by T. J. Klune
“This was a fluke,” he said. “Others know not to come here.”
I didn’t know who he was trying to convince, him or me. So I asked, “Why?”
“Because of what the Bennett name means.”
“What does it mean?” I remembered Marie calling him a fallen king. Her body was nothing but ashes now, burned and spread across the forest.
“Respect,” he said. “And the Omegas failed to understand that. They thought they could come into my territory. My home. And take from me. We spilled their blood because they didn’t know their place.”
“I killed him because he threatened my mom.”
Thomas slid his hand to the back of my neck and squeezed gently. “You were very brave,” he said quietly. “Protecting what’s yours. You’re going to do great things, and people will stand in awe of you.”
“Thomas,” I said.
He looked at me.
“Who are you?” Because there was something more that I didn’t understand.
He said, “I am your Alpha.”
And I accepted that for what it was.
low-slung shorts/you and joe
IT WAS not a gradual thing.
Wait.
That was a lie.
I didn’t know it was a gradual thing.
But it must have been. It had to have been.
Because it’s the only thing that explained the cosmic explosion that was the feeling of want and need and mine mine mine. The force of it was ridiculous. It had to have been there. For a long time.
JOE TURNED seventeen in August. We threw a party as we always did. There was cake and presents and he smiled at me so widely.
He was seventeen that September when he started his senior year in high school. Kelly was at the beginning of his MBA. Carter worked with Mark and Thomas. Elizabeth did the things that made her happy. Gordo decided to wait on opening a second shop. Mom smiled more than she used to. I worked and breathed and lived. I had blood on my hands, but it was in service of the pack. I had nightmares about dead wolves with their heads bashed in. I woke up sweating, but every time I saw my mother’s smile, the guilt eased just a little bit more.
Jessie kissed me one night in October. I kissed her back and then stopped. She smiled sadly at me and said she understood. I didn’t tell her that I hadn’t been with anybody since the night the Omegas came because I couldn’t lose focus. I couldn’t be distracted. And that I didn’t feel that way about her anymore. So I just apologized and blushed and she shook her head and went home.
In November, Carter dated a girl named Audrey and she was sweet and pretty and laughed hoarsely. She liked to drink and dance and then one day she didn’t come around anymore. Carter shrugged and said it wasn’t meant to be. Just some fun.
Snow fell in December and I ran with the wolves through the powder, a winter moon shining out overhead, my breath trailing behind me as the pack howled their songs around me.
A man came to the Bennett house in January and talked for a long time with Thomas in his office. He was a tall man with shrewd eyes and he moved like a wolf. His name was Osmond, and as he left later that night, he stopped in front of me and said, “Human, eh? Well, I guess to each their own.” His eyes flashed orange. And then he left and I seriously considered throwing my mug of tea at the back of his head.
In February, a young man followed Joe home from school. Joe looked bewildered but didn’t make him leave. He was Joe’s age and his name was Frankie and he was short and had black hair and these great big brown eyes that followed Joe everywhere. He was scared of me and this amused Joe greatly. I walked into Joe’s room in the middle of the month to see Frankie lean forward and kiss Joe on the lips. Joe froze. I froze, but only for a moment before I stepped back out of the room and quietly closed the door. I smiled quietly to myself even as this strange twisting little thing curled in my stomach. I walked away and hoped he was happy. That little curl in my stomach never really went away, but I learned to ignore it.
It was March when he knocked on the door at three in the morning shouting, “Ox, Ox, Ox,” and I panicked, grabbing the crowbar, telling my mother to stay in her room. She had a dagger already pulled out, and I stopped to tell her that she looked like a badass. She rolled her eyes and told me to go see what was wrong.
I opened the door and Joe said, “Ox.”
He wasn’t injured. There was no blood. Nothing was chasing him. He was okay. Physically. It didn’t matter. I pulled him close and his hands were in my hair and he shuddered as he pressed against me.
“What happened?”
He said, “Frankie,” and I wondered at the state of my head and heart when I began to plot the death of a seventeen-year-old boy who loved chunky peanut butter and cartoons. I told myself that if he’d hurt Joe, there wouldn’t be pieces left to bury.
“What did he do?”
“Nothing,” Joe said. “He did nothing.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“You asshole,” Joe shouted at me as he pulled away.
I said, “What,” because what?
“Look at me,” he demanded.
And I did. Because I always did.
“What do you see?”
“Joe,” I said. “I see you.” Maybe a little rumpled. Maybe some bags under his eyes. Maybe he was a little pale, and if he wasn’t a werewolf, I’d wonder if he was getting sick. But he couldn’t so I didn’t wonder at all.
“You don’t,” he cried. “You fucking don’t.” I’d never seen him so pissed.
“I don’t… understand?” I asked him. Or told him.
“Gah!” he shouted at me, eyes flaring orange and red and then he turned and left.
He apologized the next day. Said he was tired. I said, “Sure, Joe. Okay. No worries.”
Then he held my hand and we walked down the dirt road like we always did.
It was April when Frankie stopped coming by the house. I wanted to ask Joe about it, but I could never find the words. Kelly said they’d broken up and I said, “Oh,” even though what I thought in my head was Good. Good. Good.
It was May when everything exploded.
It was the strangest thing.
THE DAYS were hot and humid. The news said it was going to be the hottest summer in years. Heat wave, they said. Could go on for weeks and weeks.
It was almost my twenty-third birthday. I figured maybe it was time for me to move out of Mom’s house, but the thought of not living next to the pack caused me to sweat, so I didn’t push it too hard. Mom never complained. She liked me there. And it meant I could keep her safe in case the monsters ever came again.
So there, shortly before I’d been on the earth for twenty-three years, I went over to the Bennetts’ for Sunday dinner. Elizabeth asked if I’d get some of the tomatoes out of the garden. She smiled at me and kissed me on the cheek.
Joe and Carter and Kelly were coming out of the woods, finishing up their run as I came back from the garden.
They were laughing and shoving each other the way brothers do. I loved all three of them.
Except.
Except.
Joe wore a pair of low-slung shorts. Just the smallest things.
And that was it.
He was almost as big as I was now. We were eye level, or so close that it didn’t matter, which put him a couple of inches over six feet.
There was a sheen of sweat over his torso. A spattering of wet blond hairs curling on his chest that looked to be cut out of granite. The soft definition of muscles on his stomach. A line of sweat that hit his happy trail and soaked into the waistband of his shorts.
He turned, saying something back to Carter, and I saw the dimples above his ass. The way his legs flexed and shifted as he hopped from one foot to the other.
He pointed wildly at something back in the woods and there was a blue vein that stuck out along his bicep and I wanted to trace with my fingers because when had that happened?
And those hands. Those big fucking hands and I—
Joe had grown up.
And somehow, I hadn’t really seen it until it was on full display. Right in front of me.
He must have seen me out of the corner of his eye. He turned and grinned at me, and it was Joe, but it was Joe.
So, naturally, that’s when I walked into the side of the house. The tomatoes in my hands crushed against me. My head hit the wood siding and I thought, Oh shit.
I stepped back from the house. Bits of tomato fell onto the grass.
Dammit.
I felt my face flushing as I looked back at the Bennett brothers. They all stood there, watching me with concerned expressions on their faces.
“What the hell?” Carter asked. “You know there is a house right there? It’s been there. Pretty much for forever.”
“Uh,” I said, my voice dropping lower. I couldn’t even stop it. “Hey. Guys. What’s up? Just… picking tomatoes.” I crossed my arms over my chest and got tomato on them. I went to lean against the house, but I was farther away than I thought and fell into the house.
“What is even happening right now?” Kelly said.
Joe took a step toward me, and his stomach muscles were flexing and the low base heat of want roared through me and I remembered werewolves could smell it and I took a step back in absolute horror. “Hey,” I said and my voice was breaking. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Hey. So. There’s a. Thing. That I have to look at. In my house. Before dinner.”
Now they were all looking at me weird. They couldn’t smell my immoral raging lust yet. Or whatever it was. My feelings. That I couldn’t be having.
Joe took another step toward me and he had pecs. He had a chest that was just… it was just very nice and it gave me ideas and I said, “Whoa there, cowboy,” and kicked myself internally for such bullshit.
“What’s at your house?” Joe asked, and that motherfucker started sniffing the air.
“Ox,” Carter said. “Your heartbeat is going crazy.”
Stupid fucking werewolves. And Joe was standing right there. With muscles.
“To change!” I shouted and all three took a step back. I lowered my voice. “I have to… change. My shirt.” I pointed at it. “Tomatoes and houses don’t mix. Ha-ha-ha.”
“I still have no idea what is happening,” Kelly said.
So I said, “I’ll be right back,” and turned the opposite way, trying to stop myself from running.
“Uh, Ox?”
I stopped. “Yeah, Joe?”
“Your house is the other way.”
“So it is.” But instead of walking past them so they could smell me, I walked the long way around the house. When I came into view again, they were standing in the same spot, watching me.
I went inside and locked the door.
“What happened to your shirt?” Mom asked.
“Tomatoes,” I said.
“You look flushed,” she said. “Your face is bright red.”
“It’s hot out.”
“Ox. Did something happen?”
“Nope. Not a single thing.”
“You’re breathing really heavily.”
“It’s a thing I do. Big guy, you know? Need big breaths.”
“Yeah,” Mom said. “I don’t think that’s a thing.”
“I need to change my shirt.” I refused to look her in the eye.
“You want me to wait for you?”
I shook my head. “No. No. That’s… fine.” I wanted her to leave so I could punch something.
She waited until I stepped away from the door before pushing past me. She frowned when she tried to turn the knob. “Did you lock this?”
I smiled. I probably looked crazy. “Force of habit.”
“Uh-huh.” She went out and closed the door behind her.
I punched the wall. It hurt like a bitch.
He was only seventeen. That was wrong.
Except he was almost eighteen.
Which… okay.
But.
It was Joe.
And back and forth and back and forth.
My phone went off. A text message.
Joe.
Where r u???
I looked at the clock. I’d been sitting in front of the door for twenty minutes already.
“Shit,” I muttered.
I couldn’t not go to dinner. It was tradition. And If I begged off sick, someone (JoeJoeJoe) would come and check on me.
So I had to go.
I couldn’t do anything about my heartbeat. They’d hear that regardless. I’d think of something.
But the smell.
I ran up the stairs and tore off my shirt, grabbing another from the drawer. I pulled it on as I went into the bathroom. I found an old bottle of cologne I never wore anymore because the wolves didn’t like it. It blocks you out, Joe had told me once. Most of you, anyway.
I sprayed myself at least six times.
I texted back.
on my way
It took me another twenty minutes to convince myself to walk back to the house at the end of the lane.
Finally, I told myself to man up because I was almost twenty-three fucking years old and I’d fought monsters (once) and I trained with wolves (many times). And it was just Joe.
Who apparently I wanted to do stuff to. With. Around.
That did nothing to calm my heart rate.
It felt like I was walking to my death with every step I took to cross the way to the Bennett house.
I could hear them all out back. Probably getting ready to eat. Laughter. Talking. Shouting.
And then the conversation just died.
Even before I could get around the side of the house.
“Is that Ox?” I heard Mark ask. He sounded worried.
There was a crash and multiple pairs of feet running.
They rounded the corner and just stopped.
“Where is it?” Mark demanded.
“Are we under attack?” Thomas asked, ready to wolf out. His eyes went red.
“Ox?” Carter asked. “Dude. Seriously. Your heart, man. You sound terrified.”
“Hey, guys,” I said. I learned early on that you shouldn’t run from a wolf when they were about to shift. Sets off instincts. I wanted to run so bad.
Because Joe was standing at the front. He’d changed. White shorts. Green shirt that hid nothing. He was barefoot too. And his feet were sexy as all hell.
“Uh,” I said. “Hey, guys.”
“Why do I feel like this is a thing I should be getting,” Kelly said.
Joe’s nose wrinkled. “What’s that smell?”
So, of course, all the Bennett men started sniffing the air. It wasn’t funny. At all.
Carter took a step toward me. “Dude. Ox. What the hell. What did you bathe in?”
“Nothing,” I said, sounding defensive, even as I took a step back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Ox,” Joe said with a frown. “Are you okay?”
And I couldn’t even look at him when I said, “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”
“That… was a lie,” Kelly said.
Joe took a step toward me. I took another step back.
“Did something happen today?” Thomas asked.
I wanted to say, I may have started picturing your underage son naked, but I didn’t know if that was something someone could say to an Alpha werewolf.
So I said, “Nothing happened. I just wanted to… smell. Different?”
The Bennett men stared at me. I stared sort of over their shoulders.
Joe said, “Ox.”
“Yeah,” I said, looking at a tree.
“Hey.”
“What?”
“Look at me.”
Jesus fucking Christ. I looked at him.
Even I could see the worry on his face. His stupid handsome face.
I felt myself blush.
“Maybe we should—” Mark started, but then Carter said, “Oh, no way,” and so I loudly said, “Carter, can I talk to
you for a moment? Now? Please? Right now?”
Carter gave me the biggest shit-eating grin even as Joe glanced between us, eyes narrowing. “What did you do?” he asked his brother.
“Absolutely nothing,” Carter said, sounding rather delighted about something. “And it’s amazing.”
“Carter,” I barked. “Now!”
Before the others could protest, Carter moved forward and gripped my arm, dragging me toward the forest. “This won’t take long,” he called cheerfully over his shoulder to the others.
“What won’t?” I heard Joe ask.
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough,” Mark said, and oh my god, I was doomed.
SINCE WEREWOLVES were impatient as all hell, Carter only dragged me far enough until he knew we were out of earshot before he stopped, dropped my arm, turned to look at me, and said, “You got a boner over my little brother.”
I had to at least try. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Carter said, “You drenched yourself in the worst-smelling thing you could find so you could cover up the smell of your boner.”
“Stop saying boner!”
He waggled his eyebrows at me.
I glared at him.
He said, “It’s about time.”
And so I said, “What?”
He squinted at me. “You and Joe.”
“What about me and Joe?”
“Seriously. That’s what you’re going with.”
It was either that or have a panic attack. “Yes,” I said. “That’s what I’m going with.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “You’re allowed to have a boner for my seventeen-year-old brother.”
I groaned, burying my face in my hands. “You’re making this so much worse.”
He snorted. “I highly doubt that. If you think it’s awkward for you, think about how I feel right now.”
“You keep saying boner!”
“Yeah,” he said easily. “I’m having such a good time right now.”
“Carter!”
“Why are you freaking out about this?”
“Why are you not?”
“Is it about the whole werewolf thing?”
“What? No. I don’t care that he’s a—”