I jammed the flowers into his chest, pushing them and him away to the sound of his chuckles. He clutched them dramatically, feigning a wounded stagger away, and then walked around to his side of the car.
Fuck, I thought. Shoulda got Janey to get a lift home with Nick and taken my own car.
“Get in the car, Shannon.”
“Fucking bossy shifters…” I muttered, getting in the car.
“I heard that,” he said, shooting me a grin as he reached over me, grabbing my seat belt and clipping me in like you would a child.
“I don’t want Shannon at that place,” Beth said.
We were sitting around her big dining room table, plates heaped with food as per usual, Jai by my side.
“Beth…” Rob rumbled.
“Captive animals, gene splicing…” She waved her hand in the air. “What are they doing up there in that place?”
“That’s what we need to find out. The boys tried a frontal assault and didn’t get too far. Those animals, the lions and tigers you talked about?” Rob said.
“A lion and a jaguar,” I replied.
“Those. You ever had an animal you couldn’t touch with that twist of yours?” My ‘twist’ is what they called my bond with animals. I shook my head, taking a bite of the melt in your mouth roast lamb. “Y’see. That’s not right. Whatever this is, they’ve come into our territory, built that place on our land. Maybe it is exactly as they say, a sperm bank for foreign creatures but…what if it's not?” Rob’s eyes scanned the table, everyone staying very quiet and still. “What if they’re…”
“Like us?” Jai asked.
“That’s what I’m worried about. Not the first time governments or organisations have used us as lab rats. If they… We’re the strongest shifters within NSW, and they chose to build that place right here, on our land. You need to take that job, Shannon. Be our inside man.”
I put my cutlery down on either side of the plate, my appetite killed as I remembered the waves of harsh feeling rolling off those animals. When I looked up, I saw every eye was on me.
It took me a little bit to put it all together, but Beth’s anxious expression was a giveaway. That, and when I looked sideways at Jai, his eyes were on his fork as he pushed his food around.
Things changed after graduation. I’d focussed on Nan when she was sick, seeing Beth and the other women mostly when they came around to help with her care, but rarely the boys. And then when she was gone, the pack had clustered around me, the women sitting with me and keeping me fed, the men helping with the upkeep of my property. But like wolves, they were mostly unseen. I’d turn around and find things done and know it was them. But Nan had been gone a couple of years now.
They’d kept inviting me to all the same pack events like they had Nan, but it’d felt like a formality. I wasn’t a kid anymore, left to play with the others. Seeing Jaz was painful because it reminded me of… Instead, I’d started building a life and a following at the vets, away from the pack and out from under Nan’s shadow. When they requested my presence formally, I went, as was agreed, but apart from regular Sunday night dinner’s at Beth and Rob’s, I saw few of my former family.
Until now.
The boys being sent around, the talking with the alphas, Jai… I pushed my chair away from the table.
Don’t make connections, don’t get tied down, Nan had said. Or if you do, keep them light. You need to be able to pick up and leave at a moment’s notice. You have to keep the line alive. You can’t sacrifice what we are for relationships.
“Thanks for dinner, Aunty,” I said, struggling to keep my voice even and only partly succeeding. “The food was amazing as per usual, but I need to go.”
“Shannon…” Rob growled, but I pushed my chair in, took my plate, and scraped the remains of my meal into the scraps bin for the animals. My hearing started to dull, then go all echoey, the sound of the tap as I rinsed off my dish a cacophonous roar. I slipped it into the dishwasher and then grabbed my bag.
“Love…” Beth said, but I shook my head. She was standing now, so I gave her a quick hug, tugging free when she tried to hold me, and then went for the door.
“Shannon!”
My steps dragged at Rob’s shout, his will bearing down on mine, making it harder and harder to move.
“You’re hurting her, you old bastard!” Beth cried, and his hold on me loosened. “Even more than you already have.”
Why do I always feel relief when I get out of here? I thought as I walked down the front steps. I fished out my phone, my thumb shaking as I cued up my contacts. Janey would come and get me. She’d just be vegging in front of the TV.
“Shan!”
God, this was just like the other night, I thought, bringing up Janey’s number. Same shouts, same—
Jai’s hands landed on my arms as he loomed over me.
“Why do you always fucking run?” he snapped. “Come inside, talk this out. Tell Rob to get fucked. But stop bloody running.”
“I’m not running. I don’t want to be here, I don’t want…this,” I said, waving my hand vaguely. “Not the job, not Rob, not you.”
Jai jerked back as if slapped. “What…?”
“You told me to watch you, wait to see if you’re for real. Well, I did Jai. The flowers, the…” My fingers went to my lips when I felt the ghost of his kisses. “It was all bullshit. Why now? Why all of a sudden?” My smile twisted hard. “You need an inside man. That’s why you reached out, started…whatever this is. Fuck, Jai, you’re playing me all over again.”
“No, no, no, Shan,” Jai said edging towards me, but I wasn’t having that. I backed up, turned, ready to walk the whole damn way home if that’s what it took, but his hand slapped down over my wrist and he yanked me close. “The old fellas, they didn’t want you for me. They don’t like it when the pack take outsiders for mates, you know that, and your Uncle Rob? He’s got his own ideas for you.”
“He’s not my fucking uncle.” I spat the words out but felt an automatic fear that came with them. It was that feeling of hubris, of declaring yourself equal to the gods or something. You might want to say it, but doing it felt wrong somehow. “He’s a family friend.”
“Well, that’s not how it works for us,” Jai snapped. “You’re in or you're out. One of us or an outsider.”
“So?”
“So, we don’t follow the old ways like we should, but everything here, in HG, we see how it fits in with the pack, including you. Your nan, she made a connection with us when she came here, and Uncle Rob was the custodian of that. The old fellas, they see the strength you women have. They see that and want it with us, not turned against us. Your Mum, she was supposed to marry Rob.”
“What?”
“She wouldn’t have it. She was wilder than you, they say. Found her own mate and then had you.” He lifted a hand to my cheek, stroking a thumb across it before I yanked it away. “They had ideas for me, for you, for all of the younger ones. A way to keep the pack strong.” He drew his hand away, but he didn’t look happy about it. “You weren’t for me, they told me, after graduation. We’d had our little moment and…”