“Bring the others. You will travel with them and a few of my shifters, but will not be allowed near the rest of the pack. I won’t expose them,” he explained.
Jordan nodded. “I wouldn’t want you to. We’ll be right back.” He grabbed Orion by the elbow then ran off back the way they’d come.
Valen blinked furiously to keep his own tears at bay. “I can’t believe she’s gone. And Mom is looking for her.”
“You did the right thing, though,” Aaron said, moving around to hug him fully. “You know you did.”
But sometimes doing the right thing was still wrong, too.
Chapter Twenty-One
Rivvie hung back, curious and worried about Valen and Aaron. He saw the humans come out, and one of them was possibly a child. With black hair that looked to be made up of several knotted chunks and an attitude that rolled off him, he was probably just a small adult, Rivvie decided.
He watched as long as he could, but in the end, he had to keep the pack moving. After a half an hour, though, he couldn’t stand it any longer. He shifted. “Matt, can you stay—”
“No. I want to go with you.” Matt had that stubborn look Rivvie knew meant he wouldn’t budge.
Rivvie still had to try. “The humans back there are ill. You shouldn’t be exposed.” His argument wasn’t working. Rivvie knew when to cave. “Okay, but stay back. If they attack, run, shout, sound the alarm.”
“I will. Let me tell someone what we’re doing.” Matt jogged over to Savannah. “We’re going back to check on Valen and Aaron. Everyone else keeps going forward. If I start screaming, move even faster.”
“We’re going to that river, over there.” Anita pointed. “I don’t know where it will take us, but if we need to throw anyone off our scent or tracks for a while, that should do it. We can swim or float for a long distance. Even our children know how.”
“Good, good. Wait for us, but not too long, and if you hear the sounds of fighting, go.” Rivvie hoped he wasn’t screwing up. “Be safe.”
“You as well. Don’t let anything happen to my sons.” Anita turned and began urging people and wolves to move faster.
Rivvie and Matt went the opposite direction, running all out for Valen and Aaron.
They encountered them surprisingly soon. Rivvie skidded to a stop. “Val!” he shouted to his brother.
Valen waved at him. Aaron was beside him, and a goodly distance beyond them was a motley looking group of humans.
“The sick ones?” Rivvie blinked. “He’s bringing the sick ones with him?” Panic edged up his gullet. “Go back, Mattie.”
“No.” Matt linked his hand with Rivvie’s. “Look, let’s see what Valen’s explanation is first. Those people aren’t running forward and trying to kill anyone.”
“Yet,” Rivvie added. “They aren’t trying to kill anyone
yet
.”
Matt’s lips twitched. He waited with Rivvie until Valen was a half dozen feet from them.
“What’s going on?” Rivvie asked, looking past Valen. He could still smell the slight stench he associated with crazy, murderous humans. “Why are they following you?”
Valen glanced over his shoulder. “Because Lanaka appointed that skinny, pale one with the brown hair as our shaman, and she told him I’d save him. His name is Jordan, by the way. The cranky little guy beside him is Orion, and the other bigger one is Alkirk. The rest I haven’t met yet.”
Rivvie noticed that there was only one woman among the group of ten. “How ill are they?”
“Best I can tell, we have a few months before they’re a danger, although that little guy?” Valen snorted and rolled his eyes. “He has an attitude. Might be caused by the sickness, but I’m inclined to believe he’s just an ass. And before you ask about whether or not Jordan’s lying, he showed me his power, just as Lanaka had done so long ago. He said she gave it to him before—” Valen swallowed. “Before she passed on to the spirits.”
“She’s gone?” Rivvie whispered, the loss sudden and sharp. He pressed a hand to his chest. Beside him, Matt gasped and nestled closer. “How?”
Valen wiped at his forehead, sweat glistening there. “She was meditating and it was peaceful. She hadn’t told them she was a shifter. They’re from the coast, and there’s more information to share, but I’ll do it with the whole pack. These ones? They’ll hang back. I’ll have some of the pack escort them. Actually, you do that, Rivvie. Pick a half-dozen shifters you trust to be decent and not dicks, because our newest pack members will eventually turn into insane murderers.”
“I, ah.” Rivvie shook his head. “Sheesh, Val. I don’t know if anyone is going to be okay with this.”
“Then send them to me,” Valen ordered.
“I’m going to escort them with Rivvie,” Matt declared.
Valen stared at him, as did Aaron and Rivvie.
Matt sighed and waved a hand at the approaching people. “They’re safe right now. I won’t exchange anything but words with them. Won’t touch them. Won’t let them breathe close to me. And let’s be honest here.” He tipped his chin down and looked at Rivvie through thick lashes. “I’ve probably already been exposed, just like everyone else that’s human and in the pack. We all know it. No one wants to say it, but it’s true. Unless a cure is found, or we’re turned and it sticks, fully, and shifters are immune, then we’ll be losing our minds in however long it takes to do so.”
Rivvie was going to get started on trying to prevent that from happening to Matt tonight, one way or another. Last night had been a bust since Matt had been with his parents for most of it.
“Just stay away from them,” Valen conceded. “I’ll send more shifters back.”
“I’ll stay, too.” Aaron aligned himself beside Matt. “He’s my brother, after all.”
Valen nodded. “All right. Keep them behind us at least a hundred yards.” He pulled Aaron to him then kissed him deeply.
Rivvie turned and Matt was in his arms. “I love you,” Rivvie said before slanting his mouth over Matt’s. He plunged his tongue in deep, demanding, making his need for control very clear.
Matt went pliant against him, all supple, slender muscles and acquiescence. Rivvie nipped at his tongue and kneaded the firm mounds of his ass, then gradually eased back until he ended the kiss.
It was a promise of things to come that night. There would be no more stalling on sex or biting.
Rivvie didn’t wait for the newcomers to arrive. He shifted and trotted out to them. Aaron kept pace beside him, and Matt behind him. Matt’s words had greatly disturbed Rivvie, though he knew Matt had only spoken the truth. Matt was already exposed to the sickness, as was every human in the pack. If it was passed along some other way, then Matt was safe.
But if it was contagious through blood, sweat, or simply proximity… Rivvie reaffirmed his vow to himself to make love to Matt tonight.
When he neared the humans, the scent of them was off, as he’d expected. Not as ripe as what he’d encountered before, yet still there.
“Wow,” Jordan said reverently, looking at him. “Just wow.”
Is he a child after all?
Rivvie wouldn’t have placed him as an adult. He was too slender and innocent.
“Hi, I’m Matthew.” Matt waved. “I’m the human escort. This is Rivvie, my soon-to-be mate.” He buried his hands in Rivvie’s fur. “No poaching or I’ll get nasty.”
Matt either didn’t notice the shocked looks at his words, or he didn’t care.
“And I guess you’ve met Aaron, Valen’s mate.” Matt gestured to him. “He used to be human, too. Now he’s a shifter.”
“What?” Jordan and just about every other human with him asked. “No. That isn’t possible! You’re making that up.”
“Having fun at the newbies’ expense,” accused the short one, Orion. “Think that’s funny? Well—”
“It’s true, and you can believe it or not, but it will probably be what saves Aaron from the disease destroying humans,” Matt cut in. “Aaron’s my brother, and I know for a fact he was strictly human up until a few days ago. We’re trying to figure out how, exactly, he ended up turning into a shifter. It surprised and scared many of the pack members. For those of you who were giving me the dirty looks when I said Riv’s my mate-to-be, get over yourselves. Chance are good it takes a lot of being fucked by a male shifter and a lot of biting by them—and maybe biting them in return—to turn humans into one of their kind. Any questions?”
Rivvie snorted and pawed at the ground. Matt had certainly taken over.
Jordan looked uncomfortably at those with him. “Who was giving dirty looks? Just because we believe—believed—sex was sacred and only for ritual reproduction doesn’t mean we were right.”
“But sex between men—” one started.
“Oh, between men, hm.” Matt tutted. “Well, now that’s doable, and several seem to like it. I can’t tell you how shocked I was the first time I saw two men with a man between them, or a women, or—well.” He chuckled. “Let me just say, if you’ve only been having sex for reproductive reasons, you’ve been missing out. A lot.”
Riv yipped in agreement. He didn’t for the life of him understand how humans screwed up something so basically necessary and pleasurable as sex. They tried to take all the fun out of it.
“Let’s move. We’re to stay a hundred yards back for now,” Matt directed. “And here come more escorts.”
Riv saw Thad and Tandy coming their way, as well as Blaine. Generally good-tempered shifters, he hoped they would remain so today.
“So pretty,” he heard Jordan say.
Rivvie didn’t worry over it. Jordan could think they were all pretty and it didn’t change anything.
It was slower going with the group of newcomers. Matt chatted with them, and answered questions about living with shifters. Rivvie tuned them out for the most part, though on occasion he growled when someone crossed a boundary—like when Orion asked Matt if one of them played the role of a woman when having sex.
Actually, Rivvie wanted to bite the little turd for that.
Matt had told Orion he could find that out for himself by having sex with another man. Orion had sputtered for a full minute.
They reached the river by early morning, and it wasn’t like the swollen, wild one that had decimated their pack lands. This one was calm and not very deep, with water so clear they could see the rocks on the riverbed, and the fish that swam past.
And it was cool, which felt wonderful to leap into since the day was already heating up to scorching level.
“I don’t know how to swim. Does it get deep?” Jordan asked, hesitating on the bank. “I could walk—”
“It’s not deep here, but if it gets that way, someone can help you.” Matt looked around.
It was Alkirk who turned red and admitted, “Um, none of us swim.”
Matt’s look of surprise was probably matched by Rivvie’s.
“But you lived by the ocean?” Matt asked.
Alkirk shrugged. “There were things in the water that could kill you with just one sting, and there were sharks, these big, toothy fish-like things that were sometimes a dozen feet long. They’d attack and kill people. It just wasn’t safe.”
“So none of you can swim?” Matt shook his head. “Right. You said that was the case. Well then, everyone in and if it gets too deep, then we’ll get out onto the bank.”
Rivvie looked at Orion and smirked. It’d be too deep for him long before it was too deep for anyone else.
Matt in the water was a glorious sight to see. His clothing molded to his body, outlining the curve of his butt and the long, thick drape of his cock.
Rivvie was definitely getting some of that ass tonight, and if they could manage a round two, he’d have Matt fuck him into oblivion afterward.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Valen expected the angry pack members who approached him once he’d called a halt to the day’s journeying. Everyone was worn to the bone from the early awakening. They’d traveled far and hard today. Valen was proud of them all and said so.
“You all did well today. We made it much farther than I’d expected to. I’m not sure how long we’ll travel before we find our new home. I’ll know it when we reach it, though.” Valen nodded. “Now, go ahead and tell me how angry you are that I took in more scared, hungry people who had no one else to help them. Tell me how they should have been left to die.”
“They have the sickness!” Jane said. “The shifters have scented it on them.”
“And they have taught us some things about the illness, such as…it takes months to progress to the point of madness,” Valen told them. “Lanaka went to them. She sought them out, specifically Jordan. None of you have met him, but she named him her successor as shaman. He proved it to me.”
“But not to me,” Jane said.
Valen stared at her until she ducked her head and apologized. “He only had to prove it to me.” He let that sink in before he continued. “I understand if you’re uncomfortable and scared. Those are both honest and acceptable reactions. What I will not tolerate is anyone here trying to tell me how to run this pack. This isn’t, and hasn’t ever been, a democracy. I’ve said as much before. We live by the wolf’s nature in some things, and pack status is the biggest of those.”
He gave them each a look, letting them know he
saw
them. “Most of you were here expressing concern about getting the same illness these new pack members have.” There was no good reason to keep the truth of that likelihood from them. “It seems that is a very real possibility. There was no single catastrophic occurrence that led to Jordan’s people getting ill. They attended a Winter solstice celebration. A lot of humans did. And now a lot of them are dying, turning on their own when they’ve nothing left to kill. Will that happen to you?” He nodded. “It is very, very likely. If we can find a way to stop it from killing Jordan and the others, then we can save you, too. Sending them away is irresponsible and puts every one of you at risk. While you may be trying to fuck your way into being a shifter, it might not work. Keep that in mind when you’re judging these new members. Saving them can save you.”
Valen waited but when no one would even meet his gaze and everyone had an air of shame about them—which hadn’t been his intent, but he let it be—he dismissed them. “Go. Enjoy your families, your friends, whoever you’re having sex with. Worrying changes nothing. Jordan and the people with him will not approach us.”