The guys gave me shit when I turned up at the garage a half hour late.
Gordo told me not to do it again.
Tanner said that was only because Gordo hated answering the phones.
Chris waggled his eyebrows.
Ox wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and I breathed him in.
Rico shook his head but didn’t speak.
It felt like enough.
That night I started back down toward the basement when Mark stopped me, his hand on my arm.
“It’s not punishment,” he said, “being down there.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“You can’t trust me. Not yet.”
He shook his head. “It’s not—come with me.”
I followed him down the stairs.
The silver was gone. Granted, no one had closed the line the night before, but still.
He knelt next to the cot and pulled my backpack out from underneath. I barely kept from grabbing it away from him. But he didn’t look inside. Instead, he handed it over.
“Let’s go.”
And then he left the basement.
The stairs creaked under him as he climbed. He paused at the top. “Robbie.”
I sighed as I followed him.
He didn’t speak as he led me through the house. Kelly and Carter were clearing the table in the kitchen. Elizabeth sat on the back porch, watching the stars come out. Ox and Joe were near, their heartbeats in sync. The others were at their own houses, and I knew Mark should have been on his way home to Gordo, but here he was, with me.
He led me to the second floor, down the hall. He stopped in front of a closed door near the end.
He said, “It’s your old room from before you and Kelly moved to the blue house.”
I nodded, suddenly unsure. I didn’t know what to expect. The basement felt safer. For me. For them. “Are you sure it’s all right?”
“It is. I spent the day cleaning it out. After you and Kelly moved, we used it for any Omegas who came to us, the ones who needed to be close to Ox.” He grimaced. “It was a little musty, but I aired it out as best I could.”
“Maybe I should just go back down,” I said, tugging on the strap to the backpack. “Full moon is coming at the end of the week. We don’t know if anything will happen.”
“It won’t,” he said simply.
“How do you know?”
“Because I know you.” And he opened the door.
It was plain. Generic. A bed stood against one wall with a small rug at the end. There was a chest of drawers and a painting on the wall. It looked like one of Elizabeth’s. It made me ache.
Mark nodded for me to go inside.
I couldn’t move.
He said, “First steps, Robbie. It’s all about the first steps. It was Ox’s idea. Joe agreed. So did the rest of the pack.”
“Rico—”
“Even Rico.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“I bet he bitched about it first, though, huh?”
He shoved me into the room. He followed me inside as I set my backpack on the edge of the bed. “Not a lot in here. Most of your old stuff is still in the other house. I wasn’t sure if you were ready for it, and Kelly thought it was best to wait. At least for now.”
They were right. It’d been a long day, and I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.
I looked around the room, trying to take it all in to see if something triggered in me—a thought, a memory, a remembrance of my time spent here.
There was nothing.
“You can do what you want with it,” Mark said. “Leave it as is or do something more.” He glanced at my backpack, and I had to stop from growling at him. He nodded and took a step back. “No one will take anything from you, Robbie. Not in here.”
“You already know what’s in the backpack, don’t you?”
He didn’t try to lie. “Yes. When we brought you back, we had to make sure there was nothing that could hurt us. I went through it myself.” He hesitated. “I found my brother’s journal in there.”
“Of course he’s your brother,” I muttered.
“Where did you find it?”
“Michelle’s office.”
“And you took it.”
I nodded.
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It seemed important.”
“It is,” he said. “The others don’t know it’s there.”
“They don’t?”
He shook his head. “I figured you could be the one to tell them. To tell Elizabeth, when you’re ready. It should go to her.”
“Did you read it?”
He sighed. “I started to. I was greedy for it, for anything from him. But I realized it wasn’t meant for me. At least not right away. It should go to her before anyone else. Then she can decide what to do with it.”
I sat on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know why I took any of what I did when I left here. It’s weird, right?”
He rubbed a hand over his shaved head. “You already had it on you.”
I looked at him in surprise. “What?”
“You took that wherever you went,” he said, nodding toward the backpack, “when you left on assignment. It wasn’t because you didn’t trust the pack, it was just an extension of you. You had it with you on that first day you showed up on our porch. Said you traveled light, and for a long time, no one knew what you had inside. We did, eventually, when you let us in.” And then, “Still got the stone wolf, huh?” He said it like it was nothing, like it was just a simple conversation between friends.
I nodded, eyes narrowing.
“Take it out.”
My claws dug into my palms.
He said, “I’m not going to take it from you. I just want you to see it.”
I almost didn’t. I almost asked him to leave. To let me be. I was tired, and I didn’t know how much more I could take. I didn’t know why I had that damn wolf. It should have been Kelly’s.
I did as he asked.
I took it out.
It was heavy and cool.
He said, “I know things don’t make sense. That we have a history with you that you can’t remember. But I know you fought to keep some part of who you were with everything you had.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because you still have that,” he said, pointing toward the wolf. “You kept it secret. You kept it safe.”
“It was important,” I muttered. “I had this cubbyhole in the back of my closet in the compound. I hid it away.”
“Like a hole in a tree.”
I closed my eyes. “Yeah. I guess.”
“And no one was able to take it from you.”
“No.”
“Good,” he said. “And I know you’re still you, Robbie. I know it with everything I have, because that’s not your wolf. It’s Kelly’s.”
I took in a stuttering breath.
He was in front of me then, and he bent over, trailing his nose along my hairline to my ear. “You took it with you wherever you went,” he whispered. “Because you loved it so and couldn’t bear to leave it behind. With you, it was safe. With you, he was safe. After he was taken from your mind, part of you still held on. Even if you can’t remember anything else, remember that. I asked you once why you carried it with you all the time. You said it was because you never thought you could have something so special, and you needed to remind yourself that it was real.”
He kissed my forehead and let me be, closing the door behind him.
I sat there for a long time, the wolf of stone in my hands.
I couldn’t sleep.
I missed the little house outside of Caswell, though the thought made my stomach twist with guilt.
Even worse, part of me wanted to see Ezra. I felt like I was cleaved in two, and there was this guy, this version of myself who could have spent the rest of his life never knowing where he’d come from, the people he’d once loved nothing but smoke reflected in a fractured mirror. That Robbie would have been none the wiser. If the Bennett pack had kept on thinking that I’d betrayed them, I might have never known reality. It was as if Caswell was a dream, and I’d awoken into a nightmare. How far would they have pushed me? What could they have made me do if I’d never known the truth?
It hurt.
And then there was this other Robbie, this Robbie smiling in photographs hung on the wall in a garage in a town in the middle of nowhere. This Robbie was happy, this Robbie was loved, this Robbie was whole, and here I was, stepping into his shoes like I deserved it. Like I belonged.
I felt like a fraud.
I wanted to believe.
I didn’t know how.
I tossed and turned for a few hours. The moon was bright through the window. It whispered to me, and I tried to shut it out. Begged it to leave me be.
It didn’t.
And then I felt guilt about that too, because Kelly probably didn’t feel it like the rest of the wolves, didn’t feel that electric thrum coursing through his body, a kinetic and enthralling energy that was wonderfully insistent. He would remember what it felt like, would remember the comforting weight of the moon as it called out, singing here i am my loves here i am because i am always with you i am your mother i am your father and all will be well will be well.
It was my fault.
No matter what anyone said, if Kelly hadn’t been on that bridge, if he hadn’t tried to protect me, if he hadn’t tried to stop Ezra, he would be as he once was.
He was fragile now.
Breakable.
Soft.
I sat up in my bed.
Maybe….
Maybe he needed me.
To help him.
To protect him.
To keep him safe.
I slid out of bed, dragging the comforter off and trailing it behind me. I barely noticed the stone wolf in my hand.
I opened the door to my bedroom.
The hallway was dark.
The only sounds were the deep, slow breaths of a sleeping pack.
Elizabeth.
Ox.
Joe.
Carter.
Even the timber wolf.
I stopped in front of Kelly’s room.
He was sleeping too.
I placed my hand flat against the door.
I whispered, “I won’t let anything happen to you. No matter what.”
I laid the comforter on the floor, making a little nest. It wasn’t going to be comfortable; the floors were wood and the comforter was thin. But it would be enough for now.
I lay down in front of Kelly’s door.
Just for a few hours, I told myself. Just to make sure.
As the night wore on, I listened to the sound of his heart, memorizing every beat and tick and stutter. At one point it sped up, as if he were dreaming. I told him that it was okay, it was all right now, he could sleep easy because I wouldn’t let anything happen to him.
He didn’t hear me, of course, but that didn’t matter.
Anyone who tried to get to him would have to go through me.
It wasn’t until someone softly tapped my shoulder that I realized I’d fallen asleep.
I blinked in the low light spilling in through the window in the hallway.
Elizabeth said, “Hello.”
I said, “Hi,” feeling foolish. “I was just….”
She crouched down next to me. She ran a hand through my hair. I leaned into it, and she laughed quietly at the low rumble in my chest. “You were just,” she said, and it was warm and kind.
I nodded. She understood.
“I wonder,” she said.
“About what?”
“What makes a man?” Her face was covered in shadow. Her hand never left my hair. “If all he knows is stripped away, what is it that remains?”
“I don’t know.”
“I didn’t either until we found you again. I think I know the answer now. Would you like to hear it?”
“Yes.” Almost more than anything.
She said, “What remains is a broken heart shattered like so much glass. Pieces are missing, and the ones that are left don’t fit like they used to. But still it beats, because no matter what is taken away, no matter what is lost, it needs to continue. To survive. You are a survivor, Robbie. And not even magic can take that away from you.”
I closed my eyes, struggling to breathe.
She sang then. Softly, just a song for her and me. She didn’t mind being lonely, she told me, because her heart told her I was lonely too.
We stayed that way as the sun rose.
It was an adjustment—Green Creek and all it entailed.
I tried to memorize the names of everyone that came to see me at Gordo’s. I stopped asking after the second morning if every person coming in had something wrong with their car. It turned out that Original Flavor Robbie (I hated Tanner for that) was quite popular, and Robbie 2.0 (I hated Carter for that) was barely keeping up.
They didn’t ask me where I’d been, most leaning forward and whispering conspiratorially that they understood it was wolf business. Most of them knew something was off, but they didn’t ask. They’d seen the missing flyers posted around Green Creek. They had bits and pieces of rumors, but they mostly left it alone.
On Friday morning two weeks after I’d arrived back in Green Creek, Gordo told me the garage would be closing early.
“Why?” I asked.
“Full moon, kid. Chris and Tanner are still newer wolves. Don’t want to take any chances.”
I glanced through the door. Chris was bent over an open hood. Tanner was on his cell phone calling about some parts that hadn’t yet been delivered. “There been any problems?”
Gordo shook his head. “They’ve taken to it quicker than I ever thought they would, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“And we’ve got company coming in.”
That was the first I’d heard about it. Granted, I didn’t think the pack was filling me in on every detail, given that they were still walking on eggshells around me. “Who?”
He twirled a finger at his eyes. “Ever since Ox became….”
“Werewolf Jesus?” I asked.
He glared at me. “You need to stop listening to Carter.”
“I’m trying,” I assured him. “But he makes it hard when he won’t stop talking. He’s suited for politics, if you think about it.”
Gordo sighed. “Point. Ever since Ox became the Alpha of the Omegas, we tend to be a bit crowded on the full moons. A few chose to stay here in Green Creek, but we’ve been able to place most of them in other packs. The ones that were worse off aren’t more than a couple days’ drive away. They come in most full moons to be around Ox. It keeps them calm when he’s near.”
“Their packs come too?”
“Not all of them, and never the Alphas. They understand what the Omegas need. It’s not something they can provide for them. At least not yet.”
“Because of your father.”
He scowled. “Yes.”
“Do you….”
“Spit it out, Robbie. I have work to do before we close up.”
I thought about telling him that it was nothing, it didn’t matter, because anything I asked would be like digging claws into an open wound. But I had to know. “Do you ever miss him?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“Look, kid, I don’t know what it was like for you. I don’t know how he acted, what he said or what he did. But you know it was all a lie, right?”
I wished I’d kept my mouth shut. “I guess so.”
He shook his head. “There’s no guessing here, Robbie. I know… I know you saw some side of him and that you didn’t know any better. But my father isn’t like that. There was a reason he did what he did. He wanted something. And he took you because of it.”
“What did he want?”
He said, “I don’t know. But I have a feeling we’re going to find out before too long. Whatever he has planned, whatever he’s after, he won’t stop until he has it. Or we finish it.”
“Finish him,” I whispered.
He looked at me strangely. “Do you….” He let out a frustrated breath. “Do you care about him?”
“I don’t know how to turn it off.” I couldn’t look him in the eye. “It’s this divide. I keep telling myself he’s wrong, that what he did was wrong, but then I remember how he treated me. How he cared about me. And I know you all think he was using me,” I added before he could interrupt. “Maybe he was. He probably was. But what if he wasn’t? What if all of this, everything he’s done, has just been because of what was taken from him?”
From the corner of my eye, I thought I saw the raven on Gordo’s arm flutter its wings. “And what was taken from him?” Gordo asked. His voice was flat.
Oh, how thin the ice beneath my feet was. I could almost hear it cracking. “He said… he said he had a family once. That wolves took them away from him.” And then, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
I shrugged awkwardly. “Talking.”
He snorted, and I shuddered when he dropped his hand on my shoulder. “Never thought I’d ever hear that from you. There’s more to it than that, kid. If we’d had this conversation a long time ago, I might have even agreed with you. But I know better now. Everything my father has had done to him is because of his own actions. Wolves aren’t to blame, at least not in the way you’re thinking. He had a tether. It wasn’t my mother. And when she found out, it didn’t end well. I think he’d been manipulating her memory for years, keeping her compliant. And it fucked with her head. His tether died. My mother killed her. And then my father killed my mother and many other people. He survived somehow. His magic was stripped from him so he could never hurt anyone again. I was only twelve.”
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. “How the hell did he escape?”
Gordo shook his head. “We don’t know, but he did, and that’s all that matters at this point because he won’t stop. And neither will we. We’re going to have to have a talk, kid, and soon. We’ve tried to give you space and time to find your bearings again, to know your place here. But we can’t continue on this way. We’ve let it go on too long as it is. We’re going to have to make a decision.”
“About?”
He dropped his hand. “What we’ll do in order to survive. And much of that depends upon you. I hate it, Robbie. I wish it didn’t have to be this way. But you’re going to have to make a choice. Either you’re with us, or—”
“I’m against you.” I felt sick.
“No,” he said, not unkindly. “Or you stay out of our way. Because this will end one way or another. And we can’t have you standing between us and them. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“It’s too late for that,” I said bitterly.
“I know. But things could be worse.”
“How?” I looked up at him.
He nodded toward the front of the garage.
Kelly was crossing the street toward us. He was in uniform. He saw us watching and gave a little wave.
“You could still not know he exists,” Gordo said quietly. “And if there’s one thing I’ve learned through all of this, it’s that we need each other now more than ever. We’re pack, kid.”
Ox drove us home. His work shirt lay folded on the bench seat between us, the old truck bouncing on the potholes in the dirt road. He wore a loose tank top, the window rolled down, his arm hanging out the side. The air was warm, and I didn’t know if there was anywhere else I’d rather be.
That lasted until we rounded the corner to the houses.
The driveway was filled with cars.
I said, “That’s… a lot of people.”
He said, “It is,” but I could hear the smile in his voice.
I said, “Maybe I should just….” Go away? Stay in town? Head back down to the basement? Something other than face people I didn’t know but who undoubtedly knew about what I’d done.
He stopped the truck next to the blue house, letting it idle for a moment before shutting it off. The engine clicked. The trees swayed in a soft breeze. A fat bee flew by his open window, and he watched it as it crossed over the front of the truck.
He said, “If that’s what you want.”
I didn’t know what I wanted.
He said, “But I’d rather you stay with me, if that’s all right.” He was calm. Serene. He breathed in through his nose and exhaled out his mouth. He tapped the steering wheel once, twice, three times before settling his hand on the seat near his shirt. It was palm up, fingers open.
An invitation.
I put my hand in his.
He held on tightly. “You don’t remember these wolves. They’ll remember you. Some of them won’t like it. They won’t understand. But you’re with me. You’re with your pack. That’s what I want you to focus on. Can you do that for me, Robbie?”
I could. I thought there’d come a point where I’d do anything for him, and it would happen sooner rather than later. “Yes.”
He nodded. “And if there ever feels like a moment when it’s too much, tell me and I’ll do whatever I can to make it all go away. We’ll run. Just you and me.”
“I can’t do that.”
He didn’t look angry or upset with me. “Why?”
I looked down at our joined hands. His palm was rough and callused. I wondered why they didn’t heal. They felt like scars that couldn’t be taken from him with a shift. “Kelly.”
“Tell me.”
“He’s nervous. Upset, I think. About not being able to shift with the rest of us.”
Ox nodded. “Did he tell you this?”
“No.”
“But you know anyway.”
I said, “I’m good at that. Picking out what’s between the words. All the things that aren’t being said. I watch.”
He sounded amused. “I know.”
“Oh. Right. You would know that.” Then, “Did I….”
He waited for me to collect my thoughts.
“Was I useful? Did I contribute to the pack?” I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Did I matter?” I hated how it sounded, like I was fishing. Like I needed his approval. I did, though. I needed to hear him say it.
He squeezed my hand, and when he spoke, there was a curl of Alpha in his voice, low and heavy. He said, “Things were…bad, when we were younger. I lost someone very important to me. I thought I was going to break apart.”
“Did you?”
“In a way. But even when I thought I couldn’t take another step, I did. I had people depending on me. People who needed me. And as it turned out, I needed them just as much. But I remember how much it hurt, like I was flayed open, all my nerve endings exposed. And when you were taken, I felt like that all over again.”
I wasn’t prepared for it. This truth. His truth. I didn’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. He meant every word.
He said, “I went to the woods. For days. I howled for you.” His voice cracked, and I wanted him to stop. I wished I’d never opened my mouth, but it was too late to take it back. “I howled for you with everything I had. My father told me once that the call of an Alpha is one of the most powerful things in all the world. That it echoes through the earth and the trees and the sky. And I knew, I just knew that if I was good enough, if I was strong enough, that you would hear me. That you would find me and you would find your way home.”
“But I didn’t,” I whispered.
He surprised me by laughing. It was rough and gravelly, like it crawled up from his chest through his throat. “You did, though. It just took longer than we expected. You heard us, Robbie. All of us. I forgot in those early days that an Alpha is nothing without their pack. It took longer than I’d hoped, but we came together again. We stood tall and we all howled for you. And not because you’re useful or because of what you contributed or what you could tell us about where you’d been. It’s because you matter. I couldn’t save my mother. I couldn’t save my father.”
“But you could save me,” I said, sounding awed.
“We could,” he said. “But only because you’d already saved us. When you came, we were broken. We were lost. You couldn’t fix us, but you didn’t need to. You made a home in here.” He tapped his chest. “And I wasn’t about to let you go. That was never on the table, even if I had to go it alone. I would have moved heaven and earth to get to you.” He chuckled. “Thankfully everyone came around, hardheaded though some of them may be.” He glanced at me, and a hint of red bled into his eyes. “An Alpha is only as strong as his pack. And you’re a part of that.”
I nodded, unable to speak.
He squeezed my hand again, tilting his head back to rest against the window behind us. He closed his eyes. I’d overheard Gordo talking about Ox’s Zen Alpha bullshit, and I didn’t understand it then.
I did now.
He turned his head to look at me. “There are going to be rough days ahead. Are you with me?”
And I did the only thing I could.
I said yes.
And there, in the back of my mind, I heard it, louder than it’d been before.
packpackpack
“You can run, you know,” Kelly said. He sat beneath a tree at the edge of the clearing, picking at the grass between his legs. In the clearing ahead, a couple dozen wolves ran with each other, yipping, tails flicking back and forth. Clouds were starting to come in, thick and heavy, and I could smell rain in the distance, but the moon was bright, and my gums itched, my fangs wanting to drop. I forced them back. “You don’t need to sit here with me all night.”
He smelled so blue, I thought the weight of it would crush me. He watched Carter wrestling with the timber wolf, their violet eyes flashing in the dark.
“I’m okay where I am,” I said. I sat next to him, back against the tree trunk. Our shoulders brushed together every now and then, and I was working up the courage to lay my head on his shoulder. Pathetic, really. Especially the driving urge I had to go and find the biggest animal I could and kill it so I could drag it to him. Joe had told me before we’d gotten to the clearing that Kelly wasn’t a fan of bloody carcasses, and I didn’t know what else to bring him. He’d refused to tell me how this had happened before, saying I’d need to hear that from Kelly when we were ready.
Carter, in his infinite wisdom, told me that I needed to be like a bird of paradise, all bright colors and prancing around a nest I’d made out of sticks and feathers and leaves in a sensual dance sure to attract the attention of a mate.
It was while I was collecting said sticks and feathers and leaves and trying to figure out what I could do about bright colors when Joe told me in no uncertain terms Carter was being a dick and under no circumstances should I listen to his advice ever again.
Which was a relief, because I didn’t think I was very good at prancing or sensual dancing.
Carter assured me I was very good at it as he tried to hand me the sticks I’d dropped.
But then Joe tackled him, and that was that.
And now here we sat under a tree while wolves ran around us. Most of the Omegas had nodded toward me in greeting. One had even hugged me. Several gave me a wide berth. On them I could smell fear. It hurt, though I couldn’t blame them.
It was probably best that I didn’t shift.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Kelly grumbled.
I shrugged. “Maybe I do. I might be dangerous.”
He glanced at me. “Oh, we’re joking about it now, huh?”
“Too soon?”
He huffed out a breath. “I’ll get back to you on that.”
“Make sure you do.”
He laughed quietly. The sharpness of the blue around him faded slightly. It wasn’t much, but I wanted to howl at the moon because of it. I’d done that. Me. And then I had to go ruin it by saying, “Maybe you can ride me.”
He choked. “Holy shit.”
My stomach sank to my toes. “That’s not what I meant! Forget I said that.”
“I don’t know if I can,” he said faintly. “That’s… wow. Just throwing that out there, huh? Dude, my mother is here. Whatever wolfy urge you’re having right now, maybe consider a little decorum.”
“I mean when I shift!”
“I’m really not into bestiality, Robbie. And that has nothing to do with me being ace. I just don’t want to touch your wolf dick. Please don’t mount me in front of our pack. Carter would never let me hear the end of it.”
I groaned, putting my face in my hands. “Why are you like this?”
“You mean amazing? I don’t know. I guess I’ve always been this way.” The blue faded even more, and now it was shot with green and something that felt almost like happiness. It was dim, but there.
I dropped my hands and banged the back of my head against the tree a couple of times. He was covering up his laughter, and I wanted to tell him to stop. To just let it out. To let me hear it. I wanted to hear it. I needed to hear it. I said, “How did we get here?”
“We walked.” He squinted at me. “Did you forget that too? That’s what happens when you promote sex between an animal and a human.”
I bumped my shoulder against his. “I meant… this. Us. How did we….”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
He sighed, folding his hands in his lap. “You really want to hear this now?”
I nodded. “I’ve got time.”
“Do you?”
“I think so.” And because I had nothing else to give, I said, “I don’t know there’s anywhere else I’d rather be.”
He bit back a smile, eyes on me, then away. “Gonna puff out your chest and prance?”
“I’m going to murder Carter,” I muttered.
Kelly laughed. I puffed out my chest, oddly proud.
That only made him laugh harder.
I never wanted it to end. I wondered if it felt like this the first time. Seeing him. Really seeing him.
He wiped his eyes. “You really want to know, don’t you.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
I gave in. I couldn’t not. I reached over and put my hand on his knee. He tensed briefly but settled when I curled my fingers over his leg, just letting my hand rest there. I couldn’t look at him. I thought my face was on fire.
He said, “That’s….” His voice broke. He cleared his throat. “After the hunters came, something shifted. Between us. I don’t know how or why exactly. You stopped being weird around me.”
“Seems like I’ve picked that right up again.”
He chuckled. “A little. It’s okay, though. It’s like… a beginning. You came to me one day. You were sweating. I remember thinking something bad had happened because you kept wringing your hands until I thought you were going to break your bones. I asked you what was wrong. And you know what you said?
“Probably something stupid.”
“You said that you didn’t think you could ever give up on me. That no matter how long it took, you would be there until I told you otherwise. That you weren’t going to push me for anything but you thought I should know that you had… intentions.”
“Oh dear god,” I said in horror. “And that worked?”
Kelly snorted, and I felt his hand on the back of mine. “Not quite. But what you said next did.”
I looked over at him. “What did I say?”
He was watching me with human eyes, and I thought I could love him. I saw how easy it could be. I didn’t, not yet, but oh, I wanted to. “You said you thought the world of me. That we’d been through so much and you couldn’t stand another day if I didn’t know that. You told me that you were a good wolf, a strong wolf, and if I’d only give you a chance, you’d make sure I’d never regret it.”
I had to know. “Have you?”
“No,” he whispered. “Not once. Not ever.” He looked away. “It was good between us. We took it slow. You smiled all the time. You brought me flowers once. Mom was pissed because you ripped them up from her flower bed and there were still roots and dirt hanging from the bottom, but you were so damn proud of yourself. You said it was romantic. And I believed you.” He plucked a blade of grass and held it in the palm of his hand. “There was something… I don’t know. Endless. About you and me.” He took my hand off his knee and turned it over. He set the blade of grass in my palm and closed his hand over mine. He looked toward the sky and the stars through the canopy of leaves. “We came here sometimes. Just the two of us. And you would pretend to know all the stars. You would make up stories that absolutely weren’t true, and I remember looking at you, thinking how wonderful it was to be by your side. And if we were lucky, there’d be—ah. Look. Again.” His voice was wet and soft, and it cracked me right down the middle.
Fireflies rose around us, pulsing slowly. At first there were only two or three, but then more began to hang heavy in the air. They were yellow-green, and I wondered how this could be real. Here. Now. This moment. How I ever could have forgotten this.
Forgotten him.
It had to have been the strongest magic the world had ever known.
That was the only way I’d have ever left his side.
He reached out with his other hand, quick and light, and snatched a firefly out of the air. He was careful not to crush it. He leaned his head toward mine like he was about to tell me a great secret.
Instead he opened his hand between us.
The firefly lay near the bottom of his ring finger. Its shell was black with a stripe down the middle. It barely moved.
“Just wait,” Kelly whispered.
I did.
It only took a moment.
The firefly pulsed in his hand.
“There it is,” he said. He pulled away and lifted his hand. The firefly took to its wings, lifting off and flying away.
He stared after it.
I only had eyes for him.
He said, “There were good days. Many good days. But they weren’t all that way. Sometimes we’d fight over stupid things. You spent the night at Gordo’s a couple of times. Or that’s where you said you were going. But without fail, the next morning, I’d find you sleeping outside the bedroom door on the floor. Even when you were mad at me, you couldn’t stand the thought of being away for long.” A tear trickled down his cheek, and he wiped it away. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be so—”
“No,” I said hoarsely. “It’s okay. It’s fine. I like hearing this. I need it.” That didn’t seem quite right. I shook my head. “I want it.”
“I should have done more,” Kelly said, and his chest hitched a couple of times before he got it under control. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t strong enough.”
I shook my head furiously. “No. Kelly, that’s not—you couldn’t have stopped him. I don’t think anyone could have.”
He was getting worked up, brow furrowing, the corners of his mouth drawing down. “That’s what everyone told me. That’s what I tried to tell myself.” His eyes shone in the pale moonlight as he looked at me. “But how could I have let this happen?”
I squeezed his hand so tight, I thought his bones would turn to dust, the blade of grass still between us. He didn’t try to pull away.
I said, “You’ve gotta hear me” and “you’ve gotta listen to me” and “Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, it doesn’t matter now. It doesn’t matter because no matter what happened, we’re still here. We’ve still found our way back. I know it’s not like it was, and I don’t know if it ever will be, but god, look at us. Look where we are. Even after everything. I don’t know you well yet, but I want to. And I don’t know that I’ve ever wanted anything more.”
He said, “You don’t know that, you don’t know what you want, how can you, how can you even know if this is—”
A peal of thunder rippled overhead.
Water splashed against my hair. Against my cheeks. The tip of my nose. Our joined hands, trickling between us, wetting the blade of grass.
I looked up to see thick clouds rolling.
The fireflies winked out.
“It’s raining,” I said, and I didn’t know why it felt monumental. “I saw you.”
“When?”
I closed my eyes against the sprinkle of rain. It was warm and cleansing, and wolves began to howl. “In Caswell. I don’t know if it’s a memory or a vision, but we were walking together. Just you and me. I didn’t know it was you. You weren’t clear. Like a haze. Fuzzy. But we were together, and you were holding my hand, and you were acting weird. You’d told me I needed to come with you, and I said you were acting all—”
“Mysterious.”
I opened my eyes. “Yeah. Mysterious. And you said it wasn’t bad. That it was good. You hoped it would be good. And even though I didn’t know who you were, I believed you. Because I knew you would never lie to me.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then, “It wasn’t a memory. At least not for you. It was… from me. When we found out where you were, Aileen and Patrice thought we could reach you somehow. That even though Livingstone had a hold over you, the bonds between us all were stronger than any magic he had. They said that if any of us could get through to you, it’d be either Joe or Ox.”
“Or you.”
He nodded. “Aileen said I needed to show you something bright. Something warm. Not necessarily the best thing that ever happened to us, but something personal and significant.”
I felt like I was on a precipice. My toes were at the edge, and all I needed to do was lean over into the void and it would all become clear. “What did you want to show me? What happened that day?”
I never got an answer.
I never got an answer because the void wasn’t empty.
I stepped off the edge and
(would you hear me, dear?)
(of course you would)
(because even behind the wards)
(even beyond the layers upon layers of magic)
(i see you)
(and i’ll never let you go)
(i only want what belongs to me)
(and i won’t stop until i have it)
I screamed as a lance of pain burst through my head, obliterating all rational thought. I tore my hand from Kelly’s as he said my name again and again, voice rising in alarm. Lightning flashed and thunder rippled through the clouds as the rain fell harder.
I pushed myself away from Kelly, trying to get as far from him as I could. My claws popped and my fangs burst through my gums, and the moon, the moon was hidden behind the clouds, but I could still feel it. I turned over onto my hands and knees, digging my fingers into the earth, grass and dirt bunching up against my palms.
In front of me came an angry growl.
I lifted my head.
Omegas.
We were surrounded by Omega wolves, their black lips pulled back in quivering snarls, their fangs glinting in cracks of lightning. Their violet eyes burned brighter than any sun.
The muscles underneath my skin rippled as I half-shifted, unable to ignore the threat.
There were six of them.
Kelly screamed for Ox, screamed for Joe, but the biggest of the Omegas, a white-and-tan wolf, launched itself at me.
I knew if I fell, Kelly would be alone.
And that was absolutely un-fucking-acceptable.
I jerked to the right, rolling onto my back and over onto my feet. The Omega landed where I’d just been sitting, jaws snapping viciously, saliva dripping from its mouth. Its eyes blazed as Kelly scrabbled back against the tree.
“Don’t,” I warned the Omega. “You don’t want to do this.”
It didn’t listen.
It came for me.
I grunted as its front paws landed against my chest, knocking me back onto the ground. It stood above me, lowering its head toward my throat.
Kelly whispered, “Robbie.”
I kicked my knees into the Omega’s stomach. A harsh breath exploded out of its mouth into my face. It mewled at me as I dug my claws into its sides, blood spilling over my hands. I roared in its face, pushing up as hard as I could. It fell off me, landing roughly at my side.
I stood slowly, the rain pounding down around us.
The other Omegas circled around me.
“Come on!” I shouted at them, my voice caught between human and wolf. “If this is what you want, come on!”
A gray wolf seemed braver than the others. It lunged, low and quick, and the noise it made when I caught it by the scruff of its neck was choked and surprised. I lifted it toward my face, and I wanted nothing more than to tear its fucking head off for even daring to come near me and my—
A second wolf attacked, knocking me off my feet. The wolf I held yelped as it crashed down with me, scratching my chest and stomach. I tried to roll away but didn’t get far. I was flat on my stomach when another wolf landed on my back, pushing me into the dirt. Its breath was hot against the back of my neck as it trailed its nose against my skin, inhaling deeply.
Kelly shouted my name, and it was filled with such horror that it made my skin crawl.
Kelly.
Kelly.
Kelly.
I put my hands flat against the ground and pushed up with everything I had. The wolf on my back jumped off at the last second, landing on its feet directly in front of me. It turned slowly, and I raised my hand to tear out its goddamn throat—
“Enough.”
It was one word, and one word only.
But it was filled with such power, such a bright and consuming rage, that every single wolf cowered at the sound of an Alpha.
I slowly raised my head.
Ox stood before us, eyes red and violet. Rain sluiced down his nude body, his hair matted down on his head.
Elizabeth pushed by him, glaring at the Omegas. I thought she was going for Kelly.
I was shocked when she knelt at my side, hands on my arm, pulling me up to sit back on my knees. “It’s all right,” she whispered in my ear. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Gordo demanded as he approached. His tattoos shone in the dark, and Mark was loping next to him, violet eyes darting back and forth between the gathered Omegas. Then he looked at me. His nostrils flared as he inhaled sharply. He started to growl at me, but then he stopped. He snorted, lowering his head to paw at his nose.
The others began to gather around. Chris and Tanner were shifted, Rico standing between them with his arms across his chest, glowering at anyone and everyone. And it took me a moment to understand why Chris and Tanner smelled like fear.
They were scared of me.
Jessie ran up, looking like she was going to murder someone. A thin rust-colored wolf was at her side for every step she took. Dominique.
Joe was still a wolf as he came to stand next to Ox, his big paws flattening the grass. Carter and the timber wolf appeared last, and both of them recoiled as they sniffed the air.
“We were just sitting here,” Kelly said, shoving Carter’s head away as his brother tried to keep him back. “We weren’t doing anything, and they just came after us. After him.”
There was the creak of muscle and bone as Mark shifted next to Gordo. He grimaced, his eyes still alight with violet as he turned human. The wolf hair on his body was still receding when he said, “It’s Robbie. Like it was with Gordo. Stinks like magic. Bad magic.” He took in a deep breath before sneezing harshly. “It burns. It makes me want to hurt him.”
Gordo looked shocked. “But that’s….” He looked at me. “What happened?”
They all stood above me, watching me. I felt cornered. Trapped. One of the Omegas snapped its jaws at me, but Ox stepped in front of it. He glared at it until it whimpered and bared its neck.
Ox crouched before me, keeping his distance. “Robbie?”
I didn’t know what to say.
“It’s okay,” Elizabeth said, rubbing a hand up and down my back. “You’re safe. Kelly’s safe. I promise.”
I took in a shuddering breath. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to….”
“Didn’t mean to what?” Ox asked.
I shook my head. It was raining harder now, and I tried to think of the fireflies, of how it’d just been only minutes before, but it was lost in a fog.
I said, “I heard him.”
I said, “In my head.”
I said, “He could see me.”
I said, “He could feel me.”
I said, “And he’s not going to let me go. He’s not going to stop. Not until we give him back what belongs to him.”
And as the rain poured down, I wondered—not for the first time—if being in Green Creek was a mistake.
