“I don’t want to do a thing.”
“But you have to. You’re Alpha now.” Talley wasn’t sure exactly how that statement could seem so strange and so right at the same time, but it did. Two years ago, Scout didn’t know Shifters existed. Now, she was the first Shifter Alpha Female in two millennia. It was pretty unbelievable until you actually took the time to look at Scout and see how she interacted with others of their kind. Once you saw her putting a thirty year old Pack Leader in his place, you knew she was where she was supposed to be in life. So what if she was only nineteen years old and didn’t have a clue about Shifter and Seer customs?
“If I’m Alpha, doesn’t that mean I get to make the rules? And Scout’s rule is, no things. I don’t like things.”
“Well, that’s sad. Things are quite fond of you.” Liam came into the kitchen, making a point to walk past Scout and brush his hand across her shoulder before parking himself in a chair on the other side of the table and snagging a sandwich from the stack of food Mrs. Donovan had left out for them.
Jase, who came in on Liam’s heels like a good Stratego, grabbed one of the three remaining sandwiches. “What kind of things is Scout hating on today?” he asked, dragging a chair all the way around the table so he could sit it next to Talley. “Unicorns? Puppies? The laughter of newborn babies?”
Scout looked at where Jase and Talley’s hands were joined and made a face of exaggerated disgust. “Siblings, actually. Brothers in particular, if you must know.”
“Scout doesn’t want to confirm our mating,” Talley answered.
“You have to stop being squeamish about this. For the love of all things holy, you’ve got your own mate now. Can’t you be normal and focus on getting all naked with him and quit obsessing over Talley and me getting naked?”
“Oh my God! You two are not getting naked!” Jase opened his mouth to say something, but Scout stopped him with a pointed finger. “No. No way. In my head, you have never been naked and you will never be naked. Do you understand?”
Talley was turning about fifty shades of red, she could feel each of them on her face, but Jase was completely unfazed by all this talk about getting naked. In fact, he really seemed to be enjoying himself. “If I can’t ever be naked, how am I supposed to shower?”
“That’s why God invented swim trunks.”
Liam, who had been methodically peeling the cheese off of his sandwich while ignoring the conversation around him, reached out for another sandwich. “Do you really not want to do their mating ceremony?” he asked Scout.
“I just don’t understand why it’s necessary. They know they’re mates. We know they’re mates. Anyone with eyeballs can see they’re mates. Why do we have to stand in front of a bunch of people and say some archaic words to make it official?” Scout picked at the bread on her plate, rolling up the small pieces into tiny bread balls. “I mean, we didn’t do any sort of crazy mating ceremony and no one makes a big deal about it.”
Liam froze with his sandwich halfway to his lips. “You want a mating ceremony?”
Scout glared up at him through her eyelashes. “No.”
“If you want—”
“I said no.”
The bewilderment in Liam’s eyes made Talley feel sorry for him. He and Scout were born to be together, possibly quite literally, but it was hard for them. They had a lot of past to overcome. They’d spent ten months with no one but each other for company and had grown an unbreakable bond during that time, but when it came to group dynamics, they were still testing the waters. They didn’t know how to be Scout and Liam when other people were in the room, and the long months Liam was spending in Romania running the Den weren’t helping matters.
Talley couldn’t imagine how difficult it was for them. Since that night in his dorm room, she and Jase were practically inseparable. She’d tried living with her mother over the summer in an attempt to rebuild their relationship, but being fifteen minutes away was too much for Jase. He snuck in through her bedroom window every night until the morning that shall forever be known as Mama Matthews’s Fit Of Epic Rage. Talley blamed herself for forgetting to lock the bedroom door, but Jase was adamant that her mother was at fault for not knocking before entering like a decent person. Neither of them even considered the possibility that they shouldn’t have conducted secret sleep-overs in the first place.
Scout and Liam didn’t have the luxury of conducting secret sleep-overs or coordinating lunch breaks so they could be together. Their relationship had to survive on video-chats and late night phone calls. And while Scout wasn’t a touchy-feely, display-all-your-affection-in-public person, Talley knew Scout was jealous of the way she and Jase couldn’t seem to keep their hands to themselves around each other, which was basically always. Of course, she also knew Liam felt the exact same way. She wanted to scream at them to get over themselves and talk it out, but she’d learned quickly that people didn’t like you using the information you gleaned from Seeing them to try your hand at being an amateur couples therapist.
“An Alpha mating ceremony would be a great way to start off the first Hustings under a new regime,” Talley said, unable to stay completely out of it. “Everyone would remember that declaring one another as a mate was your first official act as Alphas, and it would send the message that you’re to be seen as equals.”
“We are equals,” Scout said, rolling her bit of bread so harshly it crumbled between her fingers.
“I know you’re equals, and Talley knows you’re equals,” Jase said to his sister, “but to a lot of people out there, this is the Liam Cole Show, featuring a special guest appearance by Scout, the Amazing Female Shifter. They think of you as a novelty instead of a leader.”
“And a mating ceremony is going to change that?”
Talley’s “maybe” was overshadowed by Jase’s “yes”.
Neither answer made Scout happy.
“I Challenged Sarvarna and won, but I have to go through a mating ceremony before people will start taking me seriously?”
“You and Liam are going ahead and doing the mating ceremony today? Awesome.” Charlie’s limp was even more pronounced than normal as he came through the back door and into the kitchen. “That will make things so much better.”