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Chapter Ten

D ray

I climb out of the vehicle and raise my hand to shield my eyes against the glaring sun. Scents blow towards me on the wind along with familiar howls and short sharp barks.

I grin, swipe off my shades, spit my gum to the ground and start to unbutton my shirt.

Fuck, it’s good to be home.

I tip my head backwards and let all that sunlight tickle across my face. Feels awesome.

The academy is entertaining and all – in fact it has some very distracting entertainments – but it isn’t the savannah of Onyx Quarter. It isn’t home.

I yank off my shirt, toe off my boots and then I’m jogging out into the open space, bypassing the house altogether. In less than ten strides I’m already down on four paws thundering across the dry grass in pursuit of those scents and those sounds.

The wind sweeps through my fur, the ground comes up to meet my paws, and I stretch out my limbs, whipping across the land.

I’ve run to meet the horizon twice by the time I see them, laid out on rocks by the river, basking in the sunshine.

Lazy fucks.

They hear me coming, raising their heads off the rocks to peer out towards me. Then they’re up on their paws and bounding towards me. Six great big wolves – not as big as me – but big, nonetheless.

Danders reaches me first and we plow into each other, rolling over and over on the ground before the others catch up, all seven of us tumbling over and over each other.

I pin Damson down but then Danders and Dyle knock me off and I’m pinned beneath the three of them, until I nip Damson on the leg and yank Dyle’s tail.

Then we’re tumbling some more, over and over until I’m dizzy and in the river, splashing about with my brothers until we’re soaking wet, our fur stuck flat to our muscular bodies.

Afterwards, we climb back out onto the rocks and I flicker back into human form. My brothers will want to talk. I’m the oldest, the strongest, the biggest, the first to enter the academy. The little freaks are going to have fuck loads of questions.

I lie out on my back, hands tucked behind my head and stare up at the blue sky. It feels like a fucking age since I saw the sky.

The others are as naked as I am. And while they’re not as handsome as me – they aren’t bad looking. It would be enough to give those virgins at the academy freaking seizures in their pussies.

It seems pussies are exactly what my brothers have on their minds. It’s the first question out of Danders mouth. Not surprising he’ll be heading to the academy himself next year.

“Is it like they say?” he says, scratching his taut stomach, “girls falling over themselves to grab some shadow weaver cock?”

I laugh. “Yeah, it’s something like that.”

I snap a stalk of grass and chew it between my teeth.

“Man,” Dyle shakes his head. He still has another three years to wait. Not that any of my brothers struggle to get pussy – it’s just out here in the savannah it’s not as plentiful as seven brothers would like.

“Is it true they’ll let you fuck them with their friends?” Dirk asks. As the youngest, he only got his first girlfriend a month ago.

“You saying Shiva doesn’t let you fuck her with her best friend?” Deny says, nudging his twin in the ribs and both of them snorting.

“She’s fucking killing me, man,” Dirk says, dragging his hands down his face. “My balls are so blue I look like a fucking alien.”

“She’s still not giving it up,” Deny asks him.

“Nah, we’re taking it slow ,” he says, exaggerating the word so it drags on forever.

“Fuck that, man. If she won’t let you fuck her, then get her to suck your cock.”

Dirk lifts his head and grins. “Ahh, she does that already.”

Deny kicks him. “Then stop complaining. In fact, shut up altogether. I want to hear about Dray’s exploits, not your pathetic hand holding with your girlfriend.”

“How many have you fucked?” Damson asks. “We’ve got a wager going.”

“You are sick fucks,” I say, staring up at the sun as I chew on the grass.

“Don’t be coy,” Damson whines. “You know we’ve been killing ourselves waiting to hear this stuff.”

Their impatience is understandable. I’ve usually spilled my guts by now, reliving every detail and every titbit from whatever trip or campaign or rustle I’ve just returned from.

Thing is, even if I did have anything to share about my little kitten, I’m not sure I want these bozos pouring over the details. She’s too special for that. She’s mine. Not something to be shared with these fuckers – even if the sharing is only secondhand.

“Have any let you fuck them in your wolf form?” Deny asks.

“We’ve got a wager going about that too,” his twin adds.

I groan. That’s the fantasy – the ultimate fucking fantasy.

There aren’t so many of us shifters these days.

Every year, there are fewer and fewer of us born.

It’s why our family – with seven strong, healthy boys – has become the most powerful pack in the realm.

Problem is, female shifters are becoming even rarer and, while the human girls are willing to let me do all fucking sorts to them, they draw the line at the whole wolf-fuck thing.

“We’ll take that as a no,” Damson scoffs, disappointed and disgusted with me. Partly my fault. I may have bragged my fucking ass off about all the things I was going to do at the academy.

Plans change. Circumstances change.

I wasn’t expecting her .

I remove the stick of grass from my mouth and roll onto my side, propping myself up on my elbow and glaring at my younger brothers.

“Careful,” I warn, my tone low and dangerous.

I don’t mind messing around with these losers, but let’s not forget who’s the alpha in this pack.

The younger ones drop their gazes immediately to the ground, showing me their submission and their obedience.

Wonder if I could get the little kitten to be as obedient. Whether she’d drop on her knees for me and do exactly as I say. The thought is positively electric.

Danders, Damson and Dyle are not so willing to submit. They’ve all grown bigger in the last few months and maybe they are under the illusion that they can beat me in a battle. They couldn’t, my wolf is stronger and my magic harder. None of them has ever come close to testing me.

“Are you shitting me, boys?” I cackle. “Sit the fuck down. Mama won’t want me whipping your asses on my couple days back. She’ll want us acting like one big happy family.”

The younger two peer at each other, then drop their gazes. Damson just keeps right on staring at me. One month away from home and he already thinks he rules the place.

I laugh. Maybe Mama wants it all to be peaceful, but it’s a hell of a lot more fun when it’s not. And how long has it been since I’ve had the excuse to whip my younger brothers back into place?

I grin.

“Have it your way,” I murmur, and then I’m shooting shadow magic at all six of them. It snaps around their necks, crushing their windpipes.

“Dray,” Dirk whines, “what the hell did I do?”

The younger five submit to my deadly grip, bodies limp, eyes downcast, only Damson attempts to struggle against it, grappling with the shadows, firing frantic magic of his own at me. I bounce away as if it’s a ball and watch it plummet into the river.

For a moment, his form flickers between human and wolf and he becomes more frantic, kicking out his legs and twisting his body. I only squeeze all the harder.

“Submit, little brothers,” I say, from where I’m lying on my side, twisting blades of grass around my fingers.

The five younger ones murmur their surrender and I release them immediately, all of them coughing, spluttering and rubbing at their necks.

Damson growls and I shake my head.

“Okay,” I say, lifting him up from the ground and leaving him to hang, thrashing about in the air. The others look up at him and laugh, which makes him all the madder.

But he’s running out of oxygen now and in another few seconds, he’s gurgling, “Okay, okay, Dray, I fucking submit.”

I drop him and he falls to the earth, landing with a grunt.

I jump up to my feet and walk over to where he’s groaning on the floor.

I lean over him, cup his jaw in my hand and then smack a fat kiss on his cheek, ruffling his hair.

“Nice try, Bro. Nice try.”

The parents are waiting for me out on the veranda when I return an hour later – Dad in his chair, blanket wrapped over his legs, mama leaning against the railing.

“You couldn’t come and pay your respects to your father when you arrived?” she hisses into my ear as I bend down to kiss her cheek.

“I’m paying my respects now,” I say, bending down to kiss his face too. He pats my cheek .

“You’ve been missed,” he says.

“They’ve been running around like a pack of wild animals,” my mama says, peering out to the land where my brothers are still chasing one another across the grass. “You know they caught a pale stag last week. I had the Empress’s guard here asking questions.”

“They’re just kids,” I say, collapsing down into one of the chairs and letting her pour me a glass of home-made lemonade. It could do with something more potent, something with a kick. But alcohol’s been banned in our household since the accident – as far as she’s concerned anyway.

“They need to grow up,” she says with a tut.

“How was the first trial?” my dad asks, cutting straight to the chase as always.

“Piece of piss,” I say, knocking back the drink.

“Language.” My mama tuts. She’s seen me rip out the throats of our enemies and yet she still takes offense at a few curse words. No wonder I’m so fucked up in the head.

“It was easy?” my dad asks.

I shrug. “Easy for me. For others … I don’t know.”

“How did you fare in comparison to Cadieux? To Lincoln?”

I lean down and place my glass on the floor. “We haven’t been given the points yet,” I say. It’s only half a lie. They posted them this morning, but I never bothered to go and check. What’s the point? I know I aced it. “But if you’re asking if they–”

My dad’s eyes flare. “Not good enough.”

I lift my gaze and smile at him. It’s not like he was top of the academy in his day. From what I’ve heard, his wolf was weedy and pathetic. Yet, somehow he expects more from me.

“Noted, Sir,” I say .

He leans away from me. Despite the tough guy act, I scare him. I think I scare them all.

“What’s this about some girl?” my mama asks, wheeling my dad’s chair around a little so he’s not staring into the setting sun.

“What girl?” I ask, my spine stiffening and my hackles rising. It would be dangerous if they knew about the girl. Fuck knows what they’d do with that information. I don’t trust them. It was probably the two of them who put the idea in Damson’s head to challenge me in the first place.

Then again, I don’t trust anyone in this pack. It’s just what packs are like. Backstabbing, conniving, treacherous. How’d you think my father ended up in the chair and I took his place as head of the family?

“You found yourself a cute little thrall to keep you happy?”

I lean back in my chair, rubbing my fingers against my chin. “Yeah, yeah we did. Cute enough, nothing special.”

“Something you can chew up and spit out,” my mama says, eyes twinkling just like mine.

“Yeah,” I say, “yeah, something like that.”