by TJ Klune
His arm ended in a stump at the wrist.
“Witch,” I hissed at him. I ran toward him only to smash into another barrier. It knocked me back, but I stayed on my feet. I snarled in anger.
He rolled his eyes. “Or maybe you can still be that stupid. Good to know some things don’t change, no matter—”
A low growl came from the shadows behind him.
The witch sighed. “Yeah, yeah. I hear you, you overgrown mutt.”
I recoiled as a large brown wolf stepped onto the bridge. Its eyes were violet.
An Omega.
It pressed up against the witch, bumping its snout against the stump of his arm.
“I know,” the witch said. “Hand, sanity, blah, blah, blah. Look. It’s him. It’s really him.” All the bravado seemed to fall away from the witch as he looked at me. His eyes were wet as he shook his head. “Christ, kid. Aren’t you just a sight. All that hair, man. You used to keep it short. Still have the glasses, though. Figures.”
“Let me out,” I snarled at him, banging my hands against the barrier. “You can’t keep me in here forever!”
The witch laughed, though it sounded hollow. “I know,” he said as the brown wolf tilted its head. “But better to be safe than sorry. Especially after….” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Not now.” He was plaintive when he said, “Kid. Robbie. Look at me.”
I bared my fangs.
“You know me.”
I slammed my hands against the barrier again. “I don’t.”
He said, “You do. You know me very well. Somewhere deep inside, you do. It’s there, I think. Still. Locked away behind a door. My name is Gordo. And I’m the witch of a wolf pack. Your wolf pack.” He took a step toward me even as the brown wolf growled in warning. “We’ve waited for this moment for a long time. We… tried, kid. We tried so hard to find you. To get to you. You know me. You know me.”
He dropped his hand.
The barrier fell away as the magic dissipated.
I charged at him.
He didn’t stop me as I wrapped my hand around his throat and lifted him off the ground. The brown wolf snarled in fury, but they smelled like each other, their scents mixed in, all dirt and leaves and rain and ozone. They were mated. I squeezed the witch’s neck tightly as I glared at the wolf. “You back the fuck off or I’ll tear out his throat.” It was stupid to threaten the mate of a witch, but I was out of options and in a full-blown panic.
“I think,” the witch gasped, “he’s kind of got a point. I’d rather keep my throat as is, if it’s all the same to both of you.”
The brown wolf wasn’t having it. Before I could sink my claws into the witch’s neck, the brown wolf slammed into me with its head, knocking me off my feet. The witch fell to the ground as I rolled into the side of the bridge. I was up on my feet immediately, ready to lash out at the Omega.
But he didn’t come for me.
He stood protectively over the witch, eyes bright in the looming darkness.
“Well,” the witch said, flat on his back in the road. “This is going better than I expected. I’m still alive, so that’s a plus. Mark, would you please get your fucking dog junk out of my face?”
The brown wolf sat on him, looking rather pleased with himself before he caught me watching. He snapped his jaws at me but didn’t move.
The witch wheezed. “You… fucking… dick.”
A sound from behind me.
I looked back over my shoulder.
Alpha Wells—Shannon—was gone. But in her place stood two wolves.
One pure white.
One pure black.
The white wolf had red eyes.
The black wolf did too. But there was violet swirling within them, like he was… like he could be—
My shift melted away beyond my control.
They took a step toward me in unison, shoulders brushing. The white wolf was smaller than the black but emanated such power that I could barely breathe. It felt almost regal, like this wolf was royalty.
But it was the black wolf that held my attention the most. Its eyes never left mine as it walked toward me, claws clicking on the pavement.
This wolf was different.
This wolf was more.
My eyes stung, and I didn’t know why. My hands shook.
I heard a whisper in my head, faint but undeniable.
It said packpackpack.
“Who are you?” I said in a broken voice. “What do you want with me?”
The Alphas stopped a good twenty feet away. As I watched, they began to shift. The white wolf became a blond man, younger than I expected. He was strong and slender, the red fading from his eyes until they were blue, blue, blue.
But the other wolf.
Oh god, the other wolf….
His skin was tan. His eyes and hair were dark. He was big, so big that I thought he would fill up the entire world. He popped his neck side to side as the black hair receded, as the fangs slid back up into his gums.
A single tear slid down his cheek. He didn’t wipe it away. It hung on the curve of his jaw for a moment before it splashed onto the road.
“Hello, Robbie,” the man said. His voice was deep, the words slow and filled with so much blue that I could barely breathe. But there was green in them too, green relief that was like the forest around us was in full bloom. “I know you’re scared. I know you have questions. And I will do my best to answer all of them. But we have to go while there’s still time. I need you to trust me.”
I was in a daze. The wolves from my dreams were here in front of me. I didn’t know if I was awake. “Who the hell are you people?”
The man nodded. The other Alpha at his side gripped his hand, mouth a thin line. The big man was an all-encompassing presence, but the other one…
The other one was dangerous.
And he said, “My name is Joe. Joe Bennett.”
My shift returned, sudden and savage.
My fangs dropped as I roared at them. At him.
The witch shouted at the brown wolf, telling him to get the fuck off him even as the wolf growled. The Alphas stood there, barely affected.
Bennett. They were coming for Ezra. They were coming for the Alpha of all. I knew this because Michelle had told me. They were traitors, they were monsters, they were the enemy, and I would do what I had to in order to protect what was mine.
They stood their ground as I ran toward them.
The muscles in the bigger man’s legs flexed as he began to crouch, eyes flashing impossibly in shades of red and violet.
The other one, the dangerous one, popped his claws and—
“Robbie!”
Everything stopped.
My breath hitched as a fourth man stepped out from behind the Alphas.
A wolf.
He looked like the dangerous Alpha, all blond and blue-eyed. They had to be brothers.
He took measured steps, barely looking as if he touched the ground with his bare feet. His jeans were rolled up above his ankles, and he wore what looked like a work shirt, gray with thin red stripes, the hem hanging around his waist.
There was a name embroidered in a patch on his chest.
ROBBIE.
The world tilted.
He took another step toward me. The darker Alpha reached out to stop him, but the other Alpha shook his head once.
I barely noticed.
I couldn’t look away from the man in front of me.
His smile was a trembling thing. I thought for a moment he was scared, but the scent that assaulted me wasn’t fear.
It was sorrow.
Oh god, there was an ocean of blue pouring from him. There was hope, yes, green along the surface, but it was overwhelmed by the sea that engulfed him.
He said, “Hey.”
He said, “Hi.”
He said, “Hello.”
He said, “I see you, you know?” and “I see you” and “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry we let you go, I’m so sorry I let you go,
but I swear to you, I swear it’ll never happen again. You’re safe. You’re safe now. Finally, after all this time.”
I was surrounded.
I could do nothing about it.
I was trapped.
He took another step toward me, hands coming up because he knew what a cornered animal would do. He knew that I was on the edge, and the moon was so bright, so strong, so fucking close.
He said, “Listen.”
He said, “I need you to listen, okay?”
I jerked my head as the wolf and witch behind me began to move.
“Robbie,” the wolf in front of me snapped. “Look at me.”
I did. I was helpless not to.
He nodded. “Good. That’s good. It’s me, Robbie.” He took a deep breath. “It’s me. It’s Kelly.”
And I said, “Who?”
His face crumpled immediately, and I was submerged in the blue, drowning in an ocean that rose around me. He hurt. He hurt so fucking bad that I didn’t know how he could stand it.
“Kelly,” he whispered. “I’m Kelly.”
The witch said, “Can we do this later? We need to leave. Now.”
The Alphas took a step toward us.
The man in front of me—Kelly—shook his head furiously. “Wait. Just—”
Gordo said, “We don’t have time to wait,” as the brown wolf growled low in its throat. “They’ll be right behind him. And if it’s really my father, then we need to—”
They shouted after me as I ran toward the side of the bridge. Kelly screamed my name as I vaulted over the edge. My clothing tore as I fell, wind whipping around me. Muscle and bone groaned and broke as I listened to the moon.
I landed on the ground as a wolf, dust billowing around me.
I
need to
run
run
escape
find a tree
hide
quiet as a mouse
i am wolf
i
barely made it from under the shadow of the bridge before my shift was ripped from me in a terrible burst of magic, causing me to fall to my knees, and I was surrounded by wolves.
One was large and gray with flecks of black and white on its hind legs. It had violet eyes.
The second and third wolves were smaller. They were white and brown with black hair across their backs. Their eyes were orange, but they stood side by side with the Omega like it didn’t matter, like they weren’t scared.
I punched the ground in fury, my muscles rippling under my skin as I fought against the magic that held the wolf at bay.
The wolves stepped closer.
From above, the witch appeared, looking down at us. “Chris,” he snapped, “Tanner. Carter. Pulling him out of his shift won’t last. Don’t hurt him. You hear me, whatever you do, don’t—”
They were distracted.
I lunged for the Omega wolf, as it was closest. The other two wolves yelped and stumbled back, tripping over each other and falling to the ground in a tangle of limbs.
I feinted left as they started to recover. The gray wolf fell for it, and I went right.
I took off, running as fast as I could, crossing under the bridge.
I didn’t make it far before the Alphas crashed down in front of me, muscles coiling.
I skidded in the ground, rocks tearing at the soles of my feet.
They took a step toward me.
I took an answering step back, only to hear a low growl behind me. I looked over my shoulder. The other wolves had recovered and were coming toward me, slowly and deliberately, like they were hunting.
“Fucking werewolves,” the witch said as he and the brown wolf slid down the hill next to the bridge. “And we just had to do this so near a full moon. Because of course we did. Hey, let’s just make things as difficult as poss—Mark, if you don’t stop pushing me, I will end you.”
The brown wolf huffed in annoyance as they came to stand next to the Alphas.
“Robbie.”
I whirled around.
The man from the bridge pushed his way between the wolves.
Kelly.
The gray Omega tried to stop him, but he pushed its head away, gaze never leaving me, as if he thought I would disappear right in front of him.
I was surrounded.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” Kelly said. “I swear it.”
“You’re Bennetts,” I bit out, trying to force my shift. My skin rippled, but I couldn’t burst through. “You’re the enemy. You want to kill my Alpha.”
He looked stricken. “No. That’s not—”
But oh. He lied. His heart tripped the smallest amount, the barest of stutters.
His eyes widened. “Not like—Robbie. It’s not like that. You have to believe me. You’ve been lied to. They did something to you. Something to your memory. You know me. You know me.” And he stretched the collar of his shirt away from his neck. The shirt with my name on it.
There, at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, was a scar.
The perfect formation of a bite.
And he said, “You’re my mate.”
It was like a punch to the stomach. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t focus. “No. No. No. You’re not. You’re not.” I bit through my lip, blood filling my mouth. “I don’t have a mate. I would know if I—”
“Would you hear me, dear?”
The ocean parted.
Calm washed over me.
All would be well.
Ezra stood on the bridge above us, looking down.
He smiled. “Bennetts, Robbie. All of the creatures before you are Bennetts. And they want to take you away from me. All they do is take.” He shook his head. “I can’t let that happen, I’m afraid. It’s time for this to end, one way or another.”
The wolves around me howled a ferocious song.
It sounded like war.
Ezra nodded. “Ah. I suppose it was inevitable. Some things never change. All this fighting. All this bloodshed. Aren’t you tired? You have suffered. I have suffered. And yet you persist.”
The struts above us began to shake and groan.
Rust sprinkled down on us.
Ezra gripped the railing, his tattoos beginning to shine.
“Move!” Gordo shouted.
The bridge broke apart. The wolves around me darted out of the way when large sections of stone and metal crashed down around us. Kelly grabbed me by the arm and yanked, almost pulling me off my feet. I swiped at him, going for his face, but he ducked before my claws could tear into his skin.
“What are you doing!” he shouted at me “I’m trying to help—look out!”
He shoved me out of the way as a beam hurtled toward us, slamming into the ground where I’d once been standing. From above came the grating screech of metal as what remained of the bridge folded in on itself, slumping down toward the ground.
It looked like…
Stairs.
Ezra had made a staircase.
The metal reformed with every step he took toward us.
I watched as he stood upright, his hunch gone.
The liver spots on his hands and head faded.
White hair sprouted along the top of his head, thin and wispy.
His tattoos were as bright as I’d ever seen them, brighter than I thought possible, like they were new, like they’d just been carved into his skin.
The deep lines on his face filled, though not completely.
He looked years younger. Decades.
“There,” he said, sounding breathless. “Do you know how hard it is to maintain that level of magic at all times? Such a waste.”
He grunted as the brown wolf charged him. Gordo shouted furiously as the wolf was knocked away with a wave of Ezra’s hand, slamming into one of the steel beams with a devastating crunch. The wolf cried out in pain, a long and mournful sound.
“You,” Ezra said to the witch. “How you look like your mother.”
He barely blinked as Gordo raise
d his arms, magic building.
The black wolf stood at his side, eyes red and violet.
“What do you think you could do to me?” Ezra asked. “Don’t you see how easy this was for me? No matter where you go, no matter what you do, I will find you, Gordo. And I will take everything until you return what belongs to me.”
“We never took anything from you,” Gordo snapped. “And even if we had, do you really think we’d just let this go? After everything you’ve done?”
Ezra looked saddened, shaking his head slowly. “A demonstration, perhaps. Would you hear me, dear? Robbie, would you hear me?”
“Yes,” I whispered. Always.
Gordo’s eyes widened. “Trigger. It’s a goddamn trigger—”
“Kill them,” Ezra said. “Kill them all.”
I would do what he asked.
They were the enemy. The witch would be the first to die.
Except I didn’t reach him.
I leapt for the witch, claws extended.
A gray and black wolf came between us.
It whimpered as my claws sunk into its hair. Into its skin.
Blood spilled over my hands.
“No!” Gordo cried.
The gray and black wolf fell to the ground, my claws still inside it.
It looked up at me with orange eyes.
I stared down at it.
A tatter of clothing hung on its chest.
I watched as wolf blood spilled over the patch with my name on it.
I slowly pulled my claws out.
The wolf whimpered.
I stood as blood dripped from my fingers.
The black Alpha tilted his head back and howled. It rolled through the destruction around us, echoing into the forest.
For a moment nothing happened.
“Yes,” Ezra said mockingly, “because your wolfsong will do you any good so far from home—”
There came an answering howl.
And then another.
And another.
And another, until the forest was alive with wolves. Flashes of violet lights began to fill the forest. Wolves stood on the remains of the bridge overhead, peering down at us, their eyes glowing.
Violet.
We were surrounded by Omegas.
“Curious,” Ezra said, sounding unafraid as he turned his gaze upward. “I’ve often wondered how you did it, Alpha Matheson. Taking what I created and making it something else entirely. Is it just you? Your pack? The territory? No matter. It’s—”