Chapter 13

Damian's POV

"If you go near him one more time, I'm going to rip your spine from your body and wear it as a scarf."

That pleasant statement was the first thing I heard when I walked into the shared living room of my brother and I.

Yuki was sleeping on Galen's back when we finally dried off from the bath. After dodging question after question from Yuki and making sure Charlie didn't say too much, we made our bath as quick as possible and left to get dressed. Charlie went off the get dressed in wherever he's staying, making sure to leave with a cackle that usually sends people off in shivers.

The sight that greeted us when we walked in was pretty ridiculous, but it could've been worse with our three closest friends in such an enclosed space.

Danny was straddling Sammy on the floor, slapping his face as he laughed, while her mate, Itiri watched the spectacle as stoic-faced as he usually is. Obviously Sammy kept doing something annoying and Danny, being her testy self, got tired of it.

Galen walked in front of me as we entered, looked at the scene in front of us, and busted out in body-shaking laughs. I face-palmed, quickly took Yuki off of Galen, and rushed Yuki to the bedroom and laid him down. I pulled the covers over his small body and tucked him in. Leaning down to kiss his forehead, I nosed his hair and headed out into the living room to where the crazies reside.

I walked in to a different scene. Galen was currently on the ground with Sammy's arms wrapped under his arms and over his neck as Danny straddled him and slapped his face repeatedly. Itiri was watching with a listless expression on his face but looked up at me when I entered to sit beside him. He nodded at me in acknowledgement as I nudged him with a smile.

We both watched as Galen babbled, stuttering out "I'm sorry" every other slap or so.

Danny's nose scrunched up as her curly hair flopped in her face, pausing to uselessly push it back before resuming her slapping and ranting.

"Why didn't you tell us that your mate was a beautiful cat-boy, huh?! We have rights as your best friends and you just don't tell us?! Did your dad know?! Who knew?!" She spouted question after question as Galen kept shouting apologies.

This went on for about five minutes before Danny stopped and shook her hands from the sting. She sat back and stared at Galen. Then she looked at me, her grey eyes glaring at me from under the curls. Itiri is lucky to have such a beautiful, fierce mate like Danny, but sometimes I feel sorry for him because she's so.... much.

I cringed back from the glare and dared to try and defend us. "Look, Danny, we love you guys and everything, but we had to wait until Yuki was ready to be around people. You would've demanded to meet him. And technically, when we told you that we were attending to alpha duties, we weren't lying. So please don't be mad," I mumbled the last part in a soft voice and looked into her eyes.

She held my gaze before deflating and plopping onto Itiri's lap. I smiled. She's forgiven us.

Sammy untangled from Galen and sat down on the other side of Itiri. He lifted his lips into a smirk. "I don't really care about why you keep it a secret. If he's your mate, he's prolly' cool." Sammy is so relaxing compared to Danny.

I smiled. "Thanks, Sammy." Galen crawled over and climbed onto my lap, despite him being the same size as me. "And Yuki is cool."

Danny stretched out so her legs were over Galen and I. "So, what now? What's going on? What's the plan, Stan?" My brother shifted in my lap and grabbed Danny's legs so she wouldn't fall.

I answered. "Ah, Dad wants the pack to know about Yuki. And about his species' background. I'll tell you guys first since you deserve it. I don't even think Yuki knows."

Sammy sat up and looked over at me. I looked down at Galen's back that was in front of me.

"Cat-shifters are a thing, I guess. Though, there's not very many of them remaining. I think Dad said that there were... three... left?" Danny gasped beside me but I didn't look up. "Cat-shifters are always super pretty, no matter the gender. So, people were like 'These things with ears and tails are sexy, so let's make them sex slaves' and they ended up dying out until there were only a few left."

It was silent for a moment before Danny spoke up. "So, where'd Yuki come from? And if cat-shifters are so endangered, then wouldn't the Elders do something about it and try to protect them?"

"We found Yuki in the woods. And you'd think the Elders would give a fuck, wouldn't you?" Galen scoffed. "All they're worried about is making sure humans don't find out about us. Old fuck."

I spoke up this time. "If hunters couldn't find the last few cat-shifters, what makes you think the Elders could? Hunters specialize in finding supernatural."

"They could've used other means. They could've asked the Elves and Fae to track them through the forests or got a wizard to track them with a spell. They could've tried harder to protect them! Not just sit back and watch the fucking show! If I would've known about this sooner, I would've tried to do something to help!" Sammy said, getting up and pacing as he got more agitated from the topic. "We shouldn't let things get this far when–"

"Damian...?"

We all fall silent as we look behind the couch to see Yuki standing behind us. The duvet is wrapped around his shoulders and one hand is gripping it so it doesn't fall. The other hand is balled into a fist as he rubs one of his eyes with his head tilted, his hair being a tangled mess that falls to his lovely butt.

He's so fucking cute.

I can tell Danny agrees as she squeals and jerks her leg further into Galen, hitting his crotch, by the sound of the high-pitched whine that escapes him.

I smile at Yuki and move Galen so he's sitting beside me. I open my arms for him as he walks around the couch, keeping an eye on my friends, and sits so he's right between the two of us. Galen grabs his tail and starts lightly petting it, causing Yuki to blush. He snuggles further into the duvet around his shoulders and leans into me so he can look at my friends while hiding behind me.

"Is this the pack?" He mumbles shyly into my shoulder. I laugh and move my fingers through his thick hair.

"They're part of the pack, yes, but they aren't the entire pack. This is Itiri, his mate, Danny, and Sammy," I said, while pointing to each person whose name I say.

Yuki is quiet for a moment while observing them before he speaks. "They're brown," He says while pointing to Itiri and Danny. Danny smiles and speaks.

"Yep! And you're tan. And Elves are white. It's just how we all look," she says with a bright smile. Yuki is quiet again, but his eyes are wide as he stares at her.

"Elves?" He mumbles. Of course that's what he gets from that. He's so innocent. My inner self wipes an imaginary tear from my imaginary eye.

"Yep! Elves, and Witches, Warlocks, Merpeople, Wizards, Shifters, Demons, Angels, Vampires, Fae, Gods, and many more. They're all out there. Oh. And humans. They're the most repulsive but there's more of them than there are of all the others," she says while stroking the back of Itiri's neck. She shifts her eyes from Yuki and glares at Galen and I. "Why haven't you told him any of this?"

I look away from her and to the floor. Galen glares back at her. "Because we were just covering the basics. Do you know how hard it is to teach someone a language when all they know is a few Japanese words? Not even enough to form a grammatically-correct sentence? It's fucking difficult," he snaps.

Sammy finally says something from his spot on the other side of the couch where he must've sat down around when Yuki came in. He puts his hands up in a surrendering pose before saying, "Come on, guys, chill. Who cares about irrelevant stuff like that when we have more stuff to worry about. Like, how, in a few hours, Yuki is gonna be introduced to the entire pack."

Nobody says anything for a few moments until Itiri, surprisingly, mentions, "What's there to worry about? He's going to be introduced and that's that. There shouldn't be any conflict." I nod in agreement.

Sammy smiles. "See, now we're agreeing on something. Let's just chill until it's time to go downstairs." Danny huffs.

"Even though Danny doesn't seem to know how to chill, seeing as she's a fucking banshee," Galen mumbles. Oh god.

Danny gets up from Itiri's lap, grabs her flip flop, and starts beating Galen with it. Yuki squeaks and takes cover under my arm, and I curl it around him so he's practically underneath me.

Galen tries to defend himself from the flip flop by pushing his arms out at Danny so she retreats and continuously releasing a stream of apologies but it only seem to enrage her more. Sammy sits in the corner laughing his ass off, Itiri is smirking, and I'm chuckling under my breath.

Everybody freezes as my phones alarm goes off, letting us know that it's time for the meeting to introduce Yuki to the pack.

Danny puts her shoe back on and grabs her mates arm so she can pull him toward the door. "See you downstairs!" She sings, before leaving. Sammy follows them closely behind, and smirks at us before closing the door.

I get up and stretch my arms above my head and look at Galen to see him doing the same thing. I look at Yuki to see the duvet falling off his shoulder and notice that he put on one of our t-shirts by himself. I smile proudly.

"Yuki, did you dress by yourself?" I ask. Yuki looks up at me and smiles brightly.

"Yes! I put on pants too!" He cries out, before letting the duvet fall off so he can proudly display the red booty-shorts that I know have the words, ARE YOU NASTY?, sprawled across the back of them.

Galen barks out a laugh and grabs Yuki by the hips, swinging him into his arms into a bridal-style carry. "I'm proud that you dressed yourself, but you're not allowed to wear those shorts in the presence of anybody but us," he mumbles into Yuki's hair. Yuki giggles as they turn the corner to get to the bedroom. I smile indulgently before letting the smile slide away.

I've just realized that a bunch of the pack saw Yuki's beautiful nudity when he was running around. That's unacceptable. Hopefully nobody looks at Yuki inappropriately, or I may not be able to control myself. Fortunately, our pack is the kind of pack that is closely-knit. There's not a lot of packs like that anymore. Despite us having so many pack members, we're much closer to one another than people with smaller packs.

Then again, smaller packs usually become packs when they have a purpose or a common ideology. We have an old pack, one that's been around for a very very long time. I think I remember Dad telling us that our pack as been around since the 1600s. Most don't stay around that long because of internal conflict or... outside interference, like hunters or other supernaturals. That's one of the biggest fears of someone who runs a pack. I hope it never ends up as one of our problems.

A squeal and the following sound of laughter is what breaks me out of my thoughts. I snap out of it and walk toward the bedroom.

The sight of Yuki being tickled by Galen, partially-clothed, makes me smile. Gods, I love them.

I walk over to the dresser and pick out some longer basketball shorts. Galen stops tickling Yuki and smiles at me as I hand the shorts to him. He turns to Yuki on the bed, who's huffing out breaths and smiling.

"Okey dokey, legs out!" He barks out, watching Yuki scramble to throw his legs out. Galen puts each leg through the shorts and slides them up. Once his shorts are on, Yuki jumps up and latches onto my chest, arms around my neck and legs around my waist. I hold him up with my hand on his butt (innocently, of course).

Galen laughs and leans over to gently kiss my lips, before grabbing my hand to lead us out of our rooms.

We walk into the hallway and toward the spiral staircase, letting the chill of the floorboards seep into our bare feet. Yuki makes questioning noises as we pass by other doors or art on the walls, reminding me that he was asleep before when we passed this.

When we get to the staircase, Yuki squeals and jumps onto the railing attached to the wall. Before my brother and I can stop him, he quickly starts sliding down the rail, making a high pitch, "Weeeeeeeeee!"as he goes. Galen laughs and gets on the rail to follow.

I take the stairs, because I'm normal.

ish. I'm normal-ish.

I meet my mates at the bottom, where Yuki is hanging onto Galen, and we walk to the meeting room. We stop just outside the partly-closed doors, hearing the full roar of all the people in there. Yuki whines and tightens his grip on Galen.

I put my hand on Yuki's back, rubbing it gently. "You sure you want to do this?" I ask him. He nods and shakily inhales.

I peek into the room and see my dad at the front. He looks over and I nod my head once. He looks away and lets out a piercing whistle. Everyone quiets instantly, looking ahead.

I turn back to my mates and smile. "This is it. We're gonna officially begin training so we'll be able to take over the pack," I say. Galen smiles and buries his nose into Yuki's hair, taking a deep breath.

I turn back to the doors and listen to what my dad is saying.

"–oticed my sons not being around as much lately. That's because they've found their mate. And they'll be taking over soon."

There's silence after his last sentence, and then a booming roar of people cheering. I take that as our queue to enter.

I grab Galen's hand and lead us into the room. Everybody looks over at us and cheers even louder. I look at Yuki and see him peeking from his spot under Galen's chin to look at the pack in awe.

I lead us to my father and he claps me on the back, murmuring "I'm so happy for you" before stepping back. I look to the crowd and they get quiet.

"As our father just said, Galen and I have found our mate. His name is Yuki." I motion toward him, who's still buried his head under Galen's chin. Some of the crowd coos at how adorable he is. Yes, I know. He is very cute. "What I'm about to tell you is not information that most know. It involves a certain species and how they're nearly extinct."

I step over to Yuki and he latched onto me. In doing so, his cat ears perk up from being flat on his head, blending in with his hair, and his tail swishes out of his pants.

The pack collectively lets out a gasp. Wow. This is feeling like a drama movie.

I scratch Yuki behind the ear as Galen takes over the talking. Yuki starts to purr in my arms and looks out from under my chin to see the pack.

"Yuki is a cat shifter. He can shift into a lynx, and he is one of the last of his kind. Maybe even the last, as we haven't been able to find the other two. Hunters have almost completely wiped out his species, and I have no doubt that they're still looking for more. Now that Yuki is our mate, it is your duty, as pack, to help us protect him. He will do his best to protect you as well. Any questions?"

An older gentleman stands up, Marian, if I remember correctly. He smiles at us. "Where did you meet young Yuki, if I may ask?" Yuki perks up. And then he speaks.

"In forest!" He shouts. A collection of "aw"s resound in the room. Marian sits, a satisfied smile appearing on his face.

I laugh and kiss Yuki's head. "He doesn't speak English very well, because we found him in the forest. He spoke a little Japanese, taught by an old man who used to visit him every now and then. We've spent a month teaching him as much English as we could so he could meet the pack." I explain.

Danny stands up from the back with a smirk on her face. Galen groans and whispers "dear god" under his breath.

"Have you mated yet?" She asks with a raised eyebrow. Everybody, already knowing how Danny is, laughs and looks toward us.

I close my eyes and sigh. One day, I'm gonna drown her. Right in the pool. And I'm gonna enjoy it.

Yuki speaks up before I can answer her.

"Mated?"

A bark of laughter sounds from the rafters, where I see Charlie has been sitting this entire time. He swings his heeled boots back and forth and answers Yuki's inquiry.

"Yeah, mating! Remember what I told you? About sex?" He giggles and lays back on the beam. Yuki is quiet for a second—a very long second, for me and Galen, as we feel the dread that has appeared since Danny asked the question—before he perks up and squeals.

"Oh! Mating! Damy! Galy! I wanna mate!"

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