In his dream, his muscles burn a pleasant ache, the kind of sweet ache he loves after he’s worked out with Tyler, and he wants to lean into that, revel in the sweet burn.

Now, though—now he runs, a quick darting shadow through the night-dark forest. He can hear the wolves on either side, and he lets his tongue loll out happily, but as Lucas presses close, he darts away, scampering and jumping over roots, darting through tiny gaps in the trees the bigger, muscular wolves can’t manage, and he can feel giddy pleasure burning at the back of his throat. Tyler huffs and snarls, before crashing off.

They’re loud tonight, his wolves.

A beta howls ahead and he screams back, jumping and twisting mid-air to run the opposite direction as his wolves charge at him.

His tail tickles Tyler’s nose as he darts past.

The night stretches dark and full of promises as his wolves sing through the woods and Aurora screams, eerie and joyful, while the Standing Stones pulse a steady drumbeat in his veins.

~*~

John gives Chase until noon before he knocks and pushes into his son’s bedroom. Chase is wrapped up his favorite blanket, staring blankly at the wall, and John sighs.

“I can’t do this, dad,” he says.

“You don’t really have a choice,” John points out, ridiculously reasonable, and Chase gives him a half-hearted glare. John smiles.

“I haven’t even had a full moon,” Chase snaps. His eyes are flaring, red flames and desperate worry, and John moves without really thinking. Chase whines, high and worried, as his father tugs him up and into his arms. “You’ve had ten years worth of full moons.”

Chase twitches in his embrace and John huffs.

“Chase, you’ve been taking care of the Reids since you were fourteen years old. You love them and they love you. You walked three betas through their first full moon and none of them have lost control, not ever. Do you really think your Pack will do any less for you?”

He hiccups and shakes his head.

“What is it, really? I know you—I know you’re not actually doubting your Pack. You’re too smart for that.”

He’s quiet, chewing on his lip, then says, “I went to the Standing Stones. Because—Dad, it’s too much. I feel like there’s four things living under my skin, and where do I fit? Even if I figure that out, the power I’ve got in me—I saw the Standing Stones, Dad. I saw them and they’re so different than feeling their magic washing into the forest. It’s ancient unchecked power, and it’s got no guidance. It’s just—there, renewing the magic in the land and the health of the land.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” John says.

Chase jerks upright out of his father’s arms, flailing a little. “No, it’s great, right? Except now that power is living in me and I’m not a neutral sentient Stone, Dad. I’m—I’m me, and I want to be good, I want to do the right thing like you and like Tyler, but I get it when Lucas kills people. I understand the practicality of it. And I think, if anything threatened you or the Pack? I try to think about what I wouldn’t do, and I can’t. Do you get that? There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to protect you.”

He sounds hysterical, terrified, and John wants to shake him as much as he wants to drag him close and protect him from the rest of the world. Neither are really an option.

He sits up and says, “I think about what I’d do to protect you, and I scare myself, Chase. I bet that if you ask, Tyler would say the same. That’s what love is, kiddo. And you’ve always loved deeply, to the point of obsession, and it’s scary. But you—you’re a good person. You might be feral and vicious when threatened, but you’re still a good person.” He pauses and adds carefully, “I think it’s what makes you a good Alpha.”

“What if I can’t do this?” Chase whispers.

John squeezes his shoulder. “You can. You can do anything your Pack needs. You’ve always been able to do anything they need.”

~*~

He can feel them, the familiar golden bonds that tie him to his Pack, the ones he created for the betas and Aurora, the ones that bind him to Lucas and Tyler that he never meant to create but that are there, thick, strong, and unbreakable.

They’re dim and heavy with sorrow, anxious and tense.

That, more than anything else, is what pulls him from his bed.

~*~

The Pack is in the living room when he steps into the den, and something tight and aching in his chest eases when he sees them.

He twists his fingers together and says, “Uh... So... I’m sorry—I just needed a second to get my head wrapped around everything.”

“Did you?” Aurora asks sharply.

Chase nods. “I know I’m new to this—the whole kitsune thing is, uh, a lot? And I’m sorry, for what it’s worth. I know that—”

“Don’t you dare,” Aurora snarls, pushing past the betas to stand in front of Chase.

He flinches, but doesn’t back away.

She glares at him. “Did you go there planning on killing Chelsea?”

Lucas makes a low noise and Chase’s eyes flick to Tyler, who’s watching with narrow eyes, but keeps quiet.

“Of course not,” Chase says stiffly.

“Then why did you?”

He stares at her, startled. “Because she was going to kill Lucas.”

“You did it to protect him. You did that. Don’t you dare apologize for that. You’re the perfect Alpha for this Pack, Chase. You always have been.”

He blinks at her. He looks around the den, at the betas watching him with hopeful eyes, at Lucas who’s got a small pleased smile on his lips while he watches Aurora and shrugs when he finally meets Chase’s gaze. He looks to Tyler last and the werewolf nods, still silent, tilting his head to bare his throat, just barely.

“Don’t leave again,” Joseph says quietly.

“I won’t,” Chase says, and he knows it’s a promise.

~*~

He wants to go to Tyler, crawl into bed and sleep in his arms for three days straight. The magic he used against the Cahils hasn’t drained him the way it has in the past, something he wants to investigate at some point, but he’s still exhausted, feels like he’s stretched thin.

But Lucas is waiting, and he’s the Alpha now. He’s responsible.

He nods toward his room, the one Tyler built for him that he never sleeps in but still feels like his. Lucas watches as Chase slumps on his couch and scrubs a hand through his hair, fighting the urge to yawn.

“It can wait, Alpha,” Lucas says.

Chase shakes his head. “No,” he says, voice raw. “Just tell me.”

“Tripp was an outlier. He acted without his Alpha’s knowledge or blessing.”

Chase cocks his head. “Do we believe that?”

“Yes. I might not have if it had come from Stephen’s Left, but the Alpha is an old man who led his Pack through peace bought with his father’s generation—he doesn’t have the sense or the skill to lie to me.”

“What do they want for killing their ‘wolves?”

Lucas shrugs. “Our silence. Cahil doesn’t want word of his Pack’s treachery to spread. And they want our assurance we won’t move against them.”

Chase frowns. “That seems a little too easy.”

“We killed ten of their Pack, and if we broadcast that, it will cause distrust and packs to rally against us. But if it gets out that Cahil couldn’t control his son, that they welcomed an Alpha and treated her like an omega? That they attacked a pack without provocation? They’ll lose any standing and allies they have. Neither of us stands to gain by airing our dirty laundry.”

“So what do we do now?”

Lucas shrugs. “We have allies and we have a secure territory. We don’t need to do anything. We can take this time to be Pack.”

Chase cocks his head, grinning. “Peace, big bad? Is that what you’re advocating?”

Lucas bares his fangs. “Behave, pup. We’ve earned our peace.”

He nods, sighing. “Yeah. We have.”

~*~

Tyler is sitting on the porch when Chase finds him. He hesitates in the doorway, the Pack noisy behind him and the beckoning night quiet in front, and Tyler balanced between.

“Come here,” Tyler murmurs, and he moves in a rush of flailing limbs and relief as Tyler catches him, drawing Chase down into his lap, and he curls there.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, pressing his face into Tyler’s chest, listening to the steady thump of his heartbeat, picking out the intricacies of his scent. He shudders and presses that tiny bit closer as his scent goes sad.

“You did what you had to do to protect us,” Tyler says.

Chase twitches. “You watched me kill your sister, Ty. You—you don’t have to be stoic.”

Tyler is quiet for a long time. “I always wanted her to come back. Even when I left. And I knew she wouldn’t because she hated it here, but I wanted her to come back. You built us into a Pack, into something strong, and I thought, ‘maybe now’. I was never going to stop hoping.” His grip tightens and he exhales, exhausted and shaking, into Chase's hair.

“Do you hate me?”

“No,” he says, so quickly Chase knows it’s not a lie. “I could never hate you. But,” he shuffles and looks at Chase, eyes wide and wet. “Is it wrong to love you and still grieve her?”

Chase makes a noise, a raw hurt sound, as he drags Tyler into him and holds the older man as he finally cries.

“No,” he says fiercely, “No. You’re never wrong to feel things, baby.”

He holds Tyler as the wolf sobs, silently shaking in his arms, as the night deepens and the house quiets, until Tyler finally sleeps.

~*~

“I want to tear down the old house,” Lucas announces a few days later. Chase is sitting at the table, half-asleep over his coffee. Joseph is making waffles while Ezra and Jessica argue over the proper way to cook eggs.

Tyler pauses in the middle of packing his bag for the day and gives his brother a wide-eyed look. Aurora, in one of Lucas’s v-necks, is perched primly on his lap nibbling on a strawberry, and the whole thing is so domestic the words don’t actually make sense.

“Why?” Chase mumbles into his coffee. Aurora huffs and drags it away from the half-asleep Alpha, who whines and makes grabby hands before he straightens reluctantly to listen to Lucas.

“We could use the land,” Lucas says, “Jessica and Joseph will want a place of their own eventually. And you and Tyler will, when you’re mated.”

“Even if you didn’t,” Aurora says delicately, “I have no desire to listen to your sex life.”

“Jealous?” Chase says, grinning wide.

Aurora sniffs, leaning back into Lucas, whose hand spans her belly possessively, pulling her back against him. She tilts her head and the v-neck slips lower, baring the brilliant bruise on her collarbone. “Hardly.”

Chase laughs, delighted. “We did good, huh?”

Aurora winks and gives him a wicked smirk.

“Are you two quite through?” Lucas asks, but he sounds as amused as Tyler is embarrassed. He studies his brother. “It’s yours. We don’t have to.”

Chase is watching them, but he’s quiet. It feels right, in a way that it never has before, like it’s turning the final page of the past and looking into the future of his life.

“Yeah,” he breathes, “Yeah, we can do that.”

Lucas nods, watching Tyler with bright, sharp eyes, and then Chase says, “Wait. Mated?”

~*~

The moon hangs fat and heavy in the sky as he sniffs at the underbrush, sneezing when pollen billows up and coats his nose. The wind ruffles his fur and he shudders, shaking himself out before a wolf bursts through the trees, snapping at him as he yips.  

He runs, and the wolf runs alongside him, blue eyes bright and happy, snapping playfully at his heels when he flags. A howl fills the air, his eyes flare red, and he screams, high and vulpine. His wolf, black and beautiful and keeping pace at his side, howls with him.

He can feel the moon tugging at him as the magic of the Standing Stones sings through the forest and in his blood. He can feel his Pack, wrestling and running, the bright hot joy in Jessica when she brings down a rabbit. He can feel his father, patient and steady in the den, and Aurora, eerie and sharp, her screams a haunting counterpart to the wolves’ song.

He can feel Lucas, vicious and patient and his, tracking the Pack and waiting for him.

He can feel Tyler, the wolf that runs at his side, strong and patient, the unwavering strength he’s built his life around and with, radiating content happiness as they run.

He can feel every piece of him—alpha, human, kitsune, scion—twisting and turning, shaping him into something he never dared dream, and he’s spent so many years dreaming.

He’s awake now, wide awake and drinking in his world.

Chase screams again, calling his Pack, and he runs, free and happy and safe, under the bright light of the full moon.