by T. J. Klune
I’d never been afraid of him.
I said, “Joe.”
“Ox,” the wolf growled, and I could feel his breath on my face.
“He lives here. He is part of my pack and he lives here. He lived here for a long time before he moved into the main house. You know this. I know you’ve been told this. Your mother. Mark. The others. They told you.”
Joe blinked rapidly, eyes flickering red, then back to their normal blue. He took a step back, looking horrified. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to—”
“Stop,” I said. “It’s not—”
“I would have hurt him,” Joe blurted, sounding impossibly young. “If I’d thought I could have gotten away with it, I’d have hurt him. That first day. When he came at me, it took holding back every piece of me. And even then it almost wasn’t enough. I would have killed him without a second thought.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know,” Joe snapped. “You don’t know what it felt like. Coming home, finally coming back home, and finding… him. And all of you. Just like you were. Just like you didn’t even need the rest of us.”
I nodded, taking a step back, trying to put a little distance between us before I reached out and clocked the fuck out of his face. “So that’s how it’s going to be,” I said, gritting my teeth. “That’s how it is. We’re going to do this. Now. This way.”
This startled him. “What? What do you mean? What way?”
I took another step back, just to be safe, because I might have cared about him and I might have been waiting for this day, but sometimes, oh sometimes, Joe Bennett could be so fucking stupid.
“My mother died,” I said as evenly as I could. “My Alpha died. The boy I lo—the decision I made, my choice, turned into an Alpha. And a little over a week later he was gone.”
“Ox,” Joe said. “You know why I had to—”
“No,” I said coolly. “I don’t. I don’t know shit about what you had to do.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You told me he couldn’t get away with this. You sat there next to me and told me Richard Collins had to pay for what he’d done to you. To us. To our pack.”
“My mother had just been murdered,” I growled at him. “I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“And I was?”
“Clearly enough that you made a fucking decision behind my back—”
“You just said your mother had been murdered. You weren’t thinking clearly.” He started pacing in front of me. “Do you really think I wanted to put any more weight on your shoulders? That I wanted to drag you into this further than you already were? Ox, I was a seventeen-year-old Alpha who had been tortured by the man who had just killed my father. I wasn’t thinking about the pack. I wasn’t even thinking about my mother, god help me. I was thinking about you. And the only way that I could protect you.”
“So you kept everything from me until the last minute,” I said. “And then disappeared for three years. Because that was the best way to protect me.”
He stopped pacing and stared at me as if I was stupid. For a moment, I hated him because I remembered my dad giving me a similar look. “I didn’t disappear—”
“Bullshit,” I snapped at him. “Don’t you try and tell me otherwise, Joe Bennett. Because anything else would be a lie.”
His jaw tensed and he fisted his hands. He took a breath, visibly trying to calm himself down. I tried to do the same, because if things went any further like this, they’d just end before they even began. I hadn’t meant for it to get like this. At least not yet.
“Look,” he said. “I… made choices. Because I had to. They may not have been the best in the long run, but they were the best at the time. You can’t fault me for that.”
I laughed bitterly. “Yeah, Joe. Funny thing is that I can. And I do. That’s the problem.” I walked toward the kitchen, trying to get as far away from him as I could. I leaned against the counter. He stayed near the door.
“Ox—”
“Did you know?”
“What?”
“About me.”
“I don’t understand.”
But I thought maybe he did. “That I’d become. Like this. Like how I am now.”
“An Alpha.”
“A human Alpha.”
He started to shake his head, but then stopped and sighed. “Maybe.”
“Maybe,” I repeated.
He rubbed a hand over his face. “Dad thought—well. Dad thought a lot of things about you. You know that, right? That you were his in all but blood. I don’t think he saw any difference between Carter and me and Kelly and you. You were his just as much as we were.”
It hurt, in a good way, like pressing against a loose tooth. A bittersweet ache that clawed at my heart. “Yeah, Joe,” I said hoarsely. “I saw that. Maybe not at the time. But now? I know now.”
Joe nodded. “Sometimes when we went out into the woods, just me and him, we’d talk, you know? About the pack. About what it meant to be an Alpha. About you. We talked a lot about you. Things I’ve never told you about. Things he never got the chance to tell you himself.”
I waited, not wanting to interrupt.
“After you left,” he said, looking down at his hands, “that first day I found you. They just stared at me. For a long time. Especially him. They hadn’t heard me talk since… well. Since Richard. Because of the things he’d done to me. The way he’d broken me. But you, Ox. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever felt—okay. Just. Look. They stared at me. They listened to me. They smiled at me. They hugged and laughed and cried, but I kept saying Ox. Ox. Ox. And I knew then what it meant, even if I didn’t quite understand. When I told them I wanted to give you my wolf, they were scared, okay? Because they understood. We’d come home, trying to find a way to help me, to fix me, and the very first day, I’d found you, brought you home, spoken for the first time in over a year, and then told them what you were to me, even if I didn’t use the right words.”
He looked back up at me, expression stark and pleading. “They were scared, Ox. But I was sure. I was so goddamn sure about you. I wanted you to have the thing that mattered the most to me, aside from my pack. When you’re little, you’re given your wolf and taught that one day, you will find a person to give it to, that it will be a token of everything they are to you. Dad, he… Mom. She didn’t want me to, not then. She wanted to wait. She told me it would mean more if I knew you better. If you knew what you were getting into. She told me that I didn’t have to do anything. That you weren’t going anywhere. I didn’t care. And Dad. Dad knew that. He could see it, okay? I told him that it was my choice. Because that’s what we’re told. That it always comes down to choice.”
“And you chose me,” I said quietly.
He laughed and rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, Ox. I did. You know I did. And Dad. He knew I would. He knew I wouldn’t not. So he told Mom it was all right. That when a wolf knows, he knows. But that’s the thing. I didn’t know. Not about you. I always knew something about you. But I didn’t know what he meant, okay? I didn’t. All I heard was yes, Joe, yes you can give the one thing you want to give to the one person you want to give it to. He helped me too. He brought out the box I put it in. Gave me the ribbon to tie it with. And I never asked him. I never asked her. But I think it’s the same one he used when he gave his to my mother.”
The house creaked around us. I couldn’t find a single word to say. That wasn’t unusual. Sure, I’d gotten better over the years. An Alpha couldn’t be silent, not really. But I still had trouble with words sometimes. It wasn’t that I didn’t have any. It was that I had too many, and they all got stuck trying to come out at once.
But that was okay. Because Joe had plenty.
“He knew,” he said. “Even then, I think he knew something was different about you. That you were wonderful and kind and amazing, but that there was something else. Not something more, because what you were was already enough. It was already a part of you. He recognized it. I don’t know how. But—Ox. H
e knew, okay? I really think he knew.”
He was watching me. I knew I had to say something, anything to fill the silence that followed his words. I owed it to him. To myself.
I said, “I still have it.”
He nodded and gave a wobbly smile that quickly disintegrated. “Okay,” he said in a choked voice. “Okay. Yeah. You do? That’s real good, Ox. I know—”
“Things aren’t the same.”
He stopped whatever he was going to say.
“I’m not the same,” I said.
“I know,” he said. “I knew that the moment I got here. Even before. I stepped back into the territory and knew.”
“Did you know? That I was an Alpha? Here, after you left?”
He shook his head. “I hadn’t heard about you.”
“Alpha Hughes knows.”
He looked surprised. “Why? Did they—”
“Robbie.”
Joe scowled. “Robbie.”
“He came here to… spy on us? Maybe. I don’t know. He was the new Osmond.”
“And you let him in the pack?” Joe demanded.
I watched him coolly. “He doesn’t belong to Hughes. He belongs to me.”
He recoiled like I’d slapped him. “Ox, you know what Osmond did. He betrayed my father. For all we know, Hughes was in on it too! They could have wanted him dead for years.”
“He’s not,” I said. “It’s not like that.”
“You don’t know that,” Joe spat. “They said the same thing about Osmond.”
“Is this because of Robbie? Or is it because of you?”
“What the hell.”
“He is my friend, Joe. That’s it.”
“Right,” Joe said, giving up all pretense. “And nothing more. He doesn’t want anything more.”
“I don’t want anything more.”
“He can’t—he’s not—”
“I told him. He knows.”
“Knows what?”
But I wasn’t ready for that. It would be too easy to let him off the hook. And part of me wanted to. I was already tired of this. Of the anger.
I said, “You cut us out.”
He took a step back. “Ox.”
“You said I’m sorry. In the middle of the night when you knew I wouldn’t see it. Like a coward. You said I’m sorry and then I didn’t hear anything from you. We didn’t hear anything from you. For years.”
He was revving himself up for another fight. I could see it in his stony expression. But I wasn’t going to let this one go. He had been wrong about a lot of things. But I thought this had been his worst mistake.
“I did what I had to,” he said, voice even.
“What you had to,” I echoed. “And why was that?”
“We couldn’t have the distraction.”
I snorted. “Right. We, meaning all of you. Meaning you all agreed.”
He hesitated.
“You didn’t,” I said, “did you? All of you didn’t agree.”
“It doesn’t—”
I slammed my hand against the countertop. “Don’t you say it doesn’t matter. It matters. All of it matters. I understand what it must have been like for you, Joe. I get it—”
“You don’t get anything,” he exploded. “You don’t get it, because you weren’t there!”
“And whose choice was that?” I said coldly. “You made it perfectly clear that—”
“Don’t,” he said, pointing a claw at me. “You don’t get to say I didn’t need you. You don’t get to say that when it’s not true. I needed you. I needed you too fucking much.”
“That was the problem, wasn’t it?” I said, answers slowly locking into place. “I was your tether. And you couldn’t have me be your tether. Not with what you set out to do.”
“Every time I saw your words,” he said. “Every time I wrote back to you, the more I wanted to come home. To you. To the others. And I couldn’t, Ox. I couldn’t, because I had a job to do. He had taken from me, and worse, he had taken from you. And I couldn’t do what needed to be done while being reminded of home. So yes, I stopped. I cut you all out. I did it because I cared too much about you to be able to do what I needed to do. I told myself that if I kept you separated from me, from this, I’d be keeping you safe.”
“You were wrong,” I said. “We weren’t safe. Not all the time.”
“I know,” he said, deflating. “They told me. The others. I didn’t think—”
“No, you didn’t. You only had one thing you focused on.”
“Revenge,” he said. “Rage. The need to find him and make him suffer.”
“And you didn’t.” I didn’t mean it to come out like it did, like I was accusing him.
His shoulders slumped. “No. We… were close. So many times. But he always managed to be one step ahead. I tried, Ox. I tried to make things right. But I couldn’t. So I just kept going.”
“Would you even be here?” I asked. “If you didn’t think he was coming for us again?”
He said, “I don’t know,” and the honesty hurt.
I nodded. My head felt stuffed. I didn’t know what else to do. “Why would he come here now? Why, after all this time, would he come back? Why not before?”
“I don’t know.”
“When is he going to get here?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do we need to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“What the fuck do you know?” I snarled at him. “You have wasted three goddamn years of our lives for nothing?”
He flinched, eyes on the floor.
I couldn’t stop. Not now that I’d broken open.
“Tell me, Joe. Was it worth it? Was it worth keeping me safe like you think you did? Was it worth leaving us all behind so you could go after a fucking ghost?”
“I don’t—”
“Don’t tell me you don’t know!” I roared at him. “Tell me one fucking thing you do know!”
“That I love you.” His breath hitched in his chest.
And I just.
I couldn’t breathe.
Everything felt too loud. Too real. Too bright. I wanted to hurt myself to know if I was dreaming or awake. Of all the things he could have said, I expected that the least.
And it wasn’t fair.
I croaked out, “What?”
He didn’t look up at me, eyes trained on the floor. When he spoke, he sounded smaller than I’d ever heard him. He said, “I don’t know a lot. Not anymore. Everything changed. You did. The pack. The people in it. This place isn’t like it was when we left. And Carter and Kelly. They—just. They fit again. Like it was nothing. Like we hadn’t been gone at all. With Mom. With Mark. With all those strangers. And with you. And Gordo. Gordo, Ox. He didn’t even need to worry. Because he always had you. Even though he tied himself to me somehow that night. Even though he became mine, he was always yours. They all are. And I’m here just—I don’t know why I’m here. I messed up, Ox.” He wiped his eyes and something shattered in my chest. “I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was keeping you all safe. But I was selfish. Because I just wanted to keep you safe. To keep you away from the monsters. If you didn’t know me, if you had never met me, you wouldn’t be here right now. Your mom would be alive. And you would be happy. I thought you’d want it that way. The longer I was gone, the easier it would be to forget me and everything I’ve done to you. I wanted to come home, Ox. All I wanted to do was come home, because without you, I don’t have a home.”
“Joe—” I said.
He raised his hand, cutting me off. “Just—let me. I know you… have a choice. Still. And I know I’ve done nothing to make you still choose me. And I’m okay with that. Because if there’s”—his voice was strangled and harsh—“someone else, or if there could be, I don’t want to stand in the way of that. I just want to be wherever you are. As your friend. Or packmate. Or just me and you like it was before all of this.
“You don’t have to keep the wolf, Ox. You don
’t have to. I just needed to be near you, because I’m tired. Okay? I’m so tired of this. Of running. Of not getting what I want. I just want you. Please just let me have you. Please. Nothing else matters if I can’t have you. Just let me, please just let me. You’re the Alpha here now, but please don’t make me leave.”
His face was wet by the time he’d finished. He had shifted partway, close to losing it to the wolf completely. I didn’t know how strong his control was anymore, given that I’d only seen him shift once on the night of the full moon.
And it wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, at least with this. Joe would never hurt me, not physically.
I didn’t want to fight this anymore. I didn’t want to fight him.
I took a step toward him.
His eyes flared again.
“Don’t,” he said. “You can’t. Ox, I’m slipping.”
“You won’t,” I said.
“You can’t know that,” he pleaded. “It’s not the same. I can’t find my way back because it’s not the same.”
I knew that. We both did. Some might have seen us and wondered how we’d gotten this far. After everything we’d been through. After everything we’d both done. He’d left. I’d stayed. I took his place, whether I’d meant to or not. I’d spent a good while angry at him. He spent the same time angry at himself.
None of that mattered, though. Maybe it would again, and soon, but right now, I just couldn’t take the thought of not touching him one second longer.
“No,” he said, “no, no, no, you can’t—”
I stood in front of him.
His back was against the door.
Our knees knocked together.
My hands brushed his.
It felt like such a tremendous thing, after all this time.
He growled at me, more wolf than man, and I took his face in my hand, that half-shifted face, white hair sprouting and receding, like he was stuck somewhere between the two. As soon as my fingers touched his skin, he shuddered against the touch and there was a moment when I thought it wouldn’t be enough. That too much had come between us for him to ever find his way back again.
Because I understood now what his choice had cost him. He might have been an Alpha and he might have had his brothers and Gordo with him to keep him sane, but he was almost an Omega too, having cut ties from his tether in order to give himself to his wolf. He hadn’t been able to focus on me because I kept him human. He’d given that up for the wolf. To become the predator. The hunter.