Page 48 of Pack: Posy 3

"This is much more emotional than I imagined it would be," Ariel sighed, leaning against Tristan. "I mean, I know it's stressful for you, luna, but I didn't think Sid would be so upset that he'd regress."

"He cannot handle someone being mad at him," Jayden explained. "Since it's Posy, that makes it ten times worse. Plus, like he said, he's ashamed of himself."

"He's already the baby-est of the babies," Mason muttered as he draped an arm around my shoulders. "He doesn't have that far to regress to reach a toddler stage."

"You know," Peri said, "so long as Sid didn't rip him into pieces, I can probably fix Mr. Nibbles."

"Oh, that would be great." I clasped my hands under my chin and smiled at her.

"I don't think he would have done that." Wyatt shook his head. "As soon as he realized he'd 'huwt' Mr. Nibbles, he would have been too devastated to do more damage. The fun would have been over."

"Good point," I agreed.

Sid came back into the room. He had a white grocery bag in his hands. After he sat down, he held it out for me to take.

Please don't be in pieces, I chanted.Please don't be in pieces.

Opening the bag, I looked inside, then fell flat on my back and laughed with relief. Mason took my face in his hands and hovered over me, and my other mates panicked and rushed over to surround me, but I waved them back.

"Peri, one ear came off." I held up the bag. "Come see."

She walked over and took Mr. Nibbles out of the bag and examined him while I stared up into Mason's worried eyes.

"I love you," I told him, then looked at the others. "I love all of you so much."

They all let out a deep breath and sank back to sit around me.

"Oh! This will take ten minutes to fix," Peri said, and everyone let out a breath of relief. "I just need a needle, a pair of scissors, and some brown thread."

She went over and rubbed her knuckles in Sid's curls until he whined and pulled away.

"It's an easy repair, Sid," she told him as she dropped down to hug him, "but don't do it again. Mr. Nibbles isn't your toy to play with. Stuffed animals can't hold up to rough play like plushies made especially for dogs. Understand, pup?"

" 'Es. Sid no huwt Mr. Nibbles again."

At her words, a brainstorm hit me. I sat up and clapped my hands with excitement.

"You know what we're going to do? We're going to buy my wolves some toys! Cole, Wyatt, Ash, please go shift." They hustled out of the room and I turned to Mason. "Could you wait to shift until we get to the toy shop, please? That way, you can drive us in your truck and the wolves can ride in the back. Will they all fit?"

"Yeah. We've done it before," he told me, "but I don't know where I can shift in a parking lot in front of a human store."

"In your truck. All the windows are blacked out, right?"

"And get all that hair on my seats?!" He crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes at me. "I think not."

"It's not like I can't vacuum it out when we get home." I narrowed mine back at him.

We had a stare off for a few seconds, then he rolled his eyes.

"Fine," he muttered, then pulled me against his chest and hugged me. "I don't know why I bother to fight it. We both know I'm always going to give you your way."

My lips curled into a satisfied smile as I snuggled into him, but I made sure it was gone before I turned my head and looked at Jayden. I chose my next words with great care. Quartz needed a different approach.

"You don't have to shift if you don't want to, Jayden. Quartz would be a party pooper, anyway."

Of course, Granite, Topaz, and Sid came running back in the room right as I said that and snickered.

I would not, Quartz declared, sounding outraged.