Chapter One

Bane

Even after more than two decades together it wasn't easy to sneak out of bed without waking up my mate. I'm never sure if my sneaking skills have diminished or if Lee's hypervigilance just never cleared up. I liked to think that it was the former, but it was probably the latter, unfortunately. The clock read shortly before 4AM. The kids were still out cold and both of us had the day off. I could've laid around longer. The warm draw of my mate's sleeping form almost kept me in bed, but it was Lee's Wolf Day, and I wasn't about to skimp on the details.

Sometimes it felt like I spent a third of my medical practice time telling other doctors and patients that every person will react differently to trauma and each one of them will need to make unique adaptations to survive. Wolf Day came from that. Not everyone has a Wolf Day. No one else that I know of celebrates one in fact. It isn't Lee's birthday or our anniversary. It's simply the day he reunited with his wolf in the winding maze of the Other World. Most folks don't go through that, hence the lack of Wolf Days in the pack.

"Your aura is going polka dotted. You're thinking about being sneaky," Lee yawned, turning onto his back.

"Is it sneaky if I do something every year?" I asked, trailing a finger down his cheek.

"Are you extra sneaky this year?" he yawned again.

"Maybe. Are you?"

"No, I'm tired."

"Okay, Wolf Day Boy, go back to sleep."

"You're polka dotted," he said, vaguely gesturing to the empty air around me.

"I'll keep that in mind."

"What are you thinking about?"

"You."

"Me? I'm not sneaky enough to give you polka dots."

"It's probably all the unopened mail you hide under the sofa cushions in your office giving me polka dots," I teased him.

"That's my emotional support stack of mail. You can't take it away."

"I bet some of the senders need emotional support," I laughed.

"Nah. If it was important they'd email or text."

"Since I'm polka dotted, did you have something you wanted to do today?" I asked him.

"Sleep. You stay in bed and sleep. We'll sleep the day away and cash in our sleep debt," he grinned, rolling over to press his lean muscular body against mine.

His ginger hair stood up, pointing in all directions like he might join a boyband any second now. I smoothed it down as our lips met for a soft good morning kiss.

"What were you really getting up to do?" He asked when the kiss broke. "Surely you weren't going to take care of my mail and count it as a gift. Not that you still have to get me gifts today---"

"No new tricks," I teased him. "Wolf Day always starts with breakfast in bed."

"How about we use PackPass and order breakfast from Mama Dragon's. Then we can both stay in bed until it gets here or until one of the pups start howling their heads off."

I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and ignored all the text messages highlighted in green. I glanced at the ones in yellow from our kids who lived further away. Terrick had sent us a photo of Scott sleeping surrounded by his pups. Lee oohed and awed until his stomach growled. Twenty minutes later, we double-checked that we had everything we needed in the cart for us and the kids. Only to have to add a few more drinks because something was always forgotten.

"They're all going over to your brother's after breakfast. Then we'll have theirs on Duke's birthday. They're going up to Heartville," I told Lee.

"I already knew that," he laughed, "but your polka dots are going away."

"Blake and Jonah babysit all the time," I laughed. "That wasn't being sneaky."

"Adding five extra kids to the house for two days is being sneaky since you thought I didn't know about it."

"Touche, mate, touche."

I was about to offer Lee some Wolf Day head to make up for the polka dots in my aura when the first cry broke through the house. Graylin was four and everything scared that pup. He was always in tears come morning and had been since the day he was born.

"I'll get him," Lee and I said at the same time and laughed.

"We don't both have to get up and it's your Wolf Day," I said, swinging my legs out of bed.

"And he's my pup," Lee got up too and our day began.