by T. J. Klune
“What?”
“Do you want to fight for me?”
“Jessie,” I said. “Why are you doing this?” I reached out for our bond, to see what her colors were, but then I remembered there wasn’t any bond at all, and I felt a little sad.
She paced in front of me. “You’re never here anymore.”
“Here? I’m always here. This is my house. My room.”
“No. Here. Like you-and-me here. If I get to see you. If you remember to call me back. If you remember to text me. If, if, if, because you’re always distracted. You’re always gone. It’s like you’re fucking vacant and somewhere else and I don’t deserve that. Ox, I don’t.”
She was right. She didn’t. I told her so.
“Then fix it,” she said.
And I said, “I can’t.” She heard what I meant.
I won’t.
She took a step back away from me and I wondered what she saw when she looked at me. If I had changed. If I had become something different. Some days I still felt like the same old Ox. Other days I felt like howling a song to shake the trees.
“Why?” she asked.
“Look, Jessie,” I said. My voice was even, but I felt my heart crack just a sliver. “I have… things. To do.” I was never good with words, and they were failing me now. I struggled and latched on to the first thing that came to mind. “Priorities. I have priorities.”
“And I’m not one of them,” she said.
“No,” I said, because that wasn’t right. “You are.” But that wasn’t right either. It was an awful feeling. “Shit,” I muttered.
“I love you, Ox,” Jessie said. “Can’t you see that?”
I could. And I loved her too. In my own way. “You’re leaving,” I said instead. “In a few months.” Across the country for school.
“Yeah. I am. And we were going to try.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t.”
She shook her head. “Why?”
“Because I can’t give you what you need. And it’s not fair.”
“It’s because of Joe, isn’t it? It’s because of that little shit—”
I stood. Quickly. I said, “Don’t.”
Her eyes went wide. Her lip quivered. And she said, “I’m sorry. That’s not… I don’t know why I said that.”
“This is between us,” I said. “You leave him out of this.”
Eventually, she left.
“I CAN smell it,” Joe said quietly. We sat on the porch and watched the sun. “You’re sad.”
I said, “Yeah,” because I was.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
He laid his head on my shoulder and said, “Okay.”
Later, after the sun had set and the stars came out in the sky, he said, “I won’t ever leave you.”
CHRIS SAID, “You bastard. Jessie’s heartbroken. Fuck you, Ox.”
Gordo called him an asshole.
Tanner said love was hard.
Rico said I was a heartbreaker.
Chris didn’t talk to me for three days.
On the fourth day, he came up to me, looking nervous.
I couldn’t stand that, so I hugged him.
He hugged me back. He said, “I missed you. I’m an ass. You forgive me?”
I said, “Sure,” and he grinned and bought me a sandwich at the diner.
He didn’t say anything about Jessie. But neither did I.
I TURNED eighteen. Thomas didn’t ask if I wanted the bite. I didn’t ask him to give it to me.
GREEN CREEK was small. Our graduating class only had thirty-four people in it.
But you would have thought the crowd numbered in the thousands by the way we all yelled when Carter walked across the stage.
He grinned and winked as he accepted his diploma.
Later, they said, “Oxnard Matheson,” and the roar that followed knocked the breath from my chest. The Bennetts. My mom. Gordo and the guys. They screamed and howled. You would have thought I’d accomplished the greatest thing known to mankind.
I’ll be honest. I wasn’t expecting that. It hurt, but in a good way.
Sometimes, pain can be good.
CARTER SAID, “I won’t be going far. Eugene’s only a couple hours away.”
“Won’t be too bad,” Kelly said.
“We’ll see each other all the time,” Joe said.
I said, “This fucking sucks.”
“Yeah,” they sighed.
We lay on the grass watching the stars above us. We were all angles and parallels, stretched out and touching in some way. Joe had his head on my chest, his legs stretching away from me. Carter’s heavy legs were draped across mine. Kelly had his head on my shoulder.
I felt warm. And safe. And sad.
“It’ll be okay,” Carter said. “I promise.”
“What if you don’t come back?” Joe asked in a small voice. I rubbed my hands through his hair.
“I will,” Carter said. “You’re going to be my Alpha. Of course I’ll come back for you. And for Kelly and Ox. We’re a pack. One day, you’ll lead us.”
“But I don’t know how,” Joe said. “I don’t think I’m going to be very good at it.”
“You’ll be the best,” I told him. “The best Alpha who ever lived.”
He preened and Carter and Kelly laughed.
They thought I was joking around. Silly old Ox.
But I believed that with all my heart.
THOMAS TOOK Joe into the forest sometimes. They stayed away for hours. I never asked what they talked about or what they did because I figured it was between the two of them. It was none of my business.
Until Thomas said otherwise.
He sent for me in the middle of summer. Carter showed up at the garage, eyes bright with something I couldn’t quite place. He looked like live wires arced underneath his skin. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought he was losing control.
“Papi,” Rico called out. “Lover boy is here. Take a break. Ten minutes should be enough to get off.”
Chris and Tanner whistled and hollered at me as I rolled my eyes.
Gordo stood in the doorway to his office, arms across his chest, eyes tracking me as I walked through the garage. This was different, and he knew it too. He wasn’t pack, but he could feel it. And the wolves never came here. The wards kept them out. Gordo was a dick, but I didn’t know his story. Not completely. I tried not to blame him.
And there Carter stood, jittery, eyes flashing orange.
I asked, “Is everything okay?”
And he said, “The Alpha wants you tonight,” in a voice filled with gravel, like his wolf was bursting out of his throat.
I wanted to ask why and question everything, but I knew better. This was a message.
I wrapped my arms around Carter instead and he whined at the back of his throat, his nose in the crook of my neck.
Eventually, he stopped trembling.
“Okay?” I whispered in his ear.
He nodded and pulled away. “I’ll hang around,” he said in his normal voice. “Give you a ride home.”
I went back inside the garage. “What was that?” Gordo asked.
I said, “Pack business,” and got back to work.
Carter didn’t say much on the drive back home. Just little things about college and girls, and so I said something I’d been thinking for a long while, “This guy came into work. I thought he was attractive. I check out guys sometimes.” It came out fast because that was the first time I’d said it aloud. It felt like relief. And terror.
Carter didn’t say anything for a minute. And then he said, “Oh. Okay. Did you lick his balls?”
I laughed so hard that I thought I would die. Carter was laughing right along with me.
He said, “You know I don’t give a shit, right? Like, of all the things in the world to freak out about, that’s one of the least?”
I said, “Yeah, Carter. I know.” My heart was pounding.
<
br /> “Hey. Calm down, Ox.”
Stupid werewolves. “I will.”
“Am I the first you told?”
“Yeah.”
He grinned. “I popped your gay cherry!” He frowned. “Wait.”
“Oh my god.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh my god.”
“I popped your coming-out cherry.” He grimaced as he stopped for a red light. “That didn’t sound any better.”
“Oh my god.”
“Have you kissed a guy yet?”
I blushed. “No.”
Before I could even react, he leaned over and planted a hard kiss on my lips, pulling away with a loud smack. “Now you have.”
“Oh my god.”
“You sound way too much like Joe.”
“That was like kissing my brother,” I said.
“Fuck you, Oxnard,” he said with an easy grin. “You’re lucky I’m straight. I would have hit that a long time ago.” He sniffed the air and had the audacity to look offended. “Seriously? You’re not aroused? At all?”
“My life,” I groaned.
“I must be doing it wrong.”
“That must be it.”
“You still like girls?”
I shrugged. “Think so.”
He punched me in the arm. “Greedy.”
I laughed.
“It’ll make things easier, though,” he said and I thought what?
“What things?”
He shrugged. “The future. And all that comes with it.”
And that was all he would say until we got to the house at the end of the lane. Thomas and Joe were waiting for us. “It’ll be okay, Ox,” Carter said before he went inside.
“Ox,” Thomas said warmly. “Thank you for coming.”
I smiled back a bit nervously. I knew he could smell it on me. Werewolves were like that. So he said, “There’s nothing to be worried about,” and I said, “Okay.”
Joe took my hand and rubbed his forehead on my shoulder. He was getting tall. Almost thirteen years old and he was sprouting like a weed. I told him as much and he grinned blindingly at me.
Thomas walked into the woods without another word.
Joe tugged on my hand, and we followed.
I followed their example and didn’t speak.
Eventually, we reached the clearing in the woods.
Joe dropped my hand and went to stand by his father. Without a word, they sat down on the grass, crossing their legs, facing each other.
Thomas said, “Joe, what does it mean to be an Alpha?”
“It means protecting others at all cost.”
“Even at the expense of your life?”
“Yes. Pack is more important than anything else.”
And man, did I want to step in and say something, but I kept my mouth shut. Thomas glanced at me briefly, a look of warning on his face, but he smiled quietly to let me know he understood.
“And why is the pack more important?”
“Because pack is family,” Joe said. “And family is everything.”
“Ox,” Thomas said. “Sit with us.”
And I did. I was unsure of my place here. Unsure of why I’d been invited along. Unsure of what to say. So I did what I did best and said nothing at all.
And neither did Thomas or Joe. They sat there, watching the leaves in the trees, hands trailing through the grass beneath, and everything was green. Green like the wings of the dragonfly I saw on the day Joe and I first met. Green like Elizabeth’s phase when we first met. Green like Gordo’s earth magic, sharp and pungent. Green like relief, like so much fucking relief that I was overwhelmed by it all.
I was. Because I was sitting next to an Alpha werewolf and a future Alpha werewolf and I belonged with them. To them. And they belonged to me.
The bonds were there. Between us. The bond to my Alpha. The bond to my Joe.
We stayed there for hours and didn’t say a word.
FROM THAT point on, I went with them more often than not. Sometimes we sat. Sometimes I watched as Thomas and Joe trained one-on-one, claws flying, fangs bared.
I asked Thomas again, “What is all this for?”
“What?”
“The fighting. The claws. The teeth. Training. All of it.”
He said, “So when the time comes, we’ll be able to protect our territory.”
“From who?”
He shrugged. “Everyone.”
“Thomas,” I started. But then I stopped because I wasn’t sure of what I wanted.
He waited, like he always did.
I want the bite.
I thought to say it. I really did. I opened my mouth to say just that, but I couldn’t get the words out. I couldn’t make it so.
He knew. Of course he knew. “I’ll be here,” he said. “If and when you’re ready. If not me, then Joe.”
“He’s going to be great, you know,” I said quietly. “Because of what you’ve taught him.”
Thomas smiled. It was a rare thing, and it made me feel good to see it. “An Alpha is only as strong as his pack.”
I ASKED him one day when Joe would become the Alpha.
He said it would be when the time was right.
I asked him what would happen to him then.
He said he would serve as his son’s Beta.
I asked him what it would feel like to give up all that came with being an Alpha.
He said it would feel green.
I didn’t ask him how he knew.
SOMETIMES THOMAS sent just me and Joe out to the clearing.
Sometimes we talked.
Sometimes we didn’t say anything at all.
He said it was for the bond between us.
SOMETIMES I thought they were keeping things from me.
It was just a feeling I had.
ground you walk on/the fallen king
SHE WAS in the kitchen singing along with her radio when I said, “Mom, can I talk to you?”
She looked over her shoulder as she stirred a saucepan on the stove. She smiled and said, “Hi, baby,” and I almost turned and ran out of the room. I was eighteen years old, and I was scared of my mother.
She must have seen something on my face because she turned down the heat on the stove and turned. She reached out and touched my arm. “Okay?”
I shook my head. “Uh. Maybe? I think so. Possibly.”
She waited.
I loved her. And she loved me. So I said, “I’m pretty sure I like girls.”
She said, “Okay.”
And so I said, “And guys.” My palms were sweaty.
“Okay.”
“Like… you know.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Oh. That’s….” She squinted at me. “Equally?”
“What?”
“You like girls and guys. Equally? Or one more than the other?”
I shrugged. “Maybe the same? I can’t say for sure because I’ve never done anything with a guy.” I winced. “I really wish I hadn’t said that.”
She blushed. “Well. You’re eighteen. You can… you know. Do. That. As an adult.”
“Oh god,” I groaned.
“No, no. It’s okay!” She sounded nervous. “I just…. You always hear that parents just know these things about their kids. I… didn’t know.” She frowned. “Does that make me a bad mom?”
“No! Er. No. Nope. You’re… great. At. The mom thing.”
She sighed. “Ox.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t care about stuff like that.”
“What stuff?”
“If you’re gay or whatever.”
“Bisexual,” I said as if that would make it any better.
“Bisexual,” she said. “Okay.”
“This is awkward.”
“Is it?”
“Isn’t it?”
“You look scared,” she said.
I looked down at the floor. “I didn’t want to make you mad,” I managed to get out.
&n
bsp; And then her arms were around my waist and her head was against my chest. I put my forehead on her shoulder and hugged her back.
“I could never be mad at you for being who you are,” she said quietly. “And I’m sorry if I ever made you think that.”
“So. It’s not. Weird? Or anything?”
She laughed. “Ox. You are a part of a pack of werewolves and you’re asking me if something like this is weird?”
“You’re pack too,” I said quickly.
And she was. To an extent. Ever since that moment when Thomas had touched her head and she’d become aware of just how strange the world could be, she’d been pack. It had taken her weeks to accept what she’d seen, and maybe a little longer to believe it down to her bones. Kelly told me that for a long while, she’d stunk of fear anytime she’d come into contact with the Bennetts. I told him not to take it personally, and he’d just laughed and put his arm around my shoulders and said that of course they wouldn’t.
She didn’t come with us on full moons most times, but Thomas had insisted that she train like the rest of us when she could. At first, she was quiet and awkward. At first, she did little.
I don’t know what changed. Maybe it was when Thomas took her on a walk through the forest and spoke with her about things I never asked about after. Maybe it was when Elizabeth took her to lunch and they drank peach wine and giggled like little girls. Maybe it was me and how she saw I needed this. Needed them.
I didn’t know what caused the change. But one day, she came with her eyes flashing, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, and she managed to sweep my legs out from underneath me. I was dazed, looking up at the clouds through the trees and she just laughed.
God, I loved that woman. More than anything.
Which is why I was so scared at disappointing her. With something so stupid as sex.
“Is there… you know.” She looked up at me. “Anyone special?”
I shook my head. “Not since Jessie.”
“Not a lot of pickings around here.”
“Uh.”
“You’ll meet someone,” she said, suddenly fierce. “You’ll see. A girl or a boy and they’ll worship the ground you walk on because you deserve to be treasured. And I’ll be there to say I told you so because you’ve earned it. If anyone in this world has earned it, it’s you.”