Three puppies fell to their backs, sending up swaths of dry leaves that settled around them like a muddier version of snow angels. The sky above was streaked with orange and blocked out in bunches by tree branches. As they cooled, post-forest-race, fur retracted and their bodies lengthened into bare-bellied children, grinning goodbye to the sun.

―

Georgie wriggled in Casey’s lap, enjoying the readjusting of his hands attempting to keep her contained. The squirm and squeeze of her boyfriend desperately (play)fighting to hold on to her. It was a human notion, the boyfriend/girlfriend thing, but until she reached mate maturity it didn’t feel right to call him that. It wasn’t official yet. Werewolves didn’t date, they didn’t have maybes, they had mates.

They were sharing the scuffed armchair that was crammed into the corner of the ‘scrap library’ (an overflow room that held junk of the paper kind: disproven textbooks, battered stories, allyship declarations of packs long gone. Squirming upright, Georgie was caught in the loop of his arms. A soft kiss to her neck and she finally settled.

“Mmm.” She let her eyelids sink.

Casey traced her skin up to her cheek with his lips. “Can I give you an early birthday present?” he whispered.

Georgie giggled. “That’s so human!” She pulled back to shake her head at him. His hands gripped her waist, grounding her against him just a little tighter. The pressure of his body between her legs sent sparks from her crotch to her belly. Mate maturity wasn’t necessary for attraction, and her soon-to-be mate was a magnet for the eyes.

“You’re having a human party!” he accused with a grin.

It was true, but it was her mate maturity, and she reminded him as much. “You had a party for yours.” A huge event dedicated to the twins that would next take the helm of their pack with balloon arches and a disco ball and flashing colourful lights. A spectacle of human inventions that would be packed away for who knows how long. A typical birthday ‘celebration’ for the wolves of Ivy Paw was a feast with a gift from your parents – usually something you needed rather than wanted. Georgie had been the victim of many duvet covers and welly boots. She was grateful for all gifts, but it was Cove who had saved up his pennies and journeyed to the human town with his father to buy her a plastic doll with hair that stuck straight up no matter how much she brushed it. She’d played with it well beyond the age that it was intended for. She dropped her eyes. It stung to think of Cove as he once was.

“That’s ‘cause I’m kind of a big deal around here,” Casey teased.

Georgie peeked up. “And I’m not?”

He straightened, bringing his back away from the seat to curl over her. “The alpha mate is the biggest deal.”

Georgie flushed. He wasn’t the pack’s alpha… yet. And she hadn’t reached mate maturity… yet. It all still seemed so far off. A whole two weeks. She tilted her face up and pecked a kiss to his mouth. How lucky she was that her mate’s birthday fell first, that he could bound to her and announce their future together, to give her time to acclimate. Casey kissed her back just as gently. He was always holding back, attempting to match her comfort level. It was different for him, since he turned twenty-one, he craved her. He’d told her plenty over the last six months.

“So... Is that a no on the birthday gift?”

Georgie smiled at the torn-up spines lined behind him, biting the inside of her cheek. “I could be persuaded into accepting something if it’s big and shiny enough…”

He stood, bringing her with him only until he was upright, and plopped her onto the seat behind him. “Wait here!” Like an excitable puppy, he ran from the room.

Georgie curled her feet up and hummed full of humour. He would never grow up, she decided, and that was for the best.

A treasure chest lay ‘hidden’ in the crevice between bookshelf and wall, Georgie wedged it out with one arm stretched over the top to the opposite end and her other clinging to the chair’s winged back. The contents were familiar, but she enjoyed the reminiscence. She traced the sun-worn maps with her fingertips, hers and Casey and Cove’s handiwork. They were as much of the soil as they were of fur. Adventurers until the responsibilities of the adult world caught up to them. She missed sea mist and soft moss. She missed the freedom to run off into the forest and set up their camp without being needed. Above all she missed Cove.

Georgie shut the chest. The same birthday that had revealed her as Casey’s mate had been the nail in the coffin for hers and Cove’s friendship. They had been drifting apart for a few years – on his part, Georgie would like it known – but once the twins turned twenty-one, he’d become downright mean.

It was unexplainable. Casey had plenty of theories, though. The one he was most certain of being Cove’s jealousy at his brother finding his soul mate first. It was the final milestone, and his brother had hit it first. In the lifelong tallying that would lead to one becoming the alpha and the other… something else, these things mattered.

“Tada!”

Georgie startled, scrabbling up to her feet to find Casey with a shiny-papered package held out to her. It was an odd shape and she accepted it gingerly. “Thank you so much. You really didn’t need to.”

He tucked his hands behind his back and smiled, sheepish. “It’s just a little something…”

The little something was a lovely little teacup – shaped in metal for their camping trips, she assumed. “Oh, Casey, it’s adorable!” There were etchings of mountains and tiny flowers that glittered under the light as she turned it. A tinkling sound came, too. Georgie frowned and tilted the cup down to peer inside. A silver necklace slithered about the bottom, with a crystalline pendant threaded through. “Casey!” Georgie gasped, scooping it out. “It’s beautiful! Where did you get this?”

“The humans,” Casey admitted. He brought his hands forward again, offering them out. “Can I put it on you?”

Georgie nodded and spun away holding the necklace up behind her with one hand and the teacup to her tummy with the other. Casey took it, paused with a shuffling sound, and laid it over her collarbone, then drew it in tighter to clasp at the back of her neck. The metal was warmer than it had been in her hands. He’d warmed it for her. Georgie clutched her chest with her cup-free hand and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. How lucky she was.

Even if she didn’t feel the pull of her soul to her mate for another two weeks, the bond of their lives spent side-by-side was enough to render her completely in love with him. Georgie turned and fell into his chest.

“I wish I could feel what you feel,” she murmured.

“You will soon.” He brushed her bangs back from her forehead, the only part of her face free of his t-shirt. “Now we need to go-”

“I know,” Georgie groaned. The pack gathering. Every week was almost identical. Casey and Cove would stand at their father’s sides while he made announcements and rallied morale. Since being declared Casey’s mate, Georgie got to stand on the stage too, next to his mother. It was daunting, a reminder of what she was to become.

As a puppy, she had dreamed of being a scout. Back then she’d also dreamed Casey and Cove would be, too. Roaming the wilderness together just like they had growing up, forever. It was never to be. One of them would take their father’s place, the other… They had yet to put together a plan for what a second alpha was to do with themselves if they had no pack to lead. Werewolf twins were rare, alpha twins unheard of.

Casey toddled backwards, dragging Georgie with him. When they reached the door he was forced to release her waist and take her hand instead, leading the way out of the schoolhouse and to the auditorium. Other wolves trickled in the same direction from all over the pack lands, some on two legs, some on four.

Georgie and Casey took a scenic route, tickling the boundary lines of inner pack and outer pack territories. That was, the communal areas and the wild ones. The temptation was always there, buzzing between them, to just run. To escape. Their true home awaited amongst the undergrowth.

Nestled near the forest line the infirmary awaited patrol casualties and every-day-accidents both. Georgie had avoided anything too awful in terms of injuries and illnesses over the years. A memory soaked back into her mind, however, of a dramatic scene from one of their uncountable camping trips. She and the twins must have been ten-ish. No younger, at least. And she had missed her footing at the edge of a ditch, deceptively deep and filled with leaves and branches. Down she had tumbled and down they had flown after her. She’d cried terribly, and her ankle had looked like it had a plum growing from the side of it which only made her cry more.

Cove had pulled her onto his furry back and torn back through the forest to get her to the infirmary. As though her life depended on it. Casey had followed, shifting back into his two-legged form right as they arrived.

“Our half-twin is hurt!” Casey had yelled through the door, getting in Cove’s way and forcing him to barge past. That was what they called her, before the mate maturity hit. Their half-twin. Born exactly six months apart from the real twins. By their side ever-after she’d thought.

She was fine. A sprained ankle and nothing more. Georgie stifled a laugh and Casey looked to her, curious. She shook her head and pulled him into the auditorium. They took their places and appeared appropriately attentive under the eyes of hundreds. Nearing a thousand, according to the last census. Georgie hid the tin cup behind her back.

The wrap-up of the alpha’s speech brought acclamation from the werewolves of Ivy Paw. Cheering voices and stomping feet, a reminder to the senses that this was the force he was ruling. This was what Casey and Cove had at their command come the ascension of one or the other.