Letting In the Jungle

//Tuesday, September 8, 1874

It's been almost six months since we found out about Buck, and all that Pack stuff happened. We're living at Chris' ranch now, together. Things have gotten back to normal, finally.//

J.D. stopped, thoughtfully chewing the end of his pen as he considered that last line. His gaze fell on the huge timber wolf lolling on the hearth-rug. Vin leaned comfortably against the animal's back, as he mended Peso's bridle.

Glancing back down at his words, J.D. dipped the pen again, intending to cross them out. He hesitated, and went back to writing instead. //Normal like no normal I'd ever have imagined. Guess it's a new normal, for us.//

A whisper of sound caught his attention, when he paused to consider his next line. J.D. looked across the scrubbed boards of the tabletop, at Ezra. The gambler's hair glowed in the ruddy light cast by the lamp. Intent on his game of solitaire, Standish showed no sign of noticing J.D.'s idle scrutiny.

Which didn't necessarily mean he hadn't. The younger man looked down at his journal once more. Taking a long breath, he wet his pen again, and decided to allow his rambling thoughts to ramble right on out onto the paper where he could take a good hard look at them while they were holding still.

//Ezra gave me this journal a couple of days ago. He told me that "writing helps in making decisions based on your true desires, rather than on the emotions of the moment."

Guess I'll take his word for it. Ez thinks more than any other person know-- excepting maybe Josiah. Heck, they even think in their sleep, at least, enough to mumble and even yell out, once in a while. Not that you can make out what they're saying, most of the time.//

His pen drifted away from the paper once more, as he was hit afresh by just how he'd acquired such intimate knowledge of his friends' quirks. He looked up to find green eyes meeting his over the pool of lamplight.

Ezra's hands stilled. The set of his brows and mouth silently transmitted an inquiry into J.D.'s state of well-being. Receiving a nod and a shy smile in answer, Ezra returned to his cards. Granting J.D. privacy once more. //Ez and I seem to be doing a lot of talking, lately//

He hesitated again, and then, with a tiny snort of self-annoyance, finished his sentence. //ever since that night he explained to me more about-- more of the facts of life than I ever really wanted to know. Still not real sure about all of that, but at least I don't just about jump out of my skin, any more, when one of them touches me.//

The opening of the door and a chilly draft of air interrupted his train of thought. He answered Chris' smile, and didn't even feel a twinge of oddness, when the gunfighter's hand ghosted over Ezra's shoulders in passing, to gain a fond smile and touch in return.

Nor, when the wolf's big tail thumped against the floor and he rose, leaning against Chris' legs and groaning in delight at the fingers scratching into the soft fur behind his ears. Vin's lazy smile, as he stood up and laid the bridle aside, and the smoky look that darkened the tracker's blue eyes, didn't make crawl one start up J.D.'s spine.

It wasn't until the two men and the preternatural wolf headed for the Pack's communal bed, that J.D. looked away with a sigh, and his pen scratched against the paper once more in an emphatic scrawl.

//Still, there's some parts of this I just can't get used to. Yet. Maybe ever. Aw hell. It's late, and if I start thinking about all of that again, I'll never get to sleep. Everybody but Ez has gone to bed. I think I will too.//

The leather cover of the journal closed with a soft thump. J.D. wiped his pen nib dry carefully, and corked the ink bottle. He stood, and stretched shoulders grown tight and stiff. It never once occurred to him to tuck the journal away. Perhaps, someday the oddness of that would strike him. For now, he trusted instinctively. Their newly adopted mores concerning privacy and intimacy would protect his written thoughts better than any key or hiding place.

"Good night," he yawned.

"Good night. Sleep well," the gambler answered, giving him a warm smile before going back to the intricacies of his game.

Only a second's hesitation marked J.D.'s indecision, as he moved towards the door that would take him either to the left, towards three monastic chambers holding a pair of small cots apiece, or right, towards the room that was really nothing more than a room-sized feather bed. A bed that was shared.

He'd not gotten used to all of it. But he had gotten very used to not having to sleep alone. Especially nice, when, like tonight, the chill desert night-wind seemed to discover every crack in the building.

He slipped through the door silently, and hesitated just on the other side of the threshold, to allow his eyes to adjust. The lantern's cover was lifted a crack, but after coming in from the higher illumination of the main room, J.D. still couldn't quite make out forms. And every one of his compatriots was downright surly about being trodden upon while sleeping.

So, there he stood, waiting. Listening to the soft rustles, the whisper of calluses against softer flesh, the moist sound of kisses, murmurs of endearment. Breathing in the fur-like scent of eroticism that waxed and waned but never seemed to quite fade completely away from the room's atmosphere.

Imagination and abstinence magnified it all. By the time J.D's pupils had widened enough to let him see the shape of the vast bed and the darker forms of its occupants, he was breathing heavily and his groin throbbed with a vengeance.

To his right, Josiah and Nathan lay rolled in their quilts, deeply asleep, companionably close. The far quadrant of the bed was taken up by a complicated, faintly glimmering tangle made of Chris, Buck and Vin. Giving in to prurient curiosity, J.D. let himself stare for a moment, trying to determine just who was doing what to whom.

Before he could quite get it worked out, Buck's deep moan of bliss snapped him out of his aroused trance. J.D. resolutely turned away, and started yanking off his clothes.If they were going to get loud, he'd sure not be able to sleep for half the night!

Stripped down to his underwear and socks, J.D. hung his clothing on the hooks that lined the wall, and shoved his boots underneath the bench that sat by the door.Stepping up onto one of the soft mattresses they'd abutted to make the den-bed, he retrieved a quilt and a pillow and decided where to curl up. His chosen spot felt cold, and he knew that had nothing to do with the little stove in the corner.

There was no position that felt comfortable. J.D. squirmed, wrapped and rewrapped the quilt. He wanted to lie on his belly, but his damned, unwelcome hard-on made that impossible. He wanted Ezra to come to bed. Something about feeling that warm presence beside him, even though Ezra rarely so much as brushed against him in the night, made it easier to relax and drop off.

J.D. gritted his teeth. Scolded himself for acting like a child who'd lost his sleeping toy. Tried to will his cock to soften. Tried not to hear the sounds of excitement that were getting louder just a few feet away. Tried to keep his eyes sealed shut. Failed miserably and completely, on all counts. Releasing a long breath of irritated resignation, he rolled onto his side and looked over towards the lovers. Buck was on his side, his back towards J.D. The long sweep of his torso gleamed like darkened ivory in the faintamber glow from the lantern and stove.

J.D. gave in to his impulses, let himself visually feast on the shifting angles, the curve of Buck's hip and the shadowed line of his ass. Half-formed fantasies inflamed him, quickened his heartbeat till it galloped in his chest. His gaze didn't flinch away, even when Chris or Vin draped a leg over Buck's flank, and Buck's hips began to flex in thrusting.

The tip of J.D.'s tongue swept over lips gone parched. Buck'sshadowy nakedness, the deep animal grunts and moans, the slapping together of damp flesh, engorged his cock to the point that thrusting into his own sweaty palm was an act of self-preservation. It took only a few strokes, before his release slammed through him so fast that he barely managed to muffle his involuntary yell in his pillow.

Panting, he collapsed onto his back, dropped his arm across his eyes and swiped the other hand dry against the sheets. His body might be quenched, but his emotions were still in a tangle. Mercifully, the purely biological lassitude that follows orgasm damped them down enough to allow sleep to take him.

//Wednesday, September 9, 1874

I don't know if I'm cut out for this kind of life. I mean, it's not that I don't like us all being together. I do. And, really, we weren't apart all that much before. It's not even knowing that Buck can drop his britches and change into a wolf big enough to eat Little Red Riding Hood in one swallow that bothers me. It's //

J.D. paused, ruminating a bit noisily on the wooden handle of his pen and staring at the pair on the sofa.

Intently focused on the pages in front of him, Vin's head was bowed until his hair almost formed a curtain on either side of the small, thick volume.

"Sit up, please. Slouching doesn't increase comprehension." At Ezra's mild admonishment, Vin nodded and did as he was bid. It fascinated JD, to see Vin take those orders so easily. Sliding his finger under the printed letters, Vin silently worked his way along the page, slowing to mentally sound through words he didn't recognize at first glance.

When a delighted little laugh escaped the tracker, Ezra smiled. "Now, what have you found amusing in Mr. Whitman?"

"Not amusing so much," Vin's eyes met his, and a smile still curved his lips. "More like gettin' a message I wasn't expectin'."

"Oh?"

A nod, and then Vin read, aloud, "...Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? Have you reckon'd the earth much? Have you practis'd so long to learn to read? Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?'"

He looked up from the book, eyes crinkled at the corners in delight. That expression of quiet joy, the hard-earned pride of achievement shining in those blue eyes, made Ezra's face soften; he'd confided in JD that this, that look right there on Vin's face, was more reward for his evenings of tutelage than any gold could have been.

Ezra nodded, and his voice was intimate as a caress as he finished the stanza from memory. "...Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,

You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)

You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,

You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,

You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.'"

Vin stared at Ezra, and licked his lips. Ezra chuckled softly, said, "I doubt I'll live up to Mr. Whitman's interpretation." But he took the book from Vin's lap and leaned against him anyway.

JD scowled. That was the reward he thought Ezra valued so damned much. Vin got all horny for poetry. Soft, slow, looking at each other horny that somehow embarrassed JD more than one of them bending the other over and just going at it.

JD intended to go right back to writing, but found his couldn't tear his eyes away from the pair across the room. He knew that they didn't care that he was looking, but still, it was rude to stare and he couldn't quit staring, even though what he was seeing was making him uncomfortable in so many excruciating ways.

The urgent need to readjust the pull of the stride of his pants broke the spell of morbid fascination. Another, louder sigh whispered out, as J.D. propped his left elbow on the table, and dropped his forehead into his palm. His fingers clenched in his hair, as he inked the pen and began to write once more.

//It's not even what Ez and Vin are doing right now, that bothers me. They're just kissing, and I don't mind kissing. Buck kisses me at least a couple of times a day, and that doesn't bother me. I guess it's because I know Buck will kiss anybody that'll stand still for it, even his horse.//

//What really troubles me is//

The pen lifted again, the point hovering over the paper. A scowl lowered J.D.'s brows, and he began to write again with avehemence that made the steel point rasp against the paper harshly. //knowing what they're going to be doing in a few minutes, either right in front of me or off in the bedroom. That, and the fact that I'm such a damned coward about it all that I can hardly even write it down here, where there's nobody but me to see it.//

//They've all told me till I'm tired of hearing it, that I don't have to do anything unless I want to. Problem is, I'm not at all sure of what I want. It's a living hell. Seeing them fooling around together has me walking around with a hard-on just about every waking minute and the nights are worse.//

//But every time I decide I'm just going to do it, I get so nervous it feels like my throat's been stuffed full of cotton and I can feel myself turning bright red and there's no way in hell am I gonna stammer around like that with Buck or Vin and especially not with Ezra!//

//What makes it worse, is that I know I'd be lousy with them, any way. I mean, that once with Buck, he didn't even come. I felt terrible then, and it makes me feel worse, now, thinking about it. The man's even gotten himself off just rubbing up against Chris' ass, both of them still with their clothes on, so that's proof right there how lousy I am, in bed. It almost makes me want to swear off sex for life. //

//Or at least, sex with other men. If it hadn't been for this Pack business, I wouldn't ever have even considered it to start with. It's not like it's something you see every day. Even Josiah and Nathan still aren't real sure about it, so I know it's not just me having qualms on that count. If anybody finds out about it, we'll all be lucky to just be run out of town.//

//It's wrong, what we're doing here, according to everybody but us. And how the heck do we know that this is really how Two-Blood packs work? Nobody's really seen one close up, but Vin. Even Buck's admitted he never lived with a pack, just with that loner woman that stayed with him and his Ma awhile. And what if she was crazy? I mean, why was she a loner, anyway?//

//Men will do most anything for sex. Buck's walking proof of that, and lord, I know right now I'd about pay in my own blood for it... so, even though I don't really think he's lying on purpose, maybe Vin's stretching what he's told us about Two-Blood ways a bit because he wanted to get into Buck and Chris and Ezra's pants. And why am I the only one that seems to think about this stuff? Everybody else just takes it on faith, and seems to be having a high old time bangin' each other's brains half-out.//

//Being here around that's keeping me wound up all the time, no matter how much I question whether it's right or wrong or even something I want to be a part of. I feel like if I don't have sex somehow, with somebody, real soon, I'll go stark crazy and wander through the wilderness talking to the weeds or something. More than ever, I wish those girls from Wicke's Town had stuck around instead of heading off for San Francisco. The only other woman within a week's ride I'd have a chance with, would be Casey. And even if she wasn't still being a bit stand-offish, I couldn't bring myself to ruin her reputation. Not to mention what Miz Nettie would do to me if she found out I'd been fooling around with her niece.//

The thought of Miz Nettie's old shotgun pointed in his direction had a remarkably chilling effect on his over-heated system. Deciding to take advantage of that while he could, J.D. closed his journal, heedless of the wet ink, and headed for the door.

"I'm goin' for a ride," he mumbled, though it wasn't likely the pair entwined on the sofa heard him.

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

Damp, slightly grubby, frayed cuffs were rolled up peremptorily. J.D. pulled the journal towards him, dropping down into his chair with an irritated huff of breath. Frowning, he vigorously shook the ink, then carefully uncorked the bottle. That small ritual soothed him, centered his thoughts and had the words flowing out as soon as he touched nib to the fine paper, smooth and thic.

k//Thursday, September 10, 1874

It's disgusting to realize how much we've all taken for granted. How soft we've all gotten, in a way. How we've not given a thought, any of us, to how much we've let somebody else take over doing everything for us. And what a jolt it is, doing it all ourselves again. It feels like being sound asleep, and somebody sneaks up and jerks away the mattress. //

//Even though we don't have so much as a truck garden or a flock of hens to tend, it still seems like anybody that's not on patrol is working like a dog from can-see till cain't-see. There's still so much to be done on the house, there's always barn work, there's ashes to cart away and wood to chop and water to draw.//

//Water. Lord. How can seven men use so much dang water?? Some days, I think if I have to haul in one more bucket-- I'll just save myself further trouble, stick my head in the bucket, and drown!//

//Then, there's food to cook.//

J.D. paused, and his nose wrinkled. The distinctive tang of the previous evening's repast still hung in the air. Cold and stale, it was even less appealing than it had been when served.

//How we all kept from starving to death before we settled in town, I can't figure. Buck would be just as happy if his meat was still squirming and squealing for mercy. And he seems to think anything that once had roots should be boiled with a hunk of fat bacck till it all turns into glue.//

//Vin's idea of cooking is to poke a spit through half-a-dozen small carcasses then blacken the outsides of them over the fire. And there's not a mother's son of us that's brave enough to ask him what they were when they still had skins on.//

//Chris, now he can actually make something worth eating. Dumplings, at least. But, he flat out balks at doing it more than he has to. Just when his turn rolls around, and only then when he can't badger someone else into taking his place. Says being the damn Alpha ought to count for something. I figure he's making up the rules about that as he goes along.//

//Nathan, we all suspect he sneaks some of those herbs of his into what he's cooking. Oh, I'm sure it's all for our own good, yeah-- but they aren't any of our idea of tasty seasoning. And it's no wonder Josiah's voice is so deep, the way he laces every blame thing with so many chilies that you sweat while you eat!//

//Me, I'm no better. I'm pretty sure I'll find a way to burn water. Ezra's the only one of us that can cook a meal that don't make you pay for eating it, the rest of the nig

//You pay plenty before hand, with listening to him bitch and moan about the ...deplorable condition' of the utensils, the poor draft of the stove, and how disgusting all the ingredients are. Never mind that they're the same ones as get used in the boarding house, saloon and restaurant...//

//By the time I've had to listen to all that griping and pot-rattling, everything tastes pretty much like dust and ashes.//

He eyed the iron skillet that sat in the center of the table, covered by a towel. His stomach growled fitfully.

//About all you can count on being able to digest around here, is cornpone and breakfast. And I'm really getting tired of either of them, three times a day!//

//Funny thing is, we all know we're each free to go right back to living in town. But not a one of us has even mentioned it, even when we were cussing our dinner and he who sets it before us, plumb back to Adam. I'd lay money on all of us having thought about it real hard, but nobody's spoken it out loud. Nobody's so much as hinted.//

//Instead, I suspect the others do like I do, ...cause we've all taken to going into town early on the days we have any business at all, there. I gorge myself on decent food, take a bath I don't have to draw and heat myself. Then hie out right back to the house as soon as I've done my duty by the town.//

//Somehow, going back to sleeping alone-- living alone-- just ain't an option anymore. Even Nathan seems more content out here. At least, he's not about to drop dead from a conniption fit four times a day, over Buck patting somebody's ass or somebody stealing a kiss. I can understand why he was so skittish about it in town, but that didn't make it any easier to put up with.//

//Well, it's my turn to try to keep our bodies and souls together another night. Guess I'll get an early start at burning some water.//

Laying aside his pen, J.D. raised his arms in a lazy stretch, waiting for the ink to dry. Instead of closing the book, though, he grinned and dipped his pen again.

//Nah. I think I'll ride into town, see what I can get to carry back. Even warmed-over food from the restaurant will be better than mine! Besides, I'll have to punch a hole in my belt, if it gets any looser.//

Laying his journal aside once more, J.D. headed out for the barn with a bounce in his step and a jaunty whistle on his lips.

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

Straightening from picking a pebble from the frog of Dancer's hoof, J.D. spied Casey coming down the boardwalk. He smiled, and stepped up on the wooden planks. Her head dropped just enough to shadow her eyes with her hatbrim, and she veered across the street sharply, darting into Mrs. Potter's store.

J.D. followed. He found her in the back, trying to blend into the bolts of calico and unbleached muslin. "Casey! Why'd you run off like that?"

"I was doing no such thing!" she fired back, chin bridling. "I have errands to attend to, same as you!"

"...Least mine don't have me crossin' the street at a trot to avoid sayin' ...hello' to a friend!" he pointed out, his brows coming together in a hurt frown. "We are still friends, ain't we?" A quick flush of shame bloomed in her cheeks. "...Course we are!"

"Then why do you keep shunnin' me like this?" he persisted, reaching out to touch her hand.

She drew it back, glancing nervously around the store. "I ain't shunnin' you, J.D. It's just..."

Mrs. Potter was dusting some shelves across the narrow building. Pointedly ignoring them.

"Can we talk about this somewhere else?"

"Sure." J.D. made a small ...after you,' sweeping gesture. "Lead on."

She did, straight to the jail, walking quickly, her eyes never meeting his as he strode beside her. Inside, she dropped into his chair with a heavy sigh.

J.D. propped a hip on the desk's edge, their knees nearly touching. "Now, why is it you're avoiding me?" he demanded softly.

"I'm not avoiding you!" she exclaimed hotly, then glanced down. Nervously, she picked at a frayed spot on the desk's blotter.

"Then what do you call it?" he pressed, a bit angrily.

"I don't know," she moaned, looking up at him with miserable eyes. "It's just... all so strange. And scary..."

Folding her arms tight across her ribs, she rubbed them as if she were chilled. "Just when I was gettin' used to the idea, maybe, of what Buck is, then I go and find out..." Dull color suffused her cheeks, blurring her freckles. "About what Vin was tryin' to tell us -- that kind of thing sure ain't supposed to happen! There's even laws against it, Aunt Nettie says..."

"She doesn't understand!" J.D. blurted, stung by a mixture of reactions that he didn't care to analyze closely just then. "You don't understand! You're makin' it all out to be ugly and spooky and sinful and it's not!"

He pried her fingers away from her upper arms, enfolded her callused, slender palms in his. "What happens inside the Pack-- is Pack business. Nobody else's. Packs do things different, for different reasons than you think. It's taken me a while to get used to ...em, myself. To understand..."

Casey tugged her fingers free of his. "Then help me understand, too," she demanded, her voice sharp.

"I don't know if I can, but I'll try." J.D.'s brows knitted. "It's all so... peculiar. Not like anything else. Vin told you and Miz Nettie all there was to know. I don't know how I can explain it any better."

"All you have to do is tell me one thing. What Vin said was true of the others... Is it true of you? Did you do... what he said, when y'all formed the Pack?"

Damning himself for the heat he could feel rising up his cheeks, J.D. nodded.

Casey stiffened, her expression going rigid. "Did you like it?" she asked, in a gritty whisper.

Another nod was all the answer he could trust himself to make. His face felt like it was glowing. Even in this excruciating situation, the memories that flashed unhelpfully through his mind were enough to make him want to shift position and readjust the pull of the stride of his britches.

Certain he was one step away from spontaneous combustion, he leaned towards her pleadingly. "Casey..."

"Save it, J.D.!" she snapped, rising and taking a step away, towards the opposite corner of the desk from him. Her fingernails bit into the wood. "You just tell me one more thing. Honestly." When his gaze was locked with hers, she choked out, "Will you do it again?"

She demanded honesty. Deserved nothing less. Still, it was so damned painful to force out the words. Hell, uncomfortable enough to finally admit and commit, in his own mind.

"Yes. Probably. Most likely."

This time, the expression on her face closed his eyes, dropped his head. He didn't open them until the slam of the door and the pounding of her running steps had faded beyond his earshot.

"But it don't change the way I feel about you," he breathed to her ghost.

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

//She hates me.// J.D. saw her face again, as clearly as if she were staring into his eyes once more.

//Maybe not hate-- but she looked at me like you look at something nasty that's turned up from under a rock. I can't seem to stop seeing her, staring at me like that.//

//I've lost her. Before I even had her, really. Before I ever realized how much she means to me, or how much I wanted her to understand about all of this.//

//It felt like she punched the wind out of me, when she slammed that door. And I still haven't caught it back.//

He couldn't have said how long he sat there, staring at that last sentence, without really seeing it. The touch of caring hands, curving over the tops of his shoulders, startled him into dropping the pen.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

J.D. shook his head, without looking up. "I'm all right."

"You are most obviously not ...all right,' " Ezra's voice chided compassionately from just behind his head. "You haven't been yourself since late afternoon, you know."

The gambler's fingers moved, working along muscles that were drawn corded and tight, in J.D.'s neck and shoulders. J.D. closed his journal and shoved it a bit away, then closed his eyes and leaned back slightly, letting the back of his head rest against the hollow of Ezra's breastbone. He kept his eyes closed, suspecting his friend would be capable of reading them like a newspaper.

"You rearranged your food rather than consuming it, you've spoken exactly eleven words since returnin' from town," Ezra continued in a low-pitched conversational tone. "And you're still sitting here, long past midnight, when even I'm ready to crawl in amongst our companions and get warm."

Standish's fingers seemed to know the exact combination of touches that would unlock J.D.'s taut muscles. His voice, managing to convey concern at a near whisper, was as lulling as his touch. The breath of it, warm and faintly spiced with cloves and brandy, seemed a caress, as well, as it stirred a lock of hair near J.D.'s chee.

kTension seemed to flow out of J.D. like sand flowing out of a torn sack. He felt Ezra brush his cheek against the top of his head, a tiny gesture of affection that sent atwinge through J.D.'s chest, and pulled a long sigh out afterwards that trembled on the edge of becoming a helpless sob.

"We'll both face better odds of undisturbed rest, if you'll confide in me," Ezra pressed, gently. Even if he hadn't heard that heart-rending exhalation, the slight pallor ofJ.D.'s cheeks, and the way the long, dark lashes trembled against them, betrayed just how upset he really was.

J.D. drew in a long breath, and swallowed it twice. "Casey..." he began, his fingers tightening around the wooden arms of the chair. As much as he ached to, he was not going to cry. Not alone, if he could help it, and especially not in front of anyone else. Even Ezra. But the rejection still rankled just as sharply as it had hours earlier. "She's avoiding me again. Today, I finally got her to talk to me..."

Ezra's hands stilled, after moving around to rest around J.D.'s shoulders and chest in a loose embrace. He still rested his cheek against the top of J.D.'s head, breathing in the scent of his hair, heavy and rich and resinous as new-pressed olive oil.

"It didn't go well?" he prompted. It took conscious effort to keep his own muscles from tightening with protective ire, when J.D. gave a small, pained moan and leaned back against him more heavily.

"No, it didn't go well at all." J.D. shifted forward, to lay his forehead on his folded arms against the tabletop. "It was a total disaster," he confessed, voice muffled. "She wouldn't even let me touch her hand. She... she's sickened by us. By me. She thinks we're all a bunch of perverts carousin' with a monster."

"I'm so very sorry," Ezra answered after a moment. Unlike the fickle Casey, he couldn't seem to keep his hands away from the younger man, even now. He flexed fingers that had convulsed in instant, overpowering desire to throttle Miss Wells, and instead combed them through J.D's thick black hair. "There's no sharper pain than rejection by someone you care for deeply," he continued. "Especially a rejection springin' from judgmental ignorance."

J.D. sat still, letting Ezra's voice and touch flow over him like healing balm. How could something that felt so right, so good, not be right? He lifted his head, turned to meet Ezra's gaze. The sight of those wide, over-bright eyes, and damp-spiked lashes heightened Ezra's resolve to tear wide, bloody strips out of Miss Casey Wells on next meeting. Verbally, if not physically. He shifted to lean a buttock against the edge of the tabletop, so he and J.D. could look at each other straight in the face. "An important lesson of rejection, is to avoid misplacing your affections in the future. The most important thing, though, is to be certain of what you believe about her accusations." His hand stilled, lifted from J.D.'s shoulder until the contact between them was almost ethereal.

J.D. never looked away from those green eyes, and didn't miss the quick clouding of uncertainty in them. "What I believe," he began slowly, with absolute earnestness, "Is that maybe if she'd ever gotten herself well and truly laid, she'd have the sense to know what the hell she's talkin' about!"

Startled laughter leaped out of Ezra's throat. Of all things he'd expected to hear...!

Before he could regather his wits, he found himself with a double-armful of Dunne. He embraced J.D. closely, feeling his quick breath against the skin of his throat. Ezra's lips parted to say something soothing, but before he could move the words from thought to speech, he was being kissed.

What J.D. lacked in finesse, was more than made up for in ardor and enthusiasm. Ezra allowed himself to simply enjoy the endearment, until the need to draw a full breath lifted J.D.'s head once more.

Then, Ezra took the opportunity to voice the thought he'd had before. "This rift in your relationship with Casey will heal, in time. She cares for you as much as you care for her, you know. I suspect her affection'll win out over her present discomfort with our new way of life."

J.D. shook his head, unconvinced. "I don't know. She's stubborner than any mule. Besides," he continued, "I've been thinkin' a lot lately."

Ezra smiled affectionately into the brown eyes just inches from his own. "And what have you been thinking?"

"That I've been as dense as Casey, about all this," he snorted.

Ezra's eyebrows lifted questioningly. His hands rubbed circles over the small of J.D.'s back, encouraging him to go on.

The corner of Dunne's mouth quirked downwards. "It strikes me that I'm bein' an idiot, getting all worked up about Pack business, sweating over it like I have."

"And you've come to this enlightenment since exactly when?" Ezra pressed.

A small shrug, and then J.D. laid his head back against the curve of Ezra's shoulder. "Today, I guess, I admitted it to myself. Decided to stop pretending I ain't been about to go crazy, thinkin' about it all the time..."

"Thinking about what?" Ezra interjected quietly, stalling for time, fighting his body and mind's reactions to J.D.'s caresses, to the sensation of having that slim body pressed along the length of his.

Oh God. This is the damned blood-money, all over again. Base desires against higher ideals. Isn't fighting this battle through once, enough for a lifetime?

"About the love-making..."

Ezra's misgivings deepened, at that. J.D. had always called it sex, or some more vulgar synonym, before. His skin prickled with the cool sweat of anxiety, and his cock-- always an independent and obdurate organ-- stiffened in greedy anticipation.

Unaware of what he was doing to his friend's scruples, J.D. pressed closer. Close enough that he had to be aware of what he was doing to Ezra's body. "Listenin' to you all, in the dark, goin' at it... watchin' you... hell, even just smellin' it all the time-- It's making me nuts. I've been tellin' myself that I don't want it. That I'm afraid of wantin' it. That wantin' it means somethin's not right in me. And you know what?"

It took a swallow before Ezra could so much as echo, "What?"

"Every time I tell myself all that, I'm as hard as a rock, and usually jerkin' off like it's the last chance I'm gonna get for eternity."

His pelvis brushed Ezra's, in a sweep from hipbone to hipbone. One hand came up, to stroke over Ezra's cheek. The dark pupils of his eyes nearly swallowed the irises and his voice, when he spoke, was husky. "The more I thought about it all... the more I saw it written down in my own hand... the more I was shyin' away from what's starin' me right in the face. I see it all so clear, all of a sudden."

What was staring J.D. right in his face, at that instant, was Ezra. Swallowing hard once more, trying to hitch together scattering bits of reason before the whole herd stampeded into the abyss of mindless lust. Good lord-- if Dunne had this effect upon him now, what chance would he stand when J.D. became truly adept at the delicious art of seduction?

"Why keep denyin' myself what I really want?"

Indeed. And exactly when was it that I started exercising that tiresome habit? Before J.D.'s lips met his again, Ezra planted a palm against his chest and gently pushed. Time to get some distance here, emotionally and physically. "J.D."

His voice sounded so pathetically needy, that he cleared his throat slightly and tried again. "J.D, as you've come to this epiphany within the last five minutes, it would be best if you gave your decision more thought."

"You don't want me?" J.D. drew back slightly, nascent seduction instantly replaced by an expression usually seen on spanked puppies.

Oh, that was unfair. "Good lord, J.D. It's not that!" He shifted his stance. If J.D. glanced lower than his face, it would be laughably obvious it wasn't that.

"Then why?"

The man could teach a courtesan the finer points of a beguilingly erotic, hurt pout... "Because, this is a momentous decision for you. One that can't be undone. One that, once made, will affect our relationship from that point on."

"Even so, it is my decision to make, right?"

"Of course."

J.D.'s brows drew together slightly, and his jaw firmed. He gazed into Ezra's eyes steadily. And it was Ezra's eyes that flinched away from the intimacy, first.

"What I've decided, is that I want you," J.D. stated, his tone soft, but unwavering.

"Why me?" The question came out with far more poinancy attached than he intended.

"Huh?" J.D. blinked, clearly having trouble changing conversational horses in mental midstream. Ezra could certainly empathize.

"Why me?" Ezra repeated patiently, a good bit less needily. "Why not Buck, or Vin, at least this first time?"

J.D frowned thoughtfully. "Buck knows too much, and he'd make it a game and I don't want it to be a game. Vin would do it for me. But you, you'll do it with me. I've seen the difference."

"I thank you for the sincerity of that compliment," Ezra smiled, and then schooled his face and voice back into caring seriousness before it could betray him by displaying apprehensive lust. Not an easy task, given how uneasy he was about J.D.'s sudden offer. "Making love is what you want, here and now. Will you feel the same way when you look back on it in the light of dawn?"

An almost sly smile quirked J.D.'s lips. "Hell, Ez-- I've felt this way almost since that first night, with Buck. I'm just finally admitting it to somebody besides my fist and my dick!"

Once more, a laugh bolted out right past the editorial gate.

Taking that unguarded reaction as agreement, J.D. closed the gap between them once more. He kissed Ezra deeply, putting meager experience and clandestine observations to use when those soft lips parted beneath his own. His tongue stroked along Ezra's, drank in the taste of him. One hand slid down Ezra's waist, to his hip, and between their bodies. J.D. cupped the bulge straining against Ezra's fly, squeezed.

A heartfelt groan of desire was his reward.

"Please," Ezra whispered, now the one with uncertainty in his eyes. "Please, J.D. Be very, very sure this is what you want. I think..."

"You think too damn much sometimes, is what I think," J.D. interrupted, something a bit steelier than lust flickering to life in the depths of his eyes. "I've made my decision. My decision, Ezra. And I ain't gonna change my mind, nor make you pay for it later. Come on."

He stepped back, tugging Ezra along with him. Towards the hallway leading to the bedrooms, the den.

Just when did the balance of power in this relationship shift? Ezra wondered wildly, as his heart tried to bounce up into his throat and the last bit of circulating blood dropped to his crotch. He followed J.D's lead, as obediently as a lamb following its shepherd.

Until Dunne hesitated just inside the corridor, glanced at him with a bit of uncertainty. "Uh, Ez... I'd rather we went in there," he began, nodding towards one of the small bedchambers. "At least this once. I know the bed's small, and it's not as comfortable, but..."

"I understand," Ezra nodded. "J.D., are you absolutely certain...?"

"GOD! What do I have to do to convince you?" J.D. burst out in exasperation, "Get down on my knees and beg?"

Before Ezra could get past that mental image, J.D. yanked him inside one of the small rooms and slammed the door. It was almost too dark to see, but J.D. was well familiar with the arrangement. Releasing Ezra, he stalked over to the small table that sat between the narrow beds. There was nothing on it but a lamp and a small tin, holding matches.

Nothing was inside its shallow drawer but a couple of soft night-shirts and a bottle of oil, scented lightly with calendula. Ezra knew the inventory for a fact. He'd put those things there. But never in the least anticipation of this.

J.D. lifted off the lamp's chimney, setting it aside. With almost irritated movements, he raked a match against the under side of the tabletop, lit the wick and set it, then jammed the chimney back into place. Soft yellow light illuminated the room.

Turning back towards Ezra, J.D.'s hands were fisted on his hips, and that newborn steely something glittered in his eyes once more. "You, Josiah, Buck-- hell, everybody-- has told me over and over that I don't have to do anything I don't want to. That if I do want something, all I have to do is ask. So..." He advanced a step on Ezra, and Ezra had to squash the impulse to step back. "I'm askin'. Ezra, please. Fuck me. Now."

It was so quiet, then, that Standish could hear the surge of his own rapid heartbeat. His gaze was locked with Dunne's, and once more, it was Ezra who broke the connection. It was his well-honed sense of the absurd that saved him from some unseemly display of panic. After all, it wasn't as if he was the naive player in this scenario. "Well," he drawled puckishly. "Since you asked so nicely..."

J.D. laughed, and Ezra stepped into his embrace eagerly. He kissed J.D. with all the skill and fire he'd held in check before. Tangled his hands through J.D.'s hair, felt it slipping warm-cool against his fingers, like masses of silken thread.

As easily as dance partners change direction, they shifted roles of seducer and seduced. Ezra's kisses moved to explore the line of J.D.'s jaw as his nimble fingers dropped to deal with his lover's buttons. J.D. swayed towards him, his head dropped back a little, his eyes closed.

Breathing was something J.D. remembered to do only occasionally, as Ezra's lips meandered to his throat and the gambler's fingers worked their magic on his clothes. He felt the heated brush of them along his chest, his belly ohgodhisfly! "Uhhhgggnnn!" Who made that moan?

"Enjoy that?" Ezra chuckled in a whisper, and circled his tongue once more through the small hollow at the base of J.D.'s throat. He pushed Dunne's trousers down past his lean hips, freeing a rather impressive erection.

J.D. intended to say yes. What actually came out of his throat was another garbled exclamation, when the cool air of the room washed over his groin. Driven by some gut-level need to touch Ezra's skin, his hands clawed against the linen covering Ezra's shoulders, tugged sharply.

Stitches popped, and Ezra's laugh had a lewd, rough edge. "Soon, sweet one... soon," he promised. His hands sleeked up J.D.'s body, as if he were a sculptor testing the polish of his work. Traced the thin line of dark hair up the center of his lover's belly, with just a fingertip, ruffling it the wrong way. Let his hands rove over the curves of J.D.'s ribs, and back in over his chest. He circled the dark, taut nipples with his thumbs, not quite touching the outer edge of their pigmented areolas.

J.D., panting like a racehorse, swayed under the sensory assault. The slightest touch, the flicker of Ezra's breath against his skin, seemed to reverberate, to wash along his body like surf that broke in crashing waves in his crotch. His hold on Ezra now was mindless, a pure instinct to stay upright. The removal of the rest of his clothing, he experienced only as a continuation of the delicious, erotic assault on his senses. Feeling the bed press against his back came as a surprise. How had he gotten there?

Ezra smiled down at J.D., blinking up at him dazedly from the narrow bed. There was a sense of exultant power that came with driving a lover into the mindless depths of sensuality. A power he found quite addictive. Feasting on J.D.'s transformed expression, on every gasped breath and upon every involuntary twitch of his lover's cock, Ezra removed his own clothes. Each discarded item was tossed blindly behind him, in the direction of the other small bed in the room.

Men weren't supposed to be described as beautiful. But J.D. had no other word in his vocabulary for the perfection of Ezra's body, as it was revealed in the lamplight. Beautiful. Smoother than he, sleek, powerful muscles sliding under golden pale skin. No hair at all, other than a dark reddish thatch around the erection that stood rigidly against his belly. Beautiful. Even more beautiful than the shadowed glimpses he'd caught of Ezra's body, before. He could no more keep from reaching out, than he could keep his heart from skipping beats.

Ezra caught the pleading hand, kissed the damp palm, teased the fragile skin between the fingers with his tongue. J.D. closed his eyes, a shudder wracking his body as he groaned. Whimpered when Ezra released his hand, and moved away.

His own cock leaped hungrily in reaction to the sound. Ezra reached over, tugged open the drawer and retrieved the small bottle. He popped the cork with his thumb, and tipped it. Ezra anointed his own throbbing member with the pale, straw-colored oil, first, then pooled a few drops into his left hand to warm.

J.D. watched, his eyes wide and dark, his lips swollen and slightly parted. "You're killin' me," he panted accusingly.

Ezra chuckled, stretched out beside him on the narrow mattress. "Shall I stop?"

"God, no!" J.D. practically crawled on top of him, grasping possessively against that possibility.

Laughing softly, Ezra tipped him onto his back once more. Kissed his way down that winsome young body. J.D. gasped and twitched, returned kisses and caresses as best he was able. His very inexperience excited Ezra more than he had dreamed possible. When he trailed a fingertip down to trace the ridged circlet of J.D.'s opening, he felt him go instantly still, felt muscles tense. He didn't remove his hand, but kissed the soft fold between groin and thigh, then raised his head.

J.D. was propped on his elbows, staring down at him, breathing in jerking gasps. Ezra saw nothing in his eyes but the normal uncertainty of a virgin. Still...

"Are you sure?" he whispered.

A nod was all J.D. could manage. All Ezra needed. He bent his head, and drew his tongue up along the length of J.D.'s cock at the same instant he pressed a fingertip past that guarding ring of muscle.

J.D.'s hips lifted off the bed, and a wild little yelp of sound burst from his throat.

"Easy, love... easy..." Ezra soothed, and laid his cheek against J.D.'s erection. Easing the way with one feathery caress after another, he slipped first one finger and then another into J.D's body.

Dropping flat once more, J.D. rolled his head against the pillow. His hands clenched spasmodically into the bedclothes, and sounds he didn't recognize burst out of his throat. He was absolutely helpless against the tender, relentless assault on his senses. And he didn't care. What Ezra was doing felt so good.... so far beyond good that he'd never imagined such bliss existed.

Ezra watched J.D.'s abandonment with a strange mixture of lustful excitement and calculating detachment. When he felt the clenching muscles around his fingers relax, felt the quivering channel beyond flare wider, he couldn't suppress a conqueror's smile.

He pressed upwards, against the sensitive little nub of flesh that lay just the other side of the inner wall. J.D. shouted, hips surging upwards involuntarily. Before the reverberations of that novel physical sensation died away from his lover, Ezra pulled his fingers free, moved up J.D.'s body, and entered him in one sure, unhurried thrust.

Startled, wild brown eyes stared into his, strong, slim arms and legs wrapped around him possessively, instinctively. Ezra teetered on the brink of orgasm, right then. Holding perfectly still, he fought his way back. Bent his head, and kissed J.D. once more. Tenderly, softly, at first.

His lover writhed beneath him, moaned into his mouth. Ezra began to move, to moan himself from the overpowering waves of sensuality. His kisses became more demanding, his tongue ravishing J.D.'s mouth to the same rhythm his hips were setting.

Transported far beyond any thought but "YES!," J.D. held onto Ezra with the grip of the drowning, blunted nails biting half-circles into the skin of his lover's back. Maddened by the delicious, stretching friction of Ezra's thrusts, by the sliding of his own aching cock against his lover's belly, J.D. panted and sobbed and drummed his heels against Ezra's thighs as if he were urging on a galloping horse.

Feeling his impending climax twisting tighter and tighter, like a watchspring wound to the snapping point, Ezra looked down into J.D.'s transformed face as the tidal wave of orgasm took his lover's mind completely away.

The slippery heat of J.D's seed spurting between them, and the jerking spasms of his hips, drove orgiastic laughter from Ezra. And the sweet merge took him, that rare precious moment when lovers are no longer separate entities, and nothing else exists in the entirety of Creation save a roiling, glittering flood of transcendent ecstasy.

When Nirvana tipped him gently back into the world, Ezra was dazedly pleased to see that somehow, he'd managed to avoid dropping his weight onto J.D.'s chest. He blinked against trickling sweat, looked down into J.D.'s still slightly addled eyes, and smiled.

To watch returning awareness and sleepy, sated satisfaction pool in those dark eyes, was ineffably precious. Ezra had just enough strength left, to shift slightly to one side, off J.D.'s torso.

Apparently, J.D. had no intentions of letting him go, any time soon. He kept his legs wrapped around Ezra's hips, slipped an arm around his waist and wriggled closer.

Ezra happily settled his lover's head onto his shoulder, then drifted to off to the sleep of newborns and angels.

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

//Tuesday, September 29, 1874

I can't believe I haven't written here in more than a week, but then, I can't believe how many new things a body can learn in a week, either. Looking back, I can hardly believe I wasted so much sweat and nail-biting over what I feel for Ezra... for all of them. I've never felt so at ease before, so much like I belong. Other than my Ma, I never had a family. Now, I do, and having it, it's already getting hard to even remember how it felt, living without one. Thinking about Ma...well, I can't imagine what she'd say about the type of family we are. Just know it'd be harsh words. But, somehow, I think she'd forgive me, knowing how happy I am, how good they are to me...//

//Sleeping in that narrow bed with Ezra lasted all of two nights. I'll have to agree with him, the den-bed is a hell of a lot more comfortable, and not just because you don't wake up feeling like somebody's beaten you with a broom handle, like those damned horse-hair mattresses make you feel.//

//Not like we could just go back in there without me getting ribbed about it, though. And I know I ought to be glad all I got from them before then were little smirking looks. I guess I have Ezra to thank for that, because I figure he threatened or begged them or bought them off. I thought everybody else was asleep, but as soon as we laid down, Buck's head popped up and he was grinning so big you could have counted every one of his teeth.//

//"What are you two doin' all the way over there? Get your sorry asses over here, and let me show you how it's really done." //

//I told him to keep his mouth shut and his eyes open and Ez and me would teach him a thing or two about how it's done.//

//Before he could mouth off again, Chris or Vin one slapped him across the back of the head. That kept all three of them busy for a while. And once one of them accidentally kicked Josiah in the ribs, and he let out a bellow that woke up Nathan...they really had their hands full. So full that they all forgot all about Ez and me. For long enough, any way.//

//I'd never thought that you could fuck like a crazed thing and laugh like a loon at the same time, or that it'd feel so damned good...//

J.D. paused for a few moments, a smile dancing over his lips as the memory of that fracas replayed in his head.

"The dinner dishes are still sittin' dirty in the tub," Ezra commented from the rocker, not looking up from his careful cleaning of his derringer.

"So? Go wash ...em...it's your turn," J.D. didn't lift his head from his writing.

//I hope nobody ever finds this journal, at least, not until after we're all dead and gone. Otherwise...we might get burned at the stake or something.//

"Cut you for the chore," Ezra offered brightly. He laid down the pieces of oiled, deadly metal and moved to prop a hip on the table, a deck of cards already in his hand. "Low draw takes both our turns for a month."

The look of scathing skepticism he got in return may have permanently quailed a lesser man. J.D. turned his attention back to his journal, but Ezra wasn't one to give up at the first whiff of negativity.

"You cut me to the quick," he sighed, and the cards seemed to ripple under their own power, in his palm. "With this lack of faith in my integrity. To insinuate that I'd cheat you, of all people, and over such a trifling matter as a small household duty!"

Looking up, J.D. found his gaze met by one of full-bore, emerald innocent dismay and affronted sincerity.

"I'll even agree to best two out of three, just to ease any lingering doubts you may have," Ezra offered, and the injured, innocent glow in his eyes ratcheted up a couple of notches in intensity.

"All right, all right!" J.D. slapped his journal closed, then held out his hand. "But I cut and deal!"

"I would insist on it," Ezra nodded agreeably, handing over the dec.

kThree times, J.D. shuffled the cards thoroughly. And three times, Ezra graciously insisted he draw first from the deck."I'm never bettin' with you again, Ezra!" J.D. yelled, furious. He knew better; he knew he should know better. But when he shuffled, and he drew first, how the hell could Ezra cheat at high cards?

Ezra just laughed, and J.D. couldn't duck fast enough to keep the man from ruffling his hair in passing. Dishes. He hated dishes. He hated washing them, he hated drying them, he hated using them. From now on, people were going to use their forks and eat out of the frying pans and cook pots, and that was that.

For the moment, however, he was washing the dinner dishes. Again.

A few minutes passed; he had drawn water, loaded the tub that sat on the work table that sat just beyond the back porch, and scraped the plates for the new chickens. And grumbled, every single stinking second. The door to the kitchen banged shut, and startled, J.D. jerked around. It was just Ezra, who hooked an ankle over a boot, crossed his arms over his chest, and smiled.

"You comin' to gloat?" he growled, showing his pack-mate his bac.

kHe heard Ezra approach but refused to look around, even when hands touched either side of his neck. All that did was make him drop the plate he held. "Geez, Ezra, will you just leave me alone?!"

He heard the smile in Ezra's voice. "No, I don't think I will. It occurred to me that I may be able to provide something to make your task more enjoyable."

"There ain't nothin' that makes doin' dish--Ack!" One hand pushed right between his legs and grabbed his balls from the back, while another slid around his waist to keep him steady.

"I beg to differ with you, J.D.," Ezra said, and the smile sounded even broader, sultrier. Damn, that voice alone could make him hard, and damn Ezra for knowing it!

"Would ya just leave me alone and let me--" A tongue licked, broad and flat and shiveringly delightful, down his neck, and he ground his teeth in his effort to resist. "I gotta..." he tried one last time, but even he recognized that he'd lost this fight. When Ezra's hands went to his trousers and unceremoniously unbuttoned them, he just stood there and shuddered and let them drop to the ground. He trembled as cool afternoon air breezed over his newly naked thighs, over his stiffly erect dic.

kLooking down, he watched Ezra's smooth-as-silk hand as it stroked him, just two fingers tormenting his manhood, teasing it, making it reach for them, for more. "Ezra," he whimpered, and Ezra's hand wrapped snugly around his dick and tugged. The other, between his legs, weighed his balls, rolled them gently, drove him wild. "Ahh!" His reaction was helpless and instinctive; Ezra knew his body better than he knew it himself. The hot flesh, squeezing just tight enough, stripped up and down his cock, and all he could do was gasp, and watch it, and hold tightly to the edge of the wash tub.

Then it loosened. Stopped. And the fingers began to tease again. They pinched lightly at the head, and two flicked over the tip, pushing it, testing its resilience. "Ezra!" he whined, knew he was whining. Resigned himself to it. "Please!"

"Ah," Ezra's hot breath tickled his ear, his neck. "The goal is to finish the task, J.D.. If you stop, my efforts are in vain."

And J.D., with shaking hands, picked up a plate in hopes it would make Ezra pick up his cock. He let his body be moved like a puppet's, where Ezra willed it. Lifted his foot to let his pant leg be pushed down, spread his legs as far apart as Ezra wanted them. Ezra's knees bumped the backs of his, encouraging him to bend, to push his ass back. Oh lord, oh lord, Ez was going to fuck him, right out here in the sunshine and he was going to scream, if Ezra didn't--

The door banged again, just as Ezra stepped between his legs and pulled his cheeks apart. He cringed, felt his face burn with mortification; someone stood on the porch and watched this, watched him helpless as he held on to the wash tub and waited to be taken.

"Hey Chris, Buck!" Vin's voice. Vin watching. Oh God, he hated how much he loved that Vin was watching.

"I think we've found a way to get Ezra involved in the cleanin' around here!"

More noises, more banging, and expectant, surprised silence behind him. He couldn't turn to look, couldn't believe how close he was to coming just because he knew those men stood on the porch behind him.

Ezra's cock head brushed against his hole, slick. He twitched, barely kept himself from pushing back onto it.

A hand ran warmly up his side, pushing his shirt up to gently rub his skin. "We can stop, if you wish," Ezra breathed in his ear. J.D. gulped in a breath and turned his head, indecision swamped by need.

Three of them stood there; Vin leaned against the same porch post Ezra had, staring and smiling openly, and the bulge in his pants was impossible to miss. Buck and Chris stood just beside Vin, Buck behind Chris and gently humping against Chris through their pants. Those two were shirtless and bare foot. All three pairs of eyes watched, unblinking, hungry. Oh damn.

"You stop and I'll mix ground glass into your supper tonight," he hissed, and squeezed his eyes shut. A nudge, that pressure that every time felt too big until it wasn't, until the head pushed through the tight ring and deeper into him so hard, so slow. "Damn," he moaned, "that feels good, Ez!"

"I do notice you've stopped washing those dishes." But Ezra's calm voice was laced with heat, and their skin, where it touched at his back, his waist, his ass, was getting slick with sweat.

"Shut up and fuck him!" This from Buck, before he could get the words out himself. A thrust, hard, pushed him forward. He jostled the washtub and water sloshed. His pack-mates were drawing closer, but he didn't open his eyes yet, couldn't even when another pair of hands joined Ezra's, one on his hip, one gripping his ass, pulling at the cheek--Ezra's cock slid that bit deeper and he whimpered again, swiveled his hips to get more of that heavenly feeling up in there.

"Sure are pretty, boy." Buck's voice, sounded right in front of him, and he opened startled eyes. Buck sat on the other side of the washtub, one knee drawn up, just looking at him. The affection and desire in his eyes was as familiar as it was welcome. J.D. made a tiny, inarticulate sound and reached blindly; Buck caught up his hand and squeezed, even as Chris eased in behind Buck on the table and, chin propped on Buck's shoulder, slid his arms around Buck's ribs.

"Handsome, Buck," Chris murmured. His eyes were intent, relaxed,aroused. "Men are handsome."

Buck's other hand came up and cupped J.D.'s chin; he leaned forward across the washing, and J.D. hungrily, eagerly tipped his chin up for the consuming kiss. Buck settled back as Ezra increased the pace inside J.D., and reached up to touch Chris' arm. "That's pretty, Chris."

"What do you want, J.D.?" Buck asked gently, smilingly, even as he pressed into Chris' touches. Ezra barely moved inside him, waiting. A slow inch back, a slow inch forward, enough to drive him mad without ever driving him to the edge.

"What?"

"What do you want?" Vin repeated, from where he stood to J.D.'s left. "What would you like?"

"Uh..." He didn't understand the question. He was getting what he liked, what his body wanted in this instant more than anything. What else--

Buck laughed, a joyful sound and not unkind, slid out from Chris' embrace, turned and manhandled Chris into a spread-legged position on the edge of the table. Buck unbuttoned Chris' pants to release a hard, weeping cock and J.D. stared, mesmerized, as it twitched and tapped Chris' belly. Then with positively happy gusto, Buck propped his knees on the bench seat, bent over, and sucked Chris' cock deep into his mouth. Chris' neck arched. Chris' whole body arched, and his ass came up off the table as he thrust. Watching too, Vin groaned, right into J.D.'s ear.

And J.D. approached sensory overload. "Fast, Ez, please, fast," he whimpered, pushing his ass back and begging with his body. "Vin..." he gasped as Ezra obeyed, and a thrust pushed him almost into the work table. "Vin, I--" he couldn't say it, couldn't ask. "I..." his flaming cheeks colored even darker.

"Fuck it," Vin said decisively, and stepped away from him. Ezra thrust again, and J.D. was about to close his eyes in disappointment when he saw Vin round the table at a run.

With a swift economy of movement, Vin reached around Buck's waist and unbuttoned his trousers, tugged hard and left them to pool near Buck's knees. Vin fumbled at his own pants like a mad man, clumsy in his need, and J.D. couldn't tear his eyes away. As yet another hard cock appeared before him. He had started this somehow, him and Ez. He had started this bout of sex in the yard in the middle of the afternoon. In full daylight, Ezra fucked him, and Buck sucked Chris, and Vin was about to put it into Buck. And he had started this.

He had never felt so deliciously dirty, so carnally joyful, in his life.

He was fixated on the stage set before him, on the other side of the dirty dishes, while Ezra's hot breath seared the skin of his neck and Ezra's warm, skilled hands held his hips still for the next deep, satisfying thrust, and the next.

Vin didn't look around for whatever Ezra had brought and used, but leaned over and stuck his tongue into Buck's hole to wet it. Buck let loose a muffled howl and started to pull off Chris' shaft. Chris reacted almost violently, reaching with both hands to grab Buck's head and hold it down on his cock. Buck's shoulders shook, and his body swayed like a sapling tree in a high wind. He sucked harder, J.D. could tell, because Chris started thrashing his head from side to side crazily, and his fingers sank deeper into Buck's hair.

Then Vin lifted his head, used his thumbs to part Buck's cheeks, and leaned in. Chris' head snapped up in that instant, and for the briefest of seconds both of them froze, staring at each other over Buck's long back. Then Chris blinked and thrust his hips up. Vin sighed and thrust his hips forward. Buck bowed between them and release sped toward J.D. like a twister, and promised to destroy him as thoroughly. Ezra hadn't even thrust more than a few times.

He was so aroused he felt fevered. "Fast, Ez, fast fast fastfastfast," he heard the garbled words spill out of his mouth, fingers clenching white-knuckled against the table edge. And Ezra, blessed Ezra, obliged. With his monumental head start, his release was devastatingly explosive. A shout burst from his throat that he could no more contain than the seed that boiled in his balls and would follow in an instant. His knees trembled, his whole body convulsed between his butt and the table where he held on for dear life.

Chris' head jerked around to look right at him. Somehow Buck shook off Chris' hand and turned too, and Vin, leaning all his weight on Buck's back now, just rested his cheek between Buck's shoulder blades and blinked his eyes open.

Oh...oh... He couldn't think, as it stormed through him. Couldn't measure time or space. Could barely register Chris's palm turning gently, tenderly to Buck's cheek, Chris' other hand lifting that dark, wet cock and offering it back to Buck's mouth. Vin thrust hard, wild.And Ezra still moved inside him with those short quick plunges that turned him inside out, and the feeling just kept expanding in him, until he felt like his whole body was caught in the throes of death.

Oh...

When he could see and hear and think again, he was on his knees. Ezra knelt behind him, cock still pressed deep, the angle off, uncomfortable.

"Liked that, did you?" Ezra breathed, sly satisfaction clear in his voice.

"Oh..." He couldn't see as much of what was happening beyond the dishes, now. And he wanted to. "What...?"

Ezra's hands curved around his buttocks and urged him forward. "Sit up, that's right," Ezra guided, and eased out of him. Even with the relief from the awkward angle, he missed that hard presence inside him. Then Ezra stood and grasped his shoulders, helping him to stand. He leaned on the table for support, and Ezra's arms came around him, Ezra's hands covered his own.

Just watching the others seemed to magnify and elongate his own slowly waning pleasure. "They're beautiful," he whispered.

Sunlight did unexpected things to a man in the throes of passion. It made the sheen of sweat look like a glowing halo, made the shifting muscles look like living marble, made the pleasure that suffused his face indistinguishable from the looks J.D. imagined angels wore-- real angels, Josiah's angels. Not the plaster and paint martyrs he'd seen in churches and missions. Vin came first, his face gone blank and transcendent.

Chris came next, his head thrown back, long neck exposed to the light, long fingers carding through Buck's dark hair. And Buck... Buck kept his head down, nuzzled happily into the thatch of wheat-colored hair at Chris' groin. But the tension in his body made J.D. think of a pointer holding steady on the bird, a racehorse, muscles bunched and ready, at the gate. Behind him, Vin met Chris' eyes, then slid his hands under Buck's armpits to pull him back and away. Buck looked startled, and at a loss, until Chris maneuvered off the work table and to his knees in front of Buc.

kWorship. He knew the slang, but when Chris did it to Buck, it looked like going to church. Because it was reverent, and tender, intimate enough he felt he ought to look away.

He didn't. Instead, he turned in Ezra's arms and looked for permission, and after sorting out their clothes, the two of them walked around the table to be nearer their friends. Vin's arms still supported Buck around the waist, so J.D. slipped to the ground behind Chris and placed a hand on the slowly moving shoulder. Ezra somehow inserted himself along Buck's right side, and lured Buck's head down for kisses and licks and sighing breaths.

Above him, Buck tensed and curled forward. Chris whimpered. Vin said "Easy," and Buck's body jackknifed with the strength of his release. Vin and Ezra eased him down. Chris caught him on the way, exchanging mouth for hand and just comforting Buck's still-spitting manhood. Buck and Chris exchanged tender kisses until Buck's pleasure waned, then the big Two-Blood, gasping deeply, looked over Chris' shoulder and right into J.D.'s eyes.

"You want some help with them dishes?" he asked, completely serious in spite of the smile in his eyes.

"Nah," he smiled back, and reached to squeeze Buck's shoulder. "I'm all right."

"You sure are, little brother," Buck said fondly. "You sure are."

Well, Ezra was damned right. Body thrumming with the afterglow of sex and heart expanded with the afterglow of all the love in this family, washing the dishes was a lot more enjoyable.

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

The three were conspicuous simply because they were women riding astride and unchaperoned. And two of them wore firearms in full view, outside their divided skirts. The first rode a rangy, rather ugly chestnut gelding with a stride that ate ground like a train and seemed to move on just as smoothly. She eyed the town and its inhabitants as if she expected something to spring on them with intent to devour, at any moment.

The second rode a neat-footed, blood-bay mare that danced along as if she were on parade. The curve of the mare's neck and the dish of her face seemed to hint at a touch of hot-blooded refinement somewhere in her breeding.

Her rider seemed just as happy with the situation, riding shoulders straight and chin held at the angle of the supremely self-content and unself-conscious. She held no glances, but didn't avoid them, either. In fact, she openly took in each passing face as if she were on a merry quest for a long-lost friend.

The third sat with rounded shoulders, her face shadowed by her hatbrim. Her mount was a placid, big-boned, mud-colored fellow that had a roman nose and a bit of uncouth feathering about his fetlocks. He wore a hackamore, rather than a bit, and seemed to follow the other two equines, rather than any direction from his rider.

They were closely watched. The seven regulators, despite the changes in their living situation, still made it a point to be in town, en masse, as often as they had been before. Their duty to the town required it. Ezra's duty to his bank-roll demanded that at least he spend several nights out of the week planted in his usual place at the saloon's gaming table. The others reverted to their habits of passing the time, as well.

"At least they don't look like bounty hunters," Chris passed that opinion on the women, from where he lounged in a chair leaned back against the clapboards of the jail's front. Leaning against the wall beside him, Wilmington almost had his hip propped against Chris' shoulder. He was idly shaping a piece of wood with his knife. A few tiny curls of shavings drifted across Chris' shirt-front. Flicking them away, he glared up at Buck. For all the good that did.

"They don't look like they're plannin' on joinin' the sewin' society, either," J.D. commented, eyeing the gun belts that wrinkled the woolen skirts.

"Don't look like they're even gonna pull up," Vin opined. "Just passin' through, maybe."

It was then that the odd trio came abreast of the watching regulators. Like a compass needle swinging from north to a lodestone, the leader wheeled her mount into a ninety-degree turn. With cavalry-like precision, her companions followed her move.

Buck straightened from his slouch as if someone had prodded him from behind with something sharp. That reaction didn't go unnoticed. Chris set his chair back onto all fours, and the others tensed, even as they held their previously relaxed postures.

The leader pulled up in front of the hitching post, and dismounted. She flipped a rein around the crossbar without taking her eyes from Buck. The other two sat their horses, and the one on the mud-colored gelding even seemed to wake up and pay attention.

The leader seemed only to have eyes for Buck. "Good afternoon," she greeted him, in a voice that was faintly accented. She ducked her head in an odd little sideways curve that somehow suggested meek harmlessness, and added, "I'd like to speak to you, alone, if I may."

"Anything you need to say, you can say it right here in front of the whole Pack, Two-Blood," Buck answered, his voice holding the hint of a rumbling threat.

The woman glanced from him towards the other galvanized men, and her nostrils twitched just the slightest bit. Then, she nodded. "I'm Lilith. My pack-mates, Mae and Lucine. We ask sanctuary."

"Ain't mine to grant-- he's Alpha around here," Buck grinned wickedly, and jerked a thumb towards Chris.

Surprise, disbelief, and confusion flickered across the woman's features, as her eyes went to the black-clad One-Blood and took his measure.

"Let's discuss this inside," Chris answered, his gaze unreadable. He nodded his head towards the door of the jail.

Lilith glanced at Buck once more, and he gave her an almost invisible nod. At that, she walked through the staring One-Bloods, head held high, into the dimness of the jail. Without hesitation, the other two tied their horses, and followed.

As soon as Vin closed the door behind them all, Chris eyed the tall, loose-limbed woman in front of him with undisguised suspicion. "Which Pack are you with?"

"We were part of the Sinking Spring Pack, about three hundred miles northeast of here. Before One-Bloods wiped us out."

She and the one she called Mae exchanged a flicker of a glance, and Mae reached out and halted the low humming that the third, younger, woman had begun making deep in her throat.

Starting at the touch, the woman's humming choked off in her throat. Instead, she began to sway slightly back and forth, her hands twisting together. Her greenish-blue eyes were as clear, innocent and as discerning as those of a china doll. They roved over everything, and seemed to react to nothing at all.

It was obvious the woman was an imbecile, and for the moment, the major significance of that to Chris was that the number of potential threats standing in a confined space with him and his men was reduced by one.

"What happened?"

"A group of riders caught sight of my youngest brother along the road one night. They shot him for a wolf-- and in his death throes, he changed. They recognized him and decided to rid their fair countryside of the devil's spawn."

Lucine moaned as if in pain, and Mae put her arm around the woman's waist.

Lilith gave Chris a look that pleaded for compassion. "May she take Lucine outside? She doesn't understand much, but sadly, this she always does. It takes hours to calm her back down."

He nodded, and added softly, "Josiah?"

The bear-like preacher followed the two women outside onto the boardwalk. Not that he expected either woman to try anything, but of all of them, barring Buck, Chris would lay heaviest odds on Josiah coming out on top of a fight with a shape-shifter.

"Don't feed us that load a' crap," Vin rumbled when the door closed again. "No bunch of panicky rabble could wipe out an entire Pack."

"It was no panicked mob. They waited, made plans. Gave us time to begin to think that perhaps they hadn't seen Jesse make the change after all, when they left him dying in the dirt." She shook her head, then, her jaw tightening. "Whether you believe us or not, there's still a dead Pack at Sinking Spring."

"How'd it happen?" Chris asked bluntly.

Lilith lifted her chin, took a deep breath, and answered in the way of one who's been forced to relive a horror so often, that the sharp edge of the telling of it has worn a raw ache into the voice and a dead spot into the soul.

"I'm not certain. Mae and I, we were on the other side of our territory, looking for Lucine. She'd gotten separated during a hunt, a few days before. She can't find her way home alone-- we had to track her, because she panicked and ran as fast as she could. In the wrong direction. Coming back, we smelled the smoke and the blood-- but we were far too late."

Lilith's eyes were still on Chris' face, but her focus shifted, as if she were staring a hundred yards past him. "They'd planned it. From the night they'd killed Jesse, they must have been planning it. There were so many of them, with their guns and dogs, that we couldn't separate out all their scents. The ground was torn up for yards all around by their horses' hooves. Our defenders were riddled with bullets, trampled by the horses and torn to pieces by the hounds. Most of the Pack, they'd burned alive, in the house. One of our women escaped the fire. Even though she'd been horribly burned, they raped her. Raped her over and over, then ripped her unborn child from her belly and left her to bleed to death."

Even Chris felt the urge to step back from the rage and hatred that glowed in her eyes and coarsened her voice, as she told her tale.

"Jesus Christ... " Nathan breathed. It wasn't meant as a profanity.

Those who've weathered horror, sometimes find it harder to be touched by the horror suffered by others. Larabee refused to acknowledge any haunting visions evoked by the holocaust she'd described. Instead, he watched her intently, looking for hints of lies.

Standish's face presented the ideal of sympathetic compassion, behind which he coolly searched for the same telltale signs. J.D. looked nauseated. Vin's eyes were hooded, and he let his hatbrim shadow his face. Buck glowered, reflecting the rising of the impulse that sent him charging into defense of women and children despite risk to himself and consideration of the odds.

"There's a lot of packs between here and Sinking Spring's territory. Why haven't you hooked up with one of them?" Larabee challenged her flatly.

"We tried," she admitted, her eyes flicking toward the door once more. "If it had just been Mae and me, we could have joined almost any of them between there and here. But, with Lucine... We were allowed to pass through, to hunt-- but not to stay."

"Why not? It's Pack Law to take care of those that can't care for themselves!" J.D. blurted, then instantly looked abashed, as if he just then realized that it was his voice that had rung out.

Lilith turned amber-hazel eyes on the younger man, and smiled with sad indulgence. "They were fulfilling Pack Law, in allowing us to cross their territory and hunt. But none wanted to take in one not born to them who would be a liability. Who would attract attention, anywhere she went. Who needs to be constantly looked after as if she were a pup. Who, if she were to someday breed, might pass on her defect."

Those strange-colored, earnest eyes turned back, to search first the tall Two-Blood's face, and then that of the black-clad human. "She wouldn't, you know. Pass it on, I mean. She was kicked in the head, on a hunt when she was younger. We thought she would die. In a way, I feel she did. Before then, she was almost frighteningly bright. Now, she's... like a tiny child, in most ways."

"Why'd you come to us and expect any different?" Buck asked, his voice roughened.

Again, that meek little sideways duck of her head. "Because we heard that Four Corners is a Pack of all males, and, even more oddly than that, a Pack of many One-Bloods."

A wry, self-deprecating smile tilted her lips. "No offense intended, but... if your Pack is that unique, that-- adaptable-- we figured you might be flexible enough to take in two able-bodied loners and a mental lamer."

Chris met Buck's eyes over her head. There was no mistaking what Wilmington would choose. Well, Buck's big heart had nearly gotten his damnfool head cut off more than once. Chris wasn't in a hurry to see if this would lead to another one of those precarious situations.

"There's a good camping site, three miles south of town, a quarter mile west off the road. There's a seep-spring there, and a few cottonwoods. You got enough supplies to hold you for a while?"

"Six days, if there's grass for our horses."

"There is. Stay there until we come out, with our decision. And fair warning-- if folks around here are disturbed by so much as a howl in the night, you'll be set packin' so fast your heads will spin."

"Thank you, Mr...?"

"Larabee."

She nodded politely. "The last thing we want is to cause trouble. We'll wait for you at the place you say and not take even a rabbit from your territory."

A regal nod dismissed her, and seven speculative sets of eyes followed the women's withdrawal from the town.

"She's tellin' the truth, about what happened to Sinkin' Spring Pack. Word passed through, a couple months after it happened. There wasn't believed to have been any survivors, though." Buck looked at Chris levelly. "And she's likely tellin' the truth about why all the other Packs turned ...em away. That's the way they think."

"Even if that's so, still no reason why we should take them in. We ain't no charity for indigent Two-Bloods," Chris growled.

"For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in..." Josiah quoted quietly at his shoulder.

What Larabee gave was a look that should have sent the preacher straight to meet his Maker. "They can stay long enough to rest their horses, and I'll go along with frontin' them a generous grubstake to get ...em a long way down the road."

"And when it runs out?" Buck pressed.

"Winter's comin' on fast. Huntin's already poor, what with the drought, and there ain't many decent places to hole up, find water and stay warm easy," Vin commented. "Especially if no other Pack takes ...em in. Loners have a hard life, be even harder with havin' to take care of a child in an adult's body, along with it."

"They did come straight in and ask politely-- not march in like the Army, like the Red Stones did," J.D. ventured hesitantly.

"She hates One-Bloods," Nathan tossed into the roiling conversational pool. "She got good reason to, but she hates us just the same. You all heard it, and seen it in her face. Pure, burnin' hate."

Chris glanced at him with almost a sense of relief. An ally, finally. Then, he prompted Ezra, who'd been uncharacteristically silent, with a pointed glance.

"It's true," Standish began, "That she made no effort to hide her hatred for the humans that butchered her family. Even so, I saw nothing that makes me think she's judging us for their crimes, or that she's lying about what happened to her Pack. The main impression I gathered, is that she's heartily sick of reliving the incident, and being forced to beg."

Chris' molars ground against one another. Five for, two against. Piss-poor odds, especially considering who he was up against. "I remind you, gentlemen. This Pack is not a democracy." And with that, he strode down the boardwalk, accompanied by the lively companions of Conscience, Caution, and Cussedness.

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

//Monday, October 5, 1874

Just when it started to seem like we were all settling in, all sort of getting our feet under ourselves about this Pack thing, those women had to show up. Now everybody's all riled up again.//

//All of us have our reasons for wanting to let them stay, or to ask them to move on. I can't help feeling sorry for them. Thinking about how I'd feel, if I'd come back to find my whole family murdered and my house burned to the ground.//

//I suspect that's why Chris is so dead-set against them. They've gone through the same sort of thing he has. Maybe every time he thinks of them, he's reminded. And, God forgive me for even thinking this, but maybe he's afraid of letting them in because they have gone through the same thing he has-- but they don't seem to be carrying around that same dark cloud of anger and hate that almost eats him alive, sometimes.//

//But, the women had each other, when it happened. Then again, Chris had Buck. And from what I've gathered, all along, Chris was meaner than a striped snake to him. Ran him off, finally. See? I'm confused, too.//

//What I'm not confused about, is the fact that when Chris ain't happy, then none of us damn well better be happy. And we're not. It's like being stuck in the time right before a lightning storm, when the air seems to crackle and it feels like a spark will jump out of your fingers if you touch iron. We're all getting tired of it, and I wish he'd just make up his friggin' mind already.//

//It's hardest on Buck, I can tell. And he's saying the least of any of us. But every time he can, he's slipping off to the seep spring. Chris told him not to let them know he was there, and as far as I know, he hasn't. I think Chris is being a real pig about that. I mean, these are Buck's own kind, and no threat to the town or us, like the Red Stones were. I try to see this through Buck's eyes. To imagine how I'd feel, being the only one of my kind around. I'm finding that's real hard to do. It's real hard, too, watching Buck come back from one of his sneaks down there. He tries to hide it, to act like usual, but even I can see the longing in his eyes, like a poor kid looking in the window of a toy store on Christmas.//

//And still Chris won't make up his damned mind. Heck, the man kills folks on the spur of the moment. You'd think he'd be able to come to a decision about something like this without taking four fuckin' days and counting!//

A touch in the darkness. A presence so close, that the other's breath made the tiny hairs at the nape of his neck bristle. Chris stiffened, drew away.

Behind him, hurt silence was as tangible as the touch. He ignored it.

"Damn you!" Buck hissed, right at his ear.

Chris started. The silence had dragged on so long, he'd been sure Buck had gone back to sleep. He surely had.

"Talk to me!" Buck demanded, his voice no less heated, for being a whisper. "Tell me what I've done to set you off, this time. You owe me at least that much, you surly bastard!"

Chris' jaw tightened, till he could feel the cords of his neck jump out. The past four days had been hell. Maybe, that was why instead of a vulgar retort, the truth came out of his mouth. "Ain't I enough?" he hissed bitterly.

"Huh?"

"Ain't I-- all of us-- and every damned woman in town-- enough for you?" Chris demanded, rolling over to glare at the dim form beside him.

The expression on Chris' face struck Buck to the core. People in darkness speak without masking their expressions. And for him, Chris' expression was as clear to read as if they'd been out in the noonday sun.

"It ain't about that," he murmured, reaching out to brush fingertips along Chris' flank. His hand was shoved away.

"The hell it ain't!"

"I'm tellin' you, it ain't that!" Buck ground his teeth. "Are you're really this full of prideful horse-shit, or is it that you're actually too damn dense to figure it out?"

A tense silence. "Humor me," Chris requested, with deadly coolness.

Baring his soul to this mean-mouthed, self-centered, jealous son-of-a-bitch felt like a violation. Buck suppressed a long-suffering sigh. Wasn't like that was a novel sensation. Still, it took several moments to form his reply. Hard enough, to put the deepest longings of the soul into words, for a sympathetic listener.

For this, he had to steel himself. "You're right," he breathed, at last. "You ain't enough. You, all the others, ever' damn woman in town, you all ain't enough. But not for the reason you think."

Chris held his silence. After a moment, Buck went on. Slowly, hesitantly. "Ever since I can remember, I've felt like I was the only=20 one in the world, like me. It got worse, after Sarah Anne left for the last time, and after Momma...."

Chris felt Buck make some small movement, maybe a shake of his head.

"It was worse, after that. But it's always been with me. Ever' damn minute of the day. I can tell you, but I don't think you can really understand, how it feels to have to hide what you are. To know that even if you do tell, and don't get run off or killed for it-- that you're still not going to be understood. That you're gonna have to explain ever' little thing that doesn't fall in with what folks think is right and natural."

Another unseen movement, and a flicker of a sigh, then, he spoke again. "It wears on a man, Chris. Just seems like it'd feel real good, to be around at least a few of my own kind-- as long as I don't have to give up the family I have."

He waited. Waited some more. Studied Chris' still face. Breathed in a melange of emotions so tangled, he couldn't begin to decipher one=20 tang from another. Resigned, Buck turned his back to his oldest friend, and curled around his hurt.

He didn't say a word, two hours later, when he heard Larabee rise, dress, and leave the house.

//Tuesday October 6, 1874

I woke up this morning, just before dawn, hearing Chris saying something about "Throwing you to the wolves."//

//Opened my eyes to see the three women, staring down at us all sprawled around in our union suits and birthday suits. It sure wasn't the kind of introduction Ma taught me was proper-- but I'll say one thing for it. It puts everybody on familiar terms, real fast.

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

"Fellas, there's a few things you need to know about these women," Buck spoke as soon as they were around the first bend in the dusty track that eventually would lead them into the town.

"I reckon we all know what to do with a woman, Buck, even if none of the rest of us has had as many as you, all put together!" J.D. rolled his eyes.

"Shut y'r mouth and open y'r ears, J.D.," Vin admonished calmly. "Otherwise, you'll be ridin' into a world a' trouble. ...Less o' course," his voice took on a devilish lilt, "You like a woman to yank you around like she's got her finger through a ring in y'r dick."

"Now what the hell is that...?!" he fired back, brows glowering.

"Shut up, J.D.," Chris' voice cracked like a pistol shot. J.D. subsided, but contented himself with shooting poisonous glances at Vin, beside him, and Chris' back ahead of him. Neither seemed affected by the venom in the least.

"It ain't that they're women, understand," Buck began again, as if he'd never been interrupted. "It'd be the same if they were men. It's that they're Two-Bloods, and their way a' thinking about how things work is a bit diff'rent from what'll seem natural."

Vin nodded, while the rest wore expressions of varying degrees of misapprehension.

"Chris," Buck continued, "You're gonna bear the brunt of makin' sure they stay in line. They're gonna expect you to be Alpha, and if you ain't, they're gonna feel like the job's open for the takin'. And trust me, one of ...em will step up to fill it."

"I could do that a lot easier, if I had a fuckin' prayer of knowin' how to be the damned Alpha!"

The bray of laughter he got from Buck and Vin didn't lighten the glower on Larabee's face one whit. "Just be y'r usual charmin' self, Chris!" Vin spluttered, shoulders shaking.

"Yeah," Buck chuckled in agreement. "You've pretty much got the bit nailed down. Just treat ...em like you do the townsfolk, four days outta five!"

The look he got in return would have seared someone less inured to its power. The only effect it had on Buck was to sober him. "Look, just... don't give ...em an inch. Don't let ...em take any liberties at all-- even t' them standin' or sittin' too close. Any time they come within touchin' distance of you, it's because you've invited ...em to come that close. Your word's holy law, and if one of ...em acts like it ain't-- well, then you'd best put ...em in their place however you have t'do it-- or they'll try and take your place."

Chris nodded, silent, his eyes hinting at more depth to his thoughts than he allowed to show on his face.

Buck twisted in the saddle to regard the rest of the men. "It ain't gonna be that strict for the rest o' you. Just be on your guard for ...em takin' liberties. And if you feel like you've been pushed-- physically or otherwise-- you likely have been. Push back, just as hard. Forget they're women, and give ...em back what they dish out, with an extra helpin'."

"That don't sound like a way of life that'd lead to the sort of harmony Vin's described, in a pack," Josiah ventured.

"It don't, not at first," Buck agreed, then frowned slightly. "See, when new members join a pack, they've got to figure out where they're gonna stand in it. And generally, if someone's standin' in a rank they want-- the way to get it is to dominate that person, either through force o' personality or flat beatin' the shit outta them. Once everyone knows their place, life evens out and everyone fits together like cogs in a clock... "

He shook his head, speculatively. "One of the reasons packs don't take in outsiders, too often, I reckon. Sets the whole world on its ear for ...em, for a few weeks."

The quiet of each man working through that unsettling pronouncement, lasted until the edge of town ended any further discussion of the matter.

//Tuesday evening, October 6, 1874

Buck talked to us, today, about how to act around the women. I don't know if I can do it. I know it's what he says they expect, but it's not how I was raised or how I think. I just don't know if I can look one of them straight in the eyes and do that... //

J.D. looked across the room, to where Mae was playing with Lucine, softly telling some story in a foreign tongue, acting it out with little wooden figures of people and horses and wolves. Lilith sat at the table with him, to his left, sharing the lamp light. Her head was bent over her mending.

Peaceful as a picture from Currier and Ives, one of those with something printed along the bottom like "God Bless Our Home."

//Buck said they'd be all pushy and pretty obnoxious-sounding, trying to take places in the Pack. Not like I know more about it than he and Vin do, but I think they're wrong, this time. These women are so meek, it's almost embarrassing. They remind me of how the Chinese women were, at the railroad camp... all but the bowing, any way.//

J.D. glanced up, and found his gaze caught by Lilith's. He smiled at her, she nodded pleasantly, and didn't look back down at her needlework. J.D. held the gaze, waiting for her to speak, until it became obvious that she was going to hold silence. With another, slightly apologetic smile he returned his attention to his journal.

//If they're gonna cause trouble, I'll have to see it, before I'll believe it.//

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

//Wednesday, October 7, 1874

It was Buck's turn to cook, tonight. And lord, it was worse than ever! For all I know, he did it that way on purpose, because the women looked at each other as soon as they caught scent of it, and none of them ate anything but the cornbread. After the meal, I overheard Lilith asking Chris if they could take on the cooking chores. //

//He considered that for all of half a second, and then nodded. And, for good measure, told her that they could take on all the rest of the work to be done in the house, too. That we had more than enough to do, with our duties in town, and barn work.//

//I don't think that's hardly fair, but she didn't kick about it. And I'm still stuck as water-boy... that doesn't seem fair, either, but if I refuse to do it, then one of the women will have to, and I wouldn't feel right about that.//

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" Buck's voice was low, as he dropped into a chair across from Chris', at the saloon.

"Would it stop you if I said no?" he answered, the corner of his mouth quirking up. He passed the bottle over, and Buck tipped a measure into his own shot glass, taking a nip before he answered.

"Likely not, but I'd rather be on your good side, before I open my mouth, this time."

Chris leaned back in his chair, and waited, his expression a bit guarded. "I've got a good side?" Buck didn't rise to the bait-- never a good sign. He even squirmed a bit in his chair. Larabee's wariness increased by several notches.

"I... uh... I was wonderin' if... What would you think about me, uh..." Buck tapped the shot glass on the table nervously, and Chris wanted to shake the question out of him.

"Spit it out, Buck," he snapped.

"The women," he blurted, and Chris resisted the urge to roll his eyes heavenward. Of course. The women. What else? The only question remaining was why Buck even felt the need to ask, much less hem and haw over it, like he was going to propose marriage to one of them.

"Hell, hoss-- you want ...em, have at ...em!" Chris grumbled, and took a sip from his glass. "I brought ...em in for you, didn't I?"

"Well, yeah, but..."

"But what?" Chris snapped, what little store of patience he possessed exhausted. "You never asked my permission to wet your wick before, don't see why you think you have to start now!"

Wilmington knocked back the rest of his shot before he replied to that one. "Figgerd you might be seein' things a bit diff'rent, now."

"Don't know why you'd think that. You didn't save yourself for me, when we's fuckin' around, years before. Only thing's changed since then is the names attached to the twats."

Buck's eyes searched Chris', but couldn't get past the surface. Chris' scent was his normal tang of male, dust, leather, whiskey, tobacco and testiness. "Just figgered I'd better make sure."

"You've asked, I've answered."

Buck nodded, and left the saloon without another word. Chris shrugged, and refilled his glass. The burn of the alcohol over-rode any more ethereal discomforts he didn't care to examine too closely.

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

Chris resolutely refused to think as Buck frisked across the door-yard with Mae and Lilith capering around him, bouncing up to lick and nip at his muzzle, all of them wagging their tails like mad.

On the porch, Lucine whined anxiously, shifting from foot to foot, held in place by Lilith's lupine demand that she stay behind. The noise grated on his nerves, and the sight of her confused distress was more than he had patience for, just then.

He joined her on the porch, frowning when she hurried to one side, as if there were an impenetrable bubble around him that kept her an exact three feet distant, at all times. "Go on with them, if you want to," he snapped.

She cringed, but stepped out of her loose dress just the same. Before the cloth hit the boards of the porch, she was on all fours and racing towards the disappearing amorous trio. Mae rounded on her with a snarl, bouncing off Lucine's shoulder with a force that sent the girl rolling like a big furry squealing ball.

"I told her she could go with you!" Chris shouted, angrily. The wolves looked at him. Lucine cautiously crouched, glancing from Mae to him anxiously. Mae licked Lucine's muzzle apologetically, then gave Chris a glance that somehow managed to convey irritated acceptance.

On her belly, Lucine crept towards Buck. Once she received his permissive lick, she began leaping around playfully, and all four wolves galloped on into the darkness beneath the trees.

The door closed with a sharp slam.

//Friday, October 9, 1874

Chris is in another one of his moods tonight, and I don't know what's set him off this time. He just saddled up and rode off towards town, with that "Speak to me and die" look of his.//

//So here I sit, all alone for the first time in so long I can't remember when the last time was. Buck's run off with the women, I can hear them howling, now, somewhere in the hills back of the house. Ez is running his game. He said he'd sleep in town. Vin and Josiah are on patrol tonight, and Tim Parker came by and fetched Nathan to go see about their little boy who's running a real high fever, a couple of hours ago. Nathan said not to expect him back till sometime tomorrow morning.//

//It's so darn quiet, the ticking of the mantle clock almost echoes, and when a log popped a few seconds ago, I nearly jumped out of my skin. I'm not scared. It's not that. It's just... real lonely. I know that sounds weak and girlish, but that's how I feel. I know it's foolish and so I'm going to stick it out it's not like they've all left for good, after all.//

J.D. rose and steadfastly busied himself doing what few things needed to be done, to set the house to rights. After that, he took one of his books and sat down in the rocker. A chapter later, he laid it aside, and went back to the table where his journal lay, still open.

//And that resolution stood for all of an hour and a half. I'll probably never hear the end of it, but I'm going to ride into town, too. It's just too darn quiet here.//

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

//Sunday, October 11, 1874

The women have been here a week now. I don't know about the rest of the fellas, but I'm not of a mind to kick them out any time soon. Chris has piled every chore he could think of on them, short of demanding they help us keep watch over town, and they've not made a murmur of complaint.//

//They work hard. Harder than Ezra ever would, and without all the refined whining. Even Lucine works, feeding the chickens Nathan got paid with, a couple of weeks ago. She brings in the eggs, too-- though she usually cracks a few. Doesn't really matter. With this many mouths to feed, those poor hens can hardly keep up. The cracked eggs don't sit around long enough to go bad. Heck they hardly sit around long enough to cool down from the temperature of the hen's butt!//

//Lucine's sweet. I figured she'd be underfoot all the time, but she usually isn't. She's really no trouble. Most of the time, she's not even in human form. It's like having a big, well-trained dog around, more than anything. Lilith, now, I haven't warmed up to, even though she works like a Trojan from the time her feet hit the floor in the morning till way after dark.//

//She makes me skittish, the way she looks at me as if she can see clear through my eyes and out the other side of my head with no brains getting in the way between. She's not done anything wrong, exactly. Not like Buck said they would, trying to take our ...'ranks' in the Pack. It's just that I get the feeling she's sized us all up and doesn't feel the need to have much affection for any of us. It's grudging respect she gives, at best-- and for me, not even much of that.//

//Mae's as different from Lilith as honey is from pickle juice. She's as kind as can be, and always has a smile and a soft word. I feel comfortable around her, already. I can tell she likes me, too. When I bring in the water for them, Lilith will just yank the buckets out of my hand and plunk them onto the drainboard. Mae, though, she thanks me like I've done her a special favor, and we usually stand around talking for a few minutes or until Lilith makes it clear I'm in her way and Mae's shirking off.//

//Buck, damn him, I know he's already her and Lilith both! Not that I envy him Lilith. Lord, just the thought of lying down with her makes my balls try to crawl up into my belly. But Mae's really pretty, and she's sweet as a kitten and she seems to enjoy being around me. The three women sleep off to themselves on one corner of the bed, but I can't help looking over at Mae and watching her all curled up, wondering if she'd like to be with me. But I'm not Buck. I don't feel right just coming right out and saying something like "Hey Mae, care for a poke?"//

//Buck tells me that's all it'd take but I can't bring myself to do that. They may be different from us, but she's no whore in some cathouse. I don't feel right, just asking straight out like that, with no courting or anything.//

//Tuesday, October 13, 1874//

//Buck and Chris have been sidling around each other the last few days, like stray dogs sizing up each other before a fight. And I doubt whatever it is, between them, is Buck's fault. I don't know why he eats all the shit Chris force-feeds him. Chris is a good man, deep-down, and I sure as hell wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of him in a fight-- but he's about as easy to live with as a grizzly bear with a hang-over.//

//And Buck just takes it and takes it. Sometimes, like now, I want to knock some sense into him, somehow. He deserves better than he's getting. I know he's not perfect, but he doesn't deserve to be Chris' whipping boy, by a damn sight!//

"It's been below zero now for days. How much longer am I gonna have to wait for the thaw?" Buck asked, as he swept a dandy-brush over Steele's coat.

"What the hell are you talkin' about?" Chris flung another forkful of manure-fouled straw into the barrow.

Wilmington didn't look up, as he calmly rapped the back of the brush against the side of the stall, to knock loose the gathered hairs. "You know damned well what I'm talkin' about. Don't know why I expected better, though. You lie like a rug, here lately."

The handle of the manure fork clattered against the wooden side of the wheelbarrow. "You'd best be explain' that," Chris growled, stepping closer.

"Nothin' to explain," Buck shrugged, stepping out of the horse's stall to meet Chris. They were squared off across the aisle, both standing as carefully taut as if they were facing each other over drawn weapons. "You've taken to lyin', again, even when tellin' the truth would serve you better.!"

"And you've taken to fuckin' around like you're gettin' paid for it!" Chris' fists knotted, and he advanced a threatening step forward.

Buck held his ground, only a tightening around his eyes betraying how deeply that jab struck. He met Chris' glare as calmly as a mirror for a few heartbeats, and then softly offered, "Yeah, I thought as much. You're a bastard, you know that?"

"Look who's talkin'." He drew some sort of vicious satisfaction when Buck's mouth hardened into a thin line.

"I didn't start this," Buck all but snarled. "I came ta you, I talked ta you, you opened your mouth and let a bunch of horse shit spill out, and now it's my fault."

Chris could see the tiny tremors that went through Buck's shoulders, but he couldn't say anything, couldn't react, until Buck turned and headed for the barn door. "Where do you think you're goin'?" he demanded.

Buck stopped in his tracks and glared over his shoulder, his eyes snapping such fire Chris felt he ought to get burned just by looking. "Somewhere else. Anywhere else."

"Get your ass back here!" he demanded, outraged that Buck could just walk away from it. That wasn't the way this was supposed to wor.

k"For what?" Buck asked. "So you can fuck with me some more? How about we just cut to the chase?"

The silence stretched so long, Chris felt his spine tighten to the snapping point. He didn't want to go first, damn it. "All right, then. Cut to it."

But Buck just stood there like stone, and stared at him with those blazing eyes.

"Fine," Chris snapped, resentful. "I don't like it. And you knew I didn't like it, so I don't know why you didn't just stop."

"...Cause I hate it when you lie to me," he said, his voice quiet and even. "You make everybody's life hell, yours included, cause you don't wanna say how you feel. I'm done tryin' ta fix that for you, Chris." He paused for a moment, just staring, then added, "And you know I don't like it, so I don't know why you don't just stop."

Chris felt like he'd been punched in the gut. The only thing he hated worse than Buck calling him on something was Buck being right about it.

"I'm willin' to quit cattin' around, if you're willin' to quit lyin' to me with ever' damned breath," Buck said, wary.

There was a silence that was somehow unbroken by the small sounds of the horses in their stalls, and the busy clucking of the chickens, scratching through the straw. The men regarded each other, neither moving.

"How about you just quit cattin' around with these women here?" Chris felt his stance alter subtly, from the tense expectancy of battle-readiness, to the tension of uneasy reluctance. "They're 'your kind.' Makes me anxious every time I think about you goin' off with ...em."

"That's real hard for you to say, ain't it?" Buck responded, with a flicker of an understanding grin beneath the shadow of his mustache.

"Like pullin' jaw teeth," Chris admitted, with an audible exhalation. His own wry half-smile tilted his lips. "Likely as hard as it will be for you, to keep your word on it."

"Nah," Buck shrugged, "That part'll be dead easy." He stepped closer, and laid his hands on Chris' shoulders.

Larabee looked up, feeling again the strange little thrill that flashed through him, every time he realized that he had to look up, to meet Buck's eyes.

"You still don't get it, do you?" Buck challenged softly, hands moving from a brotherly touch to a lover's caress, tracing the hard curves of Chris' shoulder line.

"Get what?"

"Hell, Stud--It won't mean a horse's damn 'less you figger it out for yourself."

"You're always tellin' me I'm dense," Chris chuckled tightly. "So why don't you help me out?"

"Thought you'd never ask!" Buck's grin flashed wide, and he bent his head to brush his lips against Chris'. Despite his pique, Chris couldn't stop himself from tilting his head back, or keep his eyes from half-closing.

"Let me tell you somethin'," Buck whispered beside his ear, as his embrace slipped down to Chris' waist, drawing him closer. "I love women, sure-- I love the way their minds work, I love the look of 'em, and the smell of 'em, and ever' other thing about 'em-- but there ain't a one of 'em that's drawed breath yet, that can hold a candle to you."

Chris' brain supplied a sharp retort to that outrageous line, but the press of Buck's body against his, and the taste of Buck's lips opening against his own, caused every word to scatter like smoke in a high wind. The little moan that escaped him was equal parts lust and resignation. Buck's method of ending an argument was as predictable as sunrise, and Chris knew it, expected it, saw it coming a mile away and yet he swallowed it every single time.

He allowed himself to be snugged up close against that long, firm body that he knew almost as well as his own. Smoothed his hands over Buck's back, feeling the animal heat of him glowing through the worn chambray like sunlight. Dropped his head back, as Buck gave up plundering his mouth, to slide his lips along Chris' jaw and down to the softer skin at the crease of his neck. His tongue rasped over the bounding pulse in Chris' throat, as if he could taste the coppery sweetness of the blood rushing fast and heated through Chris' veins.

The moan that escaped Chris then, was unadulterated by anything but pure sexual tension. His hands kneaded the hard, shifting muscles of Buck's back, gripping tightly over those columns of muscle on either side of his spine, when Buck nipped at his throat.

The small burst of sensation was pain in the first instant, but as it flared out through his body it transmuted into a pleasure that seemed to settle into his groin and take up throbbing residence there. Pushing past Buck's belt, Chris gripped the firm curves of his ass and tugged, closing the small gap that remained between their hips. "You're a single-minded sonuvabitch, you know that?" he breathlessly taunted.

"Ever' man's gotta have a purpose in life." Buck's attentions moved to removing Chris' clothes with near-reverent attention to each square inch of pale skin revealed.

"Yours is to drive me crazy!" The protest ended in a small yelp, as Buck raked his teeth against the pebbled nipple he'd just uncovered.

"Uh uh," Buck laughed against his chest. The vibrations of his voice made Chris' hide quiver like a horse's. "You're holdin' the reins on that team," he continued, tugging Chris' shirt-tail out of his pants. "I'm just along for the ride." As he pushed the garment off Chris' shoulders, he nuzzled his face into the darker, wheat-colored hair under his arm. He paused there, breathing in the precious, sharp scent of Chris, as he unbuckled Larabee's belt and began work on his fly.

Chris bowed his neck, instinctively, towards Buck's head, and one hand came round to bury its fingers in that wealth of dark, coarse hair. His fingers played over that sensitive, vulnerable spot that hollowed at the base of Buck's skull, and Chris felt something deep inside his own chest twist, with a poignancy that caused his breath to hitch in his throat. He recognized this sensation, he realized with a jolt of clarity. He'd felt it before, looking down into Sarah's face as they made love. Watching Adam sleeping.

The realization galvanized him with primal dread, and if Buck hadn't chosen that very instant to lift his head, to take his mouth in a near-crushing kiss as he engulfed Chris' cock in his hand and squeezed, Chris would likely have bolted from the barn.

Instead, the stab of anxiety was submerged in the sensation of Buck's teeth gritting against his own, Buck's tongue seducing his, Buck's hand squeezing and sliding over his rigid cock. His misgivings dissolved like snow on a hearth, leaving only a hint of bitterness to spike the sweetness of sexual sensation. With shaking hands, he tugged at Buck's clothing, clumsy in his heightened need.

Far too soon, for Chris, the kiss ended with paired breathless inhalations. Buck's eyes smiled, just far enough from his to be able to focus, and Buck's hands tugged Chris' tight britches down to his thighs, then stroked their way back up, barely tickling the hairs, to trace the hollows of his hips.

"I want to be inside you," Chris whispered, stroking a knuckle over Buck's damp mustache. "Need to be..."

Buck's eyelids slipped down, for a few heartbeats, as he simply leaned into Chris and luxuriated in his touch. Then, he moved away, just a half-step. "There's a bottle of oil in my saddlebags-- go get it." He gave Chris a pat on the rear as if he were urging a child to obey.

And as obediently as a well-trained child, Chris moved to do as he was bid. He pawed through the clutter of necessities and oddments that Buck felt the need to carry around with him, and didn't find the oil. He glanced over, with a bit of irritation, as he opened the bag on the other side. Buck was spreading a blanket from his bedroll over the fresh straw in Seeker's empty stall. "Always ready for a fuck where ever and how ever you find it, ain't you?" Chris snorted, finding the oil and some things more suited to sex with questionable women, rolled into a bit of oilskin.

"Nobody but you's seen fit to complain," Buck shot back, as he stripped off the rest of his clothes. "And I'm damn glad I am, ...cause we'd not make it all the way back to the house-- and I don't want t'have to stand in my stirrups tonight!"

A snort answered that, as Chris was unable to argue with the truth of it, and equally unwilling to admit to it. He tossed the saddlebags back over the seat of Buck's saddle and crossed the barn aisle to Seeker's stall. Buck was stretched out on the rough wool, naked and grinning up at him like the embodiment of merry lust. Just seeing him like that, sleek and eager and familiar, pumped enough blood into Chris' cock to nearly split the skin.

Buck neatly caught the small, metal bottle Chris tossed, and rolled it between his palms to take the edge off the chill of its contents. Chris' clothes joined Buck's, hanging over the side of the stall. Naked then as Buck, he stood for a moment, allowing himself to look, to really see, as his eyes traveled up Buck's body leisurely. When his eyes met Buck's, darkened and hooded by sensuality, that long-absent sensation twisted through Chris' chest once more. This time, he didn't shy away from it.

Instead, he let it drive him to his knees, at Buck's feet. Bowing down almost reverentially, he ran his tongue over the hard tendons of Buck's instep, stroked his hand up along his other shin. Buck gasped, his toes curling, as he sat up to comb his fingers through Chris' hair.

"Lay back down," Chris ordered, the tone of his voice softening the brusque words. And Buck granted him a measure of compliance-- moving back towards horizontal, but keeping himself propped on his elbows, the better to savor sight as well as sensation.

With lips and tongue and touch, Chris worked his way up Buck's long stretch of legs, holding himself forcibly to a leisurely pace. The deep groans and whimpered moans that rewarded him made it even harder to hold to that torturous, deliciously deliberate speed. Through some sexual alchemy, every caress he gave Buck echoed in his own body.

The urge to simply fling himself onto his lover and rut like a stag was almost uncontrollable. It was purely an iron act of will that kept him from it. Especially when he reached the ropy muscles of Buck's inner thighs, and Buck surged beneath him, lifting his hips and shifting his legs into open welcome.

"Come on... come on..." Buck urged in a tight whisper.

Instead, Chris leaned in, traced the moist cleft up to Buck's balls with his tongue, blew warm breath over the wet trail. Buck shuddered and groaned. Chris licked along the fold between leg and groin, as his hands stroked lazy circles over Buck's hips. Buck's hands dug into the blanket, and his teeth gritted, his breath hissing out between them. Achingly aware of every subtle variation of taste and texture, Chris worked his way up that beautiful, strong, scarred body shivering beneath his mouth and hands.

Buck lay back against the blanket, when Chris reached his throat. Chris kissed the bounding pulse that beat there, worshipping the life it carried, then lifted his head. Buck stared up at him, his face drawn tight with lust and his eyes half-closed and soft. He reached up, stroked his fingertips along Chris' cheekbones, pushed them into his hair. He urged Chris' head down, and Chris willingly yielded.

To touch Buck's lips with his own was like drinking in soft, sweet fire. Chris moaned into Buck's mouth, fitted his body against the heated length of Buck's, hungry to feel the press of that hot skin against his. Blindly, he reached for the oil, fumbled off the cap one-handed. Most of it spilled onto the blanket, but at that moment he neither noticed nor cared. Enough had poured over his hand. Chris lifted himself enough to perfunctorily smear the warm fluid over his rigid cock. Then, with a good bit more gentleness, he reached between their bodies to stroke his oiled fingers over Buck's opening.

Buck's hips flexed up to meet that touch, with enough force to unbalance Chris. A short, lewd laugh huffed out of Chris' chest, as he caught himself on his knees, then pushed one finger past the guarding ring of tight muscle. Watching Buck's face, he slowly added another, miming what his cock ached to do, with devilish deliberation. Buck's head rolled from side to side, as he moaned out each breath and pushed hungrily against Chris' hand.

When Chris pressed upwards, Buck let out a throaty yell and lifted himself up on his elbows once more, glaring down at Chris with impatient anticipation. His throat worked spasmodically, and his voice, when he regained it, sounded like it dragged out over gravel. "Quit playin' around and fuck me, damn you!"

Another breathless laugh escaped Chris. He pulled his fingers free, and leaned over Buck. "Sweet talker," he grinned, and bent his head to take Buck's mouth as he took his body. His thrust was swift and deep and sure. Buck writhed beneath him, moaned into his mouth long and lushly.

Time ceased to exist. Nothing existed but sensation and the sight of Buck's face beneath him, transcendant in pleasure. Locked together body and soul in the intimacy of the moment, they panted and thrust and urged each other on with touches and kisses, moving together as the boundaries that separated them into two beings disappeared. As one, they strove towards the beckoning glow of completion, and as one, they were consumed by it.

Gasping for breath, Chris tucked his head against Buck's sweat-glazed neck, relaxing against his body, comforted in his embrace. They lay like that, still together, until their breathing stilled, and the sweat began to chill and a pair of young, laughing voices floated into the barn.

"Shit," Chris mouthed, lifting his head. He reached out and tugged their clothes down onto the straw. Buck settled him off to one side, then hooked the stall door closed with a foot. "Mae'll still know we're here, won't she?" Chris breathed into Buck's ear, as he was cuddled closer, Buck's arm around his shoulders.

"Mmmhmm," he agreed, his mustache tickling at Chris' temple. "But she'll have sense enough to keep her mouth shut."

"She better. I don't want ta deal with J.D. gapin' at us like a calf at a new gate, right now," he whispered back testily, even as he rested his head on Buck's chest and closed his eyes.

"Who doesn't have to be in town today, Chris?" Lilith asked abruptly, after sitting down at the breakfast table.

"Why?" Chris grunted, over his coffee mug's rim.

"It's going to be bright and breezy today, and we need to wash the linens and air out the mattresses. The bed's beginning to stink. With all that added to the usual pile of washing, we could use an extra pair or two of hands.""I gotta check on some folks and be at the clinic, today," Nathan commented. He chuckled, "So I'm safe from havin' to put on an apron and do women's work."

The breakfast dishes were severely disarranged by Lilith's lunge across the table. Before anyone could react, even before Vin could save himself from the hot gravy cascading into his lap, she'd yanked Nathan up off his seat by his collar. She shook him like a terrier with a rat, her furious face shoved almost against his. "Think of it as slave's work, then, and get your arrogant ass out to the wash-pot!" she snarled.

"Let him go!" Chris enforced his barked command by bodily jerking the enraged woman back across the table and depositing her with some force back into her chair. "That ain't the way we settle things around here. You got a problem with somebody, you bring it to me," he added, jerking his thumb at his chest.

Lilith acknowledged that with a stiff nod, and he rounded on Nathan. "You've volunteered as washer-woman, next week."

Nathan drew breath to protest, but thought better of it, and subsided, jaw tensed.

"I'll help out, this time," Josiah interjected, in a calm tone.

"Thank you," Lilith told him, with a sweet smile. A smile that instantly congealed into an expression of scornful disdain, when she turned her regard back towards Nathan. To all appearances, the opinion was mutual.

The rest of the meal-- what could be salvaged of it-- was eaten in tense silence.

//Wednesday, October 14, 1874//

//Now, I see what Buck was talking about. I thought Lilith and Nathan were going to get into a fist-fight, right there at the breakfast table. I can see how him smirking about getting out of doing "woman's work" would piss her off, but still, it wasn't enough cause to go off like a dropped jar of nitro!//

//And I thought Chris had a hair-trigger temper! Seeing the two of them, glaring at each other, was like watching gathering doom. If she sets Chris off once too often, we may be short one Two-Blood woman real quick.//

"Writing about me?"

J.D.'s last penned word gained a wavering flourish, as his pen jigged in a little startled jerk across the page. He turned to look at Mae. "Uh... no... well, not right now, any way," he stammered, feeling a bit embarrassed and exposed for some reason, like she'd caught him pissing off the porch or something.

"So, you do write about me sometimes?" she smiled, moving around to lean against the table edge before him, almost between his knees.

"Sometimes," he nodded, very pleased that he'd gotten that out without stammering. She'd changed for supper, into a dress that was the same warm, light brown of her eyes, woven from some stuff that looked as soft as velvet. It was cut a bit low, too, and when she leaned against the table... J.D. swallowed, and forced his eyes back to her face. She was saying something else, after all, and he'd already missed the first few words.

"...good things. I'm enjoying getting to know you, finding out what you like," she was saying, and before he could quite catch up, she leaned forward and put her hands on his shoulders and pressed her slightly-parted lips against his.

Pure animal instinct had him curving his palms around her waist, pure animal lust set his cock instantly hard, and pure human mortification set his cheeks flushing, when Buck's warm chuckle punctuated the sudden silence mid-kiss. Buck's teasing voyeurism didn't faze him for long, though. This was an opportunity J.D. was determined not to mess up by stammering around.

"I liked that, Mae," he nodded, when she lifted her head.

"I did too. I wonder what else we might find we like doing together?"

The demure words were rendered anything but, by the coyness of her smile and the tilt of her head as she leaned in for another kiss.

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

//Saturday, October 24, 1874//

//Whatever was grinding between Buck and Chris, seems to be settled.

Buck'll never talk about it, and I value my life too much to try to pry into it with Chris. I guess living around them and their rubbing each other wrong is like living with the weather. A person never knows what's coming, or why, or how long it'll last. There's no getting away from it, or changing it. Best anybody can do is to hunker down through the bad and enjoy the good.//

//And right now, there's a whole lot of good to enjoy. Like Mae. God, she's incredible...//

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

Chris approached the little group lounging outside the jail, the newest sheaf of wanted posters in his hand. When he put his hand on the doorknob, Buck glanced over at him. "He ain't here."

"Where'd he go?"

"As Mae came to town, and J.D. slipped away shortly thereafter, with all the pathetic subtlety of a stray dog slinkin' into a kitchen, I surmise he's hidden away with her, somewhere," Ezra drawled.

"Again?"

"Ah, the stamina of youth," Josiah murmured, not looking up from his newspaper.

Chris shook his head, and stepped inside to drop the papers onto the desk. As soon as the door closed behind Larabee, a sly grin spread across Buck's face. He dropped a hand onto Ezra's shoulder. "Don't let anyone come inside," he winked, and stepped inside the jail. The lock on the door clicked.

Josiah glanced up, his gaze sliding from the door to Ezra.

Ezra lifted an eyebrow. "All right, then. What's their excuse?"

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

Setting the last steaming bowl on the table, Lilith took her seat at the table.

"Thank you," Josiah murmured, and she nodded her welcome. For a few moments, there was only the homey sounds of hungry folk filling their plates to break the silence.

"Lilith," he spoke again softly, and she glanced back up at him.

"Interesting name." Josiah studied her, as he broke open one of the biscuits and spread it with butter. "Is it in remembrance of the first Lilith?"

Puzzled, she shook her head. "It's a common name among us, but I don't know of any tradition behind it."

Josiah leaned back in his chair with a grin. It was clear to J.D. that he was going to launch into story-telling, and from the looks of everyone else at the table, they knew it too. Conversation and eating muted, but continued none-the-less. Josiah's stories tended to ramble, and there was no reason to let supper go cold while he meandered to the point.

"Now, that's real thought-provokin', to hear that," he rumbled, with a bit of a smile. "You see, Lilith was said to be Adam's first wife, created from the dirt just like he was."

"What happened to her?"

"That's where the tales get tangled. Some say God sent her back to dust, when she displeased Adam. Other versions say she was banished, to wander the world alone till Judgement day."

"What did she do, to bring all that down on her head?" Mae broke in, as intrigued by the tale as Lilith.

Josiah's grin turned sly. "A heinous crime. Something so pernicious, it couldn't be allowed to go unpunished."

"Well, what?" Lilith burst out, when he gave no signs of going on.

He leaned closer to them across the table, with the air of one imparting a momentous secret. "She wouldn't have sex, if she had to do it layin' under Adam!"

Lilith stared at him, wide-eyed, for a couple of beats, and then burst out laughing. "You're teasing us!" she accused, waggling her table knife in his direction.

"No ma'am," he averred, grinning. "That's what the legends say. She'd only do it, ridin' Adam astride. That pissed him off, and he went whinin' to God about it. God removed Lilith, and replaced her with Eve-- made from Adam's flesh, this time, instead of the clay that had formed him and Lilith."

"Can't say as I blame them," Chris muttered into his coffee mug.

Nathan nodded. Mae rolled her eyes towards J.D. He shrugged, trying on his "what did I do?" expression. Looked like it worked.

Lilith was oblivious, focused on the burly man across the table. "What happened to her, after that?" she asked, in the slightly breathless tone of the fascinated.

He shrugged. "Most of what's said about her is bad. I don't think she was. I think it was that Adam couldn't handle bein' mated to a mind and spirit as strong and as independent as his own. Someone that wouldn't let him lord it over her, but demanded to be taken as his equal."

His eyes flicked towards Chris, and then back to the lanky Two-Blood woman before him. "She's been demonized, down through the ages. She's said to be the mother of all kinds of evil creatures. Including," he winked, "...fearsome wolves.'"

"Oh really?" Buck drawled, eyebrows lifting.

"Really," he grinned. "Always puzzled me, that claim, till we found out about your people. Now, I suspect that what really happened was that the children of Lilith, and the children of Eve, went their separate ways. Began fearin' each other. Started calling themselves One-Bloods and Two-Bloods."

"It could be, Josiah," he murmured, voice a bit awed. "It very well could be..."

"So," Lilith interjected with careful casualness, "Are we really so fearsome?"

Josiah studied her expression of coy challenge for a few heartbeats, before answering her with a bit of a challenge of his own. "Let's say I wouldn't welcome the sight of those sharp white teeth of yours at my throat any time soon."

J.D. tensed, glancing from Lilith to Josiah and then to Buck. The big Two-Blood still sprawled at ease in his chair, and gave him a conspiratorial wink. He relaxed a bit. Witnessing another fight at a meal was something he didn't need. It was really bad for the digestion. Not that listening to a discussion of Adam's sex life was much better...

"Oh, I don't know-- you might come to enjoy it. I wouldn't bite too hard," Lilith murmured, with a chuckle.

Josiah just gave a little snort, and turned his attention to tucking away his food.

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

Mae laid the last piece of mending aside, and silently moved to lean over J.D's shoulder. "What are you reading so intently?" she inquired softly into his ear.

Startled, he jerked so violently that she twitched her head back, to keep her chin from colliding with his skull.

"Geez! Don't sneak up on a fella like that! Almost made my heart stop!" His exclamation started out sounding annoyed, and it wound up wrapped around his grin.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to give you a start," she apologized, with an unrepentant smile and playful eyes. She moved into the chair beside him, and leaned close, to touch shoulders. "You've been so engrossed, that I'm curious."

"It's the second of the Jungle Books... Ez gave them to me and Vin."

J.D. pushed the volume closer to her. "You'd probably like ...em, too. It's about a baby, named Mowgli. He's abandoned in the Indian jungle, and raised by wolves."

"Sounds like an interesting twist on Romulus and Remus." Her eyes flicked over the page, and the next, and then she gasped. "Oh! Lilith- - listen to this!"

The older woman looked up from her task of fashioning a new 'lovey' for Lucine. It was a task done under intense scrutiny, and with much anxious whining-- for a piece of the old, adored-to-unsanitary-horror lovey had to be interred within the new, to make it acceptable.

"Hmmm? No, sweets, I'm not done yet..." she added absently, pushing Lucine's questing jaws away from the leather pieces in her lap.

"From this book J.D's been lost in... listen!" Mae pulled the book a bit closer, and in a voice of wonderment, read,

//...Now this is the Law of the Jungle-as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back-
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

Wash daily from nose-tip to tail-tip; drink deeply, but never too deep;
And remember the night is for hunting, and forget not the day is for sleep. //

"There's one tailor-made for our Ezra," Lilith chuckled. "The man is as clean as a cat and more nocturnal than we are!"

"He can get up when he needs to," J.D. shot back, in cheerful defense of his friend.

"Mmmmhmmm... I've noticed you have a stimulating effect on him,"

Lilith purred back wickedly.

J.D. tossed a nearby napkin at her, laughing through his blush. "Don't you have better things to think about-- ever?"

She cocked her head, considering. "Sweetfur, there is nothing better to think about," she informed him with all the solemnity of a judge.

"Would you two quit already?" Mae complained, with a grin. "I'm not finished reading."

"Sorry, Mae-- I was led astray," J.D. moaned, eyes sparkling.

She rubbed her cheek against his. "And by one of the best, mind you.

You see what she's done to me." She frowned down at the page, then. "Where was I? Oh..."

//The jackal may follow the Tiger, but, Cub, when thy whiskers are grown,
Remember the Wolf is a hunter-go forth and get food of thine own.
Keep peace with the Lords of the Jungle-the Tiger, the Panther, the Bear;
And trouble not Hathi the Silent, and mock not the Boar in his lair. //

"What's a tiger?" Lilith interrupted again. "And while I'm asking-- who's Hathi the Silent?"

Mae rolled her eyes and sketched an 'after you' gesture towards J.D.

"A tiger's a wild cat. Orange with black stripes, and bigger than a cougar. They live in India. Hathai's an elephant." At the blank look from Lilith, he elaborated. "An elephant is a VERY big plant- eating animal-- bigger than a draft horse-- with a long nose like a tail, that they can pick things up with. They live in India too."

"Must be very interesting hunting, in India," she mused. "Ack! All right, all right! Keep your tail on! I'll have it finished in a bit!" Lilith scolded, tapping Lucine's over-anxious muzzle playfully, before picking up the stitching-awl and leather again.

Mae heaved a put-upon sigh. "Does anybody but me still want to hear this?"

"I'm sorry," Lilith answered contritely. "I do want to hear it. I won't interrupt again."

//When Pack meets with Pack in the Jungle, and neither will go from the trail,
Lie down till the leaders have spoken-it may be fair words shall prevail.
When ye fight with a Wolf of the Pack, ye must fight him alone and afar,
Lest others take part in the quarrel, and the Pack be diminished by war. //

Mae frowned, and interrupted herself. "That's not right... in fact, it's just the opposite. No fight should take place out of the view of the rest of the Pack. And no Pack wars within itself-- it simply splits, if disagreements get to that point."

"Perhaps Pack Law is different in India," Lilith conjectured. "It is on the other side of the world."

J.D. listened, held his peace, and drew his own conclusions.

"Still," Mae sighed, and started to read again.

//The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, and where he has made him his home,
Not even the Head Wolf may enter, not even the Council may come.
The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, but where he has digged it too plain,
The Council shall send him a message, and so he shall change it again.//

"Huh!" Lilith snorted. "If I ever see a male dig a den of any sort, I'd send him a message all right. It would probably collapse and kill mother, pups and all!"

//If ye kill before midnight, be silent, and wake not the woods with your bay,
Lest ye frighten the deer from the crops, and the brothers go empty away.
Ye may kill for yourselves, and your mates, and your cubs as they need, and ye can;
But kill not for pleasure of killing, and seven times never kill Man!//

A catch in her voice broke the rhythm of Mae's reading, at that admonition. She fell silent, lifted her head, and shared a look with Lilith that J.D. didn't understand. A look that sent a jolt up his spine like the touch of a chill finger.

An instant later, Mae lowered her head, and as if she'd never stopped, read on.

//If ye plunder his Kill from a weaker, devour not all in thy pride;
Pack-Right is the right of the meanest; so leave him the head and the hide.
The Kill of the Pack is the meat of the Pack. Ye must eat where it lies;
And no one may carry away of that meat to his lair, or he dies.//

"That's far too harsh, other than for starving times," Lilith murmured. "It'd be foolish to kill a good hunter for one act of greedy-belly."

Mae simply nodded, and continued on without pausing.

//The Kill of the Wolf is the meat of the Wolf. He may do what he will,
But, till he has given permission, the Pack may not eat of that Kill.

Cub-Right is the right of the Yearling. From all of his Pack he may claim
Full-gorge when the killer has eaten; and none may refuse him the same.

Lair-Right is the right of the Mother. From all of her year she may claim
One haunch of each kill for her litter; and none may deny her the same.

Cave-Right is the right of the Father-to hunt by himself for his own:
He is freed of all calls to the Pack; he is judged by the Council alone.
Because of his age and his cunning, because of his grip and his paw,
In all that the Law leaveth open, the word of the Head Wolf is Law.

Now these are the Laws of the jungle, and many and mighty are they;
But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch and the hump is-
Obey!'//

Looking from one wide set of reflective eyes, to the other, J.D. grinned as proudly as if he'd penned the lines himself. "Sort of makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck, doesn't it?"

"Indeed it does!" Lilith chuckled. "Who wrote that?"

"An English fella, named Rudyard Kipling. Just a couple of years ago, in fact."

"A familiar scent to you?" she asked Mae.

"Never heard of him... but it sounds like he knows more than your average One-Blood."

"I thought so too," J.D. nodded. "It wouldn't have struck me, before.

I'd have thought he just had a really sharp imagination."

"Still could be that... but this is practically eerie," Mae laughed, tapping the page.

"And eerily practical." Pulling the last knot tight in Lucine's lovey, Lilith handed over the coveted toy. With tiny, joyful croons, Lucine closed her jaws over the leather and rushed for the door, tail high and wagging gaily.

"DON'T go burying it, young woman!"

Claws scrabbled on wood as Lucine braked to a halt on the threshold.

She sulked back in, and flopped down in the corner, contenting herself with gnawing on a leg of her lovey noisily.

"Listen to this," J.D. enthused, warming to a receptive audience. "I liked it so much, I memorized it... "

He dropped his eyes a second, till self-consciousness passed. Then, he lifted them, and as the words of the poem rang out in his clear tenor, his eyes took on a fire that almost rivaled the golden glow of the Two-Bloods'.

"...For our white and our excellent nights-- for the nights of swift running,
Fair ranging, far seeing, good hunting, sure cunning!
For the smells of the dawning, untainted, ere dew has departed!
For the rush through the mist, and the quarry blind-started!
For the cry of our mates when the sambhur has wheeled and is standing at bay,
For the risk and the riot of night!
For the sleep at the lair-mouth by day,
It is met, and we go to the fight.
Bay! O Bay!'"

Before the last vibrations of his voice died away, Mae grinned mischievously, dropped back her head, and loosed a melodically wavering, soprano howl. With not a second's hesitation, J.D.'s rich young voice enthusiastically wound around it, first following her lead, then taking it.

Lilith chuckled, and added an intricate counterpoint in a smoky contralto, and Lucine's guileless, pure alto scampered through them all.

//Wednesday, October 28, 1874//

//Just finished The Second Jungle Book this evening. Even though they were written about India, from what I've learned of wolves and know of dogs, Mr. Kipling is pretty straight on the mark. Even the women were impressed. A lot of the Laws and such he made up are almost exactly what Buck and Vin have told us about Two-Blood ways, though Mr. Kipling made it all rhyme. He must have spent hours, hiding and watching wolves and the other animals. Or he's Two-Blood, himself.//

//I wouldn't be surprised. I'm not surprised by much of anything, any more. If somebody told me straight-faced that ghosts or the boogeyman were real, now-- I'd likely believe it, and start checking under my bed.//

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

//Friday, October 30, 1874//

//Woke up in the middle of the night, last night, and heard Josiah and Lilith making love. It seemed odd to hear her sound so.. feminine and soft.//

//But that's the way she is, with him. Somehow, he manages to get through to her, and she listens. He seems to gentle her down. And she seems to make him happy, though I can't see why. She's plain, skinny and as surly as that hellspawn Vin puts his saddle on. Not the kind of woman I'd have expected Josiah to go after, especially considering the types I have seen him go after, before. Guess closeness and willingness may be counting for a lot, there. //

"Aren't you two ever going to come to bed?"

J.D. twisted in his chair, with a fond smile. Mae leaned against the doorframe, yawning, naked as Eve beneath the quilt she'd draped over her shoulders like a cloak. "Lucine's sleeping with Josiah and Lilith, so I'm left all cold and lonely," she protested with drowsy insinuation.

"Can't have that!" J.D. chuckled, closing his journal and wiping his pen. He rose, but turned back after a step in her direction. "You comin' too, Ez?"

"In a bit," the gambler nodded, scarcely glancing up from his boo.

kThe closing of the door behind the pair seemed to echo in the empty room. Ezra glanced around himself, wondering anew at how quickly things could change. He looked back down at his book, determined not to fault J.D. for this happy round of experimentation. Lord knew, Mae was warmly willing and welcoming to them both-- but he realized he'd read the same page twice, and yet hadn't an inkling of what was printed there.

//Thursday, November 5, 1874//

//Chris still doesn't trust the women an inch. Heck, he doesn't even like them an inch! Every time one of them comes close to him, uninvited, he draws up and looks all stiff and offended, like a tomcat that's been dropped into a water trough.//

//And even though it's clear as glass how he feels, they still fawn all over him. Even Mae! It's like she forgets I exist, the second Chris so much as looks her way. All three of them do that. It's enough to make a body sick.//

//He gets fed first, he gets whiskey or coffee first-- hell, he even gets water first. He can walk into the room, where we've all been settled and perfectly content for hours--and with this stare he'll have one or all of them scrabbling out of the way. Heck, out of the house if he stares harder or makes a quick move towards them.//

//You can tell he scares poor Lucine out of what little mind she's got, every time he gives her that ...worship me, I'm God Almighty' look. That's just plain cruel. She's never done anything wrong. I don't think she's ever gotten close enough to him to do anything wrong, even if she had wits enough to plan to.//

//And even after all of that, all he has to do is look at one of them and give them half a smile or reach out his hand, and it's like he's the king of Siam or something, summoning his harem. Lilith and Mae, they'll all but be squirming at his feet, smiling up at him like he's the only man in the world. Pulling his boots off, or, or rubbing his shoulders.//

//The whole time, they're whimpering like bitches in heat and giving his hands and cheeks those little licking kisses if he so much as keeps smiling at them. Lucine never gets that close, but she'll sit there with a look on her face like she believes he's God Almighty, too and He's just stooped to notice her.//

//And ol' Chris, he lords it up, looking smug, lapping it up like it's cream and he deserves every second of it. Makes me want to gag! He doesn't even want them here!//

//Buck, well, he took me aside the first time I started to pop off about it, reminded me of what he'd told us all that first day, and let me know in no uncertain terms that Chris is doing everything exactly right. That Chris is being darn sure they accept him as Alpha and they're being just as careful to show him and us that they know their place in the Pack.//

//Even if that's so, I still think Chris is way over-doing the God act, and I know for a fact that he's enjoying it all way too dam//

The peace of the room exploded with the sound of a ringing slap, a snarl and a roar. The table went one way, J.D. and his chair went another, and his journal entry ended in a huge blot when the book and the open ink bottle met.

Vin and Lilith rolled on the floor, going at each other with vicious intent. She was using fists, teeth, fingernails and feet, and Vin was giving back as good as he got. Both of them were snarling and snapping as they thrashed each other around the upturned furniture and over the rough floorboards.

Buck leaned against the mantle, watching the brawl as if it were a game of cards. J.D. scrambled out of the way, and then just stared, mouth gaping and eyes unbelieving.

"Aren't you gonna stop them?" he yelped, glancing from Buck, to the striving combatants, over to where Lucine cringed against Mae's shins and Mae watched the fight with glittering avidity.

"They're just settlin' who gets to be on top," Buck shrugged, interrupting himself to head Nathan and Josiah off at the kitchen doorway as they charged in, drawn by the noise. Neither man looked very happy about being kept at bay by Buck's extended arm, but they held their peace.

By then, Vin managed to flip Lilith onto her belly. He held her there by planting both knees heavily on the tops of her thighs, and by keeping an arm twisted up nearly to the dislocation point behind her bac.

k"We got us an understandin', woman?" he snarled, bloodied lips down near her ear.

For a long moment, there was only the rasping of their breathing, the ticking of the mantle clock, the pop of an ember and faint whining from where Lucine huddled.

A growl that sounded not at all human rumbled out of Lilith's chest, and she writhed wildly against Vin's hold, as much as she was able.

Vin increased pressure on Lilith's arm, then bent his head to close his teeth over the nape of her neck in a bite that cut through skin and down to muscle.

He shook his head and Lilith let out a high-pitched squeal of pain, bucking beneath him once more.

Vin shook his head again, and she went limp, her face against the boards.

"We got us an understandin'?" he demanded again, easing up on her arm just a bit.

A long whine answered him, and she didn't so much as twitch.

"Speak it!" he gritted.

"Yes!" she blurted, and then repeated, in such a small, meek voice that it scarcely carried past Vin. "Yes, we have an understanding."

A lupine huff jerked out of Vin's throat. He rose and dusted himself off as if the cringing woman at his feet had ceased to exist. As if the savage interlude hadn't happened at all.

Stunned past speech, still, J.D. looked across the room at Mae and Lucine. It didn't help his state of mind to see Lucine lying relaxed on her side, Mae sitting cross-legged beside her, combing through her coat for fleas, just as they had been doing before all hell broke loose.

Lilith pulled herself to her feet, and wiped her split lip. Vin fixed an icy look on her, and took one step in her direction. She whined and backed up three.

Like a perverse dance, he kept advancing and she kept retreating, until her backside bumped against the front door. Vin took one more step and Lilith jerked it open and bolted outside. Satisfied, Vin closed the door against the damp cold and the driving rain and the fleeing woman.

"What the hell just happened here?" J.D. burst out, outrage finally breaking him out of the inertia of shock. Wheeling on Buck, he snapped, "And DON'T say it's Pack business, like that explains everything!"

Confused, furious, he looked back and forth between the men before he could trust his voice again. "I can't believe what I just saw! You beatin' on a woman and runnin' her out into a storm, and you three lettin' him!

"It's none of your concern, J.D.," Vin drawled casually, righting a chair and dropping onto it backwards. He crossed his arms on the chair-back, and dropped his forehead onto them.

"Is it mine?" Josiah asked, looking from Vin to Buck to the door.

Vin lifted his head, frowned, started to bite his lip and winced when his teeth met the bleeding split. "No."

Buck chuckled lewdly and J.D. knew that something transpired between the three men that he couldn't begin to understand.

Josiah, shaking his head, went over to the corner where the other two women held silence. He eased down beside them, leaning back against the wall, wrists resting lankly on his knees. Mae leaned against him companionably after a moment, and Lucine wriggled under his arm and into his lap like a pup. And as if she were a pup, he stroked her fur and rubbed her belly until a hind leg jerked merrily.

"It sure as hell is mine!" Nathan interjected, glaring at Vin, "when you get yourself beat till you look like you was run over by a team o' mules!" Muttering darkly, he veered away from the doorway to snatch his box of necessaries from the cupboard, then advanced on Tanner with implacable intent to render aid.

The tracker possibly felt that one fist-fight per afternoon was enough, and didn't protest as Nathan began to dab, carbolic, and curse him roundly. "What got into you, to do that?" was the only nonprofane utterance, and the only one that Vin responded to.

"She was sitting in Buck's lap, tryin' to work him up. I told her to move. She told me to fuck off and belted me across the face. I adjusted her attitude." He looked Buck's way and continued in a growl. "You shoulda moved her yourself."

"And miss that?" Buck retorted. "You've been lookin' her over, and she's been tryin' to stare you down. You shoulda done something about it before now."

Nathan stared at him as if the tracker and the Two-Blood had declaimed in Gree.

kBuck opened his mouth to explain, but Mae beat him to it with a sigh and a resigned, but fond tone in her voice. The tone one uses explaining something to a well-loved, but dim, child. "Vin's Gamma. Lilith has always been Gamma, before. She tried to take the rank here, too."

J.D. stared at her as if he'd never seen her before. "You're all nuts!" he burst out in exasperation.

"You're the only one that seems to still be all riled up about this," Buck pointed out, and then pointed him in the direction of the broom and dustpan.

"Rain's comin' down in a solid sheet, Vin." Josiah observed softly, as the room was put back to rights.

"She's got fur, and sense enough to hole up in the barn or somewhere," Vin shot back with utter apathy. Released from Nathan's ministrations, he stood and rolled his neck as if to check his head's connection to it.

From outside came the unmistakable sound of a sodden pelt being shaken free of water, and thumping of boots against boards. The door opened and Chris came inside, rain-water streaming off his slicker. Judging from his expression, he should have been steaming.

Ezra came right behind him, Lilith huddled inside the shelter of his foul-weather gear and body-heat. The soggy bundle of the woman's clothing was in his other hand.

"Somebody want to clue me in?" Chris growled.

"Let her tell you," Vin grunted, peering over at Chris through reddened, battered-looking eyes.

"I asked her. I want to hear it from you, too."

"She got too ambitious for her own good."

Muttering afresh about fools, wolves and heathens, Nathan extricated Lilith from under Ezra's slicker and led her over to the fire. Her lips were purple-tinged with chill, and the rest of her was the bluish color of skimmed milk. Blossoming bruises stood out lividly, and the water streaming down her back from beneath her hair, was tinged pink. Her face was as much a mess as Vin's, and she kept sniffing back blood.

"At least get her a blanket, dammit!" Nathan snapped to no one in particular, but Buck was the one who moved to do it.

Buck's movements looked oddly tender, as he wrapped the thick wool and cotton quilt around her shoulders, but Lilith wouldn't even look up at him from under her lashes. Absolutely submissive, she didn't make a sound as Nathan angrily treated her wounds and plunked her in front of the fire with a cup shoved into her hands.

Chris sipped whiskey-laced coffee, and held his fury in check until the healer stepped away. Then, he set his mug aside and stalked across the room.

Lilith seemed to try to disappear into her quilt-- into the cracks in the floor. Larabee stood, just staring a hole into her, his jaw working. His hand shot out like a striking snake and grasped her chin, tilting her head back until she was forced to look him in the eyes.

"When I come in, I'm tired as hell and I don't want to have to put up with shit like this," he told her with dangerous, even tones. "So, I'm going to say this one time. You're Eight, Nine and Ten. For good. You don't like it, I'll send you and your pack-sisters out of this territory with your tails between your legs and a load of birdshot stinging your asses! And I don't give a flyin' fuck whether the day I do it is sunny or the middle of a friggin' blue norther. Do I make myself absolutely clear?"

"C-c-crystalline," she stammered through her spasming jaws, her eyes darting away from his like sparrows struggling to escape clutching talons.

Chris released her and stalked over to where Mae and Lucine still huddled against Josiah's comforting bulk. "How 'bout you?" he demanded, glowering down at Mae.

To her credit, she coyly looked up at him under her lashes and flashed an elfin smile. "Eight, Nine and Ten sound just fine to me. Especially as opposed to Outcast, Cold and Hungry!"

Larabee's dour expression softened a bit. He reached out and Mae willingly tilted her head, exposing her neck, a tiny whine trickling out. Callused fingertips swept over her throat, and combed through the side of her hair.

Lucine had oozed out of Josiah's lap at Chris' approach, retreating until she was plastered against the nearby corner. He moved towards her slowly, careful not to stare into her eyes. Still, she whimpered and scrabbled in an attempt to retreat further, her claws rattling against the floorboards.

"Lucine," he murmured, and reached out to her, palm up. She squealed as if he'd kicked her, and a wet stain spread across the floor underneath her cringing belly.

Knowing that he scared a witless near-child into pissing herself wasn't exactly a mood-elevator. "I ain't gonna hurt you, gal," he grumbled as he straightened, and stalked over to retrieve his coffee.

Mae gave him an unreadable glance. She moved to comfort Lucine away from the edge of mindless panic, then began to clean up the puddle.

J.D. tipped the last dustpan-full of broken glass and crockery into the trash barrel and shook his head in bewilderment. Which was in no way lightened, when Vin crossed over to where Lilith huddled before the fire.

He touched her shoulder, she looked up, and some nonverbal form of communication passed between them. Vin's hand closed around her upper arm then the pair disappeared through the doorway leading to the bedrooms.

Nathan glared hard, all around. Buck actually went over and squeezed his shoulder, like he understood something JD sure as hell didn't, but Nathan wouldn't settle down. "You got us all turnin' into rutting animals, now, Buck?" Nathan half-snarled. "Bunch of overseers beatin' on women then just draggin' 'em off?"

"Go look, if you need to," Buck told him gently. "Vin'll understand."

"I ain't goin' near 'em," he spat, and turned from under Buck's hand to lean back against the wall, arms folded stiffly across his chest.

J.D. snatched up his journal, fanning the pages to try to dry out the blotch of ink before it marred all the pages. As it was, he'd be writing around that big black stain for the middle third of the book. And every time he saw it, he'd be reminded of tonight. Of Vin-- Vin of all people!-- viciously thrashing a woman and then hauling her off by force. And every other person he trusted most in the world, people that had told him till they were blue, how he'd never have to worry about one of them doing anything to him he didn't want-- they every one were acting like Vin wasn't twenty feet away from them, committing what amounted to rape. Even Nathan wasn't doing anything, and he wasn't any more willing to nod to what was happening than J.D.

"Dammit!" he burst out, flinging the book onto the table and surging to his feet. "You all can sit on your smug asses and let this happen, but I ain't!" Full steam ahead, he charged towards the hall-way door. Mae sprang up and headed for him, but Buck beat her to the mar.

k"J.D.," he cautioned gently, stepping to block his way. "J.D., it's all right, what's happenin'. You know I'd be in there myself if it wasn't all right with her."

He opened his mouth to protest, moved to dodge by Buck, when Ezra spoke up behind him. "Obviously, Buck, he doesn't know that. Let him go."

And Buck stepped aside, reached out to touch J.D.'s shoulder as he darted by. It was all J.D. could do, to not jerk away from that touch in disgust. He'd never, ever imagined Buck standing still for anything like this. J.D. charged down the hallway towards the door leading to the Pack's bed. He reached out, grasped the doorknob, then went still, listening.

Vin was talking. Talking in that same low, reasonable tone he used with skittish horses. And skittish friends that wore bowler hats. Feeling more like a sneak, now, than a righteous savior, J.D. leaned closer to the door to better catch Tanner's words.

"Don't ever make me do this again, Lilith. We ain't like y'all. It ain't right for us, and it ain't good for this Pack."

J.D.'s heart sank to his boots, heavy with disillusionment. Vin was doing exactly what he'd thought he was doing. What he still couldn't quite believe he was doing. He opened the door with a jerk, the well-oiled hinges and catch making no betraying sound.

All the lamps burned, and what their light revealed impacted J.D. like an iron fist to the chest and a wet kiss to the groin. Vin was stretched out, in all his bare, battered glory, across Lilith. He supported himself only by his arms, and his hands held Lilith's wrists pinned to the bed. Her face was turned away, and all J.D. could see of her was the banner of her long brown hair flung against the white sheets and a sliver of her body beneath Vin. The thrust he made lifted her hips from the mattress and drove a gasp out of her.

"See? We could've skipped all that fightin' and just come in here. Settled our business doin' somethin' more fun than tryin' to beat each other senseless," Vin throatily murmured near her ear.

J.D. felt sick. "One-Bloods don't force their women, Vin."

Vin's whole body twitched, and the tracker turned his head to stare at J.D. with a startled expression. A pained look replaced it and he drew breath to speak. Instead, his brows pulled down, in some mixture of frustration and misgivings.

"We're a Pack," J.D. continued, seizing on that indecision. "But we're human, too. There's gotta be room for that, don't there?"

"Lilith ain't. If I stop..."

"But what happens to you, if you don't?" J.D. interrupted, urgently.

A long sigh trickled out of Vin, and he dropped his full weight onto the woman beneath him, turning his face away from J.D.'s accusing gaze and lying very still.

God forgive him, even as repulsive as J.D. found the scene in front of him, his damned cock was stiff as a rod. And his heart felt like it was going to batter its way straight out of his chest, he was that terrified. He felt like he was watching something inexorable and deadly coming closer to Vin-- to all of them-- like the deceptively slow creep of a beginning landslide.

Long seconds ponderously ticked by, with all three of them frozen as if in a wax tableau.

"You One-Bloods, you're very strange creatures," Lilith observed, her voice a velvety purr. She drew her wrists from Vin's loosened grasp and lifted her hands to push Vin's hair back from his face, tenderly. Stroked with the same gentleness down the length of his bac.

kHer powerful surge and twist was as unexpected for Vin as it was for J.D. Blue eyes stared up at her, wide and surprised for an instant, before his long body tensed between her knees and the tendons in his wrists twisted to test her hold upon them.

J.D. stared. Too startled to speak, too sickened to move. There was going to be another fight. Another bloody battle, and this time, in this room, where there had only ever been love and joy and his own sexual discoveries and discomforts and fun and peace.

"Shh," Lilith hissed soothingly. Her expression was soft, almost pitying. She lowered her head, and ran her tongue along Vin's tensed jaw, then slid off of him to settle to one side, on her hands and knees. "I couldn't stand it, being like you, for long. I think I'd go insane." The change in her position released the faint musk of her desire into the room, and the look she gave Vin was one of unadulterated invitation.

J.D. watched Vin's expression transform to something heated and feral. Watched the tracker roll to his own knees, and pull Lilith closer by grasping her hips. Vin's hands smoothed around her thin buttocks, to brush the sleek dark hair of her mound, and spread its lips with his fingers. Lilith breathed out a shuddering sigh, and pressed back against his touch.

Staring, frozen as a rabbit bewitched by a weasel, J.D.'s startled gasp was covered by Lilith's breathy wail, when, instead of mounting her as J.D. expected, Vin pressed his mouth against the glistening, pink flesh of her sex. As Vin suckled and lapped and teased Lilith, J.D. dropped his back against the door just behind him, gone weak in the knees, and seemed to feel every movement of the tracker's lips and tongue on his own swollen coc.

kLilith whimpered and moaned and growled, as she ground herself against Vin greedily. Her back swayed, and her neck arched back. Her eyes were half-closed and her lips were parted, as she panted. Her hair flowed across her back, like a mane that swung over her far shoulder and pooled on the bed. How J.D. had ever thought her homely, he couldn't see, just now. She looked exotic, and dangerously alluring, and as erotically abandoned as Venus being pleasured by Mars.

What he was watching was in no way an act of violation. What he was watching, unable to look away, was scattering his mind in a thousand directions, and every one of them was pornographic. His vision seemed to narrow down to discern only one image at a time, like magic lantern slides. The way Vin had brought a hand up under Lilith, so that every move she made, dragged her taut nipple against his flattened palm. The curve of Vin's tongue, as he tickled the swollen little nub of flesh that was a woman's key to Paradise. The pull of Lilith's tanned skin across her ribs as she gasped. Vin's erection, sharply silhouetted against the paleness of the bed, the foreskin drawn away from the wet, sensitive head by the force of his arousal. The heavy sway of his sac, as he braced himself with wide-spread knees. The glimmer of his ass, gilded in the lamplight. The lovely lines of muscles shifting in his thighs, bulging and subsiding in his bac.

kFighting to keep pulling air into his lungs, J.D. closed his eyes and dropped his head against the door with a little thud. Shutting out the sight of the lovers only allowed his mind to offer up its own desires in blazing colors. He saw himself moving onto the bed, fucking Vin as Vin pleasured Lilith. He saw them lying, sated and relaxed, and Lilith opening her arms and smiling invitation up at him, her thighs spread and glazed with Vin's come. His eyes flew open, banishing the visions, when Lilith released a long, orgasmic, wavering cry that trembled on the edge of being a howl.

Her head was thrown back, and her eyes were clenched closed. She shuddered, pressed back against Vin's mouth, and then collapsed to rest her weight on her knees and chest, her cheek against the mattress. Her eyes slowly opened, pupils widely dilated. Catching the light from the lanterns, any chance of an unguarded glimpse into her soul was obscured by a flare of reflected gold, transforming her once more into something fey and untamable.

Vin lifted his head, dragged an open-mouthed kiss against the curve of her ass, then entered her with a thrust that rocked her forward with an approving grunt. Their flesh slammed against each other, as she lifted herself back up onto her hands and knees, and dropped her head. She grunted like that with each thrust of Vin's hips, leaning back into them like a mare with a stallion. Vin's breath came in rasps, and his whispers of encouragement to her were hoarse and earthily obscene.

J.D. must have made some sort of noise, because Vin turned his head to look at him, expression unreadable. Following Vin's motion, Lilith turned her head to gaze at him, too.

"J.D.," Vin grated demandingly, "You in or out?"

Hardly able to process what Vin's words signified, J.D. blinked, mute. Lilith tilted her head, and when she spoke, her voice was perversely flirtatious. "Come on, Sweetfur--don't just stand there and sweat." She gave a little beckoning jerk of her head.

J.D.'s back lifted one inch away from the door. Two. He hesitated. Then, the tip of Lilith's tongue swept over her lips lasciviously, as she stared at J.D. "Come on," she urged huskily. "I want to taste you."

That admission caused J.D.'s enflamed cock to over-ride any conflicting commands from his over-whelmed brain. Almost feverishly, he kicked his boots off, shed his clothes, and joined the interlocked pair on the bed. He dropped to his knees in front of Lilith, stared into Vin's eyes over her bac.

kTanner's smile was lazily sensuous, completely accepting. He began thrusting again, slow and long. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, J.D. registered muzzy amazement that Vin could exert such control over himself, reining back from driving passion. Lilith nuzzled her face against J.D.'s lower belly and groin. Her tongue bathed him, as if the salt of his skin was something she was starved for.

The sensation was almost too much to bear. Moaning, J.D.'s spine bowed, and he clutched Lilith's shoulders. Vin chuckled lecherously, reached out, and drew J.D. into a kiss that was as much a sexual act as what he was doing to the woman beneath him.

Vaguely, J.D. realized that he was tasting and smelling Lilith in that debauching kiss, as well as Vin. It only caused the fire in his belly, in his blood, to surge higher still. He groaned into Vin's mouth, shudders wracking his frame. Vin laughed against his lips like a berserker, and his thrusts into Lilith went wild and hard once more.

She leaned back into them, and engulfed J.D.'s rigid cock, transmitting Vin's thrusts straight to him, her coital grunts muffled against J.D.'s flesh as she drew at him. His fingers dug into her shoulders, his head jerked back, convulsive as the meaningless shout of noise forced out of his throat. His internal inferno flashed over, like a blazing room opened to the air, and consumed him to ash.

Lilith greedily swallowed, urging his climax out to the aching dregs. When she finally released him, J.D. toppled to the mattress like a felled tree. She smiled down at him, with some weird expression almost like maternal pride, as he sprawled out to let the air cool him, gasping for air like a landed trout.

Vin laughed tightly, and gave a thrust that almost tumbled her onto J.D. With a squeak and a giggle, she recovered, and pushed back against him just as lustily. He rumbled, deep in his chest, and began thrusting with maniacal speed and ferocity.

Scant seconds later, they dropped beside J.D., joining him in post-coital panting and sweating. When Lilith's breathing settled, she rolled onto her side to look at J.D, and she drew her bent leg up his, one hand sleeking over his belly.

He stared at her, startled. Her thighs glistened with Vin's come, and her eyes glistened with invitation. Despite its very recent efforts, his cock began to rise to the occasion.

"That's right," she purred wickedly, her fingers ghosting across his skin as her inner thigh rubbed against his. Vin laid his cheek against her temple, watching with an almost sleepy expression.

"Slide a little closer, Sweetfur," she murmured, her leg hooking against his, tugging. "Come leave your mark, too."

That impacted like icy water in the face. J.D. jerked away from her blandishments, sickened. He staggered to his feet, snatched up his clothes, and slammed the door behind himself.

Twisting to look at Vin with wide eyes, Lilith blurted, "What did I say?"

"Too much," he sighed, getting to his feet with a last pat to her rear. "I'll go after him." He tugged on his pants and stepped out of the room.

Lilith heard him calling to J.D. She frowned. "What is wrong with these men?" she grumped, then sighed with resignation. She wriggled herself a nicer hollow into the mattress, tugged a quilt over herself, and drifted off for a nap.

"J.D.?" Vin called softly, as soon as he'd stepped outside the bedroom. The chilly hallway was empty. He glanced towards the door that led out into the living room, but then shook his head. As rattled as J.D. was, he doubted he'd have darted back out and faced all the others.

Vin padded towards the three small bedrooms-- 'poutin' rooms,' Buck called them-- wishing not for the first time, he had the nose of that Two-Blood. His own ears were pretty darn good, though. Good enough to hear the rasping breaths inside the farthest of the sparse chambers, when he leaned his ear near the wooden door. Never one to let the social proprieties get in the way of expediency, Vin turned the knob. It was unlocked, and he stepped inside.

The interior of the room was almost inky with the darkness of the sodden early evening. J.D. was by the window, a darker shape against the dull grey of the glass. The only indication he gave of being aware of Vin's entrance, was the stifling of his jerky breathing, and a furtive swipe at his face.

He stepped closer. J.D. didn't move, didn't lift his forehead from the cold glass. "J.D.?"

"What's happenin' to us, Vin?" he whispered. "What're we all turnin' into?"

"Don't see any of us turnin' into nothin' other than what we always have been."

"We're changin'... all of us," JD insisted, anguished. Frightened.

Vin felt his gut clench. "Then tell me what you see us changin' into," he urged softly, keeping his voice even.

"Animals," came the flat answer. "Worse than animals. You and Lilith-- you looked like you were gonna kill each other out there, for no good reason that I can see-- then you draggin' her off in there and..."

"Did she act like she was bein' forced to do anything against her will?" Vin's throat tightened, and it was a real effort to keep rebuking sharpness out of his tone.

A long moment passed, with their breathing and a sharper rattle of rain against the windowpanes the only sounds in the room. "No," JD whispered. "But it still wasn't... right. And what I did... what I wanted to do... with Lilith and you right there watching..." JD's words choked off in what sounded like a gag.

"You did exactly what you wanted to do. Nobody was forcin' you, any more than I was forcin' her," Vin countered. He frowned, searching for words to explain knowledge that was as ingrained in himself as the prudence of watching his back-trail. "The only one judgin' us to be animals is you, for reasons I don't rightly understand."

"She told me to leave my mark," J.D. turned, and Vin wished he could see his face more clearly. "To mark her, like she's some cow or somethin', for me to ear-notch!"

Vin shook his head. "It ain't like that at all. She was offerin' you a gift."

Silhouetted against the grey of the glass, Vin could see J.D.'s shoulders straighten in surprise. "A gift?" His voice was still tinged with disgust.

"Yeah. A gift. She was offerin' to put herself beneath you, in rank. And for somebody like Lilith, volunteerin' to humble herself like that is a hell of an offer to make." Vin reached out, brushed his hand against JD's goose-pimpled shoulder. Some of his intestinal knots untied, when JD moved into the touch, rather than away.

"I-- I didn't realize..."

"Yeah, well, I shoulda said somethin'. Shouldn't have expected you to understand." Vin blew out a breath. "Wasn't thinkin' my sharpest, just then."

"I still don't understand. Not really. I insulted her, didn't I?"

"I think she's as confused by us as you are by her," Vin shrugged, and rubbed his palms against J.D.'s chilled shoulders. "I wouldn't expect her offer t' be repeated, though, if I's you."

J.D. gave a wry little snort. "Why'd she offer that to me, at all, after fightin' you tooth and nail for rank?"

"Because she had just fought me tooth and nail for rank, and lost. And Chris put her in her place. Then when you came into the room, I didn't send you packin' right back out. Asked if you wanted to join in." Vin's lips twisted into the slightest of smiles. "Not real politely, as I recall, but just the same..."

This close, he could see J.D.'s throat work against a hard swallow. Vin shook his head. "I suspect a lot of this is because these women, Lilith especially, are so different from Buck."

A tentative, guttural little noise answered that.

"See... if there was some measurin' stick for Two-Bloods, Mae and Lilith would be at either end and Buck would be somewhere 'round the middle."

Vin took a step aside, to the pale glimmer of J.D.'s shirt, lying on one of the beds. He tossed it to him, and then pulled the woolen blanket around his own bare shoulders as he settled on the mattress and tucked his chilled feet under the cover. J.D. shrugged on the shirt and sat down, cross-legged, beside Vin, his head cocked expectantly.

"Mae's about the most easy-goin' person I've ever met," Vin continued, "Two-Blood or not. And she don't seem to give a hoot about rank for herself... she takes what she's given, but she doesn't push for more."

"And Lilith doesn't do anything but push," J.D. snorted.

Vin nodded. "Yeah-- she's an odd one. As I've been told it, most times, the rank in a Pack's pretty well set. Usually, a leader's only challenged when they've aged too much to lead but they won't step down, or they've gone infirm in mind. But Lilith's so sharp, so rank-driven, she'd take on a leader in full power, if she thought she had a chance to win. That's why she keeps goadin' Chris-- she's testin' him. So far, he's kept her in her place, and she's got more sense than to challenge Buck and get both him and Chris lightin' in on her-- so she went for the next rank she felt she could take." Vin gazed at J.D. steadily. "Mine."

"Oh." J.D. chewed on his lip, and his enlightenment. Suddenly, the ferocity of the battle he'd witnessed made sense, and the necessity of Vin reinforcing his victory in the way that would speak loudest to the Two-Blood. As his thoughts worked themselves to completion, he shuddered. "If she won..."

"Yeah," Vin agreed, with an amused snort. "So I couldn't let that happen." He cupped J.D.'s chin in his hand, stroked along those soft lips with his thumb. "You all right now?"

"I think so," he nodded, tilting his head into Vin's caress before glancing towards the door. "I'm not lookin' forward to goin' back out there, though."

"We'd better. If we stay in here, we'll both get pneumonia."

"Yeah, it's just that I know Buck'll..."

Vin waited, and then prompted gently, "Buck'll what?"

"He'll know... well... everything."

Vin couldn't see it in the dim light, but he would have bet his last dollar J.D. had just flushed scarlet. "So? He always has, any way. And it ain't nothin' you can do anything about. J.D., he ain't gonna rag you about this. He'll be glad you ain't upset no more."

"You sure?"

"Trust me. More than me, trust Buck."

J.D. nodded, and headed for the door.

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

Gathered around the supper table, the Pack ate, and talked about everything and nothing and J.D. basked in what felt like a peaceful family moment.

Until Nathan reached for the plate of chicken, at the same time Lilith reached for the same thing. Their hands brushed, and she glared at him across the table, a low growl rippling out of her throat.

Inwardly, J.D. groaned, and he and everyone else at the table tensed. The room went silent.

Chris' palm slapped the table-top hard enough to make the dishes bounce.

Lilith withdrew her hand, but she still sat stiff, and stared a hole in Nathan.

Nathan got his second helping without looking, staring back at Lilith just as hotly.

Come on, Lilith, J.D. silently pleaded. Let it go. Just this once, let it go.

She growled again.

Chris' expression hardened into the one J.D. had begun to privately think of as his "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" look. He rose up, scant inches, from his seat.

Lilith broke her stare with Nathan, to turn a resentful look on her Alpha as she rose and left the table. Left the house.

So much for peaceful family moments.

Interrupted conversations restarted as soon as the door closed behind her, words and tones carefully casual. Mae reached, under the table, to give J.D.'s thigh a reassuring squeeze. Giving her a grateful smile, he covered her hand with his, and squeezed bac.

kWhen he released her hand, it crept higher up his thigh, squeezed again. Her expression was bland, but her eyes sparkled.

"Stop it," he whispered, with a grin as he shoved her hand away.

"You gonna growl at me?" she whispered back, waggling her eyebrows. Her hand crept back up his thigh.

"I just might, you don't cut that out," he answered, trying to give her the same ominous look Chris had given Lilith and ruining it with a smirk of a grin.

"Oooh, promise?" she whispered back, with outrageous innuendo in her tone and expression. She walked her fingers across his fly.

J.D. took a long swallow of his water, to keep from laughing out loud and drawing attention to the flush creeping up from under his collar.

At the end of the table, Josiah rose from his chair with a mumbled apology, and stepped outside.

Lilith was barely discernable in the twilight, standing in the deeper shadow of a tree at the edge of the door-yard. She didn't move, until Josiah stroked her shoulders.

"Come on back inside," he murmured, as she leaned back against him. He traced her sharp jaw line with a knuckle. "Can't have you missin' too many meals-- you'll blow away."

She chuckled shortly. "Don't matter how many meals I eat-- I stay bony."

Josiah wrapped his arms around her, and bent his head to the spot just behind her ear that always made her melt. "The closer the bone, the sweeter the meat."

Lilith shivered, sighed, and turned in his embrace. "Josiah, why does Nathan hate me so?"

He was startled to see the glittering trails of tears glazing her cheeks. "What makes you think that? Seems to me like it's the other way 'round."

She shook her head. "Ever since Chris brought us into the Pack, Nathan draws away from me when I get close. He stiffens up, and his scent turns bitter."

While he carefully chose his words, Josiah rubbed his palms up and down her slender back. "You growlin' at him over the supper table, and givin' him those 'burn-in-hell' looks of yours ain't gonna help change that. Nathan, he's got a lot to work out in his head, a lot of old notions that don't fit in any more with the way he's findin' himself livin' now. Pack life was unsettlin' enough for him, before y'all came. You and Mae and Lucine, I figure you draw him a clearer picture of exactly what it is that he's gotten himself into, and he ain't sure he can handle it, just yet."

He tilted her chin up, and kissed her with a tender smile. "Try bein' nice to him for a change, and give him some time and space. He'll come around. Nathan's a fine man. He's just confused, right now. That's all."

"He's not the only one," she snorted, and tucked her head neatly under his chin. "Do you know," she confided to his collar button, "That I never so much as spoke to a One-Blood until I was more than twenty years old?"

"Why's that?"

"Our old Alpha, he was Two-Blood, pure, as far back as our memories go. He mistrusted your kind deeply, and only allowed the high rankers of the Pack to have any dealings with One-Bloods. Children and submissives-- well, we weren't to allow ourselves to be so much as glimpsed. And frankly, I didn't care. His mistrust was enough to quench any curiosity I might have had."

She traced a fingertip over the pearly disk. "Mae, she's from New Orleans-- she grew up in the midst of One-Bloods, had them as friends, danced at their cotillions... Me, I hardly know how to keep from scaring them shitless or completely disgracing myself."

"You're learnin'," he reassured her, and stroked his hand along the braid that lay in the hollow of her spine. "Takes time, to fit yourself in with another people's way of life, even if you share the same blood." He hugged her closer. "Come on back inside, Lilith."

"In a bit," she demurred, and tilted her head back to look up into the darkened sky, alive with countless stars.

Josiah savored her profile, clean and strong, dark against the glittering census of Abraham's children. She wasn't a pretty woman. It was the clean, honest strength of her, in body and mind, that had won him over. It was the byzantine intricacies of her thoughts and the mysteries of her mores that kept him intrigued. It'd take more years than he likely had left, to figure her out. And that was a very restful thought.

"Why is it," she mused after a long, comfortable silence, "That the stars are always their most beautiful, when it's too cold to stand still long enough to really admire them?"

"I've wondered that myself," he chuckled. "Come on back inside, Lilith."

This time, she acquiesced without a murmur. They walked back to the house, she with her arm around his waist, he with his arm wrapped around her shoulders.

//Thursday, November 12, 1874//

//I don't know what Josiah said to Lilith, out there in the yard. Whatever it was, she came back inside with him after a while. Went right to helping Mae and me clear away the dishes, as if nothing at all had happened.//

//I don't understand how she does that-- controls her anger, that seems like a killing fury, so that it's here and gone like a lightning strike. Mae's so different, and I don't understand that, either.//

//She says it's because Lilith was raised up isolated. Even so, there's more difference between them than that would seem to account for.//

//Any way, whatever Josiah said to Lilith, it's worked like a charm. She's not so much as given anybody a dirty look, since then. Even Nathan.//

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

"Here. I thought maybe you could use these." Lilith thrust a small cloth sack towards Nathan.

He took it a bit warily. The clean scent of moist earth wafted out as he undid the string. Inside were a double handful of fat, forked roots. Surprised and pleased, his teeth flashed in a rare, wide grin. "Now, where'd you find so much 'sang?"

A shrug lifted her thin shoulder. "I just stumbled across them. There's a whole stand of it, on the side of a little sheltered hill. The grandmother of 'em all is at the top and these younger ones are scattered all around below it, where the berries had tumbled."

"I want you to show me where they are. A good stand of 'sang's a hard thing to find 'round here."

"I will-- if you promise not to dig the grandmother plant."

He nodded and she turned and left the clinic without another word. Nathan shook his head as he spread the ginseng roots out over his worktable. "What's got into her lately? She's actin' almost civilized."

Josiah set his cup of coffee aside and rose. "She's tryin', Nate." He laid his hand on the healer's shoulder. "You could try, too, and help save this Pack-- this family-- a world of bother."

"I ain't the one causin' all the ruckus," Nathan snorted, and moved out from under Josiah's hand on the excuse of laying the roots on the tin roof below the window sill to dry.

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

A few days after she and Nathan had ridden out to examine the ginseng plants, Lilith stepped out of the Mercantile. Her attention was caught by a faint sound of effort, and a strained curse word in a familiar voice. She glanced across the street, to see Nathan start up the steps to his clinic, dragging an obviously very heavy trun.

kAfter stuffing her purchases hurriedly into her saddlebag, she darted across the dirt span, dodged a team, and bounded up the four stairs he'd climbed, to take one of the trunk's handles in her own hands. "Let me help?"

Nathan eyed her suspiciously, over the curved lid. But, grateful for the unexpected lightening of his load, he nodded. She easily supported her end of the weight as they negotiated the stairs.

She coughed when the medicinal tang of the room hit her, but after they set the trunk down, just inside the door, she crouched beside him. Watched with curiosity, as Nathan flipped open the catches. The scents of leather and paper and ink and the musty smell she always associated with trunks wafted up into her face as the lid lifted.

"So many books!" she breathed. "No wonder it was so heavy!" Reaching out a fingertip, she ran it over the gold embossing on one of the volumes. "What are they about?" she asked, touching his shoulder in a natural gesture as she leaned over the trun.

k"Medicine. Human and canine," he grunted, and reached up to remove her hand. "Don't even bother tryin', Lilith."

She drew back, stung. "I'm just trying to be friendly!"

"I know exactly what you're tryin' to do. I got enough of that kind of friends. I ain't lookin' for no more."

"You flatter yourself, Nathan!" she spat, jerking to her feet. "Were you born being such a reekin' shit, or have you worked at it?"

Lilith didn't wait around to hear any reply he might have made. She stormed out of the clinic, rattled down the stairs, darted back across the street-- earning herself a curse from a rider that nearly mowed her down.

Strider snorted in startled distress, at the abruptness of her weight dropping onto his back, and the unaccustomed touch of spurs to his ribs. He gave a little buck as a reprimand, and then galloped away from the noise and smells of the town.

//Thursday, November 20, 1874//

//Whatever charm Josiah cast, lasted exactly eight days, thirteen hours and twenty-odd minutes. Lilith came back from town this afternoon, in such a surly mood that even Lucine stayed out of her way.//

//She's calmed down, now, but even Mae doesn't know what's set her off aga //

"Move."

J.D. looked up at that brusque command, to see Lilith standing in front of him, by the side of the table, a stack of plates in her hands.

"Just a minute. I'm almost done," he requested mildly, and looked back down at his journal. The plates clattered onto the tabletop, and

J.D.'s chair went over from the force of her shove into the center of his chest. It all happened so fast, his head cracked against the floor almost before his brain could register the fact that he was going over backwards.

It must have been the little white sparks jiggling all over his field of vision that kept him from seeing Ezra move. When J.D. blinked them away, it was to see Ezra bending Lilith at a painful angle backwards, against the table's edge. His face was livid with fury, and the sharp tip of the ivory-handled push dagger that he kept tucked under his vest was dimpling the skin of Lilith's throat.

J.D. kept very still, afraid that any move on his part would cause some fatal reaction.

"If you," Ezra told her in a bizarrely normal tone, "So much as raise your voice to him again, ever, I'll have your hide for a hearth-rug."

Judging from the width of Lilith's eyes, and the speed of her breathing, she believed him.

After a few heartbeats, Ezra released his hold on her, but held her backed against the table by the force of his anger, and the knife he still held in a ready position. "Now. Apologize."

He stepped back, just far enough for her to slip past. She gave him a glance that held new respect, and a bit of chagrin, then bent to offer J.D. a hand. "I'm sorry," she told him, with apparent sincerity, as she grasped his wrist and hauled him to his feet.

"Are you all right, J.D.?" Ezra asked mildly enough, for a man with a dagger in his hand.

Shaken, he just nodded, staring at Lilith, until she turned back to the table and her interrupted task. Ezra's dagger disappeared as if he'd conjured it away. He went back to his newspaper, but kept a watchful eye on Lilith over its pages.

J.D. noted that her hands trembled a bit, as she finished setting the table. The bottom plate in the stack had cracked in two. Lilith fitted the broken pieces back together, with exacting care, and then just stood there for a moment, head bowed. Her hands were fisted on each side of the broken plate, quivering and white-knuckled.

"Leave it, and take yourself elsewhere for a while, until you can maintain at least a veneer of domestication," Ezra ordered coolly.

Without even lifting her head, Lilith darted from the room into the kitchen. A moment later, the back door slammed.

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

Mae followed her nose and her intuition. They led her straight to the barn, where Lilith sat in Strider's stall, in the dark little space under his manger. The horse looked back at her, as she opened his stall, and stepped aside as if to say, "I don't know what's wrong with her. You fix it."

He turned back, and bumped his muzzle against Lilith's hands. She absently petted him and pushed him gently away. Mae settled into the deep straw in front of Lilith, reached out and caught her hands.

"What's troubling you?" she asked gently.

With a long sigh, Lilith dropped her head back against the rough boards behind her. "I don't think I can do this much longer."

"You're bringing it all on yourself," Mae chided her mildly. "What were you thinking, going after J.D, of all people!"

"I... wasn't thinking. I just... lost control," she admitted, deeply troubled.

"You'd best find a way to put a check-rein on it, or we're all going to get put out on the road. Again."

A soft sound, more telling than a word, came from Lilith.

"Oh hon," Mae sighed. "You say that all you want is a place to belong, again. A Pack around us again. Why do you keep pushing so hard, for rank?"

"Why don't you push for it at all?" came back, sharp and bitter- tinged.

"Because I don't seem to need it, like you do." The straw rustled, as Mae moved closer to wrap her arms around her friend. "Any where else, with any other pack, it wouldn't matter. You could stare down, or thrash, whoever you needed to. Be Gamma again. Beta, if you wanted.

And everyone would see it as your right and respect you for it. But these people, for all they call themselves a Pack-- they're far from it. Even Buck. They're.... something else entirely. You shove one, you've pushed them all."

"We'll always be outsiders, with them."

"No. I don't think so. At least, not as long as we don't make ourselves a stink in their noses."

"As long as I don't, you mean."

"Hey, you said it, hon." Mae's voice held a tender chuckle.

A little moan, and a reluctant chuckle in return. "Help me, then. I don't have an inkling how to deal with these men. You've lived around One-Bloods all your life. You're telling me there's sense, or order, in the way this Pack is structured? Because if there is, I sure as hell don't see it!"

"Damn that Aleka-- he did you no service at all," Mae growled. "If he'd let your Pack have normal dealings with One-bloods... "

"That's a cold trail," Lilith snorted. "What's done is gone."

"Cold trails lead to hot ones, sometimes, and that one surely does," Mae persisted. "Look at today. You went after J.D. in front of Ezra--"

A rueful noise escaped Lilith. "Yes, an underestimation that nearly got a blade stuck into my throat."

Mae's chuckle was more predatory than feminine. "Well, Ezra, with all his fine clothes and soft hands and pretty smells-- he's like a coral snake. Easy to take as harmless, because he's so beautifully colorful and charming. But harm him or his, and he'll kill without a qualm.

J.D...."

She paused, and Lilith waited.

"J.D.'s sorta like me, in this Pack. He's not a pup, but he's not of any rank to speak of. Not because the others don't respect him, or don't consider him mature-- but because he's comfortable where he is."

"And that, I'll never understand, either."

"I know. I've come to accept it. All I ask, is that you keep being nice to me, when you rise in the Pack!" Mae chuckled, and Lilith grinned and kissed her.

"Relationships are very fluid in this Pack," Mae continued after a moment. "In that, they're very One-blood. The only ones with rank as you know it are Buck, Chris and Vin, but even that's a tangle. Buck and Chris are life-mated, of course."

Lilith nodded agreement.

Mae sighed. "Buck does have natural inclinations toward acting as the alpha-mate, the alpha submissive. But he doesn't know himself. Did you know he was raised with no pack, by a One-Blood woman, and entirely in the company of One-Bloods?"

"No!" Lilith sounded aghast. "No wonder he's so... so..."

"Mmm, yes. He doesn't want the responsibility of his natural role, though I imagine if it were forced upon him, he would accept it."

"Oh?"

"Mmmhmm. I'd almost say that Vin understands pack behavior better than Buck, and the fact he doesn't abuse that knowledge--as you would," she gently teased, "shows his love for those two like nothing else could. Vin could have fought for the role of beta, might even have won it."

"Why doesn't he simply take it, if it's available?"

"Because," Mae said with a lush chuckle, "Vin reaps his rewards in other ways. Buck doesn't care when Vin wants to run a job, or handle Pack business or keeps everyone in line--and Vin doesn't care when Buck does it. There's absolutely no rivalry between them. They work together as naturally as a mated pair."

"But they're not mated," Lilith commented, in the tone of one talking to herself.

"No. They aren't. Hence, Vin's rewards."

"Buck doesn't keep Vin in his place nearly well enough," Lilith grumbled.

Mae made a frustrated sound and wondered, not for the first time, why she wasted breath on conversations like this. "Buck trusts Vin, I know, far more than you think reasonable. But Chris is the crux of the thing, after all, and if Vin tried to usurp Buck's place in Chris' life, Chris would set him straight. And that's something none of them wants."

"It's Buck's job to defend his own place, damn it," she growled. "And Chris would do it for him?"

"Without a doubt."

"That's not right," she asserted as if it were an absolute. "That's not natural."

"Natural or not, you lashed out at J.D. and almost got stuck by Ezra."

Lilith said sullenly, "That was none of Ezra's busi--"

"Pack business," Mae said tiredly. "They don't see themselves as individuals within the group, not like you do. JD just might be able to defend himself against the likes of you, dear, were he ever given reason or opportunity, but neither Ezra nor any of the dominants will ever let him be in the situation of finding that out for himself."

"So how do you know all this? There's nothing I've seen that--"

"You saw that knife at your throat. You've seen Chris defend Nathan against your moods, and call Vin or Buck down with no more than a word or two. You've seen the pointy end of Vin's cock and not Chris', and not Buck's anymore. And surely you know that Vin has never dominated Chris."

"Eh?"

Mae shrugged. "It's some sort of sore point, with Chris, as Ezra tells it. Some kind of... I don't know. But Chris doesn't permit himself to be dominated by anyone but Buck."

"And that is the big difference? That is how you can tell all you're saying now?" Lilith snapped, her voice flat and angry.

"No, it isn't the only thing, but one of many. You see, now, why I said I didn't think you would understand?" Mae's voice held an edge of resigned irritation.

Lilith's reply to that was a noise rather like a disgruntled snarl.

"I'm only telling you what I see." Mae went on, in the tone of ticking the men off on her fingers. "Below Chris, Buck and Vin, there's sorta one lump ...everybody else.' Nathan... Nathan's still holding himself on the edges, I think. He's confused, angry a lot-- but about what, I haven't figured out. There's that woman. Maybe she has something to do with it?"

"Maybe. Though I get the feeling he's more likely to leave this Pack, and go to hers, than entice her here."

"No, he'll never leave. And maybe she'll never come. That'll make a man ill-tempered, for certain."

"He hates me," Lilith stated flatly. "Of that I'm certain."

"Possibly. But, you can't settle him the way you want to. The way you should, in a normal Pack. The others won't let you. Somehow, you and Nathan are going to have to work out a way to either declare a truce, or agree to ignore each other."

"Easy for you to say."

"I know... but short of leaving this Pack, I don't see any other way around it."

"I've thought about it."

"Of leaving?" Mae sounded almost apprehensive.

"I've only thought about it," Lilith reassured her. "I ain't never been the type to tuck my tail and run."

"No," Mae's voice was amused, and a bit muffled, as she buried her head against Lilith's neck, and nipped her skin delicately. "Nobody's ever been given cause to think that of you."

Lilith's breath hissed through her teeth, and her hold tightened on Mae's waist.

On the other side of the barn's board wall, frozen with his hand still on the lean-to's door, Buck felt like he'd been sucker-punched.

When he'd heard Mae's gentle-voiced question from the other side of the weathered boards, he had fallen back decades through time and into a trundle, and heard the soft sound of his mother's voice, as she shared secrets in the night with one of the 'Aunts.'

He'd had the wind in his favor, today, and the heavy scents in the barn to distract their noses, and he hadn't listened to be prying. It was simply that something about the soft voices of women sharing a confidence, touched something deep inside that hadn't been, in far too long. Something that felt like home.

But nothing he'd heard during those far-past midnight conversations had clawed at his insides like what he'd heard today. Nothing he'd heard then rankled like a nettle's thorn in his mind, demanding he question how he lived, how he loved-- and even what he really was.

Buck eased away from the barn stealthily. Sawing that board could wait. Right now, he felt the undeniable need to draw away for a little while, to lick his wounds and think about what he'd overheard.

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

"Buck?" J.D.'s voice a few moments later, lifted Buck's head. He drew further back into the shadows of the trees.

"Buck? Where'd you go?"

From behind the screen of twigs and shadows, Buck watched J.D. look around in confusion, down in the barn-yard. "Buck?"

Mae came out of the barn, and J.D. spoke to her. Buck heaved a long exhalation of resignation, when she lifted her head to test the breeze, and then pointed right at him. Dammit. He shoved his fingers through his hair, and couldn't help wondering; if he'd been Pack-raised, would he have been so stupid as to have chosen a hiding spot upwind?

Even so, he didn't rise from his crouch against a tree trunk. J.D. entered the shadows and paused, blinking, until his pupils dilated.

Maybe if he stayed perfectly still.... No such luck. Yeah, you've tracked down Buck Wilmington, Fierce Werewolf of the Wild West.

Buck's face twisted into a momentary moue of self-ridicule. Who can't even hide from a city-raised kid who practically walks into walls sometimes.

JD peered through the dense foliage, wondering if Mae was pulling his leg, when--oh. Buck just sat there, wide awake, and it irritated him to no end that his friend would ignore him. "Buck, what are you doin' up here? I need to..." the look on Buck's face finally registered, and with it, the cold fingers of fear on his spine. He swallowed. "What's wrong?"

Buck shook his head. "Nothin's wrong. Can't a man just slip off for a few minutes to take care of his business without havin' to announce it?"

Hands in his pockets, J.D. tilted his head and gave Buck a look to convey plainly that not even he was fooled by a line like that. "Come on, Buck. If you're gonna lie, at least take lessons from Ezra first, 'cause you stink at it. What's happened? You look like your dog just died."

That simile drew a rueful snort from Buck. "Guess you could say it has."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Buck glanced back down towards the barn. "Found out it's dangerous to eaves-drop. You might hear something you wish you hadn't."

Anxiety drove him forward; he wasn't used to seeing Buck out of sorts like this, especially if Chris wasn't involved. He settled on the ground in front of Buck and wondered what Vin or Ezra would say. "Want to talk about it?"

A look of deep pain shadowed over Buck's face, and even as he shook his head, he answered. "I overheard the women talkin'. About us.

About me. Got me to thinkin'."

"What did they say?" J.D. laid his hand on Buck's knee in instinctive compassion.

"That we aren't a real Pack-- and it's because of me," Buck answered softly, his eyes focusing somewhere to one side of J.D.'s face. "That I don't know my natural role and I'm too lily-livered to take my rightful place in the Pack. That I'm not really Two-Blood, in a lot of the ways that count the most."

"That's a load of horse shit!"

Buck's eyes went back to J.D.'s. "No, it ain't," he answered sadly. "They're right." Buck breathed out long and slow, dropping his head back against the tree trunk and closing his eyes. "It rankles that One-Bloods don't notice anything different about me, while my own kind can't help but see the differences. All my life, I've thought that if I could just get back with my own kind, and not have to keep hiding what I was, I could finally let down my guard. I'd finally belong somewhere. Now, I know I don't fit in anywhere. I ain't like the women, and watchin' 'em, I realize I won't never be.

And they realize it too."

"Everybody sees the difference, Buck," he said reasonably. "They're just too dumb to know it."

"Huh?"

"Heck, you can't think you're that good with women all on your own, can you? You smell 'em, sense 'em, know 'em. And they know you do. They love that. You had me under your thumb the first day I met you, and Buck, I've never been more grateful to anybody..."

J.D. put his arms around Buck's shoulders, and he kept his eyes focused on the sad blue ones, intent on not letting the Two-Blood break the contact. "You can't fault us One-Bloods for missing something you were so damned good at hiding. You've got a place to belong, now. A Pack of people that you don't have to hide a thing from. You're one of us because you're you, not because you're Two-Blood, or One-Blood, or anything else. Don't you see that? We like you fine just as you are."

"You really feel that way?"

"You think I'd give you that kind of ammunition if I didn't?"

"Nah, kid, I guess I taught you better'n that."

J.D. smiled and leaned closer, and bestowed a kiss that was long and healing and almost innocent. Almost. Buck drank it in like parched earth drinks rain, pulling J.D. closer.

"BUCK!" Even from a distance, the irritation in Chris' voice was undiluted.

Buck drew away, just enough to lean his forehead against J.D.'s. "I left him standin', waitin' for the cross-cut."

"Now that's somethin' to worry about," J.D. chuckled, and rose to his feet, offering Buck a hand up.

The moon had just risen, huge and yellow. Chris stood on the porch, barefooted despite the chill. He sipped from a tin cup of coffee and watched the women chase each other around the door-yard in a manic game of tag.

The man standing beside him laughed. Chris glanced over at him, and shifted the half-step to the right that brought his side against Buck's. He grinned up at him, amused to feel the fine jittering in Buck's muscles. "You're as keyed-up as they are, tonight. What's gotten into you all?"

Before Buck could answer, Mae bounded up, and grabbed his hands in hers. "Let's go for a run, Buck!"

"Maybe later," he demurred, pulling his hands from her hold. She pushed out her lower lip at him, in an exaggerated pout, then darted away to rejoin the game.

"It's a good night for it," Chris stated quietly. "Gonna get way too cold, soon."

Buck nodded, his eyes fixed on the women. "Yeah."

Setting his coffee on the porch railing, Chris turned to face Buck, and laid his hands on his shoulders. "Don't deny your nature on my account," he admonished gently. "It's too perfect a night, for that.

If I could, I'd go with you."

"Who says you can't?" Buck grinned, fitting his hands to the sides of Chris' waist.

"I've seen you run," Chris chuckled.

"Awww," Buck drawled, an impish gleam in his eyes. "We'll take it easy. You can run at least as fast as a weanlin' pup. If you push it." Chris snorted, then grinned despite himself.

"Go get your boots."

"I can run faster without 'em."

"Suit yourself. But if you pick up a thorn, I ain't haulin' your skinny ass all the way back!"

"I'll risk it," Chris shrugged. He went barefoot when he was at home.

Did from early spring to early winter. Had done so for as long as he could remember. Unless Buck led him into a patch of prickly pear, he had no concerns about his feet.

Buck looked over his head, to the yard again, and emitted a short, odd little bark. All three women stopped in their tracks, looked towards him expectantly. He chuckled, and stepped off the porch, Chris by his side. "It's too good a night to waste," he announced, pulling his shirt off over his head.

The women disrobed just as quickly, just as eagerly, and just as shamelessly. Acting on an impulse he didn't question, Chris pulled off his own shirt and dropped his britches, adding them to the communal heap on the wooden porch-step. In the moment before the change, he looked at the four surrounding him, touching and being touched, bare bodies almost incandescent in the moonlight. The scent of the Pack rose aromatic and heavy around him, like incense.

He had the sensation of being in the center of some arcane coven, some nexus of elemental power as old as the bones of the world. The odd pressure drop of the change, when it happened, seemed to suck the air from his lungs in its multiplied force. Four sets of amber eyes glowed up at him, four tails merrily wagged. Four wolves waited in barely constrained anticipation.

It took him a few seconds to realize why they waited. He was Alpha.

It was his place to lead the run, to set the pace. "Let's go!" he ordered, and struck off towards the back part of the ranch. The larger part. The part that was still wild. Buck loped casually along at his side, looking up at him frequently with a lolling-tongue grin.

Lilith had taken a position to his left, the end of her narrow black muzzle parallel to his knee. Mae and Lucine ran side by side, just behind.

It was, indeed, a glorious night for a run. Everything was silver- gilt or ebony-black. Shadows played tricks with reality, and familiar land looked as unexplored as the glowing face of the moon. Chris allowed himself the rare luxury of abandoning thought, of letting himself simply exist as the sum of the breeze of his going against his heating skin, and the texture of the uneven ground beneath his pounding feet. Reaching down, his fingers brushed silver fur, and if he'd had breath to spare, he'd have released the primal howl crowding his throat.

Later, he couldn't have said how far he'd led them, before his lungs started to burn and his legs to ache and a young doe leaped up with a bleat of fear from almost right under their feet and saved him from the ignominy of having to admit he was reaching the limits of his endurance.

Buck voiced a soft "huff" and the women streaked past in pursuit as he and Chris pulled up. Chris rested his palms on his thighs, sides bellowing. The air pressure dropped. Buck's hand landed on his sweat- glazed shoulder.

"You all right there, Stud?"

"Dandy, just dandy," Chris puffed, glowering at his friend's teasing grin. He wiped stinging sweat out of his eyes, and straightened before he really wanted to.

"Figured you had a bit more stamina than that. Reckon you're gettin' old."

A horrific, brief blast of predatory triumph derailed Chris' retort.

"They caught her," Buck muttered, a throb in his voice that wasn't at all human. He made the change once more, bounded a few strides down the women's trail and waited with tail high and hackles erect. Chris followed, buried a hand into that bristling pelt, and got his breathing back to a non-humiliating rate by the time the females returned.

Lucine led the way, dragging the doe with her head proudly high.

Almost ceremoniously, she dropped her burden atop Chris' feet.

He stepped back from the limp weight and found himself once more the focus of four expectant gazes. Buck settled onto his haunches, amusement and something more meaningful burning in his eyes. Lucine, entirely pleased with herself, licked her chops. Mae's tongue fell over sharp, white teeth. She glanced away towards Lilith, and back to Chris, emitting a tiny, anxious whine.

When he followed her gaze, enlightenment began to dawn. Lilith stood tense, tail held horizontal and still. Her brick-orange eyes bored into his, dropped to the kill, and then went back to his face with implacable intensity.

Larabee knew a dare, a taunt, a challenge to his authority, even when it glowed from the mask of a she-wolf. Just what he was being dared to do, to maintain his authority, wasn't quite as clear. Chris narrowed his eyes at Buck. With deliberate movements, Buck stepped to the doe and lowered his head. One bite and a quick snap of his powerful neck ripped the thin hide back from a haunch. A second bite opened the deer's belly, spilled the viscera.

Hot blood-scent rose up and surrounded Chris almost tangibly. He swallowed against the rise in his gorge as all the clues came together. He was Alpha. When there were no pups, the Alpha ate first from a kill. He was also very, very human-- and therein lay the challenge.

Lilith may as well have sneered it aloud. Just how far are you really willing to go, Larabee? Is your role in the Pack a real commitment, or are you playing out a sham? Her hackles and tail rose higher than they had a right to, while Chris worked it all out. Buck growled at her, stared at her, but didn't move.

The warning snarl came up out of Chris' chest so naturally that it sent a frisson up his spine, as he crouched beside the doe, and stared Lilith down. Out of the corner of his eye, Chris caught Buck's surreptitious nod, as he went to hands and knees and bit into the doe's haunch. It took all the strength of his jaws to cut through the tough muscle, and free a mouthful.

It was rubbery, hotter than human temperature, and coppery-sweet. So freshly deceased, that the fibers still quivered between his teeth.

It was purely an act of will to swallow. Still, Lilith stared. Mae whined. Lucine slavered and Buck anxiously watched.

Chris forced down another mouthful of the unfortunate doe and then, at Buck's nod, another. Apparently, there was magic in the number three for Two-Bloods as well as humankind. The instant the third gobbet of raw flesh slithered down his throat, the tension crackling between them all vanished.

Lilith yawned, and strolled a few yards away to urinate in a properly submissive squat. Mae lay down, and began to lick at some irritation between her toe pads. Buck bolted his own ritual three mouthfuls, of the doe's soft innards-- with more apparent enjoyment than Chris had experienced-- then turned the kill over to Lucine. She leaped on it, feeding ravenously.

Buck sat down, licking his soiled muzzle, eyes on Chris now in a merrier gaze. Larabee was certain the dog-faced bastard was having a belly-laugh at his expense. Put out with them all, Chris straightened and pulled an arm across his bloodied mouth. He turned and stalked over to a thick patch of grass. It felt like a cool kiss against his still over-heated skin, but he refused to be mollified by a random kindness of nature.

He ignored the pressure drop behind him. Didn't look at Buck when he settled onto the grass beside him.

"You did good there, Stud."

Chris' teeth gritted. "Dammit Buck, why is she always pushin'?"

Broad shoulders, paled by moonlight, shrugged. "Just the way she is.

She's a lot like you, in case you haven't drawn the connection.

Reckon that's why y'all get under each other's hides and she has to keep testin' your mettle."

"She's a royal pain in the ass, is what she is," Chris griped, glancing over his shoulder to where the she-wolves played tag-and-tug with one of the doe's forelegs, at the far side of the clearing.

"Yep," Buck chuckled. "Glad you see my point."

Chris' acidic retort was stifled by a kiss. "I'm real proud of you, Chris," Buck repeated, solemn now. He held Larabee silent by lightly touching fingertips to his lips. "Real proud. And more grateful than I can say. I know all this weird shit is tough as hell to deal with.

And that there's nothin' forcin' you to stick around and put up with it."

"Yes there is," Chris objected softly, when Buck's fingers moved to trace along his jaw.

"What, then?" Buck breathed.

Pulling him close, Chris answered with an ardent kiss.

When it ended, Buck was smiling at him again. This time, there was no teasing in it. It was the smile that always managed, somehow, to fire Chris' desire like a spark touched off gunpowder. "Send 'em away," he commanded huskily, wrapping his arms around Buck's waist.

Buck dropped his head back, craned towards the frolicking females and voiced a low-pitched, wavering call. Instantly, they dropped their gory toy and melted into the dark oblivion of the tree line. Before Buck could lift his head, he had Chris' mouth at his throat-- Chris' weight, bearing him back onto the chilly ground. Chris' hand groping down his body, to find his awakening erection and give it an almost rough fondling that perked it up real fast.

"Gonna have to feed you raw meat more often, Stud, if it has this effect on y'!" he chuckled, voice thick from the flare of overwhelming lust Chris' forceful foreplay touched off.

Chris' short laugh was muffled against Buck's skin, him being occupied in suckling one of his lover's small, stiffening nipples.

Buck pulled him up by the direct means of burying his fingers in the back of Chris' hair, and tugging gently but relentlessly.

For once, Chris yielded rather than rebelled against coercion. "What?" he asked softly, when Buck had tugged him high enough that they could look each other in the eyes. The fingers in his hair flattened, to cradle his head instead.

A grin glittering under a dark mustache was the only answer he got for a few heartbeats, Buck's eyes flicking down Chris' body and back to his eyes.

"God, you look a sight!" Buck chortled wickedly.

Chris glanced down at his own smooth, bare chest, almost glowing in the moonlight. Saw dark streaks threading it, that he knew were congealing blood. He lifted a hand to swipe at them, but Buck caught his wrist, guided that hand to Buck's side, instead.

"Don't," Buck asked, huskily, and drew Chris' head down for a fevered kiss that had their tongues mating as urgently as their bodies ached to do. Buck's mouth moved from Chris' lips, to slide along the line of that strong, stubborn jaw. His tongue rasped against the stubbled skin, savoring blood and sweat and the cherished flavor that was, always and only, Chris.

"Tastes so good..." Buck whispered, bracing himself up on an elbow as he followed the dark, coppery-tasting threads down Chris' throat to his chest, polishing them away from that pale skin with his tongue.

Chris groaned, abandoned already to the sensations Buck's clean-up efforts were sending through his body, like rivulets of fire. He was lying half-draped across Buck, their legs tangled, their burgeoning cocks lying side-by-side, the heat from one inciting more heat from the other. One hand rested on the ground, dug into the grass and chill earth as his muscles tensed with strain and excitement. The other was deep in under Buck's hair, against the hot skin of his nape, lending support as his lover bathed him with his mouth.

His hips jerked, driven beyond conscious control by instinct and desire. Buck laughed "Yes!" against his skin, and moved to clean away the last of the doe's blood.

Feeling that hot tongue, sweeping flat against a nipple, over and over, Chris groaned long and loud.

Buck's hips lifted with more considered intent than Chris'. His movements, his caresses, fell into a coordination that had one driving goal. Helpless under that masterful assault, Chris panted, moaned, even-- though he'd never admit it in a saner moment-- whined and whimpered. Eager, helpless little sounds that drew an answering moan from Buc.

kInside the darkness of the trees, ears pricked, swiveled, scooped in the impassioned noises. Three wolves watched their alpha pair mating, as was their right and their pleasure. Mae panted, stretched out flat so the earth could cool her over-heated belly. Lilith's long muzzle rested across the back of her neck, and her thin flank pressed alongside Mae's. She licked Mae's ear, the crease of her eye, the corner of her parted jaws. Lucine yawned hugely, bored after a few moments, and curled herself up. Burying her chilly nose into the fluff of her tail, she went to sleep.

Chris was oblivious to the presence of the lupine voyeurs. Buck just flat didn't give a damn. He twisted, rolling Chris off of his hips and legs. Before Chris could do more than prop himself onto his elbows and blink at Buck in dazed bewilderment, Buck moved to kneel between his legs.

Oh yes, that's good... Chris reached down, to grab at Buck's hair to tug him higher up his body.

But Buck wasn't as compliant as Chris had been. He chuckled, shook free, and crept forward just enough to smooth his tongue up Chris' erection, from balls to weeping tip.

Oh yes! That's reeaalll good... Chris reached for Buck's hair, again.

This time, to work his fingers caressingly against his lover's scalp, as Buck shifted forward just that small amount that allowed him to take Chris' cock fully into his mouth. Chris swore, loudly and blasphemously, as the sensation of moist, hot, skillfully playful flesh engulfing his member almost blew the back of his head off.

Buck's laughter at that outburst was more motion than sound, shoulders shaking as he relentlessly drove Chris deeper into the wilds of passion. The man always had been a sucker for... well... a good sucking. He reached down, maneuvered one of Chris' legs into just the right position, then shamelessly rubbed his own pulsing erection against the hard ridge of Chris' shin. Pleasuring himself as he doled out pleasure.

Chris' head dropped back as far as the limits of anatomy allowed. It was only the innate stability of having his elbows on the ground that kept his torso up off the grass. He was helpless to do anything but make appalling noises, pant, and squirm.

Buck sent Chris right to the quivering edge, brought him back down, then drove him to another glimpse into the abyss of release before denying it to him, once more. Wondering in the back of his mind just how long he could play that game, he did it again.

The fourth time he tried the trick, Chris' hand clamped down hard on the back of his neck. Held Buck in place, as his hips surged up in a thrust that was-- intentionally or not-- hard enough to nearly drive his cock right down Buck's throat.

Oh no you don't, Cowboy-- I still got plans for you...

When Chris' hips flexed again, orgasm ripped through him like a train wreck, and it was only after the mental dust cleared, that he realized he'd shot his load into Buck's hand, rather than into his throat. He sank back onto the grass, breathless and boneless, blinking up at Buck still leaning over him, between his spread thighs. It wasn't until Chris saw his lover dip fingers into the puddle of his own cum, cupped in Buck's hand, that he understood what Buck had in mind.

Wasn't sure he'd be up for it, but he didn't care. It'd still feel real good for him, and even better for Buck. Owed him one, any way.

Chris relaxed further onto the grass, closing his eyes and smiling, as he felt the broad, hot head of Buck's cock press against him.

Chris blew out his breath in a sigh of joyful surrender, relaxed his body to welcome Buck inside. Still, it stung a bit, like it always did. The man was hung like a workhorse.

Buck waited, until the lines of reflexive tension in Chris' face faded, before he pressed forward, to fill him. Waited, then, for Chris to give him some sign of being ready for more. It didn't take long.

A pair of strong thighs wrapped around his waist, squeezed hard, and a pair of heels thudded against his ass with almost bruising force. "Move, dammit!" Chris ordered.

Buck laughed, and good mate that he was, obeyed with a will. His eyes slitted at the exquisite sensation of Chris' silky heat around him.

No matter how many times they fucked, the man stayed tight as a virgin. He moaned from the bliss, as Chris lifted beneath him, urging him on, hardening between them.

He twisted, rubbing the hair of his belly against Chris' new erection. "Pretty impressive stamina, for a man that was wrung all out, just a little while ago..." he jibed, bending down to kiss him.

Chris moaned, then nipped Buck's lower lip sharply. "Yeah, well, reckon I got my second wind."

"Let's see how long you can keep it," Buck challenged teasingly, withdrawing almost all the way.

"Shut the hell up and fuck me, Wilmington," Chris growled, giving him the look that had been known to make hardened criminals piss their boots full.

"Yes sir, Sir!" Buck chuckled, giving a thrust that scooted Chris a few inches along the ground. Chris arched beneath him, gave a yell that made Buck's ears ring. His face contorted with the exquisite mingling of pleasure and pain that Buck knew his lover craved like a drug. And seeing that craving fed, was Buck's sensual addiction.

Buried in Chris up to his balls, Buck twisted his pelvis, grinding against Chris inside and out.

Neither one of them was much in the mood for conversation, after that. Finesse was abandoned, as Buck bent to take Chris' mouth with the same force that took his body. Teasing was over. Now, there was nothing but a fast, sweating, pleasure-blinded rutting rush towards that blissful abyss. Locked together, they tumbled into it together.

It wasn't until the night air began chilling the sweat beaded on his face, that Chris found enough energy to lift his head. He shoved at Buck's limp weight, pressing him into the grass.

"Mmmph?"

"We better get back," Chris answered, with weary reluctance. "Startin' to get cold."

"I'll keep you warm," came the drowsy protest. "Lay back and rest your eyes a bit, then we'll head in."

That request sounded seductively reasonable. Chris let his eyes close. He was deeply asleep, under the heavy cover of Buck's body, long before the she-wolves approached cautiously. Silently they asked to come closer, and silently they were welcomed.

Buck shared soft greeting snuffles and affectionate licks and as the trio of furry bodies distributed themselves for the maximum sharing of body-heat, Buck stroked Chris' hair and reflected on how wise J.D. had managed to be, that day up on the hill. Darned if he wasn't being proved right, more and more. The she-wolves were delightful and educational, but they weren't home, and all the One-Blood women he'd been with were treasures, but they were far from being home. Chris was home. The Seven were home.

He was home, right this minute. Buck yawned contentedly, and followed Chris into sleep.

He should have been cold. Spending the night on the ground, stark- naked, at the cusp of winter, he should have been near-dead of exposure. But he was warm. Chris opened his eyes to blink at the newborn day. He was all tangled up in Buck's long, heavy limbs, and his head was pillowed on that broad chest. It felt so comfortable, he wasn't inclined to move. Lilith's dark fur showed against Buck's left side. Chris lifted his head and confirmed that it was Mae's plush pelt pressed against his own back. The soft, hot weight of Lucine draped over both men's feet and shins.

Reaching down, he rubbed her scarred head affectionately. Her buttery eyes opened, she yawned widely, and fondly licked his thighs. For some reason, that pleased Chris inordinately. She'd always cringed at a distance, before. Perfectly content, he closed his eyes and relaxed back into Buck's sleeping embrace for a few more precious moments. No need to face the cold morning till the sun was well up.

The time came far too soon. Without preamble, Chris rose, and the others did too. The women shook out their pelts and stretched, while he and Buck stepped a few feet apart and took care of the first order of business.

"Gettin' right nippy," Buck complained, shivering as they set off at an easy trot. While Chris swung along smoothly, at a pace that would soon shield him against the cold, Buck minced gingerly, finally pulling up with a curse to examine the bottom of his foot.

"Just what the hell are you tryin' to prove?" Chris chuckled, not at all sympathetic.

"Damned if I know," Buck admitted ruefully.

"Give it up and make the change. If you get a thorn in your foot, I ain't haulin' your big ass all the way back."

He had to run a good bit faster for quite a while, to avoid the teeth snapping at his butt. After that, he slacked off till the wolves accompanying him were swinging along in a quick walk that could take them miles. It allowed him to arrive at the cabin, glowing warm, but not embarrassingly winded.

"Lo, the Bacchants return," Ezra drawled dryly, saluting the returning members of the Pack with his cup.

Josiah snorted in amusement. The gambler always was a bit pissy before he got his first brandied coffee under his belt. As Chris and Buck had still been gone at first light, the preacher had rousted Ezra out of the pack's bed and J.D.s warm embrace far earlier than was appreciated, in case he would be needed to take Chris' place on patrol.

Chris ignored them, other than to steal the steaming cup right out of Ezra's grasp as he passed by and went into the house. The heat from the stove and the fireplace felt like being wrapped in a warmed quilt, and for the first time in a long time, he was at peace with his world.

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

"How 'bout we go trackin'?" Vin asked J.D. later that morning, as Mae and Lilith cleared away the breakfast dishes. "It's a good day for it-- clear and still."

J.D. looked over at Chris, who nodded. "Sure!" He eagerly bounded towards the door, Vin following at his more relaxed pace.

J.D. galloped across the porch and down the pair of steps. He started for the barn, but Vin brought him up short with a shrill whistle. "Figured we'd start right here, this time," he grinned.

"Here?" Puzzled, J.D. glanced around at the slightly battered grass of the door yard. "I don't see any tracks around here."

Vin did, but he held his peace. "Cast around, then. We're gonna find out where Chris and Buck ran off to with the women, last night."

Startled, J.D. jerked around to look at Vin, and then a devilish grin spread across his face to match the tracker's. He went right to making a circuit around the yard, closer to the edge. "Here!" he called out softly.

Vin joined him, and nodded in approval to J.D, crouched beside the faint mark of Chris' bare foot. "How fast was he movin'?"

"Runnin'-- not flat-out, though. But pretty fast," J.D. surmised, and got another nod that pleased him greatly.

"Follow 'em on out."

Once they got past the packed earth of the heavily- traveled ground around the house and outbuildings, the trail was clearer. "How're they strung out, around Chris?" Vin asked, gesturing at the marks in a bare patch of sand.

J.D. frowned. "How can I tell who's who, from the prints? They all look alike."

Vin just continued to gaze at him with placid expectation. Frowning, J.D. studied the marks more closely, and thought about it. "Well," he began, a bit hesitantly. "These have to be Buck's... they're the biggest, and he's running right beside Chris. And that's Mae, I think. She mashed her fingernail, and it just fell off a couple of days ago. That paw print's missing a claw." He pointed out the small anomaly, and Vin nodded, pleased.

"But I can't tell which is Lilith, and which is Lucine. Or what order they were running in."

"Sure you can," Vin encouraged, settling into a more comfortable squat. This might take a while.

J.D. chewed at his bottom lip, in concentration, till it all came as clear as if the tracks were labeled and illuminated. "Now I see it! That's gotta be Lucine... she's running right beside Mae, and both their tracks overlay Chris', so they're running behind him. That means that's Lilith," he finished, pointing at the narrow tracks in triumph.

"Yep," Vin agreed with a grin as he rose. "Even if Mae's track wasn't marked, you could figure she wouldn't be runnin' along side Chris, and Lucine sure wouldn't be. Lilith's the only one bold enough to put herself that close to the alpha pair. Come on."

"The alpha pair?" J.D. echoed, having to stretch a bit to keep up with Vin's long strides.

"That's what I said," he answered evenly, and J.D. knew from previous experience with that tone, that was all Vin was going to say on the subject, and he'd best be working it out for himself.

He chewed on it in silence, as the prints led them farther into the hinder parts of the ranch. Just when he was beginning to wonder if the trail was going to simply lead them around in a long, boring circle, he stopped and pointed. "Look! They jumped a deer!"

The story was clear, even to J.D., the tracks leading right up to the pressed-down spot in the weeds, where the animal had bedded down.

"Looks like they nearly fell over her!" Vin laughed. "Bet that embarrassed the hell out of the Two-Bloods!"

"How do you know it was a doe?" J.D. questioned, cautiously circling around the bedding place to pick up the story of the trail again.

"I don't... just figure it is, from the size. It's small."

"Chris and Buck stopped, but the women chased it. Buck made the change, at least, for a few strides." He pointed at the wider pair of human tracks that intermingled with Chris' and then disappeared again.

"Let's see if they caught it," Vin grinned, and the pair of trackers followed their faint signposts.

"What does that mean?" J. D. asked, pointing at a welter of marks not far from the line of running prints they were following.

"Looks like they brought the kill back, one of 'em dragging the deer." Vin followed the second trail. "See, there's blood here, and a bit of fur." He picked up the winter-gray tuft and handed it to J.D.

He fingered the coarse hair, sprinkled it back onto the trampled ground. "But where is it? They couldn't have eaten it all, could they?"

"Most of it-- but I'm bettin' they didn't. All of 'em ate a good dinner. Probably, they cached it somewhere, to come back for later.

We'll see if we can find it, first." Vin grinned. "Maybe you can talk Mae into fryin' us up some deer steaks like she made the other night, with that beef."

J.D.'s nose wrinkled. "It'd still be fit to eat?"

"Sure-- you hang meat a day any way."

"If they left anything but the bones."

"Probably did. Predators usually rip open the belly and eat the best parts, first. The innards." Vin took the lead this time, glancing back and forth as he walked. The trail became almost invisible, inside the heavy leaf cover under the trees.

He continued on in the same direction for a few strides, and then stopped. "Listen."

J.D. obediently cocked his head, strained his ears. "What are we listening for?"

"Flies." He veered off, pressing through a bit of undergrowth.

Dunne followed. Sure enough, a few feet into the tangle, lay the mangled remains of the deer, surrounded by a buzzing crowd of late- season flies. Vin squatted beside it, and drew his knife. "The cold last night kept 'em from blowin' it too bad. And the coyotes left it alone-- the women must have been around it enough to leave a pretty strong scent."

He tugged at the disemboweled carcass. "Skin's still in good shape."

With quick movements, he had the hide peeled off one side, and cut off the untouched, meaty haunch. He flipped the body over to work on the other side, and gave a grunt of annoyance. "Aww, now, why'd y'all have to go rippin' the hide way up there?" he complained under his breath.

Vin twitched the ragged flap away from the deer's haunch. And even J.D. could discern the unmistakable marks of human teeth in the dark, purplish-red meat. He spun away, and lost the remains of his breakfast. Vin ignored his distress, and calmly continued to butcher the deer, a sly little grin on his lips.

//Friday, November 27, 1874//

//A line from the Jungle Book is stuck in my head, and I can't seem to get it out. "Letting in the jungle." I think that's what we've done, here. All of us. We've opened the gates and let the jungle waltz right in and lie down by the fire.//

//And I don't mean when we took in the women. I think it was the night we looked at those little slips of paper and each of us marked our X.//

//When Mowgli and the elephants finished letting in the jungle, there wasn't anything left of the village but a muddy smear. Just thinking about that, and us, makes the spit dry up in my mouth.//

//Mae's starting to cook that venison. I've got to get out of here--//

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

J.D. sat on the hillside, staring at the wide arch of achingly beautiful colors thrown across the sky by the setting sun. A low whine interrupted his reverie, and a cold nose shoved at his hand, resting on his thigh. Blinking the afterimages away, J.D. stroked the wolf's scarred head. "What are you doin' out here, Lucine?"

She dropped her lovey into his lap, and drew away from his touch just far enough to make the change. "Why you sad?" she asked, peering at him with wide green-blue eyes.

"I'm not sad," he shook his head. "Just sorta confused, that's all. I came here to think."

Lucine still studied him in that intense, unknowing, almost unnerving, way of hers. "You sad," she pronounced solemnly, and put her arms around his waist, laid her head on his thigh. "Love you, J.D." she murmured, patting his hand.

"I love you too, Lucine," he sighed, and shrugged off his jacket, laying it over her curled, bare, trusting form.

"Pretty," she whispered, pointing toward the sunset.

"Very pretty," he agreed. He stroked his fingers through her hair, untangling it, as they watched the sunset flare and fade in companionable silence.

"Sure you don't see anything you want?" J.D. urged, with a generous grin.

Mae smiled at him, with a shake of her head. She went back to fingering the yard-goods. "I may get some of this, to make Lucine a new coat-- but not today."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm procrastinating," she chuckled. "You've no idea what a trial it is to get her to stay still while you measure and fit!"

"Lucine's your sister?" Mrs. Potter asked, with polite curiosity, as she bagged up the sugar and coffee.

"Yes Ma'am," Mae answered easily, moving over to stand beside J.D.

Close enough to his side to feel the nimbus of his body heat brush against hers. Lucine was as dear as a sister, so she told no lie.

"I don't believe I've met her, have I?"

"No, Ma'am, you haven't. She's feeble-minded, and a bit shy. Being around a lot of strangers frightens her."

"Oh, I didn't know. I'm sorry."

Mae gave her a smile and a slight shrug. "She is as she is."

Mrs. Potter wasn't sure exactly how to take that bit of philosophy. "Does she like candy?"

"She'd live on it, if we let her," Mae grinned.

"A little gift, then," Gloria Potter smiled, wrapping three sugar sticks into a twist of paper. "So we won't entirely be strangers, if we ever meet."

"Thank you, Ma'am. That's very kind of you. I know she'll enjoy it, and I'll tell her it's from you," Mae smiled, as she tucked the candy into her pocket.

The sideways glance J.D. shot Mae was slyly knowing. With Mrs.Potter's scent on the candy, she'd be less of a stranger than she could imagine, if she ever met Lucine.

Mrs. Potter caught the look, but had no way of discerning its meaning. Still... the pair across the counter were standing far too close for friends. "Will there be anything else, J.D.?"

"Uh... how about a little bag of those gum drops?" he requested, nodding towards the bin. "Just to sustain me on the way home."

"Yes, it's such a long, arduous trip and all," she chuckled in answer, scooping out the colorful little candies into a small paper sack. "Will you need any help loading everything?"

"No Ma'am, we can manage," he assured her, hefting one of the flour sacks to his shoulder. Mae grabbed a sack of the oats, with as much ease. Gloria's eyebrows lifted a bit. The girl was stronger than she appeared.

She watched the pair through the window, as they loaded the heavy burlap bags into the bed of the buckboard. J.D. pulled the sack of candy out of his pocket, and Gloria smiled. He had such a sweet- tooth, it's a wonder he still had his smile intact. She'd privately wagered that he'd dip into the bag before he started out of town.

J.D. offered the sweets to Mae, and Gloria noted with bemusement, that the girl seemed to lift the gum drop to her nose, before popping it into her mouth. Odd pair, that girl and her gangly, quiet sister.

Odder still, that they'd taken up residence with seven unmarried men on an isolated spread. As housekeepers-- that was innocent enough, and lord knew that seven men would need some help, to keep conditions from deteriorating into those found in a cow barn-- but still, it didn't look quite right. And now, to find out there's another one-- feeble-minded, or no. Gloria frowned slightly, as she watched the couple playfully toss the candy at each other's mouths, as they came back into the store. One didn't treat hired help so familiarly. Her frown deepened, when J.D.'s hand went to the small of Mae's back, as he opened the door for her.

Another customer came in behind them, distracting Mrs. Potter from her observations, until J.D. and Mae had finished loading their purchases. She stepped to the doorway, as J.D. climbed up to the wagon seat. The girl put her foot on the wagon step, but then crossed the street to the Hardware.

J.D. followed, to where Mae was, it appeared, inspecting the shipment of iron pipe that had been delivered the day before. Odd girl... Mrs. Tipper came in, then, and Mrs. Potter set her suspicions aside to help her.

"Now, why are you interested in a bunch of pipe?" J.D. chuckled, and then his brows drew together. "And why are you smelling it?" he amended, in a lower tone.

"I wanted to make sure it's not lead. Lead smells untrustworthy. This is iron, though." She turned to J.D. with a grin, one hand resting on the oiled, threaded pipes. "I have an idea. About how we could get water around the ranch without having to haul it bucket by bucket."

"Oh, I'm all for that." He leaned a shoulder against the rough wood of the pipe-rack. "What's your idea?"

"You know that little spring up on the rise behind the house?"

"Yeah..."

"It's above the house, and the barn."

It took exactly five seconds for the implications of that to dawn.

J.D. grinned broadly. "You think there's enough drop?"

"I think so," she nodded, frowning as she mentally reviewed the topography.

"I think it's a great idea... but that spring doesn't run very fast.

Maybe we could build some kind of holding tank?" Straightening from his lean, he headed back across the street.

"Uh huh," she nodded. "The higher volume would allow for a bit more pressure, too, and if we put the outflow pipe a few inches above the bottom of the tank, that'd allow any silt to settle below the level we'll be drinking."

"And put some screening across that pipe, too. Nothin' ruins a glass of water like having a big spring-lizard plop into it out of the pump," J.D. laughed.

"You speak from experience, oh Wise One?" she giggled.

"Sadly-- yeah, I do. Chris is over at the Saloon-- want to go talk to him about this?"

"Depends on how much he's been drinking." Mae's nose crinkled.

"It'll be ok-- he's been in a real fine mood, lately." J.D. slipped an arm around her waist. "Besides, I'll protect you, if he decides to bite," he teased.

"Yeah, I'll stand behind you-- ...Take him, Chris, he's leaner!'"

"But you're juicier and sweeter," J.D. laughed, tugging her around as if to use as a human shield. Giggling, she wriggled free and reversed the situation. They were still laughing and playing, when J.D. pushed open the batwing doors. "After you."

"Oh yeah, that's real chivalrous of you to send me in first to get my head bitten off."

"Bitten off by who?" Chris inquired, casually, from where he sat with Ezra.

"Nobody," she flicked her hand dismissively, and resisted the urge to kick J.D. in the shin, as he snickered beside her. "We're just horsin' around. We'd like to talk to you both about something, though, if you don't mind?"

"Have a seat," he offered, pushing one out with his foot. His face was smooth, as he watched her sit down beside J.D., and made a mental note to talk to the boy about letting her speak for him. Bad precedent to set, there.

It was J.D. who spoke next, though, propping his elbows on the table and leaning forward eagerly. "We want to pipe the ranch for running water, from that spring up on the hill," he announced.

"I've thought about it," Chris nodded.

"Then why haven't we done it?"

"You're talkin' a lot of pipe. And it's expensive. A lot of diggin', too, to lay it."

J.D. frowned, and looked over at Mae. She gave him a resigned smile, and shrugged. Easy for her to roll belly up so quick, she wasn't the one assigned to haul water from the well. "But it's work that'd only have to be done once," he pointed out.

"How much would this little home improvement project cost?" Ezra interjected.

"I don't know," J.D. admitted, and shamelessly pled with Ezra, with his eyes. Any means to an end to hauling all that damned water. "I haven't figured all the materials we'll need, yet."

Chris turned his shot glass on the table, considering. "Tell you what. You figure out what that'll take, and what it'll cost. Run it by Ez." He grinned at the gambler. "If you can convince him to part with the money, you can have at it. But-- it's your project," he continued, nodding sternly at J.D. and Mae. "The rest of us have enough to do, without diggin' trenches."

"Sure Chris, thanks," J.D. nodded, rising. He shot one last begging look towards Ezra, then followed Mae out. They headed back over to the hardware, to price the pipe and pumps.

"Getting money out of Ezra for so much as a beer is hard enough," Mae sighed, as she climbed up to the wagon seat, afterwards. "How in the world are we gonna convince him to part with as much as this project will cost?"

"Don't you worry about Ezra. I'll talk him into it." J.D. picked up the reins and flicked them against the team's rumps.

"Somehow, I suspect talking will have very little to do with it."

He shrugged, and winked at her. "Whatever works. Thing I'm more worried about, is the two of us, layin' all that pipe. Think you're up to it?"

The look she gave him was scathing. "Don't worry. I'll do my part. I'm no slacker."

"Wasn't implying you were," he frowned at her. "Diggin's hard work, that's all."

"That's not all you're sayin', and you know it," she snorted. "What you're sayin' is diggin's hard work for a woman."

He resettled his hat with exasperation. "Will you give that up all ready? Diggin's hard work for anybody, Mae, and I wanted to make sure you were agreeable to doin' it. That's all I meant."

She sniffed, and leaned back, arms across her chest. "This was my idea you remember. And I knew darn well that layin' pipe means diggin' trenches!"

"Ok, ok... let's not argue." He decided to see if that forlorn, pleading look worked as well on her. "Please?"

It did. Her scowl dissolved slowly into her normal, sunny smile. "I suppose the time would be better spent, figurin' out exactly how we're gonna do this."

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

A few days shy of two weeks after hitting upon the idea, J.D. and Mae were up on the hill-side, beginning to dig out the tank that would collect the spring water. A long, broken snake of dark iron pipe followed a line traced by string and stakes, down to the barn and on to the house.

Out past the little gravely channel that the spring drained in, the ground was hard and stony. Shovels were out of the question, as ground-breakers. J.D. and Mae swung mattocks, sweating in the morning sun.

Neither of them gave Lucine much more than a nod and a smile, when she padded up and settled on her haunches nearby, dropping her lovey between her forepaws. J.D. started, when he heard her voice a moment later.

"Lilith says, help dig. Lilith says," Lucine announced in her stilted way. She sat cross-legged, and blinked at them both.

Mae rested her mattock's handle against her hip, and wiped her forehead against her shoulder. "She does, eh? Well, I'm certain she didn't send you up here without your clothes, then."

"Clothes?"

"Yes, your clothes. Where did you leave your clothes, Lucine?"

The younger woman stood, and pointed vaguely down the hillside. Mae groaned, catching sight of scattered bits along the lower third. "Come on, let's go get them. You need your clothes, and your shoes, if you're going to help us."

"Shoes?"

"Yes, your shoes, Sweetfur," she patiently echoed, heading Lucine down the hill with a hand to her rear.

"Shoes lost."

"Oh Lucine," she groaned, "Not again!"

J.D. chuckled to himself, and went back to digging. Lucine and her shoes were a never-ending trial. Either she pitched a fit about wearing them, or she lost them, or she chewed them up. It's no wonder the women were content to allow her to stay on paws most of the time.

It was a lot less of a headache. He pried yet another stone out of its resting place with the point of the mattock, and heaved it out of the hole. By the time he'd done that another time, Mae returned with a fully dressed Lucine. They had, it appeared, found her shoes. This time.

"Here, sweetness... You see these rocks?" Mae pointed to the stones they'd removed from their excavation.

Solemnly, Lucine nodded.

"Put them all in a pile, right here," Mae stepped to the desired spot. "Understand?"

"Put 'em inna pile," Lucine nodded, and picked up a head-sized roc.

kShe delivered it to the spot Mae had indicated, with as much precision as if it had been made of glass.

"That's right. Good girl. You'll be a big help."

"Big help. Help dig, Lilith says."

"Mae says, you move rocks," she stated firmly, stepping back into the hole and retrieving her mattock. "If you don't want to do that, you go on back to the house."

Lucine grunted, and picked up another stone. Mae watched her transport it, then, satisfied, went back to swinging the mattoc.

kJ.D. nudged her a few moments later, with a grin and a nod in Lucine's direction. "She's sure takin' you serious."

Lucine was carrying pebbles with as much dedication as the larger stones. Mae chuckled. "Well, it's keeping her busy and amused, and out of our way. And out of Lilith's hair. She must have been ready to scream, trying to cook with Lucine underfoot."

They both grinned at that thought, and then worked together to pry out a rock that it took them both to lift.

"BIG rock!" Lucine commented, giving it an experimental shove when it was set out of the hole.

"Too big for you. I'll help you move it later," J.D. assured her. "You carry the others, ok?"

"Ok," she nodded, and went back to her patient, plodding tas.

k~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

Chris wandered into the kitchen in the pre-dawn darkness, yawning and scratching at his side. "Mornin', J.D.," he mumbled.

"Mornin', Chris." J.D. was at the stove, lifting the coffee pot off the eye. Without asking, he poured Chris a mug, too, and sat down at the table.

"Where's the girls?" Chris frowned. Usually, by this time, the kitchen was alive with their chatter and the smells of breakfast cooking.

"Dunno-- they were gone when I got up a few minutes ago," he shrugged. "Mae left a note saying we would have to shift for ourselves for breakfast and dinner, but to be sure to be back home for supper."

Accepting that with a nod and a sip of strong black coffee, Chris remembered the date. December twenty-first--women always got secretive around that time. No harm in letting them have their fun. "Reckon it's up to me and you to feed us all this morning, since we're bachin' again. Slice up the bacon, and I'll get the biscuits mixed."

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

Darkness was already gathering thick, by the time the seven rode back in from town. The house blazed with light, to greet them. There was even a lantern hanging on the gatepost, and lanterns on poles planted before the barn and henhouse.

"What the heck's all this about?" Chris asked, as he swung down from Pony and led him down the well-lit path to the barn.

Buck was grinning wide enough to split his face. "I'd forgotten-- haven't thought of it in years--but it's the Solstice, tonight!"

"The what?" Nathan asked.

"The winter solstice--the longest night of the year," Josiah supplied, as he settled Seeker into his stall. He grinned to notice that there was grain and hay and fresh water waiting, with a brightly polished apple and a few sugar lumps, resting on top of the horse's usual rations. "A lot of folk mark it as a special night--fact is, most of what we do to keep Christmas, started out as rituals to bring the light back, on the solstice."

"Sounds like a bunch of heathen nonsense, to me," Nathan grumbled, stepping out of Quinn's stall with a last pat to the gelding's rump.

The horse just flicked his ears, already absorbed in crunching up his unexpected treat.

"Good bit of everything we do is heathen nonsense, if you follow it back to the beginning," Josiah shot back smoothly.

Buck had dismissed Nathan's comment with a roll of his eyes, and Chris noticed that he was the first out of the barn, heading for the house with more than a little eagerness in his step. Like a kid at Christmas... or in this case, he grinned to himself, a pup at Solstice.

He caught up as Buck bounded up onto the porch. A melodious sound, part wolf-sing, part unknown words, burst out of Buck's throat merrily, as he opened the door.

They were greeted by a chorused response in that same odd language.

Lilith hurried up and kissed Buck on the cheek and handed him a small taper, while Mae greeted Chris the same way.

Chris glanced around, a bit dazzled by the light in the room. The air was almost over-warm, and thick with the luscious fragrances of food and fir, pine and bees-wax. Every lamp was lit, and what looked like dozens of home-made candles blazed, too. The mantle was covered in evergreen and candles, and the table was, too. In the center of it sat the most massive candle Chris had ever seen, with multiple wicks.

Only three of them were lit-- four, now, as Buck touched his taper's flame to one of the two longest wicks, in the center.

"Come light yours, too," he prompted Larabee, setting the taper aside into a small bucket of sand in the corner, still burning. Chris obeyed, and realized as he did, there were ten wicks in that candle.

It felt like making some sort of commitment, again, touching his wick to flame. And it felt right.

He added his taper to the bucket, and stepped aside to watch as the others were greeted and urged to light their part of the candle. Once it glowed fully, the women laughingly disappeared into the kitchen, and came back out bearing what added up to be a feast to put any Christmas dinner he'd ever had, into the shade. He grinned at his own interior play on words. A person would be hard-pressed to find shade in this house, tonight.

One by one, the smaller candles devoured themselves and guttered out, as the evening passed in eating and drinking and laughing together.

When the mantle clock struck midnight, Buck rose and blew out the lamps. Another, softer, almost reverent pair of phrases chorused between he and the women, then he grinned around the table. "Come on out. It's time to sing the new year in."

The waxing moon, a night away from being full, shone with its own determination to brighten the long, chill night. As soon as Buck had stepped into a part of the door-yard where the moonglow gilded him silver, without a shadow to mar his face with darkness, he dropped his head back and released a drifting wail that slid over the scale like falling water. Chris stepped close, slid his arm around Buck's waist, and was tugged up against his side by Buck's arm around his shoulders. He threw his head back, too, and his hoarse version of a howl mingled with Buck's melody. Like a primal round, the others added their voices one by one, until their cries echoed back to them, altered and doubled by the surrounding hills.

Buck fell silent, and the others did, too, the need to draw breath hushing their song as gradually and naturally as it had begun. Far in the distance, almost beyond the pitch of human hearing, another pack's wild music rang faintly, though whether the voices were lupine or Two-Blood, Chris couldn't tell. Closer by, a pair of coyotes added their shrill, yipping greeting to the chill, bright night.

"The year died well, and the new one's well-born," Lilith's soft voice held the tone of one reciting a litany.

"May the Pack prosper, and peace be with us all," Mae answered, just as softly.

"Amen," Josiah added, his deep voice a benediction.

No one broke the silence, until they all returned into the house. The dropped threads of abandoned conversation were picked up again after they all settled into chairs or stretched out on the rag rug before the hearth. Voices, quieter than before, murmured lazily, weaving a web of sound as warm and comforting as the heat from the fire. Nathan rose after a while, and banked the fire for the night. Lit by only the Pack's candle, and the glowing embers, it wasn't long before the conversation gradually slowed to a drowsy pace. By ones and twos, they went to bed--each pinching out his or her wick, before they left the room.

Only Buck and Chris were left still awake, and Chris wasn't certain how long that could be said of himself. Sitting in Buck's easy embrace, in the warm dimness, full of food and contentment, his eyelids were getting incredibly heavy. "Come on," he urged, "let's go to bed."

Buck looked down at him, his blue eyes shadowed dark. "Would you do me a favor?" he asked softly.

"Depends on if it involves more'n haulin' myself from this settee to the bed, 'cause that's about all I'm good for, right now," Chris mumbled.

"It don't even take that much effort," Buck chuckled. "Would you mind sittin' with me, here, till dawn?"

"Do I have to stay awake?" Chris sounded almost like a fretful child, drawing an indulgent chuckle from Buc.

k"Nope," he assured him.

"All right, then," Chris yawned, and settled himself more comfortably, with his head on Buck's shoulder.

Stroking his lover--his mate--soothingly, Buck stared into the pair of candle flames and wandered through memories he'd shut away for years on years.

When the first pale, pinkish strands of dawn worked their way into the room, they eclipsed a pair of dying candle flames, drowning in the pools of their own molten wax, and touched a pair of lovers, deeply asleep, entwined on the sofa. Light and love and life had kept vigil and won out over darkness, for another year.

"Y'all hear them wolves howlin', out your way last night?" Tiny leaned on his pitchfork as Vin and Nathan turned their horses into the stalls at the livery. "Sounded like the hills was full of 'em."

"Yeah, we heard 'em." Vin tossed his saddle over the rack with careful casualness.

"Thought you said that pack'd headed south." The liveryman turned to toss a flake of hay into Quinn's manger.

"That pack did," he nodded, as he filled Peso's manger himself. "They weren't the only wolves around here."

"Never had no trouble before or since they passed through," Nathan added, sharing a slightly unsettled glance with Vin, from over Tiny's head as the man reached down for Quinn's water bucket.

"Heard tell some places is puttin' a bounty on wolf-hides. Claims it cuts down on stock losses and hydr'phoby."

Vin couldn't suppress the shudder that seethed up his spine and prickled the hair at the nape of his neck. In the dim light, behind the stableman, the whites of Nathan's eyes flashed like a shying horse's, and Vin saw his jaw set tight. "I don't hold with killin' anything that ain't botherin' nobody," he answered, his voice low and sandy. "Them wolves were here long before we was."

"'Sides, if you're gonna worry about hydrophobia, then worry about these damn dogs folks let wander around ever' where. I never heard tell of anyone bein' set on by a wolf, but I've shot more'n one mad dog in my day." Nathan chimed in, crossing his arms over his chest and staring at Tiny as if the man had spoken of killing off wayward children.

Tiny's blackened nails rasped against several days worth of grimy beard. "Reckon so," he nodded. "Clyde Miller had to shoot his bluetick bitch, year 'fore last, when she started foamin' at the mouth and chargin' the end of her chain. And then, they's that skunk last year, down by the church."

Vin nodded. "Chris ain't gonna put up with a buncha trigger-happy knot-heads roamin' the hills shootin' at anything that moves, I'll tell ya that right now."

"And that there's God's own truth!" the stableman laughed, turning back to his interrupted mucking-out. "Hey, Nate-- didya ever get all that buckshot picked outta Jim's ass?"

"I reckon he's still sittin' on a pellet or two," Nathan chuckled, glad to have a laugh at the unfortunate would-be deer-slayer's expense. "He's just lucky there was s' much brush an' distance between him and Clell. Otherwise, he'd not have an ass left t'sit on."

"Yeah, I reckon neither one of 'em's had much taste for deer-meat, after that," Tiny chortled.

"We'll see ya later, Tiny," Vin grinned, and headed for the door, Nathan beside him.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Nathan frowned. "We'd best warn Buck and the women."

"Yeah-- but if they stay near the house and keep their yaps shut, they'll be safe enough." Despite his words, Vin looked as worried as Nathan.

"Folks been known to trespass."

"Folks been known to get shot for trespassin', too," Vin fired back, lengthening his steps towards the jail, where Buck, Chris and J.D. loitered, watching the town go by.

//Tuesday, December 22, 1874//

//Folks in town heard us singing last night. Lord, I didn't realize the sound would carry that far... Any way, they're all nervous about the big, bad wolves, and that makes them dangerous as a sack of rattlers, for us. From now on, anybody that wants to come onto Larabee land, had damn well better come in through the front gate.

We're patrolling our own boundaries, now, as well as patrolling the town.//

"You havin' kidney trouble or somethin', Buck?" J.D. inquired, the fourth time Wilmington slid from Steele's bare back and took an unnaturally short leak against a tree trun.

k"Nah," he chuckled, and slipped only one button back into place at his fly, for sake of convenience. He swung himself up onto Steele's broad back once more. "Just postin' a fresh "keep out" sign."

"Huh?"

Buck grinned. "A boundary marker. Humans have that kind," he nodded at the blazed tree trunk he'd just anointed with a few drops of urine. "Two-Bloods respect the kind they can smell. Them howls we heard last night was from a travelin' Pack that don't have no set territory."

J.D. took that on faith, and then a little line of puzzlement creased the bridge of his nose. "You're gonna piss all the way around the ranch?"

"Yep, that's the plan." Buck playfully saluted him with the canteen he'd slung around his neck before they'd headed out, and took a long swallow. It was all he could do to keep from laughing, as he could practically watch the gears spin inside J.D.'s head, as the younger man obviously figured distance against bladder capacity.

"That'll keep 'em out?"

"Yeah, it will." Buck sat Steele as easily as a porch rocker, as the big grey ambled along seemingly of his own volition. "See, we can tell a lot from the scent. Who left it, how healthy they are... even what rank they hold in the pack. The higher the rank, the higher the mark. If it's a woman's mark, you can tell if she's in heat, pregnant or nursin', even." Devilish crinkles folded the corners of his eyes. "Today, I'm refreshin' Chris' marks."

That information rounded J.D.'s eyes. "Chris does this, too?"

"'Course he does. He's Alpha." The wicked little lines of amusement deepened. "Today, he'll be hottin' up the ones around the town."

"Oh come on, Buck," J.D. leaned back in his saddle skeptically. "Even if he had the bladder of a horse, he couldn't piss around the whole town!"

Buck did snicker, at that. "He don't have to. Around town, the markers are farther apart. After all, anybody 'cept the Red Stones is free to pass through town, if they behave themselves. This here is our hunting territory, small as it is, and our den-ground, and any Two-Blood that steps foot on it had best have their hat in their hand and their best company manners in place."

"Josiah's with him today," J.D. commented, a few more yards along the boundary line.

"Yep."

"Wonder what he'll make of that?" J.D. mused, towards Buck's back as he marked a bush.

"Probably same thing you did." Turning, Buck grinned up at him so broadly, the ends of his mustache lifted. "Since you're here, make yourself known."

"Me?" Even as he demurred, J.D. was swinging his leg over his saddle.

"Sure-- you've got as much right to say you're here as I do." Buck watched J.D. leave his own liquid calling card, with an expression of near paternal pride.

//I've watched dogs piss on things all my life, but never really thought about why they did, till today. Buck must have a five gallon bladder, because he managed to squirt off and on all the way around the place. It's strange, too, to think that there's a mesh of territories and no-man's lands spread out like a net over this whole country. A whole race of folks living their lives by terms I'd never before have even imagined in a fever dream. Worlds within worlds... and until lately, I've been blind to all but the one I was born into.//

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

"Merry Christmas," J.D. smiled, and fitted his hands to the curves of Mae's waist.

"Merry Christmas!" she answered happily, bouncing a bit on the balls of her feet.

"I got you a present," he told her, a playful glint in his eyes, "But now that I think on it, I'm gonna wait till tonight, after supper, to give it to you."

"You mean thing," she giggled, leaning in to nip his lip. "Didn't your mother teach you it's not nice to tease? Just for that, you better give it to me now."

"You can have it if you can find it," he chortled, stepping back and lifting his arms from his sides.

"Oh, such an odious chore you've set," she laughed, then began patting him down, her nose wiggling like a rabbit's. She patted over the lump in his vest pocket twice, but made sure she'd tickled and poked him thoroughly up one end and down the other before she went back for the tiny package.

"What is it?" she asked, shaking the little box gently.

"Now why would I go to the trouble of putting it in box and tyin' a ribbon around it, if I's gonna tell you what it is?" he chuckled, tugging her into his lap as he sat down in Ezra's rocker.

"It's a very pretty ribbon," she nodded with mock solemnity, as she fitted herself comfortably into his embrace. Lifting the box to her nose, she sniffed delicately. "It smells like metal is inside."

Rolling his eyes, J.D. goosed her in the ribs. "Would you just open it already?"

"Hush," she retorted, sticking her tongue out at him pertly. "Let me have my fun."

He kissed her cheek as she tugged the bow-knot free. Carefully, she smoothed the damask ribbon, and tied it around her hair. Then, she opened the little leather-covered box. "Oh! J.D... it's beautiful.

Thank you."

She lifted out the oval, silver locket from its velvet nest, and pressed the catch. She smiled at the image, and then up at the original.

"Do you like it?"

"Of course I do. It's wonderful." She tilted her head, then, almost coyly. "May I have a bit of your hair, too?"

"What?" he laughed, blinking at that unexpected request.

"For the locket." A bit of a blush colored her cheeks. "So I can carry your scent with me, as well as your picture."

"I like the thought of that," he told her softly, his smile no longer teasing. He worked his hand into his pocket and drew out his pen- knife. "Just don't go giving me a bald spot."

"You'll never miss it, trust me," she sniffed, opening the little keen blade. "Especially with as much hair as you've got. Here, lean your head down..." Mae gathered a small lock from behind his ear, where scent is the strongest.

"Don't slip and cut my ear off," he teased.

"I won't if you'll sit still and hush up," she admonished with a grin, and sliced through the lock close to the skin. "Here."

J.D. took his knife back, and tucked it into his pocket.

"Now, hold this tight, while I braid it," she directed, offering him the end of the cut loc.

kDoing as he was bid, he cocked his head. "Why are you braiding it?"

"So it won't blow away the first time I open the locket, of course."

Mae quickly plaited the tiny hank tightly, and tied off the ends with one of her own hairs. "There..." she sighed contentedly, fitting the dark, glossy little cord into the empty side of the locket and snapping it closed. She dangled it by the chain, and lifted her hair with her other hand. "Would you fasten it for me?"

"Sure..." J.D. opened the catch, and settled the slender chain around her neck, taking the opportunity to plant a kiss on her nape.

Across the room, Vin stepped up behind Ezra and curved his hands over the gambler's shoulders, rigid under ruby-colored wool. "It's just JD's first time with a woman, is all. He's gonna grow right through it," he murmured, his lips close to Ezra's ear.

"You're deluding one of us, Vin," Ezra said soberly, "And I can assure you, it isn't me."

"Aww hell, Ez. You know how much he cares about you."

"Yes," Ezra said, his voice still tense and dulled, "I think I do."

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

//Thursday, January 7, 1875//

//It took two weeks, a lot of digging and blisters, and we had to move what seemed like three thousand rocks, but we got it done, today. I can't remember much that felt as good as working the handle of that pump, beside the sink, and watching water gush out.

It was rusty, the pipes need to be flushed, still-- but Mae and I both toasted each other like it was champagne and drank it. It was gritty, and tasted like a handful of nails, but I've never had anything much better!//

"If I may interrupt a moment?"

J.D. lifted his head, and laid down his pen, with a nod.

Ezra took the seat at the end of the table, and turned so that he and J.D. were almost face to face. "I thought you should know, what's being bandied about in town, concerning you and Mae."

J.D. looked at him quizzically.

"Mrs. Potter was regaling Mrs. Travis, yesterday, with an account of your behavior together."

"We haven't done anything wrong!"

"I beg to differ. Mrs. Potter was drawing the most insinuating conclusions as to what you were likely getting up to out here with 'the hired help'-- and frankly, from what she reported to Mrs.

Travis, her suspicions are well-founded."

"We haven't given anybody any reason to gossip!" At the sardonic quirk of Ezra's eyebrow, though, he wilted a bit. "Have we?"

"Abhorrent as gossip may be," he drawled, "I can't fault the woman for simply being observant."

"Observant of what?" he protested, stung.

Ezra leaned back in his chair, casually, and gave J.D. a smile that went nowhere near his eyes. "You and your mother were employed in service to a rather wealthy family, in Boston, were you not?"

"You know we were," J.D. shot back, heatedly, "and I don't see what that's..."

"Tell me, then," Ezra interrupted, his voice sharp as the slap of a riding crop against a boot-top. "If the scion of that household was seen comporting himself with one of the Irish chamber-maids, the way you've been seen behaving in public with Mae, what conclusions would you draw?"

Ezra's steady gaze didn't soften, even as J.D. flushed, then blanched a bit with realization.

"I... I didn't think..."

"Precisely," Ezra bit off. "You didn't think. And on the off chance that you've not thought about this as well-- may I point out that there is far more at stake than her reputation, or yours. This Pack walks a razor's-edge, John Daniel. Suspicion drawn by one of us, could mean disaster for us all."

J.D. swallowed. It felt as though he had to, to resettle his innards to where they should be. "Ez..." He spread his hands, contrite. "Ez, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."

Standish came to his feet, then, and anger tightened the corners of his eyes. "Playing the wheedling whore doesn't become you."

Feeling as if he'd been slapped onto the floor, J.D. could only stare back, stunned past speech and slack-jawed, as Ezra stalked out. The slamming of the door broke his shocked paralysis. "Ezra!" he yelped, and bolted outside. "Ezra! Wait!"

The gambler didn't slow in his pace, heading for the barn. His shoulders were militarily straight, and stiff.

"Ezra!" J.D. set off at a run, with a mumbled, self-inflicted, curse. "Ez... I swear, it's not like you think!" he blurted a bit breathlessly, skidding to a halt in front of him.

Standish crossed his arms over his chest, and cocked his head. "Feel free, then, to disabuse me of my misconceptions regarding how you've coolly chosen to play on my affections to gain your own way."

"I wasn't tryin' to do that, Ezra-- honest! Not this time." He fidgeted uneasily, under the lash of well-earned guilt. He knew Ezra was right, he'd done it enough times before, with his eyes wide open.

Or, if the situation demanded, with them half-closed. He forced himself not to let his eyes skitter away from meeting Ezra's. "You're right-- before, about the water, I did try wheedlin' you into sayin' yes. And I shouldn't have, and I'm sorry... " Those sparse words were expressed with volumes of sincerity.

"Why did you even think it necessary?" Ezra's posture was still forbiddingly rigid, but his voice softened a tiny degree.

Utterly miserable, and utterly repentant, J.D. admitted, softly, "Because it was something I really wanted, and I didn't think you'd agree to it-- it cost so much. And I've been the only one bitchin' about havin' to haul water."

"Even now," Ezra's voice sounded thick, "You still think of me as acting entirely from mercenary motives?"

As the ground didn't oblige by opening up and swallowing him whole, J.D. was compelled to force his shamed reply up out of his constricting throat. "No, Ez... of course I don't."

"Of course you don't," Ezra parroted caustically. "Perhaps there's some other reason, then, driving you to use the same pathetic ruse over and over?"

J.D. flinched, and this time, he couldn't bring himself to look Ezra in the face.

"I see I've let myself be made a fool."

Those words twisted like a knife in J.D.'s chest. "Ezra," he managed, but a slashing gesture from Standish cut him off.

"You've said more than enough." His features stilled, but his eyes blazed, as if through a mas.

kHe stepped around J.D.-- standing stricken, frozen to the spot-- and strode into the barn. With a little moan, J.D. followed, hesitating in the barn-hall a few feet from Maverick's stall. "Ez, don't! Please..."

Standish gave no sign of hearing him, as he saddled his gelding with shaking hands. He led the horse out, and mounted. It was only then, that he spoke, his voice cold and flat. "Speak to Mae about her public behavior, or I'll bring the matter to Chris' attention."

J.D. was given the choice of stepping aside and letting him pass, or being trodden upon by the snorting horse, as Ezra touched heels to the bay's flanks.

Crushed and miserable, J.D. simply stood in the square of sunlight from the open door, and watched him ride away. "Jeezus!" he yelped, practically turning around in mid-air, when a hand lit on his shoulder. "You scared the shit out of me! Where'd you come from?"

Buck couldn't help but grin an instant. "Sorry. I was refillin' the feed bins."

J.D. glanced past him, towards the small door in the rear of the barn that led to the feed room. "Reckon you heard everythin', then."

Buck's momentary grin had already been replaced by one of understanding sympathy, when J.D.'s eyes met his again. He nodded. "This ain't about you and Mae kickin' up gossip in town, or even about how you coax Ezra into doin' what you want him to."

"Then what?" J.D. frowned, shoulders still slumped.

"He thinks you don't really love him."

"What? Why would he...?"

"You and Mae. You can't see that's what set him off? Hell, he'd prob'ly give you whatever toys you wanted, and he'd prob'ly love you flirtin' and cajolin' him to get 'em, too, if she wasn't around."

J.D. shook his head and stepped into Dancer's stall. He mindlessly untangled the horse's mane, while the animal sniffed his pockets for his usual treat of hard candy. "I didn't think he cared. He never said anything to me, or took Mae up on her offers."

The horse shoved his nose into J.D.'s jacket pocket, almost ripping the seams. J.D. pushed his muzzle away, and relinquished the candy. "I don't want to choose between them." J.D.'s voice was so low, that Dancer's crunching of his purloined butterscotch almost drowned it out. "I don't even think I can."

"Who says you have to?" Buck slid his hand down Dancer's face. "Seems to me, that you and Ez both have somehow got the idea that bein' in love is a one-person-at-a-time proposition. It don't have to be, not if you've got enough room in your heart and you're willin' to share."

J.D.'s teeth tugged at his lip, and he smoothed Dancer's mane over to the off-side, then leaned against the horse's broad, satiny nec.

kBuck rubbed his upper back and gave him time to think for a bit, before adding, "I know you're capable of that. Mae, too. Ez could be-- he just don't know it, yet. Figure he just needs some reassurance that he ain't gonna lose you."

J.D. straightened, and nodded. "I'll go after him."

Grinning, Buck lifted Dancer's bridle from the hook beside the stall, and held it out. When J.D. reached for it, he was pulled into a hug that he needed more than he cared to admit. Didn't so much need the brotherly swat to the arse that he got when Buck released him, but there wasn't much he could do about that. Buck went back to his interrupted chore in the feed-room. J.D saddled Dancer, and headed for town at a brisk trot.

It took him a few minutes, to find Ezra. The gambler had gone to one of the rooms they still kept in town, for appearance's sake. J.D. stepped inside without knocking or asking permission.

"Charming manners you're developing," Ezra drawled, scarcely glancing up from where he sat against the headboard of the bed. A game of some sort of complicated solitaire was laid out in front of him on the counterpane.

"Didn't think you'd let me in, if I knocked," J.D. confessed, closing the door behind himself.

Ezra just went back to studying his cards. Until, a moment later, they were abruptly swept to one side, and he was forced to look into J.D.'s eyes instead. His met them with all the warmth and depth of a millpond.

"I can't let this just... lay here... between us, Ez."

"I see no other alternative. Your opinion of me is excruciatingly clear."

"It must not be, if you don't know I love you!" J.D. shot back vehemently.

Ezra blinked, his guarded expression slipping for no more than the length of a heartbeat. He reached for his cards again, but J.D. laid his hand across them.

Ezra's gaze answered the challenge in J.D.'s eyes, even as he drew his hand away. "If you're going to bandy about the word love, then you're going to have to define your terms, John Daniel, because we obviously don't agree on the meaning of the word."

"All right, we'll talk about it. But not here." J.D. rose again, and waited with an expectant air.

Ezra stayed exactly where he was. "I see no need to hold this discussion elsewhere."

"I do. We're gonna go where we don't have to worry about somebody passin' by in the hall and hearin' somethin' they shouldn't."

Eight minutes ticked by, before Ezra sighed in resignation. "You're going to stand there and stare at me until I go with you, aren't you?"

"That's the plan." J.D. flashed a hesitant, sheepish smile. "And I ain't tryin' to wheedle you into doin' it."

"So I've noticed. I must admit, you're much more proficient at intractable persistence."

"I've had more practice at it. Come on."

Heaving a long sigh of resignation and annoyance, Ezra rose and retrieved his hat. Silently, he followed J.D. out, and Dunne seemed content to let him hold his peace, as they rode out of town.

J.D. led him straight to the small seep-spring, where the women had camped while Chris made up his mind about them. The bowl of the spring was hardly bigger than the crown of J.D.'s hat and the excess ran off into a small hole under a rock and disappeared. Despite the meagerness of the pool, the constant moisture kept grass over the ground, and sustained a small grove of cotton-woods.

J.D. dismounted, but held onto one of Dancer's reins, more to have something to do with his hands, than out of any fear of the animal straying off. Ezra followed suit, loosening Maverick's bridle so the gelding could more easily crop the winter-toughened grass.

"I'm so sorry, Ezra," J.D. began after a few more moments of uneasy silence. "I never meant to hurt you."

"I realize that," he nodded. "And I forgive you."

"No you don't," J.D. replied evenly. "You're still mad and hurt and I don't think it has much at all to do with me tryin' to coax you to do anything. For one thing, I know I did a piss-poor job of it when I did try."

"You did have all the subtlety of a dance-hall dove on payday," Ezra snorted, but the glassy coldness in his eyes melted a bit.

"It's me bein' with Mae, that's really eatin' at you, isn't it?" J.D. murmured.

Ezra shook his head. "I never demanded exclusivity in our relationship, J.D."

"Maybe because you never thought you'd need to," he persisted.

Dropping the rein he'd been compulsively pleating and straightening, J.D. stepped closer. "I love you, Ezra. But-- I'm beginnin' to love her, too. And it troubles me, a lot, because I never intended to love her. I just..."

He winced, and glanced down at the grass, "I just wanted to try her out, at first. God, Ezra-- please never tell this to Buck, or my life won't be worth livin'-- but other than that once with Kate, I'd never been with a woman before." He snorted in self-disgust. "And she was all over me so fast I hardly knew what was goin' on before it was over. I know it sounds pretty crass, but Mae's pretty, and she's willin' and I never once thought it'd turn into more than us just fuckin' around."

Ezra crossed his arms over his chest, regarding J.D. skeptically.

"I've never thought of us that way, Ez," J.D. hastened to assure him. "Between us, it's love. It always has been, every single time."

He moved the step closer, that allowed him to reach out, and trace his fingertips over Ezra's jaw line. The muscles felt hard as whipcords beneath his touch.

Ezra bridled away from the caress. "The evidence doesn't support your statement, J.D. You haven't been with me for some time. Unless you had ulterior motives."

"Well I ain't noticed you chasin' after me, either!" J.D. shot back, smarting under Ezra's truthful rebuke.

"J.D., my mother delighted in playing the proud progenitor, dressing me up and cooing over me, whenever I served her purposes. And as easily, she set me aside when I didn't. I suppose I'm not very good at graciously accepting being discarded."

"I haven't discarded you, Ez," J.D. began ruefully, his brows drawn together. "I realize now, I haven't treated you right, and I'm ashamed of myself for that, and more sorry than I can say. It seems like lately, any time I came near you, you backed away, and I never knew why. And Mae, she's always right there. But I didn't purposely neglect you, I swear. I love you, and unless you send me away yourself, you're stuck with me till they pull the grass over my face."

A ghost of Ezra's usual grin met that. "Such a touching turn of phrase."

"Yeah, well, maybe eloquence will rub off on me, after I've been around you a decade or two. I'm more worried right now, about knowing if I'm forgiven?" J.D. dipped his head, hopefully.

The next moments were some of the longest and most excruciating ones J.D. could ever remember living through. For all he knew, it could have been an hour or better that Ezra stared holes in him, while he stewed under that green gaze that managed somehow to be both accusing and coldly blank at the same time.

Memories of how he'd treated Ezra lately, marched relentlessly through his mind. He saw them entirely differently than he had at the time, now they were illuminated in a shameful light by Ezra's grievances. Guilt gnawed away at his justifications like a rat in a closet, and he realized he was worrying his lower lip with his teeth until the skin was going raw.

"You're forgiven," Ezra nodded solemnly, finally.

"Everything's ok between us, now? You're not still angry, about anything?"

"Yes, everything is all right between us. And no, I'm not angry in the slightest."

J.D. dropped his hat onto the grass, and draped his arms around Ezra's waist, loosely. "Then, it's ok if I do this?" he asked, his voice colored with a bit of sly sensuality.

"I have no objections," Ezra replied. His voice was casual, but the corners of his eyes crinkled the slightest amount.

J.D.'s lips tightened against a suppressed grin. Reaching up, he lifted Ezra's hat off, and tossed it adroitly, to settle over the crown of his own. "Then, I suppose you'll have no objections to this, either..." Tilting his head, he fitted his lips to Ezra's. The tip of his tongue traced Ezra's lips, teasingly, until a sigh whispered out into J.D.'s mouth, and he was welcomed once more.

"No... none at all..." Ezra sounded a bit winded, when J.D. moved away, just enough to allow him to speak and draw a full breath.

"Good. 'Cause if you'd objected to that, you'd really throw a fit over this... " J.D. brushed an open-mouthed kiss against Ezra's lips, that traveled on to wet the ridge of his jaw, before settling on Ezra's earlobe. He gave the vulnerable little bit of flesh a delicate nip-- just barely pressing teeth against skin-- before his tongue curved to taste the tiny hollow on the other side.

Ezra's arms tightened around him, and J.D. smiled against his neck. "And something like this," he continued, the vibration of his voice and the flicker of his breath against Ezra's pulse as deliberate a caress as that of his hands, sleeking down Ezra's back to cup his rear. "Would probably send you straight into apoplexy." He drew Ezra's hips up snug against his own, lifted his head, and grinned at him cheekily.

The smile he got in return was just as playfully impish. "I fear it might, regardless."

"Nah," he drawled, shifting enough that his erection rolled against Ezra's growing one. "You won't die-- but if I do this right, you just might see God!"

Ezra's laugh was muffled by another kiss. This one, more lascivious than playful, made promises that J.D. had every intention of keeping.

His hands made their way up Ezra's body, following the hollow of his spine, then curving in to travel over his chest and meet at his collar.

J.D. tugged at the end of the string tie, leaving the unraveled ribbon to hang free around Ezra's neck as his fingers worked on the buttons of his shirt and vest. He didn't break the kiss, until the last slipped free, exposing the hollow of Ezra's throat and the curved ends of his collarbones. He bent his head once more, to lap that vulnerable hollow as if it held nectar.

An involuntary shudder wracked Ezra for an instant, triggered by emotion and the brush of J.D.'s breath against damp skin. He rubbed his cheek against J.D.'s dark, glossy hair then lifted his head with a tiny moan, as J.D. spread his jacket, vest and shirt open with a sweep of his palms against his chest.

J.D.'s hands and lips moved over Ezra's torso as if he'd never touched him before. As if he were blind, exploring his lover by touch and taste and scent. "I don't ever," he whispered against Ezra's skin, "want to hurt you again."

"Far be it from me," Ezra managed, sounding breathless, "to stop you from attempting to reassure me!" His fingers combed through J.D.'s hair.

Tipping his head back a bit, J.D. smiled up at him, through disheveled locks and long lashes. His mouth followed the midline of Ezra's taut abdomen down, as his hands shifted to dealing with the buckles and buttons below it. As his tongue spiraled around Ezra's navel, he slipped the last button free of his lover's fly. His tongue slipped into that little, round warm hollow and teased it, as he tugged Ezra's trousers down over his hips and thighs.

He felt his lover sway, and Ezra's fingers tightened in his hair for an instant. J.D.'s hands slid around his hips, almost supportively, and he couldn't help grinning fondly at the sight of Ezra's cock, straining against the translucent silk of his drawers. Typically Standish, to refuse to subject himself to the rasp of common wool against such tender flesh. And though J.D. hadn't adopted the preference for himself, he'd discovered it had a certain appeal for him, as well.

"I don't think I've ever told you," he confided to Ezra's groin, "Just how much I like feeling your skin through silk." He ran his teeth over the length of that rigid, silk-draped cock, his own erection pulsing a bit painfully against its imprisonment.

Ezra's eloquence was reduced to a gasped moan, and J.D.'s lust fed off the sound like a fire feeds on dry tinder. His tongue greedily swept up Ezra's cock, and the thin white silk went transparent, wetly molding itself to the organ almost as if it had become a second skin.

Knowing he was tormenting Ezra deliciously, aroused further by that knowledge, J.D. applied himself to making love to that veiled cock with lips and tongue.

His hands caressed the firm curves of Ezra's ass, smoothed by their silken covering, traveled down to relish the carved musculature of his thighs, like some warm, vibrant sculpture beneath the thin fabric. Ezra's breathing sped to quick, shallow rasping gasps, as J.D. leisurely did his best to set every nerve in his lover's body afire.

One hand curved back over a cheek of Ezra's beautiful ass, the other traced the crease of it down, pressing in against its covering, forcing the silk in, shielding the delicate skin from his callused fingertips but not from his touch. His tongue swirled over the head of Ezra's cock, teasing the foreskin, savoring the salty musk of Ezra's arousal.

"Please...!" One desperate word, elongated into a hissed moan. Ezra's fingers tightened in his hair, tugged mindlessly.

Tipping his head back, J.D. drank in the sight of Ezra's face above him, transformed by erotic tension, his eyes shadowed to dark wells.

The sight set off a rush of euphoria no liquor could hope to equal. A bubble of laughter rose up from his chest, sounding hushed, but almost intoxicated, when it escaped him. His hands slowly made their way to the fly of the silken undergarment. He was more than willing to grant Ezra's plea-- but at his own pace. As he worked the wet, clinging fabric away from the buttons, he stroked the backs of his fingers against the hot, rigid flesh beneath. Even if he had any intention of freeing Ezra quickly, the eager tremor in his hands would have prevented it.

When, after about an eternity and a half, the last of the pearl buttons came free of its hole, he tugged the fabric down to join Ezra's trousers, now at his ankles. J.D. tossed his head, loosening Ezra's drowning grip on his hair. He glanced up, one last time, at Ezra's face, then leaned in and ensheathed that beautiful, twitching cock in his mouth. Relaxing his throat, he managed to take it in almost to its base.

Past even single words, now, Ezra blurted a loud, garbled exclamation. He staggered, and J.D.'s hands caught him by the hips, steadied him against the disorienting onslaught of sensation.

J.D.'s focus narrowed, till nothing besides Ezra, and the fire in his own blood, existed for him. Keeping Ezra balanced against one hand, he reached down and roughly fumbled his own trouser-buttons free. The relief of being free from the agonizing constriction of his britches almost made him light-headed.

Eagerly, he paid homage to Ezra's erection, his tongue tickling along it, tracing the throbbing veins as he let it slip almost away, then drew it back in until he felt the damp curls of Ezra's groin against his lips.

One hand strayed around, teasing against the smooth patch of skin between balls and anus, before cupping Ezra's sac. J.D. rolled his thumb against the swollen stones inside, feeling them shift beneath his investigation. Above him, Ezra panted like a hunted animal, every breath punctuated by a groan or a sharp little noise of erotic transport.

"Please..." managed to make its way out once more, semi-intelligibly.

He replaced hand for mouth, tipping his head back and looking up at Ezra with almost wicked amusement. "Please, what?"

He saw Ezra's throat work convulsively a couple of times as he stroked him, before his lover managed to gasp out his request.

"T... touch... yourself..."

Now that was a request J.D. was more than happy to grant. Flattening one palm against the small of Ezra's back, J.D. tugged at himself with the other. When he engulfed Ezra's erection once more, it was as if he felt the sensations flaring along his own nerves. He played Mae's trick, of swallowing deep and then tunelessly humming.

Tremors wracked Ezra's body, and the sound of his breathless cries and the tantalizing hint of the flavor of his climax, ensured that J.D.'s attentions to himself didn't continue long.

The instant he felt the unstoppable rush of imminent ejaculation, he grabbed Ezra's ass with both hands, fingers biting into the cleft as his mouth worked his lover's cock relentlessly. His own cries of completion were muffled to near-silence, as he breathlessly suckled Ezra.

Ezra's orgasmic shout startled the horses. They lifted their heads, sidestepping and snorting nervously, but their humans were oblivious.

Almost fiercely, J.D. drew on the jerking cock imprisoned in his mouth, swallowing hungrily. He kept possession until he felt Ezra pushing almost helplessly against his head. Knowing well, that was the point when intense pleasure began shading almost into pain, he slowly pulled away.

Grateful, distantly, for the support of J.D.'s embrace, Ezra sank to his knees, blinking.

J.D. smiled into those jade-dark eyes, still pleasure-glazed and wild. "I do love you, Ezra," he murmured. "More than I have words to say." He kissed Ezra's parted lips.

"And I love you, John Daniel, more than I have words to say..."

"Now that, coming from you," J.D. punctuated the statement with a brush of his palm against Ezra's cheek, "Is an awesome declaration of love."

With a chuckle, Ezra turned his head to press a kiss against J.D.'s palm, then drew back with a slight shiver. "It suddenly returns to my attention that today is quite chilly." He stood, tugging his trousers up.

"Yeah, it is. That's why I didn't just strip you naked and roll you all over this grass." J.D. came to his feet, and smiled as he watched Ezra put himself back into elegance from amorous dishevelment. He buttoned his own fly, and retrieved their hats, flicking a bit of dried grass off the brim of Ezra's before offering it to him.

The gambler settled it at its usual, jaunty angle. "I doubt I'd have felt the chill at all, if you had," he chuckled, and the gilded tooth glittered for the first time in quite a while.

"Maybe not," J.D. chortled in return, gathering up Dancer's reins and swinging into the saddle. "But if we both came down with colds from messin' around in the open, Nathan'd skin us alive and nail our hides to the barn wall."

"Only after filling said hides with various noxious distillations of weeds and tree bark," Ezra amended in a dry drawl as he settled into Maverick's saddle.

They set out for home at an easy pace, both considerably more relaxed and happy than they'd been on the way in.

Tuesday, January 19, 1875

The door slammed open, bouncing against the wall. Mae tore through it at full gallop, tail high and tongue hanging out of the side of her mouth in a lupine belly laugh. Hot on her heels, J.D. snatched at her tail, his endurance compromised by the fact he was shaking with laughter, himself. "No fair!" he panted, as they careened around the main room, with the table as the hub of their orbit.

The change looked like some sort of supernatural ballet step, as she transformed between one stride and the next, pausing to shake her finger at him across the wide, scrubbed boards. "All's fair in love and war!"

"Right!" he agreed, and came across the table top with a leap and a slide. Mae yelped, and took off again, her hair flickering through his straining fingers. J.D. blocked the path back to the door, arms wide and grin wider, so she veered off and headed for the kitchen.

Taking the most direct route-- which happened to mean passing Ezra, who was lounging in his rocker and to all appearances, assiduously ignoring their horseplay.

So the leg that suddenly impacted against her shins came as a complete surprise, as did the arms that scooped her up in mid-tumble.

She shrieked and then wriggled in Ezra's hold, laughing breathlessly still. "Hey! No fair!"

"Forgotten Mr. Smedley so quickly?" he chuckled, leaning back to keep her off her feet as she squirmed and giggled and did her best to tickle and pinch. "You quoted him with such conviction, scant seconds ago."

J.D. bounced up, breathless and grinning fit to split his face. "Good catch, Ezra." He reached out, but Ezra swung the lively prize away with a grin and a shake of his head.

"Come on," J.D. laughed, feinting towards his lovers. "Hand her over."

Ezra sidestepped with considerable grace for a burdened man. "And why should I? I have her-- and that's supposedly nine-tenths of the law right there."

"Yeah, after I chased her over half the country-side," J.D. protested, still grinning. "That oughta count for somethin'."

Mae smirked at J.D. A smirk that disappeared from view as she was unceremoniously draped across Standish's shoulder. She grunted, then took advantage of that position. "Good point," Ezra's voice slid up the scale slightly as Mae scored her own point on his behind. "I could be persuaded to share..."

"Hey, don't I get a say in this?" Mae giggled, before nipping Ezra's rear again mercilessly.

"Sure you do," J.D. teased, tickling over her side as Ezra headed for the doorway that led towards the den-bed. "You get to say, 'yes, please... more please!'"

From where he'd watched the exchange from the kitchen doorway, Nathan shook his head. "I keep thinkin' I ought ta defend a lady, but then I remember, she ain't no lady, she's a cheap whore in a fur coat."

Ezra felt Mae wince, and then go death-still against his bac.

k"Nathan!" J.D. blurted, aghast. His fists knotted in defensive ire.

"You've stepped far over the line of decency, my friend." Ezra's voice was even, almost gentle. Mae straightened against his hold, and he set her onto her feet. J.D. touched his shoulder, and they both took up a watchful position behind Mae, ready to intervene if need be, when she took a step towards the glowering healer.

"Decency? There ain't been enough decency among us to fill a shotglass, since Buck showed us what he was," Nathan persisted, staring at the naked woman in front of him as if she were some particularly disgusting form of pestilence.

"Why do you do this, Nathan?" Mae sighed, her whole body transmitting sad compassion. "You keep yourself locked away even embraced in the arms of so much love. How many times have you lain with your brothers, since I've been here? I could count them on my fingers, with room to spare. You behave cruelly to Lilith and to me, when you'd bed me in a heartbeat, if only you'd stop denying your own desire. And I'd have you, Nathan. I'd accept you, if only you could accept yourself."

"All of you people think fucking's the answer to everything, don't you?" Nathan spat, his voice as bitter and biting as vitriol. "It's sick--"

"No," Mae answered softly. "Fucking's no answer at all. But love is, and trust is, and you have so very little of either."

She turned to the two men behind her, who loved and accepted her most. Ezra saw great tears standing in her eyes, that spilled when she blinked. He drew breath to speak. J.D. reached out towards her, but Mae stopped them both with a little shake of her head.

"I'm not in the mood to play any more. I'll be back." Before the sound of the last word faded, she was on all fours and quickly slipped out the open door, her ears and tail low.

J.D. shot a glance at Nathan that seemed composed of equal parts angry disappointment and deep pity, then hurried after her. Ezra stepped to the doorway, pausing with his hand on the knob to watch J.D. catch up with the she-wolf. Watched him go to his knees beside her, his arms near buried in her lush, grey-brown ruff as he embraced her, whispered in her ear and kissed her muzzle.

The door closed with hardly a sound, and Ezra spoke without turning, almost as if he were talking to himself. "I understand taking comfort in lashing out, hurting people who might try to come too close. Good Lord, with my mother I could hardly avoid learning that lesson. It eases your own pain somehow, for that moment."

He turned, and looked Nathan directly in the eyes. "Trust is hard for us both, but I swear to you, on the heads of this family, that what you're doing only increases your own pain, in the end."

The skin around Nathan's eyes tightened, his mouth thinned into a tighter line, he drew himself straighter, and his breathing went shallow. The discomfort and pain betrayed by those signs, glittering in those ebony eyes, were as evident to Ezra as they would have been for a Two-Blood, catching the healer's emotional scents.

He'd resigned himself to the fact, months earlier, that the pain of any one of them, would now be his pain. Ezra couldn't pinpoint as exactly, when resigned acceptance had turned to genuine, deep affection for the men he truly now considered his brothers in ways far more profound than shared forebears. Ezra stepped closer, and felt a sharp twisting in his own chest, when Nathan flinched bac.

kWith an almost silent sigh, Ezra reached out as cautiously as if he were reaching towards a skittish wild thing that might flee in a flurry of wings at any moment. Brushing his fingertips against the smooth, dark curve of Nathan's cheekbone, he all but whispered, "Nathan," softly chiding like a mother sighing over a dearly loved but demanding infant.

Nathan's fingers closed around his wrist, and Ezra stilled, neither man moving for a moment. Dark eyes studied green ones, as if to judge the affection and compassion revealed within.

"It ain't right, what's happening," Nathan whispered, his voice tight with pain.

"We're far past the point of judging our situation right or wrong," Ezra answered gently. "We may never agree about the ultimate morality of pack life, my friend-- but the fact remains, there's no renegotiation of the terms. Only adjusting or leaving. And we're both honest enough to know that leaving would cause you far more pain than staying."

A reluctant nod agreed with that. Nathan's hold on his wrist released, and Ezra's fingers traced that strong, stubborn jaw before withdrawing his touch.

"For myself, right or wrong, this Pack is more than I ever dared hope for, and certainly more than I ever deserved." Ezra paused for a heartbeat. "Mae's a beautiful woman, Nathan. She's a kind woman. Just because she's liberal enough to enjoy her body-- and just because you aren't-- is no reason to condemn her."

"I don' condemn her no more than I condemn m'self, Ezra," he muttered, his eyes sliding away.

This time, Ezra's touch was firm as he drew Nathan's chin around, to force him to meet the truth face-on. "You don't deserve condemnation, either."

Like throwing open heavy drapes to the noonday sun, the realization flashed through Ezra's mind that he hadn't done much to make this adjustment easier for Nathan, between settling his feelings with JD and taking his pleasure with Mae. Josiah had been likewise engaged with Lilith, and Nathan's natural tendencies made him all the more isolated. Impulse drove Ezra forward, arms sliding around Nathan's waist. As the body stiffened in his arms, he rested his ear against the strong chest, listened to the heavy thud of his friend's heart.

"Kiss me, please," he ordered, frustrated anew that Nathan was too tall for him to initiate such contact easily.

Nathan's eyebrows furrowed, but beneath them, his eyes softened marginally. Ezra had been almost as touch-starved as Buck, a fact Nathan had figured out early. The frown still marring his forehead, Nathan shook his head once, briefly, then dropped his mouth to Ezra's own.

Close-mouthed, held-breathed, Nathan stood with him in a precious moment of shared warmth. Then Nathan drew away, eyes darting nervously toward the closed front door. Ezra watched shame settle over the dark features, and ached inside.

"She's... she's a white woman," Nathan all but whispered.

She's a good girl. She's rich. She's from a good family. She's too good for the likes of you. In a flash, words like those, and more, rose in Ezra's mind. "Yes," he agreed, aching, understanding.

"A man don't..."

A man, a free man, does as he chooses."

"You don't..." A pause. "I'll think about it, Ezra."

Ezra let him draw away and whispered, as he headed for the kitchen door, "Oh, my friend. Don't think too long."

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

Nathan had come back tonight after two days out, and as much as Buck had enjoyed seeing Chris relax without Nate's constant bickering, he'd have fetched the man back himself, if Ezra hadn't dragged Nathan back today.

Snoring lightly, Chris nestled against his chest, butt wriggling against his groin as Chris sought a more comfortable position. More warmth, probably; the stove was burning low, now. He lifted a thigh and rested it over his lover's legs, wrapped his arm tighter around the flat belly.

Somewhere behind Buck, Vin sprawled like he'd been dropped there, taking up extra room with his body. Vin tended to spread out like that in sleep--damned appealing, too, when Buck wasn't distracted by other things or too wrung-out to care.

He could smell it again tonight, though, fear and some darker burn of pain beneath the sweet scents of Mae's cunt and the cum spilled between Ezra's thighs. JD smelled like a peppermint, spicy and promising the most delectable of tastes when licked. Lucine, curled at their feet, smelled fresh and innocent as spring rain. Josiah's earthy musk and Lilith's mossy aroma mingled like incense and behind him, Vin's scent rose sharp and wild as a stand of pine on a dry midsummer day... Buck sighed, and buried his nose in Chris' hair for a moment. Grassy, over-warm, the tang of sweat combined with the other scents to almost overpower Nathan's fear. But only almost.

He could hear Nathan's tight, short breaths, and recognized the sound of silent crying when he heard it. That man carried crosses bigger than any of Josiah's, and Buck felt bad for him. He kept hoping that this family would be enough, would let Nathan relax finally, as he rarely had before.

Maybe tonight would help. Mae's scent was strong, and he knew she would make a clear offer. Buck hoped Nate would take it, not only because it would be good for Nathan, but because he wanted to watch.

She was a pretty woman, round and ample, and Nathan was a handsome man. They'd look beautiful together.

Buck knew the precise instant Chris snapped awake, felt muscles tighten, heard Chris' breathing abruptly change. He almost absently stroked Chris' hair, reassuring him without risking speech. But Chris had noticed that things were different tonight, too. When they'd come to bed, he had flatly refused sex, wanting instead to cuddle and kiss. It had kindled a pleasant burn in Buck's gut, sweet anticipation of tomorrow or the next day, and he'd settled down happily to the attention. Now, Chris reached back, rubbed his hand along Buck's bare hip.

Mae, a few feet away in a pile with Ezra and JD, lifted her head.

Buck whuffed. She answered in a tiny interrogative whine.

Mae rolled onto her hip, an earnest look on her face. "Nathan?" she whispered in the dimness.

Nathan's hands, clasped tightly together over his ribs, jerked.

Slowly, his nearer arm unfolded and dropped down to the mattress, palm up. Poor bastard was so scared, and so hard, Buck worried his heart would give out on him before those two did anything.

"Oh, Nathan," Mae said softly. Buck offered another tiny whine of encouragement, and Mae nodded, crawled toward Nathan on her hands and knees.

Beyond them, as soon as Mae started moving, a vicious snarl rose from Lilith's throat. Mae froze. Nathan's eyes squeezed shut and fat tears rolled from their edges. Buck waited for Chris, who never let him down these days.

"Shut up or get out, Lilith," Chris snarled right back, the words low but razor-sharp in the quiet.

Josiah murmured something intended to be soothing, in the Two-Blood language, and Buck inwardly grinned. The preacher's Two-Blood wasn't any better than his Mandarin. No telling if Lilith's short exhalation was one of amusement or pique, but either way, she settled in silence. Josiah turned on his side, the breadth of his back offering Nathan, lying beside them, at least an illusion of privacy.

Mae drew closer, then brushed tentative fingertips against Nathan's open palm. A long breath stumbled out of him, but other than that, Nathan didn't move. Didn't lash out with cutting words at the woman kneeling beside him.

Buck felt his own heart beat a little faster, his hand clasp Chris' tighter. He even found himself holding his breath. Nathan needed to let go of his pain. It was poisoning him, and the Pack, like some simmering wound that needed to be lanced.

When Nathan's hand lifted, to caress Mae's cheek then curl around her shoulders and draw her down, Buck breathed out his relief into Chris' hair. Mae settled beside Nathan, cuddling up against him like a kitten, and kissed his cheeks, smoothing away the tear tracks with her lips.

Nathan rolled onto his side, embraced her, and released another shaky breath. Most of Buck's view was blocked by the lush hourglass of Mae's back, but he didn't mind. The sight of Nathan's arm against her pale back, pulling her closer, and after a time, the slight sound of kisses turning wetly passionate, was erotic enough.

He wasn't the only one being moved by what was occurring across the bed. Chris' pulse beneath his hand sped faster, and his body warmed.

A stubbled chin settled onto Buck's shoulder, and he tilted his head for Vin's kiss. The tracker pressed against his back, his burgeoning erection fitting neatly along the crack of Buck's ass. His hand drifted up and down over Buck's side, before settling on Chris' hip.

Chris' leg moved back between Buck's, and he heard the tiny sound of that narrow, callused foot rasping against Vin's shin. Buck's eyes slitted as Chris' casual little caress of Vin gained for himself the warm weight of Chris' thigh sliding higher between his, the press of that firm, narrow butt against his balls and shaft. He licked the nape of Chris' neck, savored the salt, and smiled. All three of them watched as if bewitched. Horny as he-goats, but too respectful-- and too bone-lazy-- to do anything but breathe and blink and get hard.

Buck's lips parted, as he greedily drew in a deep breath of air now heavy with the scents of arousal. Chris and Vin's smoldered beneath their body scents, like wild fire running underground. Nathan's passion was powerful, aromatic as bark ripped from a cedar. Mingled with Mae's, voluptuous as warm peaches heavy with juice and a day from spoiling, it was enough to make Buck's groin ache with a longing as sharp as hunger. Nathan rolled Mae onto her back, still locked in a kiss as they joined. She drew her thighs up alongside his flanks, her ankles hooking together over his thighs, her hands roaming along his undulating muscles.

Buck almost moaned along with her, as the couple began to move in that rhythm as old as the world and as new as tomorrow's dawn. His nearer lovers pressed closer against him, fore and aft. Chris' hand tightened over his, and Vin's breath was quick and moist, by his ear.

"Real purty together, ain't they?" Vinwhispered, his lips moving against Buck's ear.

Buck shivered from the tingle that touch sent through him, and nodded, savoring the sight of white skin against dark, of Mae's narrow women's fingers indenting the firm muscles of Nathan's butt, Nathan's gentle hand cupping her breast. Damn beautiful. A sight that ought to be sculpted in marble and jet, if artists had the sense God gave a goose.

Mae's back arched. She gasped, her body shuddering, thighs clenching harder against Nathan's. The moan that rolled out of her as she relaxed sounded like it came from the core of her soul. Nathan's groan, hoarse and gritty with sensual bliss, mingled with it as he sheathed himself deeper within her, his own body trembling. The blended tang of their climax rose like a final chord.

Buck bit at his lower lip, and his hips pushed against Chris' as if all on their own. Chris pressed back, with a hissed intake of breath, and Vin's earthy chuckle by Buck's ear was more stuttered breath than sound. Vin's cock slid against the cleft of Buck's butt again, both of them slicked with sweat. Buck craned his neck around and back, to give Vin a questioning loo.

kThe answer was a shake of the head, a smile and a lick against his shoulder.

Nathan lifted his head from where he'd rested it against Mae's breasts. One hand lifted to brush her hair back from her face. He glanced over, and caught Buck's eye. His brows started to lower into a scowl, but then he shook his head and a warm, fond expression took over, instead. He slid off Mae, to lie on his side between her and the trio of over-heated voyeurs across the expanse of featherbed.

After treating that girl like shit and craving her like water, after all his hostility and his measuring of her as less than human, Nathan was protecting her nakedness from their eyes.

Buck glanced down at Chris, to be met by a sidelong, knowing smir.

kBuck shrugged, and bent his neck to kiss Chris deeply, loving the dry, dense, sleepy taste of his mouth. Nathan would realize someday, how narrow-minded and silly that protective impulse was, but his heart was in the right place.

As much a realist as a romantic, Buck knew that Nathan's wounds went far deeper than this one release could heal, but it was a start.

Chris relaxed in his arms, almost as if he too could sense the stench of fear fading beneath the erotic fog of lovemaking, still hanging in the air like wisps of perfumed smoke, and the rising of Nathan's scent, sated and drowsy, warm and delectable as new-baked bread.

Vin gave Buck's nape a fond nip, got a tangled hank of hair tugged in return, then flopped onto his back once more and dropped his arm across his eyes with a yawn. Chris was already relaxing back towards sleep, obviously content to let his ardor cool on its own. Well, for a change, so was Buck. He reached for the rumpled quilt at their feet and tugged it up over them both.

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

Lilith had been near silent throughout the trip to town, and the purchasing and loading of supplies. Which wasn't very remarkable.

Before they had joined the Four Corners Pack, Lilith could go for days without speaking more than a handful of words.

Mae almost dozed on the way back, lulled by the slow wet clopping of the horse's hooves against the muddy road, and the grey sky and the light drizzle that frosted everything with tiny glittering droplets.

"If we had Lucine with us, I'd just keep right on going past the cut- off to the house and never look back."

Mae jerked, startled first by the unexpected words interrupting the beginning of a dream, and then by the content of them. "Why?!"

"I can't take it any more," Lilith's voice was flat, almost lifeless, and her shoulders were slumped.

"Can't take what any more?" Mae parroted, confused.

"This." Lilith swung her hand to take in the thinning town as they passed through. "All of this."

Mae glanced around, saw nothing but the last few houses that huddled around the tiny town like chicks around a hen, a few women doing chores, a gaggle of noisy children playing in the rain-soaked door yards and the muddy street. "I don't understand. What's troubling you so?"

Lilith shook her head, not looking over at her pack-sister. "I thought I could do it-- I thought, even though they're human, that since they'd formed a Pack, I could find a way to fit in with them."

"You have, Lilith." Mae scooted closer on the wagon seat, and put her arm around those thin shoulders. She bit her lip and frowned. Lilith had lost weight she could ill-afford to spare. A cold lump of apprehension settled in her belly. "You've been doing so well, lately. Especially since Nathan's settled down a bit."

"I've been trying," she said softly, staring out past the horse's ears. "I've tried so hard. I've tucked my tail and shown my belly and let them all shove me to the bottom of the Pack and done all the stupid human scut-work they put on us and I've tried to tell myself it'd get easier, I'd get used to it. Josiah's a good man, and I've done my best to keep my eye on that. But nothing I do is enough and I'm finished with crawling for any of them."

All that tumbled out in one long breath, and the apprehension Mae felt grew as she listened. Lilith's words came out quickly, stepping on each other's heels like prisoners chained too closely together, but there was no heat to them, no energy of impulse. Only a monotone litany of misery. Her scent was cool and faint and slightly sour, as if she were already gone.

"Lilith...I'm so sorry. I didn't realize...." Mae felt the burn of guilt by assumption. It was coming up on a year now, since humans had wiped out Sinking Spring Pack. She'd thought Lilith's withdrawal to be due to that. Lilith always had insisted on doing her grieving in solitude, so Mae had let her be.

"I can't do it much longer." She sounded as if she hadn't heard Mae at all. "I don't have any more endurance. If I don't get away from them... from this... very soon... I'll go mad. I know it."

Looking into Lilith's eyes, hearing her voice so flat and dull even as her scent took on the sharp acidity of cornered, terrified prey, Mae had no doubt that she was hearing truth.

So she returned truth, despite her fear of Lilith's reaction. "I don't want to go. I'm happy here, with J.D. and Ezra. Lucine's happy, too, and they all accept her and love her as if she were a sister.

These are good men, human or no, and they've made as much a Pack as humans are able. We could have a fine life with them, Lilith, if you could give yourself more time. Maybe if you went off into the hills for a bit, alone or with Josiah...?"

"No." That blunt denial straightened Lilith's shoulders. She gathered up the slack reins and slapped them against the horse's rump, setting him at a faster pace than his previous rather indolent amble. "As soon as the weather breaks, I'm leaving." She turned blazing eyes to Mae. "I love you, and you know it. But I can't stay here, not even for you. Do what you have to, for yourself. I sure as hell am for me.

I have no other choice."

She handed the reins over to Mae, then dropped down from the wagon and veered off of the road with long strides. Mae knew Lilith would make the change as soon as she was out of sight of townfolk. She also knew better than to call her back or to follow. What she didn't know, was if she'd ever see Lilith again.

The door behind him opened silently, alerting to someone's presence only by the pool of light that spilled over his back and sent his shadow dark and long out over the yard. Chris didn't move from his slouch against a porch post. Who ever was impinging on his moment of solitude would have to make the first move.

Only the slightest whisper of heavy cloth and deer-hide on wood accompanied Lilith's approach. She leaned her elbows on the rail, close beside him, looked out at the darkening land. Silent as he, and as still, until he exhaled. She lifted her head to better savor the sweet wisp of smoke from his cheroot that the slight breeze was stealing away from them both.

The corners of his mouth pulled in a bit, and wordlessly he offered her the slim little cigar. The tip glowed as she deeply inhaled, and passed it back with a tiny nod of thanks. A few seconds later, she released the smoke with a trickle of a sigh, and her words followed, low and as wispy as the grey vapor. "We've decided it's time to move on."

Silence and stillness hung easily between them then, as they shared the rest of his smoke. Chris straightened and flicked the stub of the cheroot away. It spiraled through the air in a tiny pinwheel of sparks to be swallowed by the darkness. "Can't say I'll be sorry to see you go."

Lilith breathed out a little snort. "You will be, the first time JD sets a burnt offerin' on the table."

Chris' wry little huff of amused acceptance was more eloquent than words. He turned his head, and met the gaze of amber-hazel eyes. "I suppose you think you've earned your keep around here."

"Damn straight," she fired back acerbically, but a little smile tickled her lips.

"I dunno. You've been a big enough pain in the ass to make bachin' again seem real enticin'."

"Hell, Chris-- somebody's gotta keep you sharp." Her smile widened, and so did his.

"You got a destination in mind?"

She shrugged. "I've always wanted to see the ocean. Figure we'll head for the Baja."

"When're you headin' out?"

"In a day or two, when it dries out a bit."

Another long silence stretched out between them, the conversation over by mutual consent. Chris took that for granted. Just as he took for granted the fact that she instantly turned with him when he shifted, that they moved for the door as paired in movement as fish in a school, that he laid his hand at the small of her back as they went through the door, and that she leaned into his touch for a brief instant.

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

The door to the jail opened. J.D. glanced up from the desk and smiled. "Hey! Didn't expect to see you here today." Mae closed the door behind her, and the look on her face melted his smile like frost on a sun-struck windowpane.

"What's wrong?"

She went to him, and settled against the desk with a wistful sigh. "We need to talk, sweetfur."

"About what?" He tucked a wayward curl behind her ear, brushed her cheek with his fingertips.

"Lilith and I-- we've been discussing leaving the Pack."

"Why?" he burst out, feeling dismay settling into his belly like a lead weight. "Surely it's not because of Nathan-- Mae, I thought you all had that settled. But even if you don't, how he feels isn't the way the rest of us feel." He tugged her against him. "And it's for damn sure not how I feel about you."

"I know it's not how you feel about me," she shook her head. "But I don't think you can speak for the others." She shook her head again, and met his gaze with sad resignation. "I never dreamed I'd care so deeply for you."

"Then stay! Lilith's the one that's always causing trouble, and you've told me she's not kin to you. Why don't you let her go on, and you and Lucine stay here?"

"Why don't you come with us, when we go?" she shot back just as certainly. "These men aren't kin to you. Come with us. We'll find a

Pack that will accept us all."

J.D. worried his lower lip with his teeth. He had a pack that accepted him, he didn't need another. But he didn't know how to convince Mae that the boys would relax, if she just gave them a fair chance... and if Lilith really did move on, maybe... He glanced up at the quiet sound of Mae sniffing the air, and realized she'd scented his hesitation. He wasn't surprised when she seized on it.

"Sweetfur, you have no idea how blissful life can be, within a truly Two-Blood pack. Once acceptance is given, it's total. It doesn't matter if you're One-Blood or Two-Blood, you're Pack. You'll have understanding, freedom and love that you're only getting tastes of, here."

"But Mae, that's what I got here, like I never had before."

"No, it isn't. You all try, you really do. I see that. But Chris is still too scarred, and Buck too... human."

He scowled. "I'm human. I know you don't think there's nothin' wrong with us. And Buck's Two-Blood, and if you think he ain't, well try to get Ezra to drop his pants and go on four legs."

She shook her head, cupped his face in her palms, and brushed her lips lightly across his. "I love you, J.D. I never intended for that to happen. But it has, and I don't want to lose you."

"I don't want to lose you, either." He tucked his face into the curve of her neck. "And if this was just about me and you, I'd saddle up and head out with you today... "

"But it's not," she finished softly.

He shook his head, felt hot tears filling his eyes. "You're the one taught me that, Mae. There's Ezra, and Casey if she'll ever grow up and stop bein' so scared, and Buck and Vin and Chris and Josiah and yeah, even Nathan-- they are my Pack, even if you don't think we're a very good one." He sighed against her skin and pulled back to look into her eyes. "But you could be part of us, I know you could!"

"I love Lilith," she whispered. "As much as you love your brothers. I will not choose another love, if that would mean turning my back on her."

"I'm not ask...!" J.D. burst out, before Mae interrupted him with light fingertips on his lips.

"That's exactly what you're asking of me." She sighed. "And it's exactly what I've asked of you." Her light brown eyes searched the darkness of his, a tear sliding down her cheek. "And the answer for both of us, is no."

His own tears felt like they scalded his cheeks as he cuddled her close. "I'm sorry," he managed, his voice thic.

k"So am I," she whispered, the words breaking in a sob.

~~~~~~~7~~~~~~~

//Tuesday, March 9, 1875//

//I miss Mae. I miss her so much, I don't have the words to say how much I miss her. //

//I knew Lilith was raising so much sand because she was getting real restless with her place here, but even after all Mae and I had talked about, it was still a shock when Mae woke me up in the middle of the night and told me they were taking off. //

//I never dreamed I'd miss her so much. That I'd miss all of them so much. Lilith made Chris' life a misery, but she was always good to me. Well, almost all the time, not enough that I held it against her when she wasn't. And Lucine... she stayed on paws so much, that sometimes I almost forgot she wasn't just a really smart dog. About the time I'd start to, she'd do something to remind me that there was a person, same as me, trapped inside her head like a moth in a jar. I know Lilith and Mae would die to protect her, but I still worry about her. And miss her, too.//

//But it's Mae I miss the most. Seems like ten times a day, I see or hear or think of something that I want to share with her. And then I remember she's not here, and all the joy goes right out of whatever I'd gotten so excited about. I keep finding myself reaching out in my sleep for her. And then I wake up, and I lie and stare at the ceiling the rest of the night. Unless I wake up Ezra or Buck. They can always gentle me back to sleep, no matter what.//

The wooden pen gained a few more thoughtful teeth-marks, as J.D. mulled over what he'd just written.

//A year ago, I thought love was a one-person-at-a-time thing. Even a once-in-a-life thing. That it wasn't possible for love to be any other way. Of course, a year ago, I had no clue that werewolves were real or that men had sex with men, so that right there goes to show how ignorant I was. //

//And probably still am, but I'm smarter than I was then. Smart enough, that when Mae asked me to go with her, I realized that even though I love her, I'd be miserable without the others. Just the same as she'd have been miserable, if she'd stayed behind without Lilith and Lucine.//

//So, even though pulling Dancer up and turning him back towards home was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, I felt right about it. And she felt the same about riding on. No hard feelings between us. Didn't change how we feel about each other. Doesn't make it any easier, though, to get used to her not being here. I don't know whether to hope she misses me this much, too, or to hope she doesn't miss me at all.//

Laying down his pen, J.D. leaned back in his chair and stared abstractedly into the lamp's flame. Waited for the ache of loss to subside, with newly-learned patient resignation. When he straightened once more and retrieved his pen, his gaze happened to refocus on the bookcase nearby. On two books, in particular. His thoughts made him first blink, and then smile.

//Back in Boston, there was this bittersweet vine. It grew up the side of the house, all the way to the eaves. That vine, it found the crack between the window frame and the brick, in the room they'd assigned Ma and me. It pushed out the rag she'd folded up and stuffed in there to keep out drafts, and came right on in like it had a right to.//

//For some reason, that made me mad, and I wanted to break it off, but she wouldn't let me. Said to leave it be, that it wasn't doing any harm. By the time she passed on, she'd coaxed that vine into sprawling all around the room, on wire stretched along the ceiling molding. It bloomed in the spring and put on those pretty red and orange berries in the fall and kept them through the winter like it was decorating our room for Christmas. It even ended up keeping out the draft better than that rag ever did.//

//A house isn't a natural place for a vine to send branches. We didn't try to change it, nor it us, and it didn't change anything about itself beyond consenting to grow there. And by just being what it was, it made our room a pleasanter place to be. That vine, even though it lived with us, was still a wild thing. Still part of the jungle, in a way. //

//All this time, I thought that we were in danger of losing who we were, by accepting what we weren't into our midst. That there'd be hell to pay for letting the jungle in. I realize now, I may as well have been worrying about that bittersweet vine strangling Ma and me in the night. //

~Epilogue~

Friday, September 10, 1875

"Riders comin' in," Buck announced, stabbing the pitchfork into the barn's dirt floor. Chris set Pony's hoof down and pocketed his hoof- pick. Both men retrieved their gun belts, and stepped outside.

Two horses trotted up the road. One was Lilith's Strider. The blue roan beside him carried a stranger. The pair pulled up at the gate.

Lilith dismounted, dropping a rein to the ground. The man sat his horse, giving Chris and Buck a polite nod as Lilith came through the gate.

"Figured you'd be at the Pacific, by now," Chris drawled, as they got within speaking distance.

"Plans get changed," she answered evenly. "Didn't go quite as far as we expected."

"If you're askin' to stay the winter again, I can't say that he'll be invited." Chris indicated her companion with a flick of his eyes.

"No. We have our own territory now, three days ride southwest of here. Their Alpha got himself killed by a catamount, a little while back. His mate, she's still half-crazed over losin' him. The rest of the pack are submissives, elders and young'uns. It was easy enough to make 'em see things my way."

Chris nodded, understanding dawning. Along with a bit of a chill, from her casual recital of callous opportunism. So different from Buck's response of instant compassion for anyone in distress. Almost before he realized his own unease, Buck moved a fraction closer.

Chris felt a comforting touch at the small of his back. He leaned back, just a bit, into that touch. Enough to let Buck know it was appreciated. He determined to tell Buck, in unmistakable terms, how damned lucky he knew he was-- that they all were-- that Buck, for all the things he was and wasn't, didn't have a callous bone in his body.

Buck's nose filled in further information, as he eyed the man on the roan. "You've taken to cradle-robbin', now, Lilith?"

Larabee gave the stranger a longer, measuring look, then glanced at Buck for a wordless affirmation of his assessment. The Two-Blood man was as young as J.D. Younger, maybe. His features, and the dark glossy hair that the breeze lifted off his back, made him look as wild and inscrutable as a Cheyenne dog-soldier.

"Well, I always was of the opinion that it's easiest to take a man on young. That way, you can train him up the way you want him," Lilith shot back to Buck, with an amiable grin.

"He don't strike me as the biddable type," Chris snorted.

"He does have his moments," she nodded.

"Three days ride is a bit far for a social call," he prompted.

She shifted, then, a bit uneasily. "This ain't no social call. I don't intend to repeat the mistakes of the past, Chris. Even if I was inclined to, Mae wouldn't let me." She drew a deep breath, before continuing. "If J.D.'s willin'... she wants him to be a part of his children's lives. She's even holdin' off on namin' them, till she has word from him."

Larabee's eyebrow rose. "We ain't stupid, Lilith. It ain't been long enough for her to have had kids by J.D."

"Six months, Chris," Buck interjected softly. "Two-Bloods carry six months, not nine. It's been long enough."

Lilith nodded thanks to Wilmington for clearing that misunderstanding up before it went further. She hadn't been aware that humans gestated that long. Once again, she was thankful she wasn't one.

"They're newborn, less than two weeks. A male and a female. If he wants to see them, he's welcome to come out. You all are." She indicated her own mate with a tiny motion of her head. "Hohnohka, he'll wait at the edge of your territory, to guide you in. Give him word, if J.D. decides not to come."

The corner of her mouth twisted up a bit. "I don't want him too long on his own. Might start gettin' uppity ideas." And with that, she touched her hat-brim, turned and left the slightly stunned men, to mount up once more.

"Tonese?" Hohnohka inquired softly, as they headed their mounts back to the road. Her reply was a shrug, and a setting of her heels to her horse's sides.

Chris and Buck stood silent, until the dust of the pair's departure was all that could be seen of them.

"Well.... I'll be dipped and damned... " Buck muttered, a bit dazedly. "J.D. a daddy! Imagine that..."

"Don't think I care to," Chris snorted. "Makes me feel too damned old."

"Reckon we'd best ride on into town and break the news."

"I ain't lookin' forward to it. Terrible sight, to see a grown man faint in his tracks."

"Hell, Chris, this is good news!"

"You didn't see it that way, when that little gal came chasin' you down with the same good news."

"That there was a whole different situation."

"Yeah? Well, I'll be interested to hear you explain how that's so, on the ride in." Chris turned and headed back towards the barn. Within moments, they were saddled up and headed for Four Corners at a lope.

"How can you be so friggin' dense, and still be breathin'?" Buck grinned, picking up the thread of their conversation as their mounts followed the familiar path into town.

"Huh?"

"Lucy."

Chris nodded. "You were runnin' from her like she was gonna hang you.

How do you figure J.D.'s gonna feel any different?"

Buck snorted. "Think about it, Chris. Nobody knew what I am, then. And here's this sweet young thing tellin' me that I've knocked her up? Scary as hell, and I ain't ashamed to admit it."

Larabee considered that. "Reckon so, but still-- You'd have had a while to ease her into it. And I know how crazy you are about kids."

Buck's saddle creaked, as he turned further towards Chris. All the teasing light had died out of his eyes. "How do you ease a woman into knowin' she's as likely to have a big pup slither out from between her legs, as a baby?"

"That could happen?" Chris' voice betrayed just how shocked, how stunned, he was by that revelation. The fact that he felt a bit sickened by the mental image, too, was one he hoped Buck couldn't pick up on.

A solemn nod. "Babies can change from birthin' on. That's why Packs keep 'em hid away, until they're old enough to control themselves."

Larabee took that in. Realized afresh how vast his ignorance was. "J.D. know any of this?"

"Doesn't have a friggin' clue." Buck sighed. "I thought," he admitted, with obvious guilt, "That I's the only one that'd have anything to worry about with them women. It ain't common for a One-Blood to sire a child off a Two-Blood... it's like we don't mix easy. A half-breed like me's actually pretty rare."

"Well," Chris gave a rueful chuckle, "If any of us was gonna get struck by lightnin', you know which it'd be. Deed's done, and the babies are here. J.D.'ll find some way of dealin' with it."

"Yeah." Steele swung through a few more strides, before Buck's natural ebullience reasserted itself. "I'm just thankful I'm gonna get to watch him at it!"

END