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I dimly heard them calling my name as I left the tent, but I strode out into the camp, eyes searching the darkness, looking for the Volken seer.

“Jules.”

My head whipped around to see Slade standing by the fire, looking at me with concern.

I loved that, but he was not my focus right now.

I took a step, but was yanked back when the sheet I had wrapped around me caught on a tent peg.

I pulled it furiously, hearing the fabric rip, but surged forward now I was free.

Or I would have, if Slade hadn’t gotten in the way.

“What’s going on?” he said, eyes taking in my dishevelled state.

“Later, Slade,” I said. “I need to find Sylvan.”

“Of course, it’s ‘later, Slade.’ You’ve got blood all over you, no clothes on, and look like you have a mating mark bitten into your neck, but now’s not the time to talk.”

I frowned as I looked back at him. “What?”

“This is the way it's been…well, since we mated.”

“What? No. And anyway, I need to find Sylvan, now.”

“Yep, and you needed to bring Jack into things, needed to fuck him in the lounge room while we slept. You needed to go off with Aaron the next night. You needed to mate Finn, after being nearly raped by half the men in Sanctuary and getting chained up for your efforts. You needed to go off with Jack to do god knows what and then you needed to turn the lot of us into a pack. My dads said it can be tough to be the first one, that your mate will often get caught up with her newer mates and forget about you, but I didn’t expect this. ”

“Expect what? That I’d get your permission for everything I do?”

There was some extra in my voice, part throaty growl.

“Permission? Never. I know you, Jules. You’d make your own decisions no matter what. It’s half what I love about you. I just thought we were the same—straightforward and honest about what we want and need.”

“And I haven’t been straight with you?”

“You haven’t been anything with me, not lately.

When’s the last time you talked to me about what’s been happening?

When’s the last time you discussed the pack dynamic with me?

” He waited for me to reply, and my mind raced.

Apart from the night we were mated when we talked about including Aaron and Hawk, we hadn’t.

He nodded when he saw the realisation spread across my face.

“You’re caught up with whichever wheel’s the squeakiest. I get that, which is why I asked to talk to you before.

But you had things to sort with Brandon and Aaron, issues I have no idea about.

Sure, I understood, but here we are. You’ve sorted through a whole lot with them, if your appearance and the noises coming from the tent are anything to go by. If now’s not the time, when is?”

I felt like staggering, felled by his words and the truth he spoke, by the weight of it.

“Will you at least listen to me before making major life decisions?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Will you listen to me if I bring any of my concerns to you?”

“Sure, but ? —”

“Will you make time for me, sometimes just the two of us, if I need it?”

The memory of our bonding party came flooding back so vividly, it was as if I could smell the scent of beer, hear the nanas cackling away under the tree.

When I looked up at him, I saw it. He was hurting.

He kept it all behind a pretty tough facade, didn’t let it all hang out like some of the guys, which is what made it so easy to overlook.

“I’m so sorry?—”

“I don’t want apologies, princess, I just want you.

I want to be a part of your life, know what the fuck is going on and who’s getting added to our pack.

I want to know what’s happening, for you to sit down and talk to me about things.

This is my first and only pack. Don’t shove me to the outskirts. ”

I moved as quickly as a woman swathed in a sheet could on rough terrain. The fabric pulled, caught again, but I didn’t let that stop me from going to him. His arms went around me, his heart racing when I placed my head on his chest.

“Fuck, princess, it feels so good to hold you.”

The suddenly conjured feelings of shame could easily have sucked me down into the abyss, but I just stayed as I was, breathing my mate’s scent in. He smelled of beer and cigarettes and wood smoke, and I clung to that.

“C’mon,” he said, and steered me by the shoulders to a tent.

“Who’s bed’s that?” I asked as we crawled in.

“Finn’s. You needn’t worry about him needing it. He doesn’t sleep here.”

That tugged at me, the troubles with Finn, but right now that was on hold.

I’d made overtures, and he’d made it clear he wasn’t ready for that, and Slade was.

He reached over and dragged the now dirty sheet from me, throwing it out the flap.

I felt weird without it. I was naked before a guy I’d last fucked with two other guys in attendance, but somehow, there was that same old awkwardness couples have when they first get together.

“Here,” he said, tossing me a shirt and some track pants, noting my discomfort. I shrugged them on, the warm soft cotton helping me settle. “So, what’s going on?”

I picked at my toenails for a second. What did I say?

I had left it too long if I couldn’t sum up what had been happening in a quick sentence.

The vision of the two wolves and their human forms all beat down on me, especially the male’s resemblance to Sylvan, but Slade was right.

We were travelling towards certain doom, and there was always going to be something critical going on.

If I didn’t make time for my pack, there wouldn’t be one when we went home.

I took a deep breath, and it all came out.

He scooped me up and held me against his chest after I told him about what I’d been feeling about Sylvan’s manipulations and the dream he appeared in, his hands tightening around me as I described the weird mental states the attempted rape had provoked.

He went still as I told him about Jack and Hawk, the bower in the forest, and how I’d found out about Brandon’s abilities.

I closed my eyes and just felt the kisses he placed in my hair as I talked about Aaron and Brandon, and then lastly, my vision. Then silence fell over the tent.

I ran my fingers over one of his hands, tracing the deep lines, the small white scars that scored the skin, and waited.

“Mum always told me not to rush in with solutions or commentary when either her or Lisa were stressed about something,” Slade said.

“But…”

My heart lifted somewhat. I usually found it annoying, boys always trying to solve things, but I could do with a bit of that right now.

When I closed my eyes, the doubts came rushing to the surface, about our ability to succeed at this suicide mission, about my designation as pack leader.

I was just a horny girl floundering, I wasn’t fit to lead anyone anywhere.

“But don’t you think there’s something to all these visions we get when together?

Sylvan keeps rabbiting on about how important our bond is, and I asked my dads about it.

Bonding doesn’t usually result in what we have.

People might see each other’s Tirians or feel like they’re in each other’s hearts, but that’s about it.

That black sun, the Great Wolves, that’s not normal. ”

“Of course, it isn’t,” I said, flopping against his chest.

He chuckled and stroked my hair back.

“That psychic space thing. Do you think we could try that?”

God, I couldn’t think of anything worse right now. All that was keeping me together was some kind of brave front. How did I maintain that when my mate was literally inside me?

“Nah, I guess not.”

Fuck, there was that careful, polite tone again. I shut my eyes, felt the clamour of anxiety and shame and frustration, and firmly pushed that to one side. That was for future Jules to worry about. I took a deep breath, and then tangled my fingers with his as I tried to remember how to do this.

It was a bit like diving, throwing yourself backwards off a perfectly good boat into the sea and just trusting it would be there for you to disappear into.

And it was. When I opened my eyes, the landscape had changed completely.

I was standing outside, and it was daytime, the sky a mass of dark clouds, thunder rumbling ominously.

I looked down and saw I stood on the same powdery dry soil that had been there while Brandon and Aaron fought, and Slade was standing on it with me.

“Holy shit, is this it?” he asked, head whipping around as he tried to take it all in. “What’s with the storm?” He glanced down at me and said, “Oh.”

When I followed his gaze, I saw I was bound up tight in some kind of nightmare couture made from muddy sheets. I plucked at the fabric in annoyance, but it remained wrapped tight.

“Well, that’s gotta go,” he said, waving a hand, and I was relieved to see my favourite jeans and t-shirt were restored.

“And what’s the story with this?” When he gestured at the clouds, lightning struck, stabbing the earth some distance away from us, but I feared it was getting closer.

“Stroppy, huh?” He wove his arms at the sky, making for a funny sight, but nothing changed.

He glanced back at me. “Shouldn’t this obey… Oh, this is you?”

I flinched at that. The clouds roiled faster under his gaze, lightning and thunder cracking across the sky as he did so.

“Fuck, Jules…” He strode over to me and put his hands on my cheeks. The wind started to whip up, tugging at my hair, the cold making me shiver. “Is this you feeling guilty?”

I wasn’t able to get out much more than a nod.

I’d felt like a fucking god when I told everyone we were a pack.

It’d seemed like the perfect solution to me, allowing people to pursue the relationships they felt comfortable with and giving room for others to be explored later if they wanted.

But just a few days later, and I was realising I’d barely spent any time with one mate, let the others ostracise another, and then added more to the mix.

“Jules, this isn’t what I wanted.” I could barely hear the words as he tried to get them out, the wind really howling now, our eyes streaming from the rush of air, the lightning strikes growing closer and closer, until I could see clearly the puffs of dust they were sending up.

The air stank of ozone, the electric buzz setting my teeth on edge.

“Princess, come on. It’s OK, I just wanted to?—”

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Lightning struck in a ragged circle around us, and our hair started to rise at the change in electrical field.

I tried to pull back, to draw this volatile thing away from Slade, but his fingers dug in.

“No, Jules!” he cried, the wind whipping his words, tossing them far, far away, as if they were never spoken.

It tugged at our clothes, yanked at our hair, tried to drag each of us to separate ends of the earth.

I let my arms go limp. I was ready to just surrender to it, let it take me, send me spiralling through the sky, take me away from all of this.

“Jules, NO!”

The silence that followed was deafening. The wind, the clouds, the lightning, all disappeared, leaving a pearl grey sky that was slightly leavened by a watery sun, its rays staining the seamless clouds yellow.

“Is this what you do? Every time something goes wrong or there’s something up with us?”

Was it? How did I answer that? I looked around the dreary landscape and just felt so, so tired.

“Yeah, probably.”

“Ah, love.”

He tugged me to him, my body as limp as a doll’s. It felt like it took everything I had to throw my arms around him.

“Jules, I don’t need you to do…whatever this was. I love you. I don’t want you beating yourself up.”

“But I fucked up. We bonded first, and then what? Nothing. Little sex, no talking, little spending time together. I’m a shit mate,” I croaked.

“And I rushed things, left you feeling so alienated, you jumped the fence to get away and run into the arms of the Doc. There’s no blueprint here, Jules. We’re making shit up as we go along and trying to do the best we can, aren’t we?”

I just stayed there inside the safe harbour of his arms, hearing the soothing words, but not sure if I wanted to take them on. If everyone kept being so bloody understanding, how was I ever going to learn to change?

“Do you love me?”

“Of course,” I replied.

“Then maybe we’ve all gotta work on the communication a bit. Be less reactive and more proactive. It’s like I was trying to tell you about Finn, though I’ll admit, I didn’t do it well. Stop letting everyone and everything yank your chain. What do you want to do?”

“Be better. Make sure you’re never hurt again.”

“Well, that’s not possible, but what did you want to do wrapped in a sheet?”

“Find Sylvan, see if I could bring him here and unpack some of the secrets he’s holding.”

His smile was bright against the now lightening sky. “Now that’s what I’m talking about. Let's get in front of this stuff, love. Together.”