic screams through him and his fox shrieks in answer, and the world shuddering as a wall of thorn and mistletoe climbs up, cutting Tripp off from his wolves. He can hear the forest moving, hear the furious snarling and the broken, choking noises—the wet ripping sounds and the sharp bursts of copper in the air.

Tripp jerks around, staring at the wall cutting him off from his ‘wolves.

Chase watches him. “I told you to leave. I told you, the land doesn’t want you.”

“You’re—you’re a fucking human. A shaman,” Tripp spits.

“What the hell is happening in your Pack, that you don’t understand just how powerful a shaman is?” Lucas asks, and Chase shoots him a look of agreement.

“Tripp?” Chelsea says, stumbling out of the house, and Tripp’s expression goes smooth and blank. “What—what are you doing here? You said you wanted me to control them, that I could handle my brother the way I wanted.” She frowns, her gaze flicking to each of them, then to the thorn barrier. “What the hell is that?”  

“Lucas sent a colorful message,” Tripp says, ignoring her question. “I came to investigate.”

The alpha’s expression goes angry and tight as she turns to her brother. “What did you do?”

“What any Left Hand would when a Pack member is kidnapped. I went looking for answers. There may have been a few bodies dropped along the way.”

Tripp snorts. “Eight. He killed eight of my wolves, Chelsea.”

She snarls, prowling forward and shifting in one move, and Chase hears Tyler shouting, but she’s already moving, darting at Lucas.

Lucas, who promised not to kill her.

Lucas, who’s standing unshifted and still, watching him.

~*~

He always knew that Chelsea would one day come calling.

Just like Chase, Lucas knew—they were living on borrowed time, and one day the Pack they built out of love and necessity and sheer stubborn will would buckle under the weight of their long-absent Alpha. He knew, when Chase stood before the Standing Stones at sixteen, when he bound himself to it as the Reid Shaman, that it would come to this—that if they were going to keep their Pack, keep Chase, Chelsea would have to die.

But he never wanted it.

He never wanted to be Alpha, was happiest when he served a Pack and a leader, when he was valued for everything he could offer and nothing more was demanded of him.

He never wanted Chelsea’s blood on his hands, never wanted to be the one who killed his sister. Yet he always knew it would come down to him, that he would never allow Tyler to do that, to carry that.

Neither of them were made to be Alpha, but Lucas could carry this one thing, could carry her murder. He knew he could.

Chase, his brilliant, fierce boy who read him Tolkien and fed him oranges and whispered his secrets—Chase made him promise. And he wants to break that promise right now so badly that his gums itch with the need to Shift.

He promised. He promised Chase.

Lucas stares at him now and hopes, when Chelsea kills him, that Aurora won’t scream.

~*~

He doesn’t really think. He sees her move and hears Tyler’s shout, and sees Lucas’s quiet resignation, the way he stills and watches him as Chelsea shoves past him—

It’s easy, and he hopes in the brief second it takes that Tyler looks away, that he’ll still love him after this.

Then Chase rips out Chelsea’s throat with sharp little teeth, clinging to her body as she crumples, worrying at the raw wound until her gurgling, wordless noises finally fade and she’s still, staring sightlessly at the sky.

When he throws back his head and screams, his eyes flare Alpha red.