#*tristan

next stop, wakaba camp 🏕️

  “You probably could pick up some basic shaman shit, you know, if you ever actually wanted to,” Tristan said. “Not that I’m offering. But all that praying is great practice for entering shamanic trance.”

“I’ll pass on the New Age shit, thanks.”

“This New Age shit is saving you a hospital bill in the thousands. Show some respect.”

Before Max could think up a suitably devastating retort, he saw a familiar building in the distance, the sign above it a crackling electric blue. In real life, Jazz Thieves was several neighborhoods away from his own, not to mention that Max had never approached Jazz Thieves on a night when it didn’t have a line reaching around the block waiting to get in, or at least one fight breaking out across the street. “All right, that’s not supposed to be there,” he blurted out.

Tristan followed his gaze and smiled thinly. “But it’s clearly very close to your heart.” The wind fanned his hair across his forehead. His loping stride elongated further so that Max nearly had to jog to keep up. “Let’s go check it out.”

“I’d rather not,” Max began to say, before a canine form poked its head out from between the doors. Its head bobbed as it sniffed the air. Max stopped short, stunned speechless. With a brisk and lively step, the canine trotted closer. It was a large white wolf that came up to Max’s hip, easily. Max could imagine the eyes — clear, almost colorless, a blue so pale they were nearly gray.

Tristan, watching, groaned. “My god, Max, you’re kidding. Still?”

“Shut up,” Max snarled, and knelt in the middle of the quiet street. There had been no cars whatsoever as they walked, though he’d occasionally heard the sound of a train rumbling. He didn’t fear oncoming traffic. Neither did the white wolf, which turned its elegantly pointed head towards them. After another careful sniff of the air, it came towards Max. Max held his arms out, and the big wolf nuzzled into them for an embrace. It had a clean and wintry scent, and its eyes were just as he’d imagined. Max closed his eyes and ran his hands through the wolf’s long, silky fur. The wolf was so warm and solid and real Max could easily forget that he was in trance, that nothing here was really happening.

“Cameron’s wolf form doesn’t look like that,” Tristan said.

“Just shut up.” The wolf whuffed softly at Max’s ear, and Max held on more tightly. After suffering this a few moments longer, the wolf stepped away, and Max had to let the creature go. It sat on its haunches, tail swishing as it regarded Max through those wild, intelligent eyes. Max felt his own eyes stinging and wiped his sleeve across them, hoping Tristan wouldn’t notice. He couldn’t help reaching out again to pet the wolf between its ears. The wolf bowed its head, regally accepting the attention.

“How many times exactly did Cameron cheat on you before you dumped him?” Tristan wondered to the air. “I’m just talking about the times you found out while you two were still dating, not the actual, objective facts you only found out about later, once people stopped pitying how bad he took you in with all his bullshit and actually told you the truth.”

“Jesus, Tristan, shut up!”

The wolf looked at Max unblinkingly until Max began petting it again.

“He doesn’t deserve to be here,” Tristan said. “He doesn’t deserve the way you still think of him. When you love someone like that, you give them a piece of yourself that makes it easy for them to use you. That’s his reward for treating you the way that he did?”

“If that’s what happens then that’s what happens,” Max said. The wolf tilted its head insistently, so that Max could scratch its head better. Cameron had always liked to be petted and cosseted. Max had never minded. It had caused such a sweet and blissful look to cross Cameron’s face as he drifted off, head in Max’s lap. People who only knew Cameron as a showboat, as a flirt and a liar, didn’t understand and never had. Never would. “I wasn’t good to him either.”

“I didn’t ask that, and I’m not kidding, Max. Speaking strictly professionally here, as a shaman trying to heal you and advise you — you’re really okay with letting Cameron Blake, of all people, walk around with a piece of your heart?”

“I loved him. I loved him a whole lot. It seems fair.” Max withdrew his hand and looked at the wolf once more. It tilted its head, its tail steadily wagging.

Cameron had never actually permitted Max to see him in his wolf form, though he’d relented at least enough in the face of Max’s curiosity to disclose what he looked like while changed. He had said he was dangerous in his wolf form — uncontrollable. Max didn’t see the difference between that, and Cameron any other day of the month, but Cameron had ended the discussion there. It was one of very few topics of conversation that Cameron flatly refused to pursue.

“Do you even know what they are?” Tristan said with narrowed eyes.

“They’re in the Prince’s circle, obviously they’re para. They felt para, anyway,” Max said with a shrug. He remembered the snowy glow of Sade’s skin, the uncanny precision and smoothness of Chris’s movement. Tristan looked openly contemptuous. Rattled, Max snapped, “Well, they’re not human, whatever they are. I’ve never met a vampire’s Pet before and I have no idea what the hell a Construct is, no.”