Everlasting

Chapter 3

Griffin

"Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up," Blair chanted. She had a finger stuck in each ear and her eyes squeezed shut while she tried desperately to ignore Tyler, who was babbling incessantly about how excited he was for our camping trip.

Blair and Tyler were twelve, and they had a fascinating dynamic. They could drive each other raving mad, but if someone so much as looked at their twin in a way they didn't approve of, a switch flipped and the deep love they had for each other shone through.

I kept looking back at them, amused by their little fight. Margo was pounding her head back onto the headrest in annoyance and Pop kept whispering under his breath, "I love my children, I love my children, I love my children," sounding like he, too, was deeply irritated. Dad's eyes caught mine when he turned around to look back at us, and they were warm with affection. He was like me, too in love with our family to ever get truly upset with any of its members.

We smiled at each other before I glanced back at the twins again. Tyler was pulling at Blair's arms, trying to dislodge the fingers from her ears so she would have no choice but to hear him. They still hadn't transformed yet, so she had human hearing for now.

I liked to try and find Dad and Pop's features in theirs. A surrogate had carried Blair and Tyler for them. One of them was biologically Felix's and the other was biologically Everett's, but our fathers wouldn't tell us which was which. The answer was in their medical records in case of future problems, but our fathers insisted it didn't matter outside the doctor's office. That didn't stop me from speculating, and today I thought Blair looked more like Everett. Besides, Tyler's mannerisms reminded me of Uncle Magnus, Felix's brother. So maybe there was a genetic link there.

"Oh my God, stop it!" Margo shrieked. I rubbed my ears and grimaced at her, but she was too busy glaring into the back seat to notice.

Margo was biologically my half-sister. We knew a little about our mother – just her name and where she came from – but no one knew anything about who Margo's father was. That line was blank on her birth certificate. After years of insisting we call her Margo instead of the name our mother gave her, Marla, our dads had finally broken down and let her change her name legally. I was still getting used to it, and it still made me feel a little uncomfortable that she was so desperate to cut ties with our mother. Margo insisted she didn't want or need anything from the woman who had abandoned us, not even a name.

"Margo, be nice to your siblings," Pop said.

"But-" she protested, but he cut her off.

"I think we could all use some quiet time. How about some music?" Pop said. He turned on the radio and jacked up the volume before any of us could argue, keeping it just low enough not to blast out our supernatural hearing. I could still hear the twins bickering and shoving at each other in the back seat, but it was muted now. Funny that this was what Pop called "quiet time."

I leaned back against my headrest and shut my eyes, feeling utterly at peace.

That feeling stayed with me the whole drive. We were going to our old favorite camping grounds. They were a couple hours away from our pack and offered a lot of privacy. In fact, they were on private property owned by one of our ally packs. We'd be in the true wilderness, not a toilet or shower in sight, and no humans allowed. The last time we came here, I had been too young to shift. Now, I was excited to explore new land in my other form. It was a rare opportunity.

Margo was in a terrible mood, of course. She'd found her mate, Krish, when she was fifteen. They were too young to move out from their parents' homes, and he belonged to a neighboring pack, so she was regularly in a foul mood over how little they got to see each other. It didn't help that she'd begged our dads to let him come, too, and they insisted on limiting the trip to the six of us.