Brothersong (Green Creek #4) - T.J. Klune Page 0,100
he was sixteen years old again, a boy bigger than he had any right to be, quiet and kind. “Let’s eat. Anything else can wait until after. We have much to discuss.”
He sat down as Joe lifted his hand and kissed his fingers.
It was practiced, this meal. The food being passed around, the people smiling and laughing at each other. I felt out of sync with them, out of place. There was a history here I was a part of, but a year had passed since I’d last been with them all. They had grown as a pack without me, and I didn’t know quite how I fit in.
Dominique was pack. Bambi was pack. Even Joshua was pack. Rico was a wolf, and Mark hadn’t been an Omega for a long time. I was jittery, my leg bouncing up and down underneath the table. They were careful around me—around us—as they smiled and laughed. I took what I was offered, putting food on my plate and Gavin’s.
As Tanner reached across the table to hand me the basket of bread, his shirt pulled away from his neck, and I saw the bumpy ridge of a scar on his shoulder.
I gaped at him.
He frowned as everyone quieted.
“What?” he asked. “Is something wrong with the bread?”
“You have a mate?” I demanded.
“Oh.” He set the basket on the table. “Uh. Yes? Sort of.”
“Who is she? Why isn’t she here?” I didn’t know how I felt about that. It was honestly none of my goddamn business, but it was strange to know a person that I didn’t know who was so tied into the pack existed in the world.
“Oh boy,” Jessie said. “This is going to be hysterical.” She sat back in her chair, eyes alight. “Tanner, would you like to tell Carter who your sort-of mate is?”
He scratched the back of his neck. For reasons I couldn’t understand, Chris’s face was in his hands. “Yeah. Uh. So. It’s no big deal, so when I tell you, you can’t try and make it one.”
That didn’t sound good. “Why would I—”
Chris dropped his hands and sighed. “It’s me.” And then he pulled the collar of his own shirt from his neck. There, on his shoulder, was a matching bite.
“What?”
Jessie cackled as Dominique sighed.
Tanner shrugged. “It’s… platonic? Like, we’re not fucking or anything. But we trust each other. We love each other. And I wanted to have that connection with someone. It’s… being a wolf is great, you know? I probably would have ended up taking the bite at some point if Robbie hadn’t gone crazy and tried to kill me.”
“Too soon,” Robbie muttered.
Tanner snorted. “But ever since I was turned, there was always this little part of me that wanted something more. And being aromantic made that harder.” He glanced at Chris, his expression softening. “There’s no one I trust more. I know he’ll have my back no matter what. And I’ve got his. We’re in tune with each other. It made sense for us.”
“What the hell,” I said faintly. “You’re not… you’re straight!”
Chris rolled his eyes. “Yeah, speaking of. How’s that going for you these days?” He looked pointedly at Gavin.
I sputtered at him nonsensically.
Tanner squinted at me. “Did we break you?”
“He just needs to get acclimated again to how things are now,” Mom said.
“But what happens if you meet someone?” I asked. “Like, a woman or something.”
“Or something,” Chris said wryly. “If we do, we do. But just as long as they know we’re a package deal, then it doesn’t matter. It’s not that I’d put him first every time, but he’ll always be adjacent, no matter what I do.” And then, without artifice, he said, “I love him. And he loves me. That’s the only thing that matters. Who cares about all the rest?”
“But… sex. You have to have sex to get a mate mark.”
Tanner and Chris exchanged a look before turning back to me. “Nah,” Tanner said. “You really don’t. Just as long as the intent is there. Not everything needs to be about sex, Carter. Jeez. Get your head out of the gutter. We’re at the dinner table.”
Gavin laughed beside me.
I glared at him.
“Yeah,” Gordo told me. “I’m right there with you. I don’t know what the hell is going on any more than you do. When they told me what they wanted to do, the first thing I asked was if they were out of their minds.”
“You had sex with Mark and a magic raven tattoo appeared on his throat,”