by T. J. Klune
Another man came out.
I wondered at the dramatics of werewolves.
These ones especially, revealing themselves slowly.
It was probably Richard’s idea, to come out one by one.
He knew what seeing Osmond’s face would do to me.
He was playing a game, and I was falling for it.
Because it was taking all I had not to launch myself at Osmond.
The years hadn’t been kind to Osmond. He looked haggard, smaller than I’d remembered him. Thinner. There were dark circles under his eyes. He seemed twitchy, hands flexing and then curling into fists again and again.
I remembered the first time I’d met him, the look on his face when he realized Joe had given me his wolf. The disgust. The disdain. He’d probably gone right to Richard after. Told him everything. Told him how Thomas had held him up against side of the house at the end of the lane, snarling in his face, telling him that I was worth something. That I mattered. That just because I was human didn’t make me any less than the wolves that surrounded me.
Thomas had stood up for me.
And then Osmond had betrayed him.
I thought how easy it would be to bring the crowbar down upon his head.
Just to see the skin and skull split, the spray of blood.
I’d be torn apart, sure. I probably wouldn’t even make it over to him before I was surrounded by Omegas.
But I could try. I really could.
His eyes flashed like he could hear my thoughts. They were violet, just like the others.
I said, “Your eyes.”
He flinched, like he hadn’t expected me to speak.
“Was it worth it?”
The Omegas laughed again.
Osmond said, “It doesn’t matter.” His voice was quiet. “What’s done is done.”
What’s done is done. Like my mother. Like Thomas.
Oh, the rage I felt.
The anger.
It must have been radiating off me, and even though the Omegas weren’t mine, even though I was not their Alpha, I was still an Alpha, and their shoulders tensed and they whimpered and they whined at the sight of me.
Osmond looked to cower, but stopped himself at the last moment. “Enough,” he said harshly to the Omegas. They barked and yipped at him in return.
“How did you do it?” Osmond asked me. “How did you become an Alpha?”
“How do you sleep at night?” I asked him. “Knowing you did what you did?”
“I sleep very well.”
“Lie,” I said. “You don’t look good, Osmond.”
“This isn’t going to end well for you. You have to know that by now.”
I smiled at him. He flinched again. “Maybe not,” I said. “But I know who I am. Can you say that?”
“We looked into you, Matheson. No wolves. No one in your family was ever a wolf.”
I said nothing.
“We thought that it could be the witch. You were part of his coven, his pack even before you knew the wolves. But there isn’t magic strong enough to create an Alpha. Believe me, he looked.”
Robert Livingstone. I wondered if he was here. I thought not. Gordo would have known, even without the wards.
“No magic,” Osmond said. “No wolves. And yet here you are.”
“Here I am,” I agreed, waiting for the monster to show himself, to slink out of the dark with fang and claw.
“How?” he asked again. “How can you be the Alpha if you can’t feel them?”
“Does it matter?” I didn’t touch the last part. Because it sounded like he didn’t know about the bonds. About the threads that tied us all together. And if he didn’t know—
Osmond narrowed his eyes. “If you could do it, there could be others.”
I knew what it was. For the most part. But he didn’t need to know that. He didn’t need to know that it came from grief and need. That it came from trust and belief. That there were wolves and humans alike who believed in me so much that I couldn’t be anything but their Alpha. That even though I wasn’t a wolf, they trusted me to care for them. To love them. To give them a home and make us a family.
It was something Osmond could never understand.
It was something Richard would never understand.
Because even if he took this from me, even when he ripped this from my chest, he would mangle it and twist it into something unrecognizable. He could be an Alpha, but he would never get what it meant to be an Alpha.
I said, “Where is he?” I was done with Osmond. I was done with waiting.
Osmond said, “He’ll come when he’s ready.”
I snorted. “Drawing this out, then. Listening as you try and get as much information from me as you can. You’re his bitch, Osmond. You’ve never been anything more than his bitch.”
Osmond growled, eyes flashing as he took a step forward. “Chaney,” he said coldly, eyes never leaving mine. “Just a little bit.”
The mean wolf, the large wolf, the wolf holding on to William grinned, his chin wet with saliva that leaked from his mouth. He dragged his thumb harder against the boy’s cheek, splitting it cleanly. The boy shrieked into his gag, blood spilling. It was a thin cut and probably wouldn’t even scar, but the wolves smelled the blood and began to gnash their teeth. William’s mother tried to lunge for him but was snapped back by her hair, the Omega behind her jerking it none too lightly.
“Don’t,” I said hoarsely. “Just—”
I was distracted. By the wolves. By the humans. By the blood dripping down William’s face. It made sense. It was overwhelming. I was surrounded by Omegas who were shifting further and further into their wolves, by Osmond who looked both defiant and nervous.
I was distracted.
Which is why I didn’t hear him coming up behind me.
Which is why I didn’t anticipate his arm coming up around my chest, pulling me tightly against him.
Which is why I didn’t expect his other hand to latch itself around my throat, claws digging into my neck.
His breath was on my ear. It stank of flesh and blood.
Richard Collins said, “Hello, Ox.”
I closed my eyes, and even though I tried to force it down, my heart tripped and stumbled in my chest.
He felt it. He heard it.
He chuckled at the sound, the rapid beat.
He sounded amused when he said, “You don’t stink of fear. Curious, that.”
“Because I’m not afraid of you,” I said even as he tightened his grip around my throat. His front was pressed against my back, his lips near my ear. It was the furthest thing from intimate I’d ever experienced.
“Maybe,” he said. “If you aren’t, it’s only because you’ve convinced yourself of it. But I can make you scared of me, Ox. Very quickly, if I chose to.”
The Omegas in front of us grinned and ran their claws over the heads of the humans at their feet. Osmond watched us warily, eyes flickering violet.
“It’s quiet?” Richard asked.
Osmond nodded. “Only him.”
“Good,” Richard said. “It’s a start.” Then, “Thank you, Ox. I knew I could count on you.”
“Fuck you.”
“Such kindness. Now for your next trick, I need you to drop the crowbar. You won’t be needing it.”
I didn’t move.
“Ox,” he said, voice filled with regret. “I can do this as easy or as hard as you make me. Really, the power is in your hands as to how this can go. Don’t you want this to be easy?”
He lied, I knew. Words filled with promise that died in my ears. Nothing about this would be easy.
“Ox. Drop. The. Crowbar.”
I was an Alpha. I was a goddamn Alpha—
I didn’t have time to move or even react when he dropped the arm around my chest, his hand snapping to my wrist. He twisted it brutally, the bones grinding, then breaking. A wave of pain shot up through me, glassy and sharp. My stomach rolled as the crowbar fell to the ground. It kicked u
p a plume of dust as I gritted my teeth together, trying to swallow back the cry that wanted to fall from my mouth.
“That was… unfortunate,” Richard said, and he shoved me down into the dirt.
I tasted dirt in my mouth.
And, for the first time, panic.
It started in my chest, a slow roll that crawled through me, little pinpricks that turned into something so much stronger than I’d ever felt before. It wasn’t just panic. Or, at least, not just my own.
It was the panic of the pack.
The bonds had reopened.
No, no, no, no.
Thomas whispered, The Alpha’s greatest gift to his pack is sacrifice. Because he must protect them above all others, at all costs. Even if it means his own life.
They would come.
As soon as they recovered from the anger, the rage, the pain, they would come.
I tried to push the threads down, but they were bright and electric, like live wires. I couldn’t push them away because they were aware.
They were coming.
And Richard didn’t know it.
I couldn’t take the chance.
I couldn’t let any of them get hurt.
It would take time for them to find me. They thought I was at the garage.
Maybe there’d be enough time to—
But there was one, one that was brighter than all the others. Closer. Angrier.
I felt his fury. I felt his magic.
Gordo.
Gordo was here.
Gordo was here.
I rolled over onto my back. The crowbar was off to my left, within reach.
Richard towered above me, a look of disgust on his face.
I said, “If I give you this. If you take this from me, you give me your word that you’ll leave them alone. All of them. The pack. The people. Green Creek.”
“I don’t know that you’re in a position to ask me for anything, boy,” Richard growled. “You are human. You may be an Alpha, but it was never yours to have. I will take it from you and you will—”
“Don’t you want to know how I did it?” I asked, clutching my wrist to my chest. “How a human became an Alpha?”
He paused. Then, “I’m listening.”
“They’ll hear,” I said. “The Omegas. They’ll hear and they’ll try to do the same. They’ll take it from you. They’ll try to become an Alpha themselves. You don’t want that.”
He crouched down next to me. Stupid man. I hated him more than anything in the world.
“You should speak now,” he said in a low voice. “Before I run out of patience.”
And I said, “Fuck you.”
I moved quicker than I ever had before. I was fueled by sorrow and despair, by ire and that feeling, that goddamned feeling of my father, my daddy saying you’re gonna get shit, Ox, because here he was, here was Richard fucking Collins proving my dad right. He was giving me shit, and I wasn’t going to take it now. I shouldn’t have to begin with.
But most of all, it was pack that pushed me, pack that allowed me to move as I did, it was pack and pack and pack, these people, these wolves that were my family. And Joe, who I could feel rising within me, Joe who was scared and furious and coming, oh god he was coming for me.
I pushed along the thread toward Gordo, stronger than it had been since he’d come back, saying the humans the humans the humans you can’t let them hurt you have to help them save them help them, even as my fingers curled around the crowbar in the dirt.
Richard’s eyes flickered to my hand.
I swung the crowbar in a rising arc. It smashed into the side of his head with an audible crunch, the breaking of bone jolting down the bar into my arm. He grunted and started to drop to the side.
Gordo came then.
He stepped out from behind the truck, tattoos blazing brighter than I’d ever seen them before. The raven flapped furiously, and I swore I could actually hear its cry when it opened its beak, a loud, shrill call that vibrated deep into my bones. I felt the thrum of his magic on the ground as it pulsed deep within the earth. It called to me, saying AlphaAlphaAlpha and I pushed into it, grabbing the thread between Gordo and me as tightly as possible.
Even before Richard hit the ground, a snarl already forming on his broken face, the ground around the humans and the Omegas shifted and broke apart. Great columns of earth rose up with a loud roar, knocking the humans forward and the Omegas back.
Osmond was moving forward as I pushed myself to my feet. His focus was on Gordo, claws outstretched, snout elongating as he ran toward him. I flipped the crowbar until the curved end faced away from me and swung it down at Osmond’s legs as he tried to run by. The crowbar smashed into his shins as I put my all into that hit. He cried out at the crack of bone, the sizzle of skin, but I pushed through the swing as hard as I could, sweeping his feet out from under him. He fell forward into the dirt, the momentum causing him to skid along the road facedown, coming to a halt near Gordo’s feet.
I didn’t stop, turning away from them, trusting Gordo to have my back. I ran toward the broken earth, sliding in the dirt as I fell to my knees in front of the humans. They were dazed and unsure. I started with Judith, ripping the gag from her mouth.
“You have to help me,” I said, cupping her face as the earth continued to crack behind her. “You have to get them out of here. Untie them and take the truck. Go to Green Creek. Don’t stop until you’re at the garage. You stay there.” I let go of her a moment and dug the keys out from my pocket. She started to lose focus, whimpering and looking around with a dazed expression. The others were moving slowly.
“Hey!” I snapped at her. “Listen to me. Are you listening?”
She whispered, “Ox?”
I held up two keys in front of her, inches from her face. “This is the key to the truck. This is the key to the garage. Do you understand?”
“I…. Ox, their eyes, it’s—”
“Judith, your son will die if you don’t get him out of here.”
She recoiled, but the fog in her eyes began to clear. She steeled herself, automatically reaching for the keys and William at the same time. She undid his bindings while I helped the other three. “You follow her,” I told them. “She’ll keep you safe. You don’t stop until you’re at the garage and lock the doors behind you.”
I hoped the wards would be enough. They had to be. We had no other choice.
Judith picked up William, who clung to her, arms around her neck. I pushed the keys into her hands, even as the Omegas began to growl. She turned back to me, and said, “Thank you, thank you, we’ll—watch out!”
I was slammed into the ground by something heavy that landed atop me, crying out as pain lanced across my back where four sets of claws dug in. I had a mouthful of dirt as the wolf on my back growled near my ear.
The weight suddenly was lifted off me, and the wolf yelped in pain.
I was pulled up, hands on either arm. A woman was on my left (Megan?), a man on my right (Gerald, I thought his name was Gerald). Another man stood in front of me, breathing heavily, my crowbar in his hands. His name was Adam, and he worked at the hardware store, a kind man with terrible acne scars.
He said, “Holy fucking shit.”
I stumbled forward, grabbing the crowbar from him. “Thank you.”
He nodded at me, eyes wide.
“Ox!” Gordo shouted. “You need to get them moving. Now. Osmond’s gone, and I don’t know where he is.”
I spat onto the road, blood and dirt mixed together. “Go,” I snapped at them. “Get out of here. Hurry!”
They didn’t wait for me to tell them again. They pushed each other toward the truck even as there was another low growl from behind me.
I turned.
Richard Collins was full wolf, snout bloody, nose split. He pushed himself up on four legs, eyes violet, lips curling up around his fangs. He pulled himself to his full height, smaller than Joe and Thomas had ever been, but still a big fucking wolf.
“Omega
,” I said. I wasn’t surprised at that. He was too far gone into his wolf to be anything but.
He snarled at me.
I took a step back, tightening my grip on the crowbar.
He coiled down, preparing to jump.
Then, a wolfsong rolled over us, echoing as loud as it’d ever been. It was howled with rage and terror.
It was the song of an Alpha.
“No,” I whispered.
He’d found us. Already.
I couldn’t let this happen. Joe couldn’t be here. Not when there was the chance that Richard would hurt him. Would take him away from the pack. A pack needed an Alpha to survive, so they wouldn’t become Omegas. Thomas had been our Alpha. Then Joe after Thomas’s death. Then me, because of necessity.
But Joe had come back.
And he was the true Bennett Alpha.
They needed him.
And I had to make sure he survived.
I looked back at Richard, who’d been distracted by the call of the Alpha.
“Hey!” I shouted at him. “I’m right here, you fucking asshole!”
And then I ran. Away from our territory. Away from the wards.
Away from my pack.
Away from Joe.
“Ox!” Gordo cried out behind me. “Don’t do this!”
There was another song then.
It was deep and guttural, more scream than howl.
The song of a predator having found his prey.
I headed for the bridge, no real destination in mind, just away away away.
There were piles of writhing earth ahead where Gordo’s magic had called up the rock and the soil to cover the Omegas. I jumped over them, Omega claws breaking through and trying to grab me. A single claw scraped against my calf and there was a moment I thought I wouldn’t make it. I felt the scrape against my skin, a small flare of pain, but the Omega couldn’t grab me in time.
I landed on the other side of the Omegas, glancing over my shoulder in time to see them rise from the earth, teeth bared and eyes violet. Gordo was farther behind them, staring after me, horrified. A large wolf prowled between them, waiting for me to get enough distance away to make it a good hunt.