Short cut scenes from the first 20 chapters

From the prologue

His priority was ensuring he hadn’t left it in any of the common spaces—his brothers were all too curious for their own good, for one. And if little Anne found it… He shuddered, forcing himself to slow down his survey of the living room. In a house with five kids, it was unlikely to remain empty for long.

“What did you lose?” At fourteen, Marisa sounded as long-suffering as an old matron. Ray and she got on well most of the time, since they both wanted to help their mum as much as possible.

But she was still his little sister, there was no way he’d even hint about his current predicament.

“Red folder,” he told her curtly. “It’s not in my room.”

With her help, he’d managed to look through the room all that much faster, not that it’d changed the result. The red folder was nowhere to be found. Marisa also insisted he try and recall when he’d last seen it, which was a great idea in principle but made him freak out again.

If his mum had found it, he was pretty sure she’d give them back, but she’d need to look inside first to know they belonged to him. And even thinking about it made him want to bury himself alive never to resurface. Even if she only saw the one of Josh...

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

If anyone saw it, they’d think— Oh, fuck, no. Josh ate dinner at their home most nights, if they knew, they’d tell him. They would think it was funny and Josh...

Fuck, he couldn’t lose Josh.from chapter 11

As a little kid, Ray had been so shy, he’d often transformed into a wolf at school.

The teachers had despaired, because one of the goals of home-schooling young werewolves was to teach them to stay in their human forms long enough to attend human schools when they were older.

Back then, all he’d known was that the young grey wolf was afraid. He’d sat himself by Ray’s side with the crayons he’d been given and started telling him about the big fire house he was making green because green was the opposite of red.

Ray had shifted back at some point and snatched his crayon to make a correction, and Josh had bowed to his superior talent.

Even then, it had been obvious to him that Ray saw the world so clearly that every detail became of the utmost importance. It was the gift that made his art heart-stoppingly beautiful and his life at once overwhelmingly amazing and terrible.

It made Ray the most interesting person he’d ever met. It should have come as no surprise that someone else had finally noticed.

From Chapter 3:

Well, it could be from porn for all he knew. It wasn’t the kind of thing Josh and Ray had ever discussed. Josh talked about sex with other friends, but Ray always looked a little blank when it came up and Josh had plenty of material to tease him without actually making him uncomfortable.

So it was possible.

Even likely, because it was so fucking detailed, and if it’d been a real guy, how would Ray…?

Except he’d drawn Josh in that odd position just fine, hadn’t he? He didn’t think it was made up, but it didn’t need to be something he could pause on a screen to study, not if he could just save it in his mind.

It’d have never crossed his mind that Ray was paying attention to anyone when they were naked, but this was pretty incontrovertible proof, wasn’t it?

And then he turned back around to the bed and spread all the pages out. There was the prominent bicep from the side, the strong back with no buttocks, the guy jerking his generously endowed dick… And Josh.

He swallowed thickly, eyes travelling back and forth, brain rushing with thoughts he couldn’t quite put in place.

There was nothing sexual about his picture, not technically. But it was in a folder with three pictures loudly declaring how beautiful men’s bodies could be. How beautiful Ray found them.

Did Ray…? Maybe it was a coincidence. Like, it had to be. Because if it wasn’t, if Ray really looked at him like that, he would have known, wouldn’t he?

Then again, he hadn’t known Ray was looking this closely at anyone.

He went back to the one of the man’s back. There was something strange about it. He couldn’t have explained why, but he found it difficult to look away. He didn’t recognize the hairstyle, which was messy but not shaded, clearly not the focal point of the image. Maybe that was what felt weird, the drawing ended where the rise of the buttocks would have been, as if Ray had lost interest or perhaps decided he couldn’t do it justice. But unlike some other incomplete sketches, Josh very much felt it was missing. It was probably because of the other picture, because if Ray had been looking at someone’s dick, then why would he shy away from their arse? Not that he knew it was the same person, except the broad back and strong shoulders spoke of a big man, someone who would have big hands too.

Josh couldn’t draw anything beyond stick figures, but he was pretty sure an arse had to be easier than a dick. It would have also been a lot easier to identify. It was at about this point that sense started trickling back in and he realised he was thinking of tracking down whoever his best friend had used as inspiration.

Besides him. But he made sense, Ray had drawn him a lot so he could probably do it from memory, right? And Ray saw he basically every day, if he needed to get another look or whatever.

This other guy with no face, though, had to be someone Ray was looking at for a reason other than convenience. So why was Ray drawing him?

It didn’t look very innocent. And fuck, Ray had definitely not left these for him to find.

He quickly collected the pictures in a pile. He didn’t rush putting them into the folder, the last thing he wanted was to damage one of them. Whatever Josh thought about his choice of subjects, Ray had obviously put some serious effort into them. He must have forgotten them the last time he’d slept over—one of the rare occasions when he’d deemed his need for solitude and silence more important than his family’s need of him.

It was the only feasible explanation. Unfortunately, that sleepover had been nearly a week ago.

There was no way Ray hadn’t missed them, especially if he’d been meaning to finish that weirdly missing arse.

Oh, god, was that why he’d been so twitchy lately?

Ray must have been freaking the fuck out, probably afraid his family would find the drawings.

In a way, it was lucky he’d left them at Josh’s instead, wasn’t it? Ray surely would see that if—

But no, he couldn’t do that. Ray was an intensely private guy, even with Josh, and these drawings were explicit as fuck. He’d hate that Josh had seen them.

And that was without going into the drawing of him. Maybe he’d ended up in the folder with the others by accident, but—

No, he had to get them back to Ray without his friend knowing.

Except Josh had handled them enough by now that they’d still smell like him, he realised, heart starting to race.

For a millisecond, he thought about keeping them instead—but he couldn’t make himself believe it would be fair to Ray. His friend had trusted him enough to bring something so personal into his home, Josh couldn’t betray that trust.

All that left him with was the inevitable conclusion that he had to return them, and that Ray would probably know he’d looked at them.

Probably. Smell wasn’t a very precise sense; scents faded, got mixed up and after all, Josh’s scent was all over Ray’s home and even his room because he spent a lot of time there, so maybe...

Maybe Ray wouldn’t notice.

And even if he did, he probably wouldn’t say anything, would he?

All Josh would have to do was pretend, just like he’d have done if he’d walked in on Ray... Well, jerking it.

Not that he could have missed the sounds of that, or—

He slammed a hand flat against his door, hard enough to hurt.

By the goddess, he had to get hold of himself. It wasn’t a big deal, they were seventeen-year-old boys, of course they both had sex in the brain.

It was fine. He just had to get the drawings back to Ray and everything would be fine. Normal.

From Chapter 3

Ray frowned at him from the doorway, where he’d stopped after opening the unlocked front door to call him out. Josh’s parents weren’t fans of shoes in the house, so Ray didn’t step inside most days.

This morning, Josh had left him waiting.

“Are you sick?” his asked, dubious. Werewolves didn’t often catch anything, but they were of the earth, so it did happen. “You look pale.”

Josh felt a little off. Despite his earlier determination, he was still thinking of the drawings.

“I’m fine,” he said, which came out weak because he didn’t feel that great. The huge encyclopaedia in his backpack felt like a boulder despite his supernatural strength. It was the only way he could ensure the folder with the drawings didn’t get bent without carrying in a very incriminating bag, but it was also a pointed reminder of his subterfuge.

Damn, he wasn’t made for this bullshit. “Let’s go,” he told Ray, picking up his left shoe.

“You are not getting your lunch?” Ray asked, not moving from the doorway.

“Oh, yeah, sure.” He ran to the kitchen and grabbed the Tupperware he’d left right on the countertop.

He was really losing it.

Chapter seven: Josh

The party was a lot of work, and normally Josh would have resented it. All the hours wasted on school and homework were bad enough, but right now it was something to focus on that wasn’t his best friend. His best friend, who hadn’t said anything else about his behaviour, but who clearly hadn’t forgotten it either. It was inevitable, Ray was easily hurt and so he had learned to be cautious, and now Josh had given him a reason to think he had to be careful with Josh.

The sole idea made him want to fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness. But if the party went well, maybe Ray would see he hadn’t meant any of it.

He really hadn’t, it wasn’t like everyone in the pack was straight or acted straight anyway. Josh hadn’t heard anyone call themselves anything, but still. And who cared? If you were both game, you could have all the fun you wanted. It wasn’t about that with Iesu, much less about him being a foreigner, it was about Ray. Because Josh knew his friend; it probably wouldn’t have crossed Ray’s mind to see himself as someone to be pursued. Ray would have probably gone along with the whole thing out of the goodness of his heart, always focused on others and never on himself. And then… Well, it would have been awkward, to say the least.

He could be big enough to admit he hadn’t really thought it through, he’d just reacted, pulling Ray away from the threat, revealing Iesu’s intentions without considering his words. That’s why he’d apologised he knew he got too angry when it came to Ray, too protective. Still, it was hardly a crime to want to protect those you cared for, was it?

It didn’t make him a dick. Not if he said sorry and made up for it.

From Chapter 8

It was weird not to have Josh around as much as usual, especially when Ray wanted nothing more than for his best friend to prove to him a hundred times that he wasn’t a homophobic arsehole.

Most people would have said they spent plenty of time together, what with sharing a class and their journey to and from school. But the times they really spent together had always been after school, the in-between moments of freedom that Ray got when he wasn’t helping his family or doing his homework. And Josh was having to skip on most of those this week.

Still, Josh was helping set up different aspects of the party—his mum wasn’t one to do things by halves—and wasn’t that proof that he hadn’t meant what he’d said? Except of course it wasn’t, it just proved Josh didn’t want Ray to think so.

Or at least he didn’t want Ray to think he disliked the Lupus for being foreigners.

He hadn’t said anything about the other thing, so maybe he wasn’t sorry about that. Or he didn’t even know.

Or worse. He did know and wanted them both to pretend because he didn’t like it.

And he could have got the wrong idea, because Ray did know he looked a bit too much. Something anyone with eyes could have observed and put two and two together. Not that they’d have got to four that way, of course. Ray liked women quite a bit and he could have sworn on his life he didn’t go around ogling them, so if anyone had been paying attention… Well, they’d had got the completely wrong idea.

That was what was so unbearable to him, that Josh would see him as something he wasn’t and he wouldn’t—

“Earth to Ray?” TJ was frowning at him, holding a huge pot full of stew.

Ray jumped to clear room on the dinner table for him to set it down. He couldn’t afford to be this distracted, not when he was around his family. Not when the kids could mess up and hurt themselves if he wasn’t mindful.

“You got that exam back?” he asked his brother, which of course got him some moaning about how the teacher sucked.

But at least it forced his mind into the present moment and away from things way out of his control.

Cut scene Untethered

His grandfather wasn’t Josh’s first choice, he was his last. The man had barely bothered with Josh or his cousins when they’d been little outside of disciplining them at family functions. Even that had been mostly pointed looks and shows of teeth.

The great advantage his mother’s father had over practically everyone else in the pack was that Josh didn’t care what he thought. And well, he was an alpha.

Josh knocked on the door and waited. It was likely to be open like most doors in the territory—even closing it over the night was considered modern by some people, who claimed it made the wolf soft if you didn’t let it stay alert while you slept.

He didn’t recall hearing his grandfather’s opinion on the matter, but he could guess it would be along those lines anyway.

“Josh!” His grandma’s smile was blazing and he tried his best to echo it.

“Hi,” he said. “Is now a good time?”

She’d herded him inside, promising it was and insisting she knew she had some cake somewhere for him even though it was close to dinner time.

“I need to talk to grandpa, actually,” Josh explained, and that made her pause, curious and confused. “Um, it’s… I am going to ask him about the car.”

It was probably the most awkward sentence ever phrased, but it was also not a lie as long as Josh did it.

When his grandfather emerged, he simply asked him to come outside to the car, which the old man accepted without arguing despite the strangeness of the request.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing,” Josh admitted, leaning back on it and shoving his hands in his pockets.

From Chapter 19

The full moon was a night of release, when everything that had been kept hidden came to light. It was also a night of liberation, because when you stopped hiding behind your bullshit, when you could finally admit what you wanted and needed…

And Josh was already so close to crashing, so very close to losing all his marbles and just— He wasn’t sure, it was the thing. Only that it was too much, more than anyone could handle, more than he could handle. That’s why some things you kept to yourself, or even deeper, where not even you could look at them.

Words were too hard and getting harder the fuller the moon got, making the blood in his veins throb with need, his muscles ache, setting his nerves on fire.

It wasn’t always this bad. Mostly it was an itch he looked forward to scratching with a good run and a good hunt, some tumbling about with other young wolves. But this time he was too close to the edge for it to do anything but shove him over…

He wasn’t sure what he’d do once night fell, but it was June so he had a little time still. His parents were home, but they accepted a mumbled greeting on his way into his room to drop off his clothes and offered a goodbye when he made his way back out in fur. They would join the hunt too, but not until later.

All that mattered now was for him to get away, as far as he could without leaving the land. There wasn’t much he could do to respect Ray’s boundaries, but he could do this much, try and give him the space he’d asked for.

His wolf hadn’t tried to stop him from crossing the river—it was still their land on the other side—and it’d got easily distracted trying to find something to eat once there. Just a squirrel, which were fucking tricky to catch on your own, so afterwards, he’d lain on his side to digest, feeling like maybe it hadn’t been worth the effort.

All his planning had been easily undone, though. All it’d taken was the first howling cries of the Alpha, the joyfully echoing responses of the pack, and Josh found himself standing, ears turning.

No, he’d told the wolf firmly. It’d paused, confused, because it was aware of Josh’s human mind but it wasn’t used to listening to him, not when they were in fur. That wasn’t the deal. And Josh had no practice at it, either. He’d heard if you had enough willpower, you could get your wolf to listen even during the full moon, but he found himself losing track of time when he tried to dig in his heels, and when he came to awareness again, he was in the water, crossing over with short efficient strokes of his paws and legs.

He didn’t try to fight it, too worried he’d end up drowning if he did. Maybe he could get to his other friends. Ray wouldn’t want to hang out with them if Josh wasn’t around to act as buffer and his wolf might go for their usual routine of going a little crazy with the boys.

From Chapter 20

Josh's POV:

“Sorry I didn’t tell you earlier,” Ray added, eyes low. He was blushing, for fuck’s sake.

And Josh was clenching his hand so he wouldn’t reach out and touch him.

He’d touched Ray a lot over the years, wrestled with him and tickled him, but he’d never touched his cheek. And Ray had never looked like this for him.

He’d told Josh he was going over to the Ivanescus’. Like Josh didn’t remember Iesu on top of Ray during the full moon run.

“Josh?” Ray asked. “You said you were fine with—”

“I am!” he cut in and it was a mistake because it was obvious even to him he was lying. “I mean, I was looking forward to hanging out, since...” He shrugged.

Ray didn’t say anything and Josh couldn’t look up from his friend’s shoes. “Um, we could hang out tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “That’s... Cool.”

“Okay,” Ray said. “I’m gonna head the other way, so...”

Josh found himself nodding. “Have fun,” he tried and it came out so flat he wasn’t surprised when Ray’s only response was a muttered ‘See ya’.