“You keep saying boner!”
“Yeah,” he said easily. “I’m having such a good time right now.”
“Carter!”
“Why are you freaking out about this?”
“Why are you not?”
“Is it about the whole werewolf thing?”
“What? No. I don’t care that he’s a—”
“And it’s not that he’s a guy. You’ve fucked men before.”
“What the hell. Just going to throw that out there, are you?”
“Is it that he’s seventeen?” Carter asked. “Dad won’t care. Well. He probably won’t care too much.”
I stared at him in horror. “What are you even talking about?”
“Ox,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a child. “It’s Joe, man. What did you think was going to happen?”
“I don’t… I just… he was wearing those shorts and—”
Carter grimaced. “Okay, smelling it was one thing, but hearing about it is one step too far. That’s my little brother.”
I let out a slightly strangled noise.
“Ox, you know this was always going to happen, right?”
This stopped me cold. “What?”
“The wolf.”
“I told you, I don’t care that he’s a wolf—”
But Carter was already shaking his head. “Not that. The stone wolf. The one he gave you for your birthday.”
“What about it?”
Carter sighed. “Man, this isn’t going to go over well.”
Which did nothing to make things better. I told him as much.
“Look,” he said. “When wolves are born, their Alpha gives them a wolf carved from stone. Sometimes they do it themselves. Sometimes they have others do it. But each natural wolf is given one. I don’t know when it started, and honestly, it’s some archaic bullshit, but whatever. It’s tradition, and you know how Dad is with tradition.”
I nodded, because I did.
“It’s a wolf’s most treasured possession,” Carter continued. “Something to be protected and revered. Or so we’re taught.”
“Then why did he give it to me?”
Carter smiled quietly at me. “Because that’s what you’re supposed to do with it.”
“I don’t—”
“When we’re old enough, we’re told that one day, we’ll find someone. Someone that feels good to our wolf. Someone that makes our heart race. Someone that completes us. Tethers us. Makes us human.”