“He really, really likes it. He’s happy. Mace too…” Jules stopped speaking and clamped his hand over his mouth. When he looked at me, his eyes were filled with something resembling fear. But that couldn’t be right. It was just us. Just him and me. When had Jules ever felt afraid when it was just us? “Shit. I wasn’t supposed to say anything about Mason. You have to swear you won’t say anything. Swear, Sully, swear.”

“I swear, but I don’t understand. Did you see Mason? I thought you were only going to see Auggie.”

Jules sighed. “Mace and Auggie are both part of the Cedar Key pack.”

“What? I don’t get it. Why wouldn’t you tell us?”

Jules cradled his face in both hands and looked out over the creek for a while. “You have to really swear you won’t tell. It’s serious, Sully. It could be really, really bad for us if you do.”

Over the years, Jules and I had sworn each other to secrecy so many times, we hardly even felt like we needed to. It was just assumed that if we told each other something, it didn’t go any further. At least that was what I’d always assumed.

I put my hand on his shoulder. “I swear on my life, Julius W Blaine.”

His face was pinched. He took a deep breath. “Mason is with a guy. I mean, his mate is a man.” He looked over at me to gauge my reaction. “That’s why he left. Auggie left because he doesn’t agree with the way the Cleary pack sees things. My mom and dad don’t agree with Mace’s choices. They know it’s unnatural, but they still love him.”

I heard Dalton’s words spilling from Jules’s mouth. It wasn’t a surprise. Wolves are naturally loyal to their pack leader. One of the first things Dalton did when he took over the pack was to ban male-on-male mating. He’d always been obsessed with expanding the pack. He wanted us big, and he wanted us strong. Not just physically, in numbers too. More than anything, he wanted Cleary wolf pups born into the pack. Since male pairs stopped conceiving together centuries ago, Dalton was convinced that male matings were the cause of the infertility problems our pack struggled with. I heard the weight and shame in Jules’s voice when he spoke, and I couldn’t stand it, so I said something I wasn’t planning on saying.

“It’s not unnatural.”

Jules was silent, but he turned to face me. The moon was reflecting and rippling in the dark pools of his eyes.