Marked Northern Shifters 1

languor leaving his body, the tension returning. God, he didn’t want to be alone again. But, “Ira, yeah. Of course.” He’d forgotten about the outside world.
“Can I see you again?”
“Yes,” said Alec fervently. To discover this magic and lose it—he couldn’t face more loss.
“Good. But listen. This next week is really bad with work. Really bad. I can’t see you till next Wednesday.”
Alec nodded, hoping he didn’t look ridiculously disappointed. Desolate. “Wednesday,” he repeated gamely. A whole week. Well, he could survive.
“Okay, good.” Liam hesitated, as if unsure, and then threw himself down against Alec for a hug. “I’m going to miss you,” Liam said roughly. He detached. Before Alec could blink again, Liam was out the door, leaving Alec behind.
The sudden departure surprised him. He felt undone by Liam’s lovemaking, by his intensity and his attention to detail. By his care, even if he had to preface his tenderness with grappling and domination. Alec didn’t quite know what was going on there, and he didn’t understand his part in it, his anger. Nevertheless, they hadn’t fucked as strangers.
He fell back on the bed and looked at the cracked ceiling.
    Liam got home just in time. He was barely out of his car before Ira jumped off the school bus and threw himself into Liam’s arms. Then he squirmed free to race into the house.
    “Casey!” Ira bellowed.
“Ira,” chided Liam, though not with much force. That Ira was excited about the week of the full moon brought Liam joy. Still, manners counted. “Lower your voice when you need something from Casey.”
“Oh, right,” said Ira blithely. “But where is she?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but ran around the house, locating her at the washing machine and dragging her up to fix his snack. Of course, Liam could have fixed his snack, but Casey enjoyed feeding her “boys”. Especially before the night of their first run.
The snack, French toast, was followed two hours later by a full-fledged meal as the sun went down.
“Eat more,” Casey urged and Ira with the hollow leg did. “You, too,” she told Liam.
“I can’t.” Nothing felt worse than shifting and running on a full stomach.
She tsked, tsked. “You need to keep on that weight.”
“I do keep my weight on.” Last summer, Liam had alarmed Casey and Veronica when he couldn’t eat for fear of Ira. But that was long past, the quad had been halved and Ira now lived safely with Liam and Casey.
Meal finished, Ira bounced off the walls, eager and willing to run outside. “It’s dark already,” he proclaimed.
But Ira knew Liam insisted on a half hour between meal and shift. “It’s kind of like swimming. You don’t want to get a cramp.”
Ira rolled his eyes. “Shifting and swimming are totally different.”
Liam smiled down. When Ira began to live with Liam, he’d cringed the first night they’d shifted to wolf form under the filling moon. Liam still winced remembering Ira’s frightened panting, ears flat to his head, belly low to the ground. His little brother had feared at some level—no matter how many times Liam assured him otherwise—that he’d be given back to Gabriel and Luke.
But with time, patience and play, with Liam and Veronica, Ira had learned to love the full moon, as a young cub should.
“Will we see Veronica?” Ira asked. She usually joined them on their first and last nights.
“Yep. We’re meeting in the field.”
“Can we go swimming?”
“No,” said Casey in horror. “You certainly cannot. I won’t allow it.”
With some hope Ira looked to Liam, who shook his head. “Casey won’t allow it.”
“I won’t be tending to you, sick in bed, because you didn’t have enough sense not to freeze in winter. As if you think wolves are invulnerable to cold. Real wolves die in winter, you know.”
“Last month was a bit warmer,” Liam said dryly. Casey had been quite annoyed they’d swum one late September night because, on their return, Ira’d been a little shivery. But the last gasp of summer had proved irresistible. He turned to Ira. “It actually is no fun at all to have wet fur in freezing weather. Believe me.”
“It’s half an hour since we ate,” declared Ira, scrambling off the couch and ripping off his clothes.
“I’m out of here,” announced Casey and she returned to the kitchen while Liam and Ira stripped in the den and walked out the back door. At the sight of the almost full moon, Liam’s spirit