by TJ Klune
Fine.
I grabbed Tanner, as he seemed to be the weakest of the wolves. He squawked angrily as I hurled him at the man named Chris. They fell back in a tangle of limbs.
I turned toward Jessie.
She was still smiling.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I demanded.
She shrugged. “I missed having someone scrappy to spar with. The others tend to be all brute strength. It’s pretty insufferable when you think about it. Men.”
“Chris,” Rico said, “your sister is being mean again.”
“She’s got a point,” Ox said mildly, as if they hadn’t just kidnapped me and weren’t trying to kill me.
“Tanner, would you get off of me?”
“I’m trying, but your foot is in my asshole!”
Joe sighed. “This isn’t going like I thought it would.”
“Come on,” Jessie said, beckoning toward me as she bounced lightly on her feet. “Let’s see what you got.”
She wanted it?
Fine.
I went left.
She fell for it. Again.
I jerked right, grabbing her by the arm, spinning her around until her back was against my chest. And still she laughed like she was having the time of her life. I wrapped my arms around her and began to squeeze as hard as I could, intent on breaking her ribs.
“Not a victim,” I heard her whisper before she kicked her legs up off the ground, throwing her entire body back against me. I couldn’t stay upright, and for what felt like the millionth time in the past five minutes, I found myself on my back, staring up at the blue sky.
She was up before I could even consider moving. She stood above me, head cocked. “Huh,” she said. “That was easy. I expected more from—”
She grunted as I returned the favor, sweeping my legs against her, sending her to the ground.
“Oh,” Rico breathed from the porch. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
Jessie wasn’t smiling anymore.
I turned, planning on running from these idiots, but I came face-to-face with another woman, this one smiling serenely. I hadn’t even heard her approach. She was barefoot.
“Hello, Robbie,” Elizabeth Bennett said. “You’re looking less pale today. All this exertion is doing wonders, I think.”
I punched her in the face.
Well, I tried to punch her in the face.
Except she caught my fist with one hand before I could connect.
“You really shouldn’t have done that,” Rico said from the porch. “I’m going to enjoy this. Destroy him, mamacita.”
She squinted at me. “I don’t know if all this violence is necessary.”
I threw another punch.
She caught that one too.
She shrugged. “Okay, maybe a little necessary.”
A bright flash exploded in my skull as she fucking head-butted me, her forehead crashing into mine. I gasped as stars shot across my vision. I staggered back, blood trickling down my face. Before I could recover, I bumped into something big. Something hairy.
I turned slowly as I wiped the blood away.
A gigantic timber wolf stood there, jaws open, fangs bright in the sunlight. Its eyes were violet, and before I could get a handle on the fact that there was yet another Omega, the large blond man standing next to the timber wolf said, “Hey. My mom just fucked your shit up. That’s hysterical.” He tried to take a step toward me, but the timber wolf moved between us, crowding against him. The man turned his blue eyes toward the sky as he sighed. “Dude, we’ve talked about this. Boundaries, okay? Just because you’ve got this stupid idea in your wolf brain that you need to be my shadow doesn’t mean you can stop me from punching Robbie. Everyone else has gotten a chance. I want a turn.”
The timber wolf growled.
The man scowled. “Don’t you take that fucking tone with me. I don’t need you to—”
“Robbie.”
Grass.
Lake water.
Sunshine. So much sunshine. As if the world was on fire.
Kelly stood on the porch. His skin was pale, eyes sunken in his head. He stood between Ox and Joe. But he wasn’t leaning on them. He was standing on his own, and even though he looked exhausted, he wasn’t letting that stop him.
I’m your mate.
He wasn’t like he’d been at the bridge.
Because he no longer smelled like wolf. Oh, the thick scent of packpackpack still poured off him, and he was theirs just as much as they were his, but it wasn’t the same.
He was human.
Ezra had taken his wolf away.
The others disappeared.
I only had eyes for him.
He nodded slowly.
He said, “I know.”
He said, “I know you’re scared. Confused.”
He said, “But we’re not going to hurt you. You’re safe, Robbie.”
He said, “You’re home.”
I took another step toward him.
“That’s it,” he said, stepping away from the Alphas. Joe looked like he wanted to stop him, but he kept his hands at his side. “Hey. It’s okay, Robbie. It’s okay now. You’re here.” He smiled, though it was broken. “You’re with me now.”
It would be so easy.
To go to him.
To let him fix all of this.
To have him take me away.
And part of me wanted to. Part of me believed him. A quiet part, whispering in the dark, but there nonetheless.
But it was a trick.
It had to be.
They were Bennetts. And they were the enemy.
He knew then. The moment before I made my decision. I didn’t know how. But he did.
Even as my muscles coiled, the skin around his eyes tightened.
There was an opening to my right. Chris and Tanner were spread too far apart.
The secret part of me whispered for me to stop. To stay. To listen.
I ran.
“Gordo!” Ox shouted.
The ground cracked under my feet. I zigzagged just as a column of rock rose from the split earth. Dirt hit my face. There was a loud whoosh as the rock grew, but I spun around it, heading for the forest.
As I hit the tree line, howls rose up behind me. And I swore there were Omegas running through the woods around me, eyes violet and hungry.
The chase was on.
green creek/on sundays
I thought about shifting, about putting my paws into the earth.
I didn’t.
I was in a strange pack’s territory, so far from home. I didn’t know what would happen if I shifted. Even though I wanted nothing more than to feel the pull of the wolf, I couldn’t take the chance of running into someone who didn’t know about wolves.
Tree limbs slashed against me, the wind whipping through my hair. I could hear voices of humans and wolves from behind me as they chased me, and I made a split-second decision to move toward the sound of cars ahead. It sounded like there was a town somewhere in front of me, and if I could make it to it, they’d have to stop. The wolves wouldn’t take the chance of exposing themselves to a group of unsuspecting humans.
It didn’t take long to reach pavement. An old truck almost struck me as I stepped out onto the road. The tires screeched, and I raised my hands in front of me, the sharp smell of oil and exhaust assaulting my senses. The grill of the truck was less than a foot away as it came to a stop.
A woman leaned her head out the window. Her eyes were wide.
“Robbie?” she gasped. “What the hell are you—”
She cursed as I ran past the truck. The engine squealed as she threw it in reverse. I glanced over my shoulder to see her spinning the steering wheel expertly, the old truck wheezing and groaning as it whipped around, the smell of burning rubber filling the air.
Ahead, I could see the outline of buildings.
A town, just as I’d thought.
I saw an old sign set back in the trees, almost overgrown by bushes.
GREEN CREEK
The words were faded.
But underneath seemed to be a more recent addition, carved into the wood.
A wolf, head tilted back in a silent song.
It struck me as I crossed the town line that I was wearing shorts and nothing else.
I didn’t have time to worry about it. If anything, I hoped people would see it and believe I was being chased. That I’d been kidnapped and attacked. There was still blood on my head, though the wound had closed. I’d find a cop, tell him about the weird people in the house at the end of the dirt road, and then I’d figure out what to do next.
The problem with that is the first human I came across said, “Robbie? Holy shit, when did you get back? When did they find you?”
I had no idea who he was. He was standing in front of a hardware store, a broom in his hands. His eyes were wide.
“You have to help me,” I told him. “I’ve—there are people after me. I don’t know who they are. They took me—”
He nodded, taking a step toward me. He looked around as if to make sure we weren’t being overheard. He lowered his voice and said, “Is it a… wolf thing? Like, bad wolves or hunters again?”
I gaped at him. He wasn’t a wolf. He wasn’t in a pack. How the fuck did he know about any of this?
“Let me call Ox,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “He’s your Alpha. He’ll know what to—”
I took off down the road, leaving him staring after me.
There was a diner ahead, warm and inviting. I could see an inflatable palm tree near the door. OASIS, the sign in the window said.
A few people sat at the counter, cups of coffee in front of them. They all turned as I pushed through the door, a bell ringing overhead.
“I need help,” I said, even before the door closed behind me. “I need—”
An older white man sitting at the counter said, “Robbie? Hey! Holy shit, you’re back! Where have you been?”
Jesus fucking Christ.
Everyone smiled at me as the man stood with a grunt. Their smiles faded as I took a step away from him. “Are you bleeding?” the man asked as he squinted at me. “Did it heal already?” He shook his head. “Shape-shifters. I’ll never get over it. Well, that isn’t exactly true. I did get over it when the pack paid for the motel room to get fixed after that whole mess with the Omegas. And that crazy hunter woman who loved God a little too much. And the bar exploding.” He paused, considering. “A lot of shit happens with shape-shifters, huh? Crazy.”
Before I could even begin to process that, an alarm began to blare.
I covered my ears as I winced. It sounded like an old tornado warning system, and it was everywhere. The people in the diner stood quickly, and I was shocked when the older man in front of me pulled out a gun. “Saddle up, boys,” he said. “I haven’t had a drink since I found out about werewolves, and I ain’t gonna start now. I’m ready to kick some ass and take some names.” He cocked the gun.
Who the fuck were these people?
“We need to wait for the Alpha, Will,” a woman said. She was wearing a waitress uniform. She was black and plump, her hair hanging in thick dreads on her shoulders, and I was shocked into a stupor when she flashed violet eyes at me. “He’ll know what to do. Ox knows everything.”
The man with the gun—Will, apparently—snorted. “I hear you, Dominique. But who knows what’s going on now? Best to shoot first and ask questions later.” He laughed, as if he wasn’t standing near an Omega. “Besides. The Alphas said we have to be on guard. And Ox knows what he’s talking about. His momma taught him that, god rest her soul. Men! Follow me!”
I barely had time to step out of the way before the diner emptied, the others following Will outside. They all clapped me on the shoulder as they rushed by. One flashed his eyes at me. It was another fucking Omega.
I was left alone with the waitress.
She eyed me warily. “You came back.”
“Omega,” I growled at her.
She took a step back, wringing her hands. “Okay. I get it. Jessie said that you were—”
I started to walk toward her when the alarm grew louder. It pounded in my head. I bent over, trying to block it out, but it was no use. By the time I stood back upright, the Omega was gone, the door that led back to the kitchen swinging on its hinges.
I ran out of the diner, hitting the sidewalk.
People rushed around me as the alarm continued to blare.
I watched as windows were shuttered in the businesses up and down the street. People inside pulled down metal grates, and even from a distance, I could feel the burn of silver as it reflected in the sunlight. The grates had silver built into them, as if the entire fucking town knew about wolves and their weaknesses.
Aside from the diner behind me, only one other place wasn’t being closed up.
A shop across the street. It looked like a mechanic’s. One of the garage doors was wide open. Maybe there’d be a phone inside I could use. I didn’t know who I was going to call, but it felt like the only option.
I wouldn’t realize my mistake until later.
I ignored the sign above the garage and the single name on it.
I ducked into an alley as that old truck reappeared down the main thoroughfare. The woman from before was hanging out of it, driving at a crawl, shouting my name. She had a phone to her ear. “No,” she was saying, “I don’t know where he—Rico, I swear to god, if you yell at me one more time, I’m going to break up with you, and you will never find someone as good as me as long as you live, you hear me? Send the wolves. They can sniff him out—”
She drove right by me, still yelling into the phone.
I stepped out from the shadows of the alley. The street was almost empty now, the businesses all closed up. I looked up and down the road. No pack. No wolves.
I took off across the street, waiting for someone to shout my name, tell me to stop.
No one did.
The garage was empty and smelled of oil and metal and wolves. A car sat up on one of the lifts. An SUV had its hood up, sunlight filtering in through the skylights overhead. There were three doors inside the garage. One looked like it led out to the back. Another led to the front of the garage and what seemed to be a waiting room.
The third door led to a small office with an ancient desk, and a newer computer. The keys on the keyboard had smudges of oil on them. The screen of the monitor was dark.
Next to it was a phone, the cord spilling off the side of the desk.
I picked it up and breathed a sigh of relief when I heard the dial tone above the siren ringing through the streets of Green Creek.
That relief, so green in all this blue, disappeared a second later.
I didn’t know who to call.
Ezra wasn’t….
He wasn’t who he said he was.
I’d seen the way his body changed, the years fading off him as he descended from the ruins of the bridge. He hadn’t been slumped over like age had ravaged his body.
And he’d said his name was Robert Livingstone.
Gordo had called him father.
Which meant—
Fuck. I didn’t know what it meant. It was lost in the storm in my head.
Alpha Hughes, but then….
I had no one.
I had no one I could call.
I was alone.
It wasn’t grief that hit me then, but it was close. It was something alive and dark, clawing at my chest.
I put the phone back in its cradle.
I had nowhere to go.
No friends.
No family.
No pack.
Nothing.
My chest hitched. I let out a shuddering breath, eyes stinging.
And then I saw it—the photograph next to the computer.
The glass covering the photo was dusty, covered in smudged fingerprints, as if it were picked up often.
I recognized the house I’d just escaped from in the backgrou
nd, a dusting of snow on the ground around it.
And standing in front of it was a wolf pack.
Ox was there, arms across his chest, a quiet smile on his face.
Joe stood next to him, head tilted back in laughter.
To Ox’s right was the witch, Gordo. He was scowling, but there was a vibrant spark in his eyes.
Mark held on to Gordo’s elbow, as if he were about to turn the witch toward him. The raven on his neck looked so real, I expected it to fly away.
On Joe’s other side were Tanner and Chris and Rico. They appeared to be wrestling, with Chris standing in the middle, holding Tanner and Rico in headlocks on either side of him. He was grinning, a big goofy thing that made me ache.
Next to Rico was Carter, glaring at the timber wolf, who had its tongue lolling out of its mouth. But his hand was on its back, fingers curled into the hair.
And then…
I saw me.
I looked different. My dark hair was shorter, the sides shaved with length left on top. My green eyes were bright, my glasses sitting crooked on my face. I looked loose and happy. I wore a leather jacket that looked a little big on me, with a patch on the front that looked like a raven. I thought it was Gordo’s.
I wasn’t looking at the camera or at any of the others.
I only had eyes for one person.
And oh, was he smiling at me as if I were the only thing in his entire world. Our hands were joined between us, and Kelly Bennett had stars in his eyes. He was taller than me, his head tilted downward as he watched me. I looked as if I were in the middle of telling a story he’d heard a million times. And even though it looked cold, he was wearing a thin shirt. No jacket. Peeking out from the collar was a dimple in the skin.
The top of a scar.
Without thinking, I reached up and touched my own neck. Rigid bumps extended down to the top of my shoulder.
It was a glamour, Jessie whispered in the storm.
All those times I’d thought I felt something there.
All those times I’d rubbed my neck, sure something was off.
I picked up the photo, bringing it close to my face, sure I’d be able to see whatever trick this was. Photoshop. It had to be Photoshop. It was the only thing that made sense. They’d lifted my image and put it in this picture.
But for the life of me, I couldn’t ever remember a time I’d been so happy.