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It took an hour to get the force fire burning. A pair of thick ropes swiveled the upright tree trunk back and forth, like a giant version of rubbing two sticks together combined with a synchronized tug-of-war. The process was complicated and fiddly...and my pack mates fell upon it with pure joy. Long before the first smoke spiraled upward, laughter and ribbing warmed the clearing. I itched to try my hand.
Instead, I drifted around the periphery, spreading praise lightly. As with baking powder, too much would make the cake bitter. Just the right amount uplifted spirits and caused the entire pack to rise.
I drifted...then, then when the moment felt just right, I thrust the fragment of Faery into the fire. What had been subtly pretty in my hand ignited like a Fourth of July sparkler when it hit the smoldering logs. The combination spat more colors than I’d thought existed, and the pack’s awe at the resulting beauty was nothing compared to my relief that the force fire appeared to work.
Not everyone was enjoying themselves, however. Midway through my second pass, I noted Kale standing alone in the shadows. He was leaning against a tree trunk, trying once again for manly insouciance and failing miserably. I took a step forward to drag him into the revelry and Rune beat me to the punch.
“Stomachache?”
Kale straightened so fast he nearly fell over. “I was trying to look cool. Like your brother.”
It was obvious to me that there was no love lost between Rune and Erskine, but Rune didn’t remark upon that. Instead he suggested, “Perhaps it would be better to look cool like yourself?”
“I can’t.” Kale dragged one hand through his hair, raising spikes up higher. “I don’t have it.”
“Don’t have what?”
“A Y chromosome.”
I sucked in a breath, unable to believe that Kale had just come out to this man he’d known for fewer than twenty-four hours. After all, the kid still didn’t trust his best friends from school with the truth of his identity.
If Rune said the wrong thing, I’d tear his guts out. Tear them out and shove them back down his gullet along with a flaming torch from the bonfire....
“Do you think a Y chromosome is what makes a man?” Rune answered as easily as if Kale hadn’t revealed his deepest secret. “When you apologized to Tara and accepted her apology, that was being a man. Figuring out who you are and how you relate to the people around you is manly behavior. Leaning isn’t on the curriculum.”
The pack was carting glitter out of the storage room now. Clear vials filled with sparkles that turned the clearing into a galaxy of starlight as they met the force-fire’s glow.
Despite the beauty and the importance of the endeavor, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Rune and Kale. Neither was my pack mate, so why did this moment make my chest so joyously tight?
“Now,” Rune continued, “if you also want to look like my playboy brother, this is how you do it. Lean against the tree but keep your chin up. Bend one knee and rest your foot on the trunk behind you. Imagine you’re unbelievably bored.”
“Like this?” Kale’s posture was better but still ungainly. Colt-like.
“Impeccable.”
And the boy’s spine loosened. Suddenly he did look like a playboy, albeit a youthful one.
I swallowed down a mouthful of persimmon and turned back to face my clan.
***
“CAITLYN,” I CALLED, voice intentionally louder than it needed to be. Because sweetness, unfortunately, wasn’t the role of the Alpha. Doling out punishment was.
Punishment necessary for the good of the pack, even when it was undeserved.
Caitlyn scampered forward with puppy-like enthusiasm. She’d done exactly what I asked of her. She expected praise.
Instead, once she was close enough, I reached out and slapped her across the face.
“Alpha.” Caitlyn’s voice choked. Her neck tilted sideways, offering instant submission. I growled rather than accepting. Waited for every ounce of pleasure to deflate out of her body.
Only once the girl’s honest reaction had proven to the clan that she was no longer in my good graces did I mitigate the sting. Resting one hand on her shoulder, I sent soothing energy toward her at the same time I communicated along the pack bond. “You did well, Caitlyn. But I need you to remain my secret weapon.”
The fact that I could have warned her sat between us. No wonder she peered at me sideways. “I understand, Alpha.”
“Do you?”
Her scent grew determined. “Yes, Alpha. I’ll be like a shiv in an underwire bra.”
“You’re not old enough to need an underwire.” Now I was the one barely managing to keep my face straight.
“I’m old enough to be your shiv though.”
All around us, glitter reflected firelight off cheeks and irises. It seemed impossible to imagine that there was danger within my pack.
But the fae influence had not yet been eradicated. “I need you to watch again tonight,” I told her. “Every member of our clan should leap over the fire at least once. If anyone doesn’t, tell me.”
I itched to take her hand and drag her with me as I turned toward the fire. But I was Alpha—above and apart.
So I ran alone. Leapt alone. Alone felt the flames lick my calves, not quite hot enough to burn. Alone, howled joy at the jump.
Then, turning, to face my pack, I spurred them onward. “Who’s next?”
If the Alpha leapt, everyone wanted to leap. Some jumped lupine, some human. Those waiting formed a ring around the fire, curling in and out among the vials of glitter like a dragon slithering through its hoard.
This would cleanse my pack and the glitter. I could feel the force fire’s power. I smiled.
Then my old nurse was in front of me, gnarled but not so much that she couldn’t bear her chosen burden. Natalie’s baby was nearly invisible inside copious swaddling, but I knew exactly what was being held out to me when the old woman demanded: “Time for you to take Hazel across.”
***
SHE WAS RIGHT—THE BABY needed to cross the flames for her own safety. I wasn’t about to be the one to carry her, however.
I gulped. “Kale...”
“...Is dancing with his age mates. If I’m not much mistaken, Tiffany has a tiny crush.”
Turning to follow my nurse’s finger, I saw that she was right. Kale no longer lingered at the periphery. Instead, the leaning lesson must have worked because he was surrounded by a flock of tweens. It wasn’t fair to force him to be a big brother now.
And while I considered Kale, my nurse struck. The baby landed in my arms with a thud. I had to grab the child or she would have fallen. No wonder she immediately started to cry.
“What are you...?”
The nurse didn’t answer because she was no longer human. Her robe fell off easily as she shifted, then she was loping toward the bonfire. In lupine form, she’d have no trouble making the leap.
Unfortunately, in lupine form she couldn’t jiggle the baby back to silence. In fact, after touching back down, she joined the line of shifters dancing amid the glitter rather than turning back to collect her charge. I pinged her, requesting assistance, but my pleas were resoundingly ignored.
I could have commanded the old woman to return and deal with the baby, but that would have squashed the celebratory atmosphere. Instead—“It’s going to be okay, kid,” I told my unwanted burden.
Natalie’s youngest was having none of it. Her face was red from wailing. If I didn’t find a way to quiet her, she was going to make herself sick.
I spun in a circle, seeking assistance. But my pack mates were laughing. They thought it was a joke—their Alpha unable to please a tiny baby.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t. I just lacked practice. I was probably holding the infant wrong. Or perhaps she had a wet diaper. Why couldn’t she be a wolf pup? They were easy to tease back to grins.
Then Rune was there beside me. “Trouble?”
“Please hold it. Her. Please hold her.”
His brows lowered as if he was seeing me for the first time. “You don’t like babies. Then why do you need a Consort?”
I could barely hear myself speak over the baby’s screaming. “It’s complicated.”
“Will you tell me?”
“If you take this baby across the fire and return her to her nurse, I will tell you.”
His hands slid beneath mine. The instant he touched the child, she quieted. The instant his persimmon surrounded me, my chest loosened. I was finally able to breathe.
“I’ll hold you to that,” Rune murmured, baby on his shoulder and lips almost smiling.
Then he was running along the same path my old nurse had followed. Was leaping above the bonfire, pure elegance beyond what any of my wolves possessed.
And I saw, beneath his legs, someone enter the circle of firelight. Someone I was usually very glad to catch sight of, although not at this exact moment.
Natalie must have returned early, gone looking for her kids at pack central, then traveled to the obvious gathering spot when she found our home empty. The spot where she and her family had spent several holidays with the pack, enfolded by our acceptance despite being unable to shift to lupine form.
Now, though, she didn’t look ready to celebrate. Instead, her eyes grew so wide I thought they might bug out of their sockets. She was running by the time Rune touched down.
“Give me,” Natalie yelled across the thirty feet that separated them, “my baby!”