Peter’s POV

“Someday, they’re going to make one of these that’s not specifically programmed to drive me out of my mind,” Baz grumbles as he flicks a finger at the corner of his monitor.

“Call me crazy, but I don’t think EdgeTech has a personal vendetta against Baz Benmansour,” Jenny retorts without taking her eyes off the dial in her hand. With the other, she somehow jots down her readings in a perfect line without parting her gaze from the dial.

“I would argue that that’s exactly the type of thing they would do,” Baz retorts with a heavy sigh. “Now I’m risking hypothermia just to get an updated map of the seafloor.”

“And you’d lose a finger for it if you had to,” Sandra mutters while she turns slowly, her eyes hidden behind the thick rims of her ruby-lensed binoculars.

“Two,” Baz corrects, and muffled laughs are quick to rise over the quiet lap of the lulling water rocking beneath us.

I hide my smile in the inner lining of my coat while I huddle into myself. I’d gotten used to the cold over the last few weeks—well, as used to subzero temperatures as a person could get—but when we were out on the water, it was far, far worse.

Though the winds were not so harsh today, the cold was still brutal in a sort of way that seemed to be amplified by the glacier wall looming over us. We weren’t close to it by any means, but that was how colossal it was. Even at a distance, I felt as if I could just reach out and touch it.

Moving carefully, I pick up the camera in my lap and take another picture of the imposing line of smoothly shaved ice standing sentry, before I take another of the team.

I was hardly a photographer, or creative in any way really, but Sandra hadn’t allowed me the chance to protest when she slid her camera strap over my head and tapped my shoulders with her gigantic black gloves, knighting me as the team’s personal photographer for the day.

I take one of our surroundings, but focus my attention on the team so we have more faces to add to the wall when we get back. Sandra said there were too many of the drivers on it, and that we had to “fight back” before we faced extinction.

Baz glances up as I’m snapping one of him. He shoots me a big goofy grin beneath his thick snow goggles before he goes back to glaring at his tiny monitor. “Someone remind me to be a marine biologist over an oceanographer in my next life, please.”

“If we are all together in the next life, something has gone terribly, terribly wrong,” John muses from the back of the boat. I glance back and spot his grin before he hides it behind the rim of his flask.

“Plus, you’d just ignore us,” Sandra replies while she adjusts her binoculars. She’s been looking into them for almost as long as we’ve been out here, searching laboriously for our next highlight. “You love your sleep too much, and they give up their rest along with their souls when they choose the lab.”

I giggle, and a chorused groan rises while Sandra celebrates with a raised fist.

I’m not really sure how it started, but there was an ongoing game among the team to make me laugh. It wasn’t hard. I laughed all the time when I was with my family and my best friend, Shilao, but I think with how quiet I’d been at the start while I’d been adjusting to them all, I didn’t do it much. But I knew their scents now, their mannerisms, and best of all, how incredibly kind they all were.

John hadn’t been lying that first day— they were all great.

“I-I like s-s-sleep, too,” I defend when it gets quiet enough for me to. “I do-don’t have a ch-ch-choice.”

While people outside of the field assumed that people with my job title spent all their time in the water, swimming with animals or out in the field, those within it knew it was the complete opposite.

Marine biologists practically lived in their labs since most of our work had to be done inside one, and on a trip like this, while everyone else slept through the night after a day well spent in the field, we were up late analysing all the data we’d compiled.

Even today, I didn’t have to be here. I could’ve had Sandra collect my samples, like Owain, our beloved glacier geophysicist who had a personal vendetta against going outside, had asked me, but I took every chance I could to be out here.

I respected Owain’s decision, of course, but I personally did not see the point of coming all the way to the literal ends of the Earth if you weren’t going to go out and see it.

Maybe Owain did, but it was all too overwhelming for him, o-or maybe he just doesn’t want to freeze — Joseph argues as a quiet nervousness swells within our bond. Maybe Owain likes looking at how pretty things are from the inside.

Maybe he does — I agree. —Sometimes things can be scarier than we thought.

Joseph settles, relaxing quickly as he puts his anxiousness to bed.

I really didn’t judge Owain for preferring the warmth provided solely within our station, just like I didn’t judge Joseph for preferring to observe the world through my eyes, rather than with his own. I knew just how horrible it could be to feel terrified of everything around you.

“Whale!”

At Sandra’s shout, everyone forgets what they’re doing. Baz abandons his faulty echo sounder just as Jenny drags her gaze away from her gauge for the first time, and John forgets about his hot cocoa. We all turn, following Sandra’s gaze in time to catch the smooth black dorsal fin of the humpback whale as it curls out at the surface.

It spins under the spray of its own water in the distance, a might of nature passing through and blessing us with the chance to witness it. I catch a fin, black and white spotted ridges, and then—

“Oh my God,” Jenny gasps at my side just as I suck in an awed breath.

Water slides from the tail as it surfaces, wide and flat with two white patches below its underside, before it follows the rest of its body and disappears beneath the waterline.

We all stare after it, watching the water ripple from where it disappeared.

It’s not the first whale we’ve seen, and I am sure Goddess has seen to it that it won’t be the last, but it’s also not the last time we’ll feel just like this— almost numbed by the sheer awe of witnessing one of this planet’s most gorgeous creatures.

Lab or not, there was no way I could stay indoors and miss seeing the world.

──────────✧──────────

“Peter!” Owain shouts the moment I step out of my room. I startle, clinging to the wall. “Oh, shit! I’m so sorry.”

He takes a step back, running a nervous hand through his ginger locs. I focus on his neck or all the thick layers of red and black plaid hiding it. I can’t meet his gaze like I normally might’ve when we were in the quiet safety of the lab, but the steady thump of his heart paired with the scent of his remorse relaxes me before I can force myself.

“I-It’s okay,” I reply, prying my hand from the wall so I don’t look so much like a squashed bug. “D-Did you g-get your sam-sam-samples?”

“Yes!” He replies in a muted shout. “And I came with a special ‘thank you’.”

Moving slowly, Owain reveals a bag of chips. I stare at the metallic green and yellow packaging, trying to decipher the Welsh words sprawled across it.

“Oh, shit,” he mumbles with a chuckle. “Forgot, again,” he shakes his head. “It’s kale chips. My nain sent a package down, and she loaded these. I guess the dementia is really kicking in ‘cause she forgot I love meat.”

I feel the blood drain from me as my eyes dart up to his. Fear forgotten, all I feel is the swelling need to comfort that has me stepping closer without a thought.

“I-I’m so sorry,” I whisper, heart shattering in my chest as I fight to get the words out.

Owain blinks at me, a slight frown forming before he laughs. “Oh, no, Peter! That was a joke. Terrible humour, I have.” He snickers and sighs wistfully. “But my nain did send me these, and dementia runs in the family.” I frown, confusion mucking inside of me until he laughs again. “Have the chips, Peter.”

Owain shoves them into my hands and doesn’t wait for me to figure out what I’m feeling before he turns and leaves.

“T-Thank you!” I call after him even, and he waves a hand over his shoulder before he disappears around the corner.

Out of everyone in the team, Owain confused me the most, but he was also the one I got on with the most after Sandra. I thought I might not on the first day when he introduced himself as the one who’d spoken first after my squeaking incident, but we did.

He did not mince his words, and more often than not, he forgot how I reacted to loud and sudden noises, but he also felt the most like home.

Longing thickens in my chest, and I quickly clutch the chips to my stomach before I continue on my path. The living room is empty with everyone either asleep or working, and I thank Goddess for that as I settle onto the couch closest to the router before fishing my phone out of my pocket.

I turn on the wifi and immediately, a flood of messages comes pouring in.

First, everyone wants to make sure that I’m still alive, then there are all the photos and videos I don’t let myself download just yet. The wifi was strongest here, and it was my day for home calls, but I didn’t want to abuse the network we all relied on. I would look at them later, but for now, I reply to Shiloa’s many messages.

Up until the age of sixteen, I’d never had a best friend, or any friends really. I had my books, my family and Mr Fluff, but that was about it. But then, Damon left home, and all the pillars that had always kept me standing fell apart.

Our home was empty, void of any light or joy, and the longer he was gone, the worse it got.

I had never felt so alone or so scared in those awful months, and at one of my worst days, I’d convinced myself that I could do something— that I would somehow find Damon when no one else could.

I’ll never know if I could have because I hadn’t made it very far past the pack border before I’d fallen apart.

That’s where Shilao found me.

I think I would’ve maybe been terrified of him if I weren’t so broken already, but in that moment he’d carefully helped me up and walked me back home, all I had felt was safety.

After the tears passed and I actually looked at him, the terror was quick to come.

As a hereditary pack warrior, Shilao stood at a scary six-four with muscles that rivalled Jayson’s. Having him look down at me didn’t help at all. It was a recipe for disaster, the two of us, but somehow it ended up being perfect because Shilao was abnormally nice.

From the day he found me, he checked in regularly, he made me smile even when it didn’t feel like I deserved to, and even after Damon came back home and our family slowly put itself back together, Shilao was there.

Shilao: In news sure to make you weep, your favourite author just announced a new book.
Shilao: Before you ask, yes, I did pre-order it for you, and yes, I will be there at the first signing.

Shilao: I just choked on a slice of pizza.

Shilao: Saw your brother in training today, I put him on his ass. Nikola now hates me.

Shilao: Miss you. Hope you’re okay!

I reply to each message, smiling so hard my cheeks ache as responses immediately come flying in from him. I give him my full attention, the way he always does me, until the clock shifts into the next hour and my phone immediately vibrates.

My lips split apart as I brace myself and answer the call.

“PETER!!!!”

The concerted yell reverberates across the room, straining the edges of my speaker to properly carry all of my family’s excitement. It’s not everyone, but it’s more than enough.

“H-Hey guys,” I reply as the rest of me immediately melts.

Home meant joy and laughs, love in abundance and warmth, and whether they were hundreds of miles away or at my side, hearing their voices was always enough to make me feel safe.

“How are you, Peter? Is everything okay?” Dad asks first. He’s always the first.

“I’m good,” I promise. “Today wa-wah-was a fi-field day.”

“Oh, that’s so cool!” Hagen shoots, and I can hear him clambering over something to speak. “Did you see anything out there?”

“Any penguins?” Nikola cuts in with laser focus.

I giggle as I coil a finger around the ends of my hair. “N-No penguins, today. B-But a wa-whale.”

A sincere gasp sounds from everyone, and uncaged joy quickly bursts in my chest, making my smile stretch further. I hide it within my bent knees, but that doesn’t dull the ache as I imagine how they’d react to the photos.

I hadn’t sent any so far, which took a whole lot of determination, but we had a tradition of waiting until I was back home from one of my trips to all go through the photos together on the TV.

“How’s your team treating you?” Papa asks, his voice gruff like he’s already poised to come take care of it if I say anything other than good.

“A-Amazing,” I promise as I glance down at the chips beside me. “E-Everyone is still, r-r-really n-n-na-nice.”

“Better be,” he grumbles. “The second that changes, we’re there, and what we’ll do to them will give the next team something to test for years to come.”

“Papa!” I scold, turning down my volume in case anyone happens to pass by. “D-Don’t say that.”

“Nothing but the truth,” he defends unapologetically.

“How is your research?” Dad cuts in, sidetracking Papa’s mania as faultlessly as he always does.

“Fantastic!” I squeal. I slap a hand to my mouth, looking up hastily in case anyone heard that, but the halls remain empty. I blow out a breath before I carefully let a bit of my excitement spill out. “So far, e-everything still points to the majority o-ov-of the krill moving f-further inward to k-keep up with the cold they’re used to, w-which we knew, but a faction we’re studying aren’t. My s-samples show n-no difference between them and the others so far, but w-we’re all hoping m-maybe they h-have a genetic variation that’s h-helping them better adapt to the cold.”

No one replies. No one says anything at all, and even though I’m used to the quiet that follows every time I get caught in a ramble, it still makes my chest contract.

“That’s so fucking cool!” Hagen shouts, speaking first. “I swear my biggest flex is having a brainiac for a brother.”

“Agreed,” Damon says, speaking for the first time, but it comes with such warmth that my heart barely jumps before it settles. Damon might be my brother, but he was also my alpha, and my instincts never forgot that.

“It does sound amazing,” Dad agrees, and I can picture his smile so easily that I think I almost see it. “We are so proud of you, Peter.”

“Ditto!” Will chirps, and my heart fills with fresh warmth at hearing another member of the family. They pile in after him, all conveying their pride, and I soak it in even as my heart threatens to burst and my eyes begin to blur.

“H-How’s Mr Fluff?” I ask, stirring us away from all the compliments before I cry or pass out from all the blood rushing into my face.

“Great!” Damon answers excitedly, his voice rising as he draws closer to the phone. “He’s having a ball tormenting Blaze, and even if the black fucker pretends otherwise, I know he likes the company.”

“G-Good,” I reply as I rub the spot over my chest.

Leaving Mr Fluff was never easy, especially not for a trip this long, but there was no way I could bring him here, and I had left him with Damon enough to not cry at night when I lay down and didn’t feel him crawl in beside me.

“What about the weather?” Will pipes up. “You still surviving it?

“Y-Yup,” I answer quickly. “I-I’m okay. I promise.”

“Good, the others would be glad to hear it,” Dad replies, and my heart clenches at the mention of everyone else.

Our family calls were often split up, because no matter how much we may all wish otherwise, it wasn’t possible to have everyone together when I was free to make calls, and even if it was, I think my phone would start burning up trying to keep up with everyone’s shouting.

So there were calls with those outside of the pack— Levi, Jayson, and Josey— and then, everyone else still living within it. Today was one of the inside-the-pack calls.

“What about a run?” Damon asks. My insides immediately chill. “Have you been out for one yet?”

“Um…” I toy with my hair, focusing on that instead of the guilt brewing inside of me.

“Peter,” he and everyone else chides, and I shrink into the couch.

“I-I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I-I will.”

“You said that last week,” Damon argues, his tone harsher now, and Joseph whines at being scolded by our alpha.

“…I’m s-s-sorry.”

It was coming up on a month since I arrived in Antarctica, and I needed to shift, but it was hard to think logically about that when, naturally, I wasn’t really supposed to. Wolves didn’t live on this side of the world for a reason, and werewolves were not an exception to that rule when we were in our fur.

In fact, this wouldn’t even be a conversation if I came from a family that wasn’t so well entangled with magic, or one versed enough not to ensure that there were workarounds in place long before I left.

One of the first things they’d done when I told them I was going to Antarctica was make sure there was a way for me to go out and stretch my hind legs.

“Do you not trust my magic?” Nikola asks, and even though he is as curt as he always is, my ears catch the silent sting there.

“I-I do,” I promise as my stomach turns. I didn’t want to make him upset, or worse, sad. “I r-really do.”

“It will keep you safe,” he insists before I can find an excuse. “If you were in any real danger, you’d come back to the pack without a scratch.”

“I know,” I whisper as the pit in my stomach gets worse.

As Hagen’s mate and linker, Nikola did not leave anything to chance that might cause his second half misery, and that included harm coming to any one of us. A portion of Nikola’s magic was always encircling us, and he’d made sure I knew that before I left.

“You also have the boots,” Dad reminds me fretfully. “They’re durable, remember?”

I can’t manage words this time. There’s too much guilt.

While Nikola had his magic, Dad and everyone only had their hands and what they could come up with. So they’d spent the weeks before I left weaving together special snow boots for me to wear when I shifted so my paws didn’t take any damage.

We’d practised me getting them on a million times when I shifted, and they were snug and perfect, but I hadn’t once taken them out since we left.

“Is it the animals out there? The polar bears?” Dad asks gently. “Are you scared of running into them?”

“A-A-A little,” I admit while I stare into the dark space between my clenched knees.

“Maybe he’s nervous about sneaking out without getting caught,” Hagen mumbles. “They’re all human, and humans are curious.”

Joseph squirms, rattled by all the questions and scenarios that build one after the other, making me fear things I hadn’t even considered. How was I going to get past everyone?

“It’s something else,” Will assesses, his soft insinuation cutting through the clogging fog. “What’s scaring you, Peter?”

It’s not a command, not even close to it. Only a caring inquiry from my luna, but it’s exactly what I need to hear to get the words out.

“I-I think I’m just ner-ner-nervous to do it o-on ma-my own,” I mumble into the quiet stillness of the call. “…I-I’ve ne-ne-never been c-completely alone.”

Another moment of silence passes, and I’m no better at enduring this one than the first, until—

“AW! PETER!”

I hug myself the way I know they all would.

It wasn’t that I’d never run on my own. I did, but always in the confines of the pack or close enough to it that I was never truly in danger. During university, when they weren’t, I had Shilao, and he made sure we never once ran without the other. And my other expeditions had never been long enough for me to need to run during them, but this one was. Even if I stretched it for two months, I would need to get out there at least once before the end of my field season.

But I’d never run alone somewhere so far from home and all I knew, and even with Nikola’s magic, the thought of it terrified me.

“Peter,” Dad says, his voice as firm as it always was before he found a way to make me brave. “This is one of those hard, first times, where you have to just… throw yourself out there and do it. There’s no other way around it— no shortcuts or alternatives. It’s terrifying, I know, and you can avoid it if you want to, but you always feel so much better when you take that leap, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I whisper as I cling to the phone. He’s right, of course, but being brave isn’t like flipping a switch. If it is, then I’ve always had to build up the courage just to reach for it.

“You remember our run last winter,” Hagen asks eagerly. “We went out when the snow had the entire patio by the balls—”

“Good Goddess,” Damon mutters.

“—and while I was sinking and almost dying—”

“You were almost what?” Nikola cuts in.

“—you were leaping in and out of it without breaking a sweat,” Hagen finishes with an elated laugh. “You’re great in the snow, so if you’re worried about that, don’t be. You’re, like, made for it or something.”

The kindled memory expands quickly, bringing with it details I had just started to forget. It had been closer to a snowstorm, and while no one else in the pack was crazy enough to go out during it, Hagen was adamant that we spend the day doing something before I left home again.

I’d planned to watch from the window to make sure he didn’t get hurt out there, but the snow was just as compelling as Hagen, and before I knew it, we were both in the thick of it, having the time of our lives.

I’d left home with a sore throat and a clogged nose, but a smile, too.

“Think of how it would feel,” Damon adds. “Running free and wild in Antarctica, and knowingwithout a shadow of a doubt that you’ll be fine.”

“You will,” Nikola confirms astutely.

“You went out there for a reason, Peter,” Papa says, his voice carrying more finality than all the others. “Don’t forget that.”

They’re simple words, no less or more encouraging than the others’ on paper, but they carry things the others could never know.

Papa and I had always been close. We had a special relationship, just like I had a special relationship with each of my siblings, and Dad especially, but Papa… he always saw me.

It was not that the others didn’t. I was Peter, the little brother or big brother, their sibling to call, the one to cook, and talk and laugh with, and all of that was real and true. But Papa always saw something more, and maybe that’s why he was the one who’d known something was wrong the last time I’d gone home.

I didn’t want to. I’d planned to cancel, and I’d dragged it out until the very last minute, not even telling them I was coming because I just wanted to avoid it— seeing them all together.

I loved my family. I loved them more than words could ever express, more than all my books, and adventures, and research. I would throw it all away for them, without hesitation, but… being around them… I’d slowly stopped loving that.

It wasn’t their fault that Goddess decided to give them all the love match she denied me. They never reminded me of what they had, and I didn’t, or made me feel lesser for it— not on purpose. But when every family meal came with a new chair, every trip with me sleeping in a room alone, all the pictures and stories, the kids, the laughter, the love… It did it all on its own.

Papa had seen that, had chased me when I had reached the edge within myself, having to witness all they had that I always failed to convince myself that I didn’t want, and he’d held me while I’d cried my heart out and told him all the things I could never share with the others.

I told him how I hated coming home, how I loved them all but found it suffocating witnessing how present their love was, and how with each heat I bared on my own, I felt more broken after it passed.

I told him about how I prayed to Goddess every full moon for my mate, and that not a single one was ever answered. How I still searched, without them. How I went to every pack I could, and even covens, too. How desperately I looked, because I wanted it.

I wanted a mate. I wanted my special someone, and no matter how strong I gradually became, I still wanted someone to hold me at night.

Papa had listened to it all, and then, red-eyed and enraged, he’d told me to go, to take the distance I needed and to find the joy I couldn’t with them.

He’d also called me brave.

Pulling myself up from the crook of my knees, I force myself to straighten. “O-Okay,” I whisper, nodding to myself as I cling to the confidence they had in me.

I didn’t feel it in myself, not often, but I knew they felt it for me, and that could be enough. I would make it enough.

“Okay, I-I’ll do it.”

—————————-

This family!!!!! I swear to God they do it for me EVERY TIME!

Thoughts?????

Thoughts on a month already passing for him??? On a glimpse at the expedition and the team??? On his family call and Shilao????

I really love this chapter because we see Peter’s life in glimpses, things he’s gone through over the years while everyone was off being in love, and friendships he’s made. And us now seeing this or being introduced to his issues without seeing them in real time I feel just shows how secluded he must’ve felt even though we saw him in the other books.

I’m not Peter’s biggest fan, but he’ll always get his 10’s from me for being able to still go out there and try to chase a life of his own.

Also, Shilao!!!!! I love him so much and can’t wait for yall to see him in the book itself.

Some of the things here were addressed/mentioned/shown directly in past extras so if you want to see the moment Peter broke down with Aiden (warning: extremely sad interraction) or the first Shilao appearance in the extras, look for the extras: ‘Peter gets tired of waiting for his mate’ and ‘Peter’s first crush’ on Patreon/my website – link in my bio!!!

But that’s all for now! Remember to vote and comment if you enjoyed! Like I said before updates come when they come, but I aim to update within a 2 week period of this book!

Next up is an Aiasthlyn update this weekend!

Until next time,
Byeeeeeeee Humanssssssss