I dreamed of the forest.
Of bright sunlight and the songs of wolves.
In the trees, great black birds croaked.
The white Alpha wolf prowled in front of me.
He said, little wolf little wolf.
I whispered, “Can’t you see?”
The black birds said, you are the master of the forest.
I whispered, “The guardians of the trees.”
The trees began to move.
The earth shifted and broke apart underneath them, their roots roiling like so many snakes. They left divots in the ground as they pulled back, forming a giant circle around us.
We stood in a clearing.
“What is this?” I asked.
But the white Alpha wolf was gone.
In his place stood a black wolf.
I fell to my knees in front of him.
He leaned forward, breathing hotly against my face through his nose.
He pressed his snout against my forehead, and I said, “Oh.”
(robbie)
A rush of images. A cacophony of sound.
(robbie)
“What is this?” I asked the black wolf, my voice breaking into pieces.
(ROBBIE)
I turned my head and—
Ezra was snoring beside me.
The trees were gone.
I was in the barn, skin slick with sweat.
“What the fuck?” I muttered, scrubbing a hand over my face.
“Robbie.”
I jerked upright. That voice was real.
“Come outside,” it whispered.
It took me a moment to recognize it.
Malik.
I glanced down at Ezra. His face was slack as he snored loudly, lips flapping slightly with each exhalation. I moved carefully to avoid waking him. I stepped over him before bending over to lace up my boots. I glanced back at him once more before heading toward the door.
The stars were bright in the sky above the farmhouse. The moon was hidden behind a fat cloud, casting everything in shadow. Malik stood near the porch of the house. He put a finger to his lips as I approached, jerking his head toward the house.
I nodded in response. I was curious about this. About what he wanted. Why it had to be such a secret.
He began to walk away from the house toward an empty field.
I followed him.
I kept a few feet between us. I’d heard three separate, slow heartbeats from the house, so I knew his pack was sleeping and not lying in wait. I didn’t know this man, but I didn’t think he was stupid enough to try to start something. Not if he wanted to avoid bringing down the might of the Alpha of all on his pack.
In the distance, far from the house, a large structure rose at the opposite end of the field. It was an old silo, and he led me toward it.
He moved quickly and quietly, not quite jogging, but his legs were longer than mine, and I had to hurry to keep up.
The cloud moved away from the half moon. My skin thrummed. I jerked my head to the right, sure there was another wolf running beside me.
There wasn’t.
We were alone.
He stopped about three hundred yards from the silo in the middle of the field.
A breeze blew through the tall grass. It sounded as if the earth was whispering.
He asked, “Can I trust you?” again without looking at me.
What the fuck was going on? “Yes.”
“What I am about to show you will stay between us. Do I have your word, wolf?”
I hesitated, but it was brief. “Yes.”
“Your first instinct will be to shift. Don’t. Your second instinct will be to speak. Don’t. You’ll stay still. You’ll stay quiet until I say otherwise. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” Quiet as a mouse.
I thought I heard my mother laugh.
“As we get closer, you’ll feel magic. You’ll….” His shoulders slumped. “It’s there for a reason. No one can know. Not any of your wolves. Not your Alpha. Not even your witch.”
Magic? How the fuck was there magic? “I don’t know if I can—”
He whirled on me, eyes blazing. His hand was around my throat before I could take a step back. “You must,” he growled at me. “Many things depend on it. If you speak even a word of what you see, then all the death that follows will be stained upon your fangs and claws as if you were the one who dealt the killing blow.”
I didn’t struggle. I brought my hands up and circled his wrist. “Okay, I get it. Christ. Let me go.”
For a moment he didn’t. Instead his hand tightened around my neck. I flashed my eyes at him, a bright beacon in this dark field.
His own eyes faded back into darkness.
He let go and stepped back.
“Why is there magic? You don’t have a witch.”
“No,” he said. “We don’t.”
He turned and began to walk toward the silo.
I stared after him for a long moment. And then I did the only thing I could.
I followed.
We were close to the silo when I felt it.
The magic.
It bowled over me, and I staggered at the strength of it, taking in a great gasping breath. It rocked through me, and my head snapped up toward the sky, back arching as if I was electrified. There was something familiar about it, something just out of reach. It was bright and all-consuming and green, there was so much green, green like a forest alive and ancient.
But there was blue in it too, shot right through the middle, cutting the green cleanly in half. It was mourning and sorrow, deep and wild. A tear slid down my cheek as I gritted my teeth.
“Ah,” Malik said. “I see. So it is.”
The magic loosened its hold on me, and I took a lurching step forward, struggling to breathe as I hunched over. “What did you do to me?” I panted.
“Nothing you weren’t ready for. Not another word until I tell you. Stay there. I’ll let you know when you may enter.”
I wiped my face with the back of my arm, unsure why there was a goddamn lump in my throat, why I felt filled with so much grief that I could fucking taste it.
Malik was at a door at the base of the silo. He didn’t look back at me. He knocked once. Twice. Then three more in rapid succession.
He said, “Hello, little one. It is I. Malik. I am here. You are safe. I promise.”
It was only then that I heard it.
Another heartbeat.
It was quick, like the flutter of the wings of a bird. It felt small somehow, and as Malik opened the door, I was hit with the scent of another wolf.
A child.
But something was wrong. It didn’t feel like any other wolf I’d felt before. I didn’t know what it was, but it felt like something close to sickness, like a fog that reminded me of how humans smelled when they were slowly dying. It wasn’t quite there yet, but it was close.
Too close.
Malik disappeared into the silo, leaving the door open behind him. I heard him speaking in soft tones, saying “Hi” and “Hello” and “Were you sleeping? I’m so sorry to wake you, little one. But I promised I’d return. It’s just for tonight. Just to be safe.”
“I know,” a small voice said in response, and my chest hitched.
“I’ve brought a friend,” Malik said. “He is good. Not like the bad wolves. He’s important.”
“He won’t hurt me?”
“No. No one will ever hurt you again. I won’t let it happen.”
I waited.
Then, “Okay.”
I was startled out of a daze when Malik said, “Robbie. Come. Now.”
I didn’t want to.
I wanted to run in the opposite direction.
Find Ezra.
Get in the car and leave this place behind.
Forget we ever came here.
I took a step toward the open door as a dull light switched on somewhere inside.
It wasn’t too late.
Just turn around.
Turn around.
I reached the door.
Looked inside.
The silo was mostly empty. A battery-powered lantern sat on an old crate off to one side, barely casting enough light to illuminate the silo floor.
Malik stood in the middle of the silo. A dusty old tarp lay off to one side.
At his feet was a wooden hatch.
And from between the slats came thin fingers reaching up with tiny claws at the tips.
The silo creaked around us.
“What have you done?” I asked quietly.
“The only thing we could,” Malik said. “To keep him safe. There are things at play that you can’t possibly begin to understand. This is your first lesson about the great wide world outside the walls of your compound.”
He bent over and lifted the wooden hatch. The hinges were rusty, and they screeched as it opened.
At first there was nothing.
I didn’t move.
“I can smell him,” the child said from the hole in the floor. “I can smell him.”
“Good. What do you smell?”
There was a hissing growl in response. “It’s dirty. Unclean.”
“Look underneath. Find it.”
“I can’t. I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t—”
I took a step back.
A boy burst from the darkness. He moved almost quicker than I could follow. He was thin but clean, and half-shifted, hair sprouting along his brow as his face elongated in a furious snarl. He landed against the side of the silo, the claws from his hands and feet piercing the metal, holding him in place. He turned his head toward me and roared.
And then came the unimaginable.
Light filled his eyes.
It was violet.
An Omega.
Before I could even begin to process what I was seeing, he launched himself at me. My training kicked in and I fell to my knees, leaning back against the floor. His claws swiped at my neck, missing my throat but nicking my chin.
He crashed down on the other side of me, limbs flailing as he rolled into the other side of the silo near the door. He was already up and moving even as I rose. He hit my back, claws digging into my shoulder. I grunted and reached behind me, grabbed him by the armpits and flipped him up and over me until his back was against my front. He struggled, but I wrapped an arm around his chest, and my other hand went to his throat.
He immediately stopped moving, going limp as he sucked in air. He turned his head toward me, staring at me out of the corner of his violet eye. “It’s there,” he whispered. “Underneath it all. It’s still there.” He began to chant. “It’s still there. It’s still there. It’s still there.”
I pushed him off me as I staggered back. Malik caught the boy, holding him close as he muttered into Malik’s neck.
“Now you see,” Malik said quietly as he stroked the boy’s back. “This is your first lesson. Does it burn, wolf? Does it burn?”
The boy—once he determined I wasn’t an immediate threat—calmed, and his eyes faded to an emerald green that sparkled in the low light. He was pale-skinned with light-colored hair that hung almost to his shoulders. The sweats and loose T-shirt he wore looked mostly clean, though there were smudges of dust and bits of hay from when he’d attacked me.
He crawled back toward the hatch on all fours, his black claws the only sign of his shift. I thought he was gone for good as he disappeared into the hole, but he reappeared a moment later, dragging a heavy blanket behind him. I watched as he made a small nest on the floor. He growled at me before looking up at Malik. The older wolf sat down next to him as the boy pulled the blanket up and over him, hiding away underneath, his head in Malik’s lap.
I didn’t move.
“There,” Malik said, running a hand over the top of the blanket. “There we are. So much excitement for one day.”
“And it smells in here,” the boy muttered, voice slightly muffled. “Like shit. Like animals. I miss the barn.”
“I know. But it’s just for tonight.” Malik looked up at me. “Soon all will be well again.”
I had questions. Too many questions. They swirled in my head, who and how and why why why. The boy looked like he was eight or nine. But he was already shifting, which was impossible. He shouldn’t have been able to even half shift until closer to puberty.
And then there were his eyes.
Those violet eyes.
The question I asked wasn’t one I planned. “What’s his name?”
Malik was surprised. I could see that clear on his face. “Brodie.”
I nodded. “Brodie.” Then, “Is he yours?”
“Blood? No. Pack? Yes.”
The boy moved underneath the blanket, but he didn’t speak.
I felt helpless. The stench I’d smelled earlier, that sickness, was heavy in the air. It came from the boy. But other than being an Omega, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with him. Still. It was enough. “This is why you cut off contact.”
“Not intentionally,” Malik said. “We… lost track of time. An oversight.”
It wasn’t a lie, but it felt like it was close to one. There was more, but he wasn’t offering it.
“How did it happen? How is this possible?”
The boy growled.
Malik hushed him gently, his hand moving up and down the boy’s back. “You need to open your eyes, Robbie. There is much to this world that has been hidden from you by design. Things you haven’t been told.”
Fuck him for being so vague in the face of all of this. “Maybe if you would just tell me, I could—”
Malik shook his head. “It’s not my place. The damage it could do would…. I fear it would be permanent.”
I scowled at him. “You aren’t making any sense.”
“There is a prisoner. In your compound.”
“What?”
He didn’t flinch at the anger in my voice. The boy growled again but otherwise didn’t move. “A prisoner. Someone with a great and terrible power. You must go to him. You must end his life. Only then will everything become clear.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” I demanded. “Do you know what—”
“Step. Back.”
I hadn’t even realized I was moving.
A hand appeared from underneath the blanket. The claws were sharp as they scraped along the floor. Black hair burst up along the back of the hand before it receded and the hand pulled back under the blanket.
A clear warning if there ever was one.
I did as asked, standing near the door.
“I know you’re confused,” Malik said, voice barely above a whisper. “And I know you’re scared.”
“I’m not—”
“I can smell it on you,” the boy growled.
Goddamn kids. “Fine. Whatever. I’m scared. But how the fuck else should I—”
“Focus, Robbie.”
I shouldn’t have come out here. “How do you know there’s a prisoner?”
Malik’s mouth twitched. “I wasn’t sure until now. Thank you for confirming it for me.”
“Oh, fuck you.” I wasn’t impressed. I wasn’t.
“He is the cause of this.” He nodded down toward the boy. “Somehow. It’s an infection, and you must stop him while there’s still time to keep it from spreading.”
I shook my head. “That’s impossible. There are wards in place. Ezra put them up himself. There’s no way the prisoner can ever—”
“This boy is part of my pack. Our pack.”
“He can’t be,” I said, and a wave of dizziness washed over me. “He wouldn’t be an Omega if he was. His eyes would be orange and—”
“And yet they aren’t,” Malik said simply. “He is Omega, even though his Alpha is Shannon. His brothers are Jimmy and John in all but blood. And he belongs to me just as much as I belong to him. He is ours. There are bonds between us all, threads that tie us together, rotted and fetid though they are. They’re tenuous, but they gain strength every day because he wants them to. This isn’t because he doesn’t have anyone, Robbie. I assure you he does. It’s because of what has been done to him. He is a wolf diseased, and there is only one cure: the death of the person who has infected him and all those like him.”
His words struck me cold. “All those like him.”
“Yes.”
“Meaning there are others.”
“Yes.”
“How?” I asked helplessly. “We would know if there were. If Omegas were rising, if something was happening to cause them to be this way. We would know.”
And then he said, “They do,” like it was the easiest thing in the world, like he wasn’t upending everything. “They do, Robbie.”
I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t. It would mean…. Christ, I didn’t even want to think about it. “Why should I believe anything you’re saying?”
Malik looked disappointed, as if it should be obvious. “I have taken great risk to bring you here. All it would take would be for you to turn around and report everything you’ve seen. To wake your witch and bring him here.”
“What makes you think I won’t do just that?”
He shrugged. “Because part of you knows I’m telling the truth. You can feel it, can’t you? It’s hidden in shadow, buried deep inside. Something… off. Do you dream?”
The walls were closing in. I rubbed at the skin between my neck and shoulders. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe. “We all dream.”
“We do,” Malik said, and his voice was deeper, almost a growl, like his wolf was just underneath his skin. “Some of us dream in shades of blue. Or green. Or of a field filled with violets that embed themselves in our skin. What is it you dream of?”
There was
an alpha
a strong alpha
black like night
he stands in a clearing
he sees me
he says little wolf little wolf
he says robbie
he says robbie
he says
“Nothing,” I said hoarsely as I opened my eyes. “I dream of nothing.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I shook my head as I took a step back. “I don’t care. You’re harboring an Omega. He could hurt people, Malik. Innocent people.”
“He’s just a child.”
“I know that. But he won’t be able to control it. Do you want to be responsible for that? If he escaped and made his way into town? And if Alpha Hughes finds out you have him here, she’s going to dismantle your pack. They’re going to take him away and—”
Brodie said, “They’re in pain.” His voice was quiet.
“Who is?” Malik asked, though he never looked away from me.
“All of them,” Brodie said, and the blanket shifted as his head appeared, eyes glowing in the dark. “They howl. It hurts. A limb severed. It’s pack and pack and pack. They hunt. They kill. They fight because it’s what they’re supposed to do. The Alpha said they would tear the world apart. It’s the only way they know how.” His eyes seemed to get brighter. “There is a song to be sung. And there is one who sings it above all others. His scream. I hear it. A wolfsong.” He squeezed his eyes shut tightly. “I hear it all the time because I hear them.” His chest began to heave. “I hear them, I hear them, I hear them—”
“Hush, child,” Malik said, pressing a hand against Brodie’s forehead. “No need for that now. You’re safe here.”
The boy began to cry bitterly, tears spilling down his cheeks before he turned and pressed his face against Malik’s chest. “Please don’t let them take me, Malik. Please don’t let them take me away again. I won’t hurt anyone. I promise. I promise.”
“I know you won’t,” Malik said. “And no one will take you from your pack.” Malik looked back up at me. “Ever.”
It was said in defiance.
And I believed him.
Ezra was still snoring when I returned to the barn.
He looked as if he hadn’t moved at all.
I slumped against the door, sliding down to the ground.
I tilted my head back toward the ceiling.
Through broken slats overhead, I could see the bright outline of the moon.
“I’m pleased with our visit,” Ezra said as we stood next the car. The sun was barely cresting over the horizon, and the air was warm. “I know Alpha Hughes will be too, so long as communications reopen.”
Shannon nodded. The house behind her was quiet, though I didn’t think it would be for long. John and Jimmy would wake soon, and we would be gone. “Extend my apologies to the Alpha. Let her know that we’ve been busy. It was an oversight. Nothing more.”
“Of course,” Ezra said. “It happens to the best of us. Let us know if there is anything you need. The Alpha of all is here for you, as she is for all wolves, no matter who they are.” He glanced at me, a quiet smile on his face. “Or where they came from. Who knows? One day John or Jimmy might hear her call and feel the need to rise in rank. They seem capable.” He chuckled.
Shannon didn’t laugh. “We’ll see.” She took a step back toward the house. “I gotta get back inside. We have a busy day ahead of us. I don’t want them to be late for school.”
“I’m sure,” Ezra said, even though it was barely past six. “We’ll take our leave. Robbie? Would you mind driving? These old bones are a little stiff this morning. I’ll even let you pick the music.”
“Yeah. That’s fine.” I took him by the arm and led him around to the passenger side. I opened the door and helped him in. He sighed gratefully as he sat down. He told me not to fuss as I tried to buckle his seat belt. I told him to shut up and let me do it. He rolled his eyes, but his lips were quirking. I stood upright and closed the door.
Shannon said, “Robbie.”
I glanced at her.
She didn’t speak again.
She didn’t flash her eyes.
Instead she pleaded without words or a show of power.
Malik came out onto the porch behind her.
He leaned against the rail, arms over his chest.
It would be so easy.
So easy.
To do the right thing.
To tell everyone what I’d seen.
There were rules in place to protect us all.
And this pack was breaking them.
I could almost see it.
The aftermath.
They would descend on this place.
Shannon and Malik would fight.
They would lose.
John and Jimmy would be torn from their pack.
And the Omega would be destroyed.
It’d happened before.
It would happen again.
I nodded at them and rounded the back of the car.
Right as I was about to walk by Shannon, she grabbed my hand and squeezed.
Something pressed against my palm.
I looked down at a piece of paper.
She didn’t say a word, only shook her head.
I shoved it in my pocket.
We were almost to the main road when I looked in the rearview mirror.
Shannon and Malik were gone.
“Are you all right?” Ezra asked.
“Yeah,” I muttered as I rolled down the window. I was getting tired of people asking me that question. “I’m fine. I didn’t sleep very well is all. Sleeping in a barn isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, apparently.”
Ezra patted my knee. “We’ll be home soon enough. You did well, dear. I know it’s not easy going into another Alpha’s territory without knowing what awaits you. I’m proud of you.”
We headed north.
Ezra went inside to pay for gas the first time we stopped.
I pulled out the crumpled piece of paper.
It was a Valentine.
Across the top was a cartoon wolf, head tilted back, a tiny heart over his head.
Above it were the words I HOWL FOR YOU!!!
And below it was a phone number with four more words in a shaky scribble.
FOR WHEN YOU’RE READY.
