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Jack frowned on his perch atop the Giant Dipper, the old wooden rollercoaster he hadn’t ridden since the whole family had visited Belmont Park when he and Lissa were teenagers. Mostly to distract from his urge to help Marc, he said through his balaclava to the mic clipped on his T-shirt, “Bebé, this isn’t natural.”
The spiky creature the size of a tractor trailer got its webbed feet under itself as Moon Knight, grass-stained and soaked from fighting in Bonita Cove, flew straight at it. A Bluetooth earpiece carried Marc’s reply. “YA THINK?!?”
Marc slammed into the beast, sending both of them into the miniature windmill of an already mostly trashed mini-golf course. Authorities had evacuated the area an hour earlier, when the monster had lumbered out of the Pacific. One of Marc’s contacts had alerted him, which immediately changed their plans for the day.
“Frogs can’t tolerate salt water,” Jack informed his partner, who probably wasn’t listening because the giant frog had wrapped its long tongue around him. “Bebé! Let me—”
“No!” Marc cried as he took to the air again despite his pinned arms. The tongue pulled taut but held, slowly pulling a thrashing Moon Knight toward its gaping maw. “Stay safe!”
Finally! Jack thought, half sliding and half climbing down the ladder he’d used to get to the rollercoaster’s peak. “Stay safe” had a lot more wiggle room than “Stay there.” Although Khonshu would bring Marc back from death, Jack wasn’t about to stand back and watch his partner die if he could intervene.
The earpiece carried increasingly frantic cries as Jack neared the bottom of the ladder with his back turned to the fight in progress. With twenty feet left to go, Jack pushed off the ladder, twisting around in mid-air and hoping to find Marc breaking free.
The monster’s mouth snapped shut on white cape as Jack’s feet hit the ground. Wet, stomach-turning noises replaced Marc’s screams.
His wolf side roused, furious and lethal, and Jack found himself at a dead run aimed at the predator. His halves had reached an unspoken agreement: his human mind was needed to save his mate. If that was unsuccessful, he’d bite and slash and kill as the wolf.
With forty feet between him and his target, Jack jumped a custodian’s cart, grabbing a broom along the way. The broom head was useless, but the handle could skewer the monster’s eyes.
Twenty feet.
The huge amphibian turned and trudged east toward the cove’s sandy shore.
Holding the broom overhead, Jack leaped while roaring as best he could with human vocal cords. A similar cry sounded in his ear—one he hadn’t heard since the Tecate mission—as the wooden pole pierced a tire-sized eyeball. Then the frog’s enormous webbed foot lashed out and Jack was hurtling backwards. Instinct helped him roll as he hit the ground hard.
With the gory sounds of a brawl straight out of a horror movie in his ear, Jack looked up to find the frog writhing from something within.
With his heart in his throat, Jack murmured, “Bebé?”
The frog’s mouth opened and poured out blood.
“Más o menos,” Marc gasped.
Half of a gold crescent blade jabbed through the creature’s flesh and slashed a wide arc. The frog bellowed as blood and bile flowed, then collapsed.
The wireless earpiece carried Marc’s panting and swearing in Spanish as he pushed through the cut he’d made through the monster. Beaming, Jack rushed up to him, wishing he could take off his balaclava and Marc could remove his bloody cowl and mask. Although no people were around, surveillance cameras surely were, not to mention the helicopters and drones overhead.
“Corazón,” Jack sighed as he wrapped his arms around his partner despite the ichor. Marc’s hug seemed hesitant; he must be injured.
Jack let go and took a step back, noticing how the suit’s mask and some of the linen wrappings were now black instead of their usual white. Chuckling, he said, “Being swallowed by a giant frog inspired a new look?”
Marc sniffed. Despite the black mask hiding his partner’s face, Jack suspected Marc had rolled his eyes. It stung.
Jack decided to let it go. Marc had been eaten by a ginormous frog, after all.
The rumbles of multiple engines carried from the north. A glance that way showed the cop cars and fire trucks that had been waiting outside the perimeter heading their way.
Marc’s cowl and cape vanished as he turned his back to Jack. Through the black mask that covered his entire head he said, “C’mon. We gotta get outta here.”
Jack hopped on his back, feeling more unnerved by the second. “Yeah,” he agreed, then focused on his mate’s cinnamon and cedar scent. Much of the frog’s muskiness had disappeared with the cape, thank goodness.
Apparently Marc didn’t need the cape to fly because they shot straight up. Jack welcomed the resulting adrenaline rush, smiling as he held on to his amazing partner.
After clearing the lowest layer of patchy clouds Marc leveled out and turned northeast. “Your place or mine?” Jack asked lightly.
“Yours.”
Jack’s breath caught; Marc’s light Chicago accent was gone. Exactly what had replaced it he didn’t know, but it was wrong and they were hundreds of feet in the air and dread was pooling in Jack’s stomach and this was not how their day off was supposed to be going. It had been fine until the monstrous frog had swallowed Marc!
“Bebé,” Jack ventured, “what’s going on?”
He heard Marc’s sigh via the earpiece. “Something that should have happened months ago. We need to talk.”
The whine that escaped Jack was a bit embarrassing. “You’re dumping me? Now?”
“No, idiota—” Marc cut himself off with another frustrated breath. “Sorry. It’s not that.”
Despite his relief Jack was fighting tears. He focused on the bits of city visible between gauzy clouds. His neighborhood was coming up fast. “Good. Then what is it?”
“It can wait ‘til we’re inside.”
“Está bien, corazón,” Jack said largely out of habit.
Marc tensed beneath him.
Choking back a sob, Jack closed his eyes, laid his head on Marc’s shoulder, and waited.
Five minutes later Jack was pacing in his living room as Marc, back in the T-shirt and shorts he’d been wearing when his contact had called, sat back on the couch with a can of Coke in one hand. “Tequila would be nice right now,” he muttered under his breath.
Jack rounded on him. “No!”
“Relax,” Marc scoffed. “I’m not gonna drink anything.”
“Good,” Jack shot back more harshly than he’d intended, but things were fucked up and he didn’t know how or why and he was trying to not freak out. “‘Cause there’s no alcohol here and will never be any here because I love you and oh god, you’ve been drinking. Is that it?”
Marc gave him the closest thing to a smile he’d seen from his partner since everything had turned weird. “No. None of us are drinking.”
Jack’s breath caught; Marc wasn’t referring to him, he knew somehow. “Yeah,” Jack said anyway. “I’m not either.”
Marc leaned forward, set his Coke on a magazine on the coffee table, and rested his forearms on his knees. Holding Jack’s eyes with his dark ones—they were Marc’s but they weren’t—he said, “Right. But that’s not what I meant.”
Jack paced to the dining table and back to burn off a little energy. He couldn’t bring himself to sit beside Marc, which felt unnatural and wrong, but he didn’t want to stand over him so he dropped to the carpeted floor, looked Marc in the eye, and made himself speak. “What did you mean?”
Marc closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again. “What do you know about DID?”
Jack racked his brain for an answer. “Isn’t that the pesticide that was banned a while ago?”
Marc groaned and put his head in his hands. “That’s DDT.”
This was closer to normal bebé behavior, which was encouraging. “Okay, then what’s DID?”
Marc sat up straight. “Dissociative Identity Disorder.”
Jack frowned at him.
“The old-school term,” Marc said with a scowl, “is ‘multiple personalities,’ or ‘being schizophrenic.’ That last one is flat-out wrong.”
Jack gulped. He half remembered movies depicting scary, crazy people. Marc had mental health issues but wasn’t scary.
He hadn’t been until about a half hour ago.
“What about the first one?” Jack asked.
Marc shrugged in a non-Marc-like manner. “Kinda accurate.”
“So you have it,” Jack said despite feeling like he’d entered the Twilight Zone. “Multiple personalities.”
“Yeah.”
“For how long?”
“Since we were kids. Mamá beat the shit out of us after Roro died. This was how we survived.”
Not-Marc’s statements spurred multiple questions as well as anger. Jack focused on his accent—a New York City one?—and one word in particular. “‘We.’”
Not-Marc nodded. “Yes. I’m Jake.”
“You smell like him.” The words had tumbled from Jack’s mouth.
Jake nodded again. “We share the body.”
The words were like a gut punch. Marc was his mate, real and tangible and soft and hard and smelled wonderful. How often had “the body” not been Marc? The notion was disturbing.
Jack’s face was wet with tears when he realized he was staring at his hands in his lap. He looked up at Jake, who seemed impatient. “I want to talk to Marc.”
His partner’s handsome face made a rueful smile Jack hadn't seen before. “I want you to too, but he’s… not available.”
“Not available?” Anger joined the emotions whirling in his head. Was Jake keeping Marc away?
Jake leaned back and held his hands up. “Whoa! It’s nothin’ I’m doing. The whole frog thing freaked him out.” He picked up the Coke can and fiddled with the pull tab. “Freaked me out too, but someone had to save our ass.”
Jack growled.
“I know, I know,” Jake sighed, meeting Jack’s eyes again. “You did something, and I’m grateful. Can’t blame me for wanting to go on the offensive.”
Jack remembered Marc—Jake—pushing his way out of the frog’s carcass in his slightly different suit. He was Moon Knight too? Jack nearly asked about that, then realized he still didn’t know where Marc was. “When will Marc be available?”
Jake took a long swig of soda and sat back in the couch cushions. “Whenever he’s ready. Steven’s keeping an eye on him while I’m dealing with you.”
“Stev…” Jack did a double take. “Steven? His friend who’s like a brother…”
Jake’s fingers tapped the Coke can. He nodded.
Jack felt his eyes going wide as realization dawned. “…who likes puns.”
“It’s so annoying,” Jake said, affection plain in his voice.
Jack stared. “You’re the friend who loves cars.”
Jake raised his eyebrows and nodded.
“You drive the cab,” Jack said and got to his feet.
“Sure do.”
“You fixed my jeep!”
Jake shrugged. “Marc helped some.”
Jack was pacing again and running his hands through his hair. “Who else?”
“Huh?”
“How many more of you are there?!” Jack stopped and gave Jake an apologetic smile; he hadn’t meant to yell.
“That’s it,” the friend-close-enough-to-be-a-brother replied. “Just us three.”
“Good,” Jack said, then laughed from the absurdity of it all. “I love him. How the fuck is this going to work?”
Jake replied, “Scheduling.”
“Scheduling.”
“Yeah.”
Jack stared, then paced to the dining table and back. After a few repetitions he stopped in front Jake. “How?!”
“Same thing we’ve been doing since Steven, Marc, and I got aware of each other a few years ago. We figured out how to have our own lives. It’s not easy, but we make it work.”
Tears welled in Jack’s eyes again. He padded to the patio doors and peered out before they fell in earnest.
The life he’d been imagining with Marc was unraveling. They had all the time in the world, he’d thought, to cook together and travel a little and kick bad guys’ asses and eventually adopt, he’d hoped. Now two more people were involved. Two more lives. It was chaos. There was no way—
“Bebé?”
Jack whirled around. The timbre of the voice was Marc’s, as was the slump of his strong shoulders. Even with tears blurring Jack’s vision he saw how his mate tried to make himself smaller. His posture was that of a frightened boy. The sight broke Jack’s heart as it had the handful of times he’d seen it previously.
After swallowing hard, Marc studied the carpet at his feet. “I’m so sorry, Jack.”
Jack crossed the few feet between them and kneeled to get on his mate’s level.
Marc wouldn’t meet his eyes.
Jack put one hand under Marc’s rough chin and nudged his head up. “I love you.”
“Still?” Marc asked, brow furrowed.
Jack’s heart broke a little more. “Always.”
Then Marc’s arms were around him, drawing him in, holding on tight and wrapping Jack in his scent. Jack hugged him back, reveling in how right it all felt.
Marc’s breathing became staccato gaps as his tears dampened Jack’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he whispered.
Eventually Marc’s tears ran out. With puffy red eyes and his face flushed from crying, he tugged Jack on to the couch. They settled into the cushions together as they had a hundred times before, but this occasion was different. Deeper. Candid.
Jack pushed one of Marc’s unruly curls off his forehead. It stubbornly fell back. “You should have told me sooner,” he murmured, careful to keep his tone mild.
Marc squeezed his eyes shut and turned his face into Jack’s shoulder. “I should have.”
Jack shifted his hand to Marc’s deltoid that knotted up when he was stressed. It was a brick, unsurprisingly, so he massaged with his fingertips. “Why didn’t you?”
Marc turned his head to meet Jack’s eyes. “I was afraid I’d lose you. There’s no way to soft-pedal what I—we—are.”
Jack shook his head and hugged his mate closer.
“What?” Marc asked.
“I get it,” Jack said. “At least somewhat.”
“You do?”
“That frog did a number on you,” Jack grinned. “I’m a werewolf, remember?”
A smile lit Marc’s face. “I remember.” Then he ducked his head and chuckled.
“What?” Jack said, bemused.
“That’s what Steven said weeks ago. ‘If anyone will understand sharing a body, it’s a werewolf.’”
Jack laughed, hoping that his lingering unease wasn’t too obvious. He had a lot to learn about Marc and his brothers and was determined to do so. “Smart man.”
“He is,” Marc said with a hopeful smile. “Brilliant.”
Jack kissed Marc’s stubbly cheek. “Coming from you, corazón, that’s impressive.”
Marc blushed from the compliment and looked away. “He wants to meet you. Properly, I mean. He’ll talk your ear off.”
“We have that in common,” Jack grinned.
Marc’s hand found Jack’s. Their fingers twined together. “Now?”
“Now what? Meet Steven?”
“Yeah. If you want.”
Jack pondered the idea as he enjoyed his mate’s embrace. “Not today,” he said. “The frog and Jake were enough.”
Laughing, Marc nodded agreement.
“How about tomorrow? After dinner?”
Marc smiled broadly. “It’s a date.” Then his face fell. “Not a date-date. Oh god, I’m making it weird.”
“It’s already weird,” Jack chuckled. “We—all of us—are weird.”
Marc hugged him close. “You got that right.”