"Why so glum, Jay?" a familiar voice asked from beside him.
Jay jumped until he seen it was Jeff Hardy. "Nothing." he murmured before taking another drink of his beer.
"Man, you're all but crying into your beer." Jeff sat beside him and pushed his black and purple hair out of his face.
Jay thought about it for a moment then realized that it would do him good to talk about it. "Adam left me last night."
Jeff drew back and stared. That wasn't one he had been expecting. "Why?" was the only question he could ask.
"He wouldn't say. He just told me that it was over and left." Jay waited for some of that great Hardy logic that always seemed to make him feel better in times like these.
"I don't know what to say." Jeff turned and flagged the bar tender down. He needed a drink.
Jay sighed and realized how hopeless the situation was if the imaginative Hardy couldn't see a way out of it.
"Did you two have a fight or something? I mean was there any warning?" Jeff asked as he picked up his beer and took a large slug off of it.
"No. I thought we were doing better than normal. I mean we hadn't fought... We hadn't even had the old argument about which side of the bed we sleep on. We used to have that one every night."
Jeff watched as tears flooded his friend's eyes.
"It'll be okay. I promise." Jeff said as he hugged his friend.
Jay gave him a weak smile and drained the beer and held up his mug for another.
*******
"It's killing me, Matt. Seeing him like this." Adam said as he sat with his friend and Ulfric Matthew Hardy, the first of the only two born weres.
"I know. But it'll be better now that you don't have to worry about wolfing out on him." Matt tried to be sensible as always, but it was hard when his youngest pack member was in such pain.
"How do you think he would react if I were to just ask him? I mean, I love him to pieces and he loves me, but I don't want to force him into a corner." Adam laid his head on Matt's lap and sighed at the comforting strokes running over his hair.
"I wouldn't know. Go ask him. If he reacts well and will join us, make him one of us. That way he will turn tomorrow night." Matt allowed his soothed youngest to rise and after grinning and nodding, went running off.
*******
Adam went back to his Ulfric's home hours later. No one had seen or heard from Jay since the taping. It was now eight the next morning, and Adam was worried.
"What's wrong, pup?" Matt asked using his pet name for his youngest.
"No one knows where he is." Adam collapsed and laying his head on Matt's knee stared crying.
"Shush, pup. It'll be okay. Remember you're a member of the strongest pack in the continental United States. We will find him. I'm certain my Lupa-" before Matt could finish what he was going to say the Lupa in question came carrying someone into the house.
"Matt... I screwed up... I had too much to drink... I... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. He just... and I just... I attacked him." Jeff said as he laid the covered figure at the feet of his Ulfric.
Matt was just about to push Adam out of the way when Adam was on his knees beside the person. He jerked the cover away and with a white, still face, lay Jay.
"Angel..." Adam drew back the cover the rest of the way to reveal a large hole tore in his precious one's stomach. He was barely breathing and they were gurgling with blood filling his lungs from the broken ribs puncturing them.
"What happened? Exactly." Matt demanded as he held his Lupa.
"He was telling about Adam leaving him... Then we got drunk... He cut himself with a beer bottle... He was trying to die... I couldn't control myself. I seen him so weak... with all of that blood... I couldn't stop till it was to late." Jeff was shaking as he allowed his Ulfric and lover to hold and comfort him.
Adam was too busy trying to stop the bleeding to listen to what his Lupa was saying.
Matt watched this for a moment and went to Adam's side and looked at the wounds. "Adam... I'm sorry. I don't think-" Before Matt could finish Adam's head shot up and his green eyes were bleeding into gold.
"No. I won't let him be alone... I'll follow him into death if I have to." his attention left his Ulfric and went back to his lover and mate. "Hold on, my angel. Just hold on for ten more hours."
"He's right." Matt muttered as he took a hold of Jeff again. "If he can hold out until tonight's moon he'll regenerate... If he lives he'll definitely be a were."
Jeff nodded against Matt's chest as he watched Adam start pushing tiny amounts of energy into Jay, trying to keep him alive until the moon's rising.
"Take him into the pack's room and we'll join you as soon as we've called everyone together." Matt ordered and Adam gathered Jay to him and carried him away.
"Do you think he'll make it, my love?" Jeff asked as he watched the two blondes go.
"I don't know... But if we lose him we've lost Adam as well. No mate can go long without the other. Come on."
*******
Soon the entire Omega pack was together and congregating around their newest member and his wounded mate.
Shannon Moore and Shane Helms cuddled against one another and shuddered at the thoughts of when one of them would die. Both had thought of joining the other if and when it happened.
"They need us." Matt ordered softly and the small pack all gathered in the large bed around Adam and Jay.
******
Adam awoke a half hour before moon rise and looked down at the pale man laying next to him. Jay was breathing. For that fact Adam sighed in relief. If he could survive the change then everything would be okay.
"He's going to change." the quiet voice of the pack's vargamor came from just behind his ear. Adam wasn't startled. He was accustomed to always having someone in bed with him when he was with the pack.
"How do you know, Scott?"
Scott brushed his braids out of his face and pointed to wound on Jay's wrist.
Adam looked at it and watched in wonder as it was slowly knitting itself in front of his eyes.
"Thank you," he murmured to whatever power had allowed him to keep the other half of his soul.
"Why don't we take him to the lupanar? Matthew and Jeffrey have already gone to prepare it." Scott said moving to help his blond pack mate.
"Thank you, but I can take him." Adam said as he gathered Jay gently into his arms and carried him out of the room to where his Ulfric and Lupa were waiting for him and his mate.
Adam went as easily as he could with Scott, Shannon, Shane, and Sean following. They stayed a few steps back, because while they were all alpha, there was nothing more likely to hinder Jay's survival than them.
********
"I don't want to lose them, love." Matt said as he tried to relax while Jeff brushed his hair. It was one of the things that would relax him if it were possible.
"Neither do I." Jeff murmured reassuringly. "I'm just sorry I..." Matt stood and took the brush from him and pulled Jeff to his feet.
"It was not your fault! Listen to me Jeff and listen well," Matt's fangs were showing as he locked golden brown eyes with his Lupa's startled green gold ones. "You know that you can not control your beast. It's just part of being a born were."
His voice softened as he shifted to hold Jeff close to his heart. "Our beasts are too strong. I'm Ulfric of our little pack and sometimes it's all I can do not to shift and never come back..."
Jeff's head shot up from where it had been resting over Matt's heart. "Don't leave me... don't you ever leave me... Not like that."
Matt shushed him and pulled his head back down. "I will never leave you of my own free will. I will be with you even after this body is gone. As long as your heart beats I live there. And when it doesn't any more we will be together in the next life."
Jeff's face broke into a beautiful smile as he closed his eyes and let Matt's heartbeat soothe him. "Do you think... maybe... one day... we could just shift and never come back to this human form?"
Matt's eyes were almost sad as he pressed a kiss to Jeff's head. "One day we will do nothing but run together. With no worries from this human life."
"We weren't supposed to be human, Matt." Jeff murmured and Matt looked at him questioningly. Jeff had a way of knowing things; things that weren't suppose to be known to this world.
"What do you mean?"
"We were not meant to be human, Matt. We were supposed to be born as wolves. To live as wolves. To love as wolves. To die as wolves. We're not supposed to be trapped in these human skins." Jeff said his voice speaking of the pain from the loss of a life he knew they were supposed to have been living.
"Ohh, Jeff... my best friend, my lover, my Lupa... One day it'll be just us and the fields. I promise. One day." Matt was about to do something to take Jeff's mind off of his sadness when the scent of pack reached him. "They're coming. We need to be ready to welcome a new pack member."
Jeff sniffled a little and nodded before picking up the brush and bag of things they would need the next morning and putting them into a safe place.
"Looks like he's going to be strong." Matt muttered already feeling Jay's beast stirring.
"How strong?" Jeff asked softly.
"Stronger than Adam but not as strong as you." Matt said as he went to clear a place on the large stone center place for Adam to lay Jay on.
Adam lay Jay down and stood beside him waiting.
"I'm going to call his animal." Matt told him so that the large blond didn't freak out.
Adam gave a short nod and looked at the darkening horizon. It would be a perfect night for his mate's first hunt.
Matt put one of his hands over Jay's heart and the other on his forehead. As gently as he could do the painful practice, Matt got a firm hold on the sleeping beast and started pulling him to the forefront.
Adam watched and prayed as a thin coat of very familiar mucus formed over Jay. Then pale blond fur started forming and growing.
Moments later a panting pale blond wolf lay where the human had. Adam knelt down, ignoring the call of his own beast to shift.
"Jay, angel, can you hear me?" Adam called softly knowing that most of Jay's injuries should have healed with the transformation.
The blond wolf slowly opened snapping teal eyes.
"My love, my mate." Adam murmured so awed by his lover's beauty.
Jay didn't understand what was happening. He felt like he should be hurting, but he didn't. He remembered drinking with Jeff... then nothing. Had be been in an accident? When he seen the tears in Adam's eyes he knew he had to have been. But when he tried to ask he found he couldn't.
"You can't speak in that form... This is why I couldn't stay around you. I was afraid..." Adam left off as he shifted gracefully. A darker blond wolf soon stood beside Jay and he knew what Adam had been trying to hide. Then Jay realized that he was a wolf as well.
Memories came rushing back. Jeff. The beer bottle. The pain.
Adam nudged and lapped him until Jay paid attention to him.
Adam walked over to a dark brown almost black wolf. Jay watched as his larger lover rolled over and offered up his vulnerable belly to this obviously powerful were.
The brown-black wolf nuzzled Adam's neck then moved for him to stand and move over to the white wolf that stood at his side.
Adam lapped at the white wolf's lips and the white wolf nuzzled Adam's neck.
Jay realized Adam was showing him who was their leaders. Slowly Jay loped over and hunched down completely, but didn't expose his belly. The brown-black wolf nipped slightly at his neck then backed off. Jay turned to the white wolf and walking over lapped at his lips as Adam had done.
The white wolf nuzzled his neck and for a moment Jay had the impression he smiled.
Then a howl drew his attention from the two strong wolves to the rest of them. It was as small pack, but everyone was strong.
A small white blond wolf stood beside a slightly larger medium toned brown wolf. There was a black-blue wolf that stood to one side and behind him was a very human Scott Levy.
"I am vargamor, magic user, to the Omega pack... this pack. Your pack." Scott said with a smile.
Jay gave him a nod and turned back to Adam gave him a smile and then, side by side they ran off in search for Jay's first kill.
Their first kill together... their first night... their first of forever.
Glancing at the pack Adam grinned and let out a long loud howl. The others joined him one by one, until only Jay was silent. Then after lapping at Adam's jowl for a second then raised his voice to join the rest of his pack.
