I nodded supportively. It took an unbelievable amount of shit to make Jules come close to losing it, so I could only imagine what he’d been through.
“It was nice when we got there. Florida is cool. The beaches are pretty great. The pack lives in Cedar Key near the national forest. It’s pretty cut off from everything, but you can reach the mainland via this highway that’s built over the ocean. My dad loved that. He couldn’t get enough of it.”
“Yeah, I heard him mentioning it a couple of times back there.”
Jules rolled his eyes. I could tell that he’d spent just about all the time he could handle with his parents over the summer.
“So, what was Auggie’s pack like?”
Jules blew out a long breath. “I tell you, Sully, it was different. Way different to here. There were kids running around all over the place and the alpha is a woman.” That was rare, but not unheard of. “The pack was so weird. There were other alphas in the pack. Just like part of the pack. Like it was no big deal. There were lots of omegas. Almost all of them mated. Some betas were mated with alphas, some with omegas. It was wild.”
“Wow. That’s hectic.” I’d heard rumors of packs like that, but I was so used to the way things worked in our pack, I was finding it hard to wrap my head around such a thing. I couldn’t believe Jules got to experience that. I couldn’t tell if I was jealous or not, but I was very impressed. Dalton, like his father before him, strongly believed in a one-alpha pack. They believed that the rest of the pack should be made up of betas, and a few omegas who “served the pack in their own way,” as Dalton put it. “How did it work? Did the other alphas respect the pack leader? Wasn’t there a lot of trouble?”
“Nah, they all loved Louisa. I could tell they really, really did. One of the other alphas, this guy named Brad, he told me he’d put his life on the line for Louisa like that.” Jules snapped his fingers, to drive the point home.
“Wow,” I said again. “What does Auggie think of all this?”
“He really, really likes it. He’s happy. Mace too…” Jules stopped speaking and clamped his hand over his mouth. When he looked at me, his eyes were filled with something resembling fear. But that couldn’t be right. It was just us. Just him and me. When had Jules ever felt afraid when it was just us? “Shit. I wasn’t supposed to say anything about Mason. You have to swear you won’t say anything. Swear, Sully, swear.”
“I swear, but I don’t understand. Did you see Mason? I thought you were only going to see Auggie.”
Jules sighed. “Mace and Auggie are both part of the Cedar Key pack.”
“What? I don’t get it. Why wouldn’t you tell us?”
Jules cradled his face in both hands and looked out over the creek for a while. “You have to really swear you won’t tell. It’s serious, Sully. It could be really, really bad for us if you do.”
Over the years, Jules and I had sworn each other to secrecy so many times, we hardly even felt like we needed to. It was just assumed that if we told each other something, it didn’t go any further. At least that was what I’d always assumed.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “I swear on my life, Julius W Blaine.”
His face was pinched. He took a deep breath. “Mason is with a guy. I mean, his mate is a man.” He looked over at me to gauge my reaction. “That’s why he left. Auggie left because he doesn’t agree with the way the Cleary pack sees things. My mom and dad don’t agree with Mace’s choices. They know it’s unnatural, but they still love him.”
I heard Dalton’s words spilling from Jules’s mouth. It wasn’t a surprise. Wolves are naturally loyal to their pack leader. One of the first things Dalton did when he took over the pack was to ban male-on-male mating. He’d always been obsessed with expanding the pack. He wanted us big, and he wanted us strong. Not just physically, in numbers too. More than anything, he wanted Cleary wolf pups born into the pack. Since male pairs stopped conceiving together centuries ago, Dalton was convinced that male matings were the cause of the infertility problems our pack struggled with. I heard the weight and shame in Jules’s voice when he spoke, and I couldn’t stand it, so I said something I wasn’t planning on saying.
“It’s not unnatural.”
Jules was silent, but he turned to face me. The moon was reflecting and rippling in the dark pools of his eyes.
“It’s not. I’ve heard my mom and dad talking about it. My mom says Dalton’s views are what’s unnatural.” That was true, by the way. I’d overheard them talking about it in hushed tones several times over the years. “My mom says it’s bullshit. She says not being allowed to love who you love is what’s unnatural.”
Jules’s eyes were like saucers. “She said that?”
“Yeah, she meant it too. I could tell.”
“What did your dad say?”
“He didn’t disagree. He just told her to lower her voice and then begged her to calm down when she didn’t.”
I could tell how shocked Jules was. Actively disagreeing with the pack leader was nothing short of sacrilege. It was unheard of.
“What do you think?” he asked.
I wasn’t expecting the question, and honestly, I’d never given it much thought, but the second he asked it, I knew how I felt. My mother always said, “Your first instinct is your best instinct.”
“Of course it’s natural. Of course it’s good. What could ever be wrong with one person loving another?”
Jules gave me an uncertain but grateful smile. “They do seem really happy. And Mason’s mate, Joe, is a great guy.”
