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Chapter2 Eighteenth Birthday

Five Years Before

"Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you!"

The chorus of voices were in perfect harmony, a werewolf trait that Harper knew was due to their keener hearing.

Her mother set the birthday cake down before her, and Harper laughed at the pastel pink confection sprinkled with glittering sparkles. It perfectly matched the pink stoned tiara that her stepbrothers, Dorian and Gwyn, had laughingly set onto her head when they had arrived for the celebration.

"Oh, you were in on this together!" She exclaimed as she leaned forward and blew out the eighteen candles. Her parents and stepbrothers applauded and cheered.

"Of course, we were," Dorian laughed back, but his true-blue eyes were on Connery and Harper could feel the tension that never seemed to completely go away, building.

"Nothing but diamonds for our princess," Gwyn agreed tweaking her earlobe where she wore her gift from them, a set of diamond studs, drawing her attention away from Dorian and Connery.

"Be careful, Gwyn," Stephanie laughed as she brought a cake knife to the table. "I am arming her."

Gwyn held his hands up, chuckling, and eased back, going to stand slightly behind Dorian silently presenting a unified front to Connery's anger.

Harper took the knife and began to serve the cake but the hushed conversation between her stepbrothers and her father kept her attention.

Her mother met her eyes and shook her head slightly, telling Harper not to interfere.

The conversation between the three men was not a new one.

When Harper had been eight, the humans had discovered the existence of werewolves. The discovery had not been a happy one for either species. For most of Harper's life, the human debate on whether werewolves presented a threat to humans, and the werewolf debate on how far the humans would go to assuage their fear, had dominated every pack meeting, every family dinner, and every news broadcast.

Over the decade since the discovery, the humans had slowly been increasing their discrimination against werewolves. Some businesses refused to serve them, schools no longer accepted known werewolf students, human customers would not patronize a werewolf owned business.

There was talk of the government creating a register and requiring werewolves to wear identifying arm bands or badges on their clothing. Harper knew that this was the reason the three men were talking. There were some amongst the werewolves who had abandoned pack, family, home, and business, and relocated to where no one knew them, under completely new identities, in the hopes of avoiding being registered as a werewolf should the rumours prove true.

Dorian and Gwyn were considering the drastic move and Connery, as both the pack alpha and their father, objected, thinking it an overly dramatic reaction to what was nothing more than a rumour.

"Cake," Stephanie said brightly, thrusting the cake plate into her husband's hand.

"Thank you," Connery acknowledged the cake. "We'll discuss this later," he said in an undertone to his sons. "This is Harper's coming of age party. You're here to see her take her wolf form for the first time, not to argue with me."

"He's right," Dorian was contrite. "sorry, Harper."

"It's okay," she smiled and took a mouthful of cake, barely tasting it.

"It's almost time," her mother added glancing at the clock. "I am so excited," she said to Connery.

"It is a shame that it is no longer safe to gather as the whole pack for the event," Connery said apologetically to Harper. "You should have more than your family here." He didn't need to add that the pack should have been present as once a werewolf turned eighteen and came into their wolf form, they were eligible to find a mate.

"It's rare, nowadays," Stephanie said what he had left unspoken. "For there to be a mate bond, let alone at eighteen. I haven't heard of it happening in decades, have you?"

"It happened for my mother," Dorian said quietly. 'didn't it dad?"

"Yes," Connery said quietly. "It did."

Connery and Stephanie had made a political marriage uniting two packs under Connery's rule, two years after Connery had lost his beloved wife to cancer, and four years after Harper's father had passed away in a car accident. Although Connery and Stephanie got along, Harper had always felt it to be a shame for both of them that Connery did not love her mother.

Harper longed for more. Deep down, she hoped for a mate bond. She wanted to experience that unique to werewolves connection with another person, that indisputable sense of belonging, that legendary passionate love.

For all that she knew that it was increasingly rare, more than anything, that was her birthday wish.

"Come on, Harper," Stephanie said with false brightness, covering the hurt that Harper knew her mother felt in knowing that she would never be for Connery what Damion's mother had been. Stephanie, at least, had grown to love her gruff but generous alpha husband. Connery was fond of Stephanie, but it was quite clear that his feelings went no deeper than that. "Let's go out into the yard it is almost midnight."

"Yes, good idea," Connery wasn't insensitive to the hurt he caused Stephanie, and he put his arm around her shoulders, and leaned his face into her hair, breathing in her scent as they led the way out of the dining room and through the house to where the large French doors opened onto the patio.

"Come on, little sis," Dorian copied his father, slinging his arm around Harper's shoulders, whilst Gwyn placed his hand on the small of her back. "We are very keen to see what you look like as a wolf," he said with forced cheerfulness.

"I'm wondering if she can shift and keep the tiara in place," Gwyn replied. "I bet she can't."

"I bet I can," Harper was only too happy to play his game. She adored her older stepbrothers, often to the point of guiltily crushing on them – something she was not alone with.

Nearly every she-wolf in the pack lusted after Dorian or Gwyn and aspired to marry one of the other, though the two men seemed mostly indifferent, taking many to bed, but never forming any attachments.

The blue-eyed, dark haired young men were movie-star handsome, square jawed and high cheek-boned, with smiles that enhanced them, and bodies honed both by the gym and due to the high-metabolism of werewolves.

And they smelled wonderful, Harper added to herself as she laughed along to their playful teasing. She had kissed a few boys and werewolves in her eighteen years, though she'd never been interested in going further than that with any of them, and not a single one had smelled as sinful as Dorian and Gwyn, not even when wearing the same colognes.

The evening breeze caught at the hem of her skirt as they stepped out onto the patio. It was almost midnight, and the moon was a gentle crescent curve against the inky sky. Harper could feel the magic of the moonlight on her skin like the tingle of an electrical current. She shivered in reaction, raising her face towards it, and closing her eyes.

Dorian and Gwyn released her, falling back as she stepped out of her high heels and walked barefoot off the stone of the patio onto the crisp grass.

"Tonight, we shall welcome a new wolf into our pack," Connery said solemnly. "As the moon reaches it's zenith, our daughter and sister Harper, will take on her wolf-self for her first time, and, in doing so, will be officially recognised as an adult pack member."

"Welcome Harper," Dorian and Gwyn murmured by rote as Stephanie stepped forward to release Harper's dress and lifted it over Harper's head.

Stephanie kissed Harper's cheeks. "Welcome Harper," she smiled tearfully. "I am so proud."

Despite knowing that it was normal amongst the adult werewolves to be naked in each other's company before and after shifts, as clothing did not survive the process, Harper blushed and turned her back to Connery, Dorian, and Gwyn as she released her bra and stepped out of her panties. She kept her arms crossed over her chest.

For what seemed to be the longest moment, nothing happened, and then she felt the energy pass through her. She did not have to think about shifting, her body knew how to do it instinctually, as her mother had assured her it would do.

She gasped as her skin sprouted fur, her fingernails clawing, as her muscles stretched and contorted, her bones cracking and resetting, until her hips gave, and she fell forwards, landing on four paws, as a wolf.

For a moment, she stood there, stunned, and adjusting. Werewolves' sense of smell was far superior to humans, but a wolf's sense of smell was stronger still, and her eyes seemed to effortlessly track the smallest moment in the night. She had never realised the number of creatures that shared the darkness with her, as she tracked moths, frogs, and rodent movements.

The house was set within a large garden however she crossed it in moments, coming up against the fence line, her wolf-self wanting to cross it and continue her run through the night, but her human-self knowing that it was not safe to do so. Even this quick change in her own back garden was not risk free, the neighbours to either side being human.

Reluctantly she returned to the patio, and shifted back into human form, with Stephanie wrapping a blanket around her as soon as she did so, kissing her cheek warming. "Well done, darling," she said warmly. "You make a beautiful wolf."

"That you do," Connery agreed, his smile wide. "The alphas and betas will be fighting themselves to get your attention at the next pack run, Harper," he grasped her shoulders and kissed both of her cheeks as per ritual.

The last pack run had been over twelve months before, and Harper knew from overhearing conversations between Dorian and Gwyn that it had been a furtive affair, must shorter and less social than previous ones, with no one lingering in case their gathering drew human attention.

"Congratulations," Dorian took his father's place and leaned over to kiss her.

Harper inhaled sharply as he did so, his scent like a beacon that screamed sex, and saw him react at the same moment, his smiled falling from his face. Gwyn did not notice the exchange stepping forward to offer his congratulations, but Harper felt his hands tighten on her shoulder, and her eyes dragged from Dorian's to Gwyn's as she inhaled the familiar and yet, oh so different, scent of her second step-brother.

"Oh f-k," she whispered.

Her birthday wish had come true. She had found her hoped for mate-bond – but not as she had ever imaged. She had not one but two mate-bonds, and with her stepbrothers. Something that would be completely taboo with their pack.

'say nothing," Dorian hissed, his voice tight. 'say nothing, Harper."

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