Lachlan

I was on my way to werewolf pack lands.

Part of me still wondered what I was thinking when I agreed to this. I glanced at Magnus, who looked completely unperturbed, and felt my doubts dissipate. The simple fact was, I trusted him. I trusted him to keep me safe, I trusted him with my feelings, and... I trusted him with my humanity. He hadn't once asked me if I would change for him, and I didn't think he ever would. It just wasn't Magnus to put himself first like that, not on something so massive.

No, that decision rested solely in my hands.

Magnus drove us along the highway until we came to an exit I had never taken before, even when I lived here as a child. There was nothing out this way, just a lot of private property and a few warehouses. After maybe ten minutes of driving down a winding road through the forest, we came to a turn-off that was marked "Restricted Access" and "Nature Reserve."

There were signs everywhere warning cars to turn back if they didn't have the right credentials, but Magnus just kept driving forward, unconcerned. We drove up to a security gate, where he unrolled his window and waved cheerily to the guard.

"Hi, Benson. Anything to report?"

The guard – Benson – returned Magnus' easy smile and said, "No, sir."

"Thanks. Catch you later," Magnus said, and rolled up his window. The gates raised and he drove forward. The road here was barely wide enough for a lane in each direction, but Magnus navigated it easily.

"So, this is your pack land?" I asked, still reeling a bit from seeing someone call Magnus sir. He was normally such an informal person.

"Yeah," Magnus answered. His eyes swept the woods around us with a kind of contentedness I envied. We passed a couple of wolves as we drove and each time, Magnus waved or gave a jaunty salute. He was so completely at ease here, so very much in his element. The only time he had ever seemed so relaxed was when we were cuddled up together, and it had me feeling almost jealous of... of what, land? It was dumb, I knew, but there was no helping how I felt.

The road wove on and on through thick trees with no trace of civilization until we rounded a bend and all of a sudden, I was faced with the biggest house I had seen in my life. Was this even a house? Or was it a massive office building? What use could a pack of werewolves possibly have with that?

Magnus caught me gaping and laughed. "That's the pack house. Almost everyone lives there, and those who don't spend a lot of their time there. We have rec centers, training facilities, and loads of incredible food. Not to mention the offices for those who are employed by the pack. I'll show you around later. For now, I need to get cleaned up and we have a meeting with my family in... twenty minutes."

He parked in a large paved lot. I was still gaping up at the mammoth building that was the pack house. Magnus lived there? My mind formed incomplete images of the apartment-style living that probably went on in such a place. How many families could live in a building of that size? It almost defied belief, except that I was staring right at it.

Yet Magnus didn't lead me toward the pack house; instead, we crossed through the parking lot and turned away toward a beautiful two-story home with a wrap-around porch. The only word I could think to describe it was "manor." The right side of the building had a turret with lots of windows and the center of the building had a balcony. It didn't have any furniture, which struck me as odd – if I had a space like that, I would spend as much time there as I could.

I didn't realize this gorgeous house was Magnus' until he led me to the front door and pulled out his keys. "You live here?" I gasped.

"Yeah. Perks of being alpha. Isn't it ostentatious?" He opened the door and shot me a playful look as he led me inside.

"That's one word for it. And you live here alone?"

Magnus tripped and looked back at me with big eyes. "Oh. Erm... no. I can't believe this hasn't come up before. My sister lives here with me." His eyes widened impossibly further and he added in a rush, "She moved here with me from our old pack and it didn't make sense for her to get her own place. I could never live in a house this big on my own."

I looked around the foyer we'd stepped into, which opened onto a living room and what looked like a breakfast nook. "No, it's definitely not a house for one person," I agreed. Even with two it was too big, I thought. I was glad he had his sister. Magnus was a people person. A house like this would swallow him up if he were here alone too much.

Magnus cleared his throat and looked around the room we stood in, frowning a bit. "Well, this is the entryway. The kitchen's through that room there," he said, pointing to the breakfast nook. "There are too many common rooms that way," he said, pointing to the living room. "Want to see upstairs?"

I laughed at his "tour," which wasn't much of a tour at all. "Sure." I had to admit, I was curious about how he lived.

And about how he might be expecting me to live.

Magnus led me up a sweeping staircase to the second level. There were several doors along the hallway. One was open to reveal a stunning bathroom. Another was a sparse bedroom that was clearly not lived in. Then two doors were shut. Magnus stopped outside of one and looked back at me nervously. He took a deep breath and said, "This is my bedroom."

Magnus stepped back and let me go in first. I almost froze in my place – only the knowledge that he was watching my reaction kept me steady. It looked like something out of a magazine. This was the room with the balcony, I realized. There was a colossal bed that would have dominated my own room, but which was in proportion here. The walls were a relaxing dusky lavender and there were two desks. I could imagine myself here, working at one while Magnus did whatever alphas do at the other. It was easy to see which desk was his and which went unused.

My feet drove me forward, propelled by my curiosity, until I stood in front of the ensuite bathroom.

I stared at it, trying to process that Magnus lived like this. Magnus, who was so easy-going and casual yet who was inexplicably the alpha. It was like trying to fit together pieces from different puzzles.

I looked back at Magnus, who was rubbing at his neck, clearly uncomfortable. He was waiting for some kind of judgment, I realized, and he was really worried about it. I was his mate and he was showing me his home for the first time.

I wasn't stupid. I knew enough about how werewolves worked to understand that he was tied to this place. That meant that if we were going to be together, I would have to come to him. To this house. To this ridiculous, wonderful room.

"This is really nice," I said. His eyes fixed on mine, clearly questioning.

"You like it?" he asked.

"Yeah, I like it."

"I know it's a lot," Magnus said apologetically as though I hadn't already told him I liked his room. "It's just... well, this is a werewolf house. We tend to have big families."

"And you tend to share your space with someone else," I added. I sat down on Magnus' bed, not missing the flash of excitement in his eyes when I did. He liked me in his space. I could understand that, because it turned out that I liked being in his space.

"True." Magnus' eyes burned into mine for a long moment and desire sparked in me, twin to his. I badly wanted to pull him onto the bed with me, but even if that weren't a terrible idea, we had things to do.

"Take your shower," I said. "I'll hang out here if you don't mind?"

"Okay. I'll be quick."

Magnus started digging through his dresser drawers while I pulled out my phone. I had meant to scroll through Reddit, but instead I found myself opening up my camera roll. All of the most recent pictures were of Magnus. Before today, we had spent all of our time together either eating or out walking, so all of my pictures tended to be of Magnus with adorable chipmunk cheeks or with trees in the background. Nothing groundbreaking, but it wasn't about what he was doing in the pictures or about the scenery. The pictures brought a smile to my face because of him.

Magnus was always so animated, I really believed he got more out of life than most people did. He enjoyed more, felt more, gave more. Was it any wonder he drew me like a moth to flame? I closed my photo app and set the phone down. Magnus had disappeared into the bathroom and the shower was running. I took the opportunity to look around the room, looking for Magnus in the details. I couldn't find him, though, not really.

The desk looked like a generic workspace. The bed was neat and the surfaces of the room were oddly bare. After the way he reacted to how sparse my house was and after glimpsing some other rooms in this house – which were decorated and well-lived-in – I had expected this to look less like a really nice hotel room. The only personal touches at all were the three picture frames hanging along one wall. One featured a middle-aged couple that had to be his parents and the second was a family picture taken when Magnus was maybe thirteen. It was definitely taken on the same day as his parents' portrait, since they were wearing the same clothes. The last photo was taken much more recently and showed Magnus with a different family – a man and woman I could identify as his siblings from the other picture, as well as a man I didn't recognize who held a young boy.

I took my time looking at the pictures, comparing Magnus' features to his parents' and siblings', then comparing his younger self to the man I knew. His cheeks used to be even fuller and mischief sparked in his dark eyes even in the posed family scene. His hair was unruly, though someone had clearly tried to tame it. There was a scrape on his chin and he grinned at the camera. I had caught sparks of that innocence in Magnus before, but they never lasted long.

The bathroom door opened and Magnus stepped out. He pulled his socks on between steps and came to stand in front of the pictures with me. His eyes fixed on them and he smiled wistfully, seeming not to care about the water that dripped from the ends of his hair onto his shoulders. I badly wanted to get a towel and dry his hair for him, but Magnus hooked an arm around my shoulders and went through the photos, putting names to the faces.

Magnus had never talked about his parents before and an I experienced an awful foreboding. He talked about everyone else in his life and loved his parents enough to include them in one of the three personal items he kept out in his room. Surely if they were still in his life, they would have come up before now.

I was afraid to ask, but not enough to let it stop me. "What happened to your parents?"

Magnus' arm tightened around me before he guided me back to the bed. He didn't speak until we were sitting down, facing each other. "They died the same year that picture was taken. Car accident. They went out for groceries and didn't make it back."

I looked at the picture again, trying to imagine what Magnus had been through. "You were so young."

"Yeah. But I had Mel and Felix. I can't tell you how grateful I am they weren't in that car."

Not how grateful he was that he hadn't been in the car. He was grateful to have his siblings.

"Felix basically raised me after that," Magnus told me. His eyes were warm, with only a hint of sadness in them.

"I lost my mom when I was young." I hadn't meant to say that, but Magnus didn't react the way I was used to. He didn't look pitying and he didn't try to make it better with words that could only be inadequate. Instead, his eyes filled with compassion.

"What happened?" he asked gently. The words weren't a demand – they were an invitation.

And for once, I wanted to tell him. I had never wanted to before, but Magnus was different. It helped that he was one of the very few people who could be allowed to hear this story. "She cheated on my dad." I swallowed and prepared to give him the rest. "My dad's human. Mom's the reason I am... what I am. A reactant. She had an affair with a selkie and claims they fell in love. She let him change her, but he... he didn't tell her everything. He never mentioned that selkies can't stay up on land for very long or very often. She broke it off with him but it was too late for her. She couldn't stay with us – she tried, but a selkie's true love is the ocean. She lives in his tribe now somewhere out in the Pacific."

I was almost afraid to meet Magnus' eyes, but he was like a magnet. I couldn't help but look. His eyes were wide and his mouth opened, but no sound came out.

"I know it's crazy," I said. "I still see her sometimes, but she doesn't come up to land much. It's hard for her. She hasn't really been a part of my life since I was eight."

"That has to have been hard for a kid to understand."

I shrugged. "She gave me a lot of talks before she left. Mostly about how important it was to stay human, to stay away from anyone who might be supernatural."

"I'm surprised she didn't turn you into a selkie, too, so you could go with her," Magnus said. There was a furrow between his brows and I could tell the idea disturbed him.

I shrugged. "She wanted to. Dad told her she owed him for cheating and that it wasn't fair to force me into the ocean before I was old enough to make the choice myself. By the time I was old enough to decide on my own, the idea was horrifying."

Someone pounded on the door. "Hey, you're late to your own family meeting!" a woman called.

"Is it too late to shut ourselves in here for the rest of the day?" Magnus asked, already getting to his feet.

I snorted. "Probably, yeah."

Magnus sighed dramatically. "Fine."

We made for the door but I put my hand on Magnus' before he could open it. "Thanks," I said. He frowned in confusion so I added, "For listening. And for telling me more about yourself."

Magnus shook his head. "You don't need to thank me for that."

He opened the door and led me downstairs, where Mel and Felix were waiting. It was a relief to recognize them from their pictures – it made this whole situation less intimidating. A child ran into the room and froze when he saw me. This was Griffin, Magnus' nephew. He looked shyly down at his feet before Felix went and scooped him up, flipping him upside down and swinging him through the air while the boy screeched in laughter.

"He's shy," Magnus muttered. I nodded my understanding and crossed into the room with Magnus. We sat side-by-side on a couch that was angled toward Felix's couch and Meleri's chair. Magnus introduced us and I smiled awkwardly at his siblings while they watched me.

Mel squinted in obvious confusion. She looked to Felix and said, "You need to put Magnus through tracking training again."

Felix glanced at her before looking to me. His nostrils flared and he frowned, then looked to Magnus. Mel's eyes swept over me before she looked back to Magnus, too. "How did you miss that he's a werewolf?" she asked.

I didn't like that she was talking around me like I wasn't even here. "I'm not a werewolf," I said.

Well, that got her attention. Mel's eyes met mine for the first time. "Are you sure?" she asked.

"You can't just ask someone if they're sure of their species," Magnus complained. "He's human, Mel. Just listen, okay?"

"Listen? I don't need my ears to tell me what my nose can figure out, Magnus," Mel retorted.

"Hey, let's calm down," Felix said. He put the boy down on the couch beside him and Griffin tucked himself against his father's side. "Sorry about this," Felix said to me. "It's really good to meet you."

Finally, a little civility. "It's good to meet both of you, too."

"Now that the pleasantries are over, can we please talk about why your 'human' mate smells like one of us?" Meleri demanded. The way she emphasized "human" told me just how skeptical she felt.

"Your age is showing, Mel," Magnus said tauntingly. "You're a grump."

I looked at him in shock – it was the first time I heard him speak like that – and he winced when his eyes met mine. I couldn't help smiling at the guilt in his eyes. "Sorry," Magnus said. I couldn't help laughing at the fact that he was apologizing to me, not to his sister.

Meleri laughed too and Magnus shot her a glare that was completely undermined by his blushing cheeks. Magnus cleared his throat and said, "We've gotten off-topic. I actually called you guys here to talk about Lachlan's species. We can only tell you if you swear never to let anyone else know – except Everett, of course."

The taunting look disappeared from Meleri's face quicker than I would have believed possible. She leaned forward, her suddenly-serious eyes fixed on Magnus'.

"You know you can trust us, Magnus. Whatever it is, we won't tell a soul," Felix said. He glanced at me and I could see his sincerity. Meleri nodded.

"I know," Magnus said. "I trust you both." He took in a deep breath and I knew he was about to explain everything to them. Nerves swelled up in me and I reached out for Magnus' hand, holding it firmly and trying not to let my fingers shake. It went against all of my carefully-honed instincts to be telling people what I was. Magnus was one thing, but these two were strangers, family or not.

Magnus' eyes met mine and I could see the question in them: was I sure? I nodded firmly. No way was I backing out now.

I kept my eyes on Magnus instead of his siblings as he explained what I was and what the ramifications were. He kept his reassuring grip on my hand, and I was grateful for that. Finally, he was done and a silence fell over the room. I couldn't keep my eyes from wandering anymore – I had to know what his siblings were thinking.

Felix had a furrowed brow, though he smiled at me when our eyes met. Mel was leaning even farther forward, studying me with such intensity it made me uncomfortable.

Finally, she gave me her judgment: "Cool."

"Mel, you're a heathen," Magnus complained.

Yet another comment I would have said was out of character for him, but Meleri didn't bat an eye. She immediately snarked back, "Am I? Then I guess I'm off kitchen cleaning duty for the foreseeable future. I hear heathens are sloppy."

Magnus opened his mouth but Felix cut in, "My five-year-old doesn't squabble half as much as you two."

"She just brings it out in me," Magnus told me apologetically. I laughed and squeezed his hand. It was a poor substitution for what I really wanted to do, which was kiss him senseless, but there were too many reasons why that was a terrible idea right now.

For example, his siblings who were both watching us with amusement shining from their faces.

"So does this mean you're going to become a werewolf?" Meleri asked.

And there went my sense of safety.

Magnus hooked an arm around me, but for once, it felt restrictive. The irrational part of my mind was screaming for me to get away, but it was an impulse I was thankfully able to quash. It got even easier to silence that voice when Magnus said, "Don't go there. That's for Lachlan to decide. No pressuring him."

Mel winced. "Okay, yeah. We don't need to talk about that."

"What are your plans for today?" Felix cut in, shooting me a reassuring look.

"I'm going to show Lachlan around, he'll hang out in the office with me for a bit, and then we'll go to Callie's picnic," Magnus said. "Actually, we should probably get going. Thanks for the talk."

"Any time," Felix said. He stood and hugged Magnus tightly, then turned to me and nodded with a small smile. Magnus had mentioned that touch was a problem for me, and I felt safer knowing his brother, at least, would honor that.

"Later, losers," Meleri said. She disappeared up the stairs and I faintly heard a door shutting moments later.

"She takes some getting used to," Magnus said. "She's a real sweetheart once you get to know her."

I found that hard to believe, and my doubt must have showed because Felix and Magnus both laughed. "She really is," Felix agreed. "Sometimes. If she likes you."

I laughed along with them, deciding that I really liked Magnus' brother. No wonder Magnus took on a tone of such admiration when he spoke of him.

Magnus scooped Griffin up off the couch for a big hug. Instead of squealing and squirming as I would have expected, the boy's arms wrapped around Magnus' neck and he hugged him back hard. "You're getting stronger," Magnus groaned exaggeratedly.

Griffin squeezed even harder and Magnus staggered to the side before "falling" onto the couch while Griffin giggled riotously. I couldn't help smiling at the scene – this fit in perfectly with the man I knew. Of course he was good with children. He was a lot like a child, himself. That innocence and goodness, the cheer, the mischief that sometimes flashed through his eyes. He had somehow retained all the best parts of childhood while grasping onto adulthood enough to lead his pack.

Felix picked Griffin up off the couch and waved at us before striding out of the room. Magnus sat up and ran a hand over his hair, which got mussed in his play. He smiled up at me and said, "Are you ready to see some more of the pack?"

"Lead the way."