by TJ Klune
It was time they started remembering that.
Maybe it was time I did too.
IN THE end, I knew the wolves—at least Carter and Kelly—were disappointed with how it all played out. The old witch muttered under his breath and then turned the wooden cup over. The bones spilled across the tabletop, landing scattered almost pointlessly. I never learned to read bones because it was an archaic magic, more tied to sight than the earth like I was. There were times I didn’t even believe in it, but the old witch was one of the few left who practiced, and I had run out of ideas. Maybe it would turn out to be nothing but mindless hocus pocus, but….
Carter and Kelly leaned eagerly over the table, staring down at the bones as if they would reveal all the mysteries of the world. They looked like idiots.
Joe stood quietly next to me.
The old witch squinted at the table.
“This is so exciting,” Carter whispered to Kelly.
“I’m not sure what we’re supposed to be looking at.”
“I know. That’s what makes this so exciting.”
“Huh. Okay. Now I’m excited too.”
The old witch sat up in his chair and said, “Fairbanks.”
We stared at him.
He stared sightlessly back at us.
“Fairbanks,” I said slowly.
“The answers you seek are in Fairbanks.”
“Like,” Kelly said, “as in Alaska?” He squinted at the table, trying to see what the witch had seen.
“I really fucking hate Alaska,” Carter muttered, eyeing the bones as if they’d betrayed him.
“Richard Collins is in Fairbanks?” Joe asked.
The old witch looked up at him sharply. “I didn’t say that. I said the answers you seek are there. This will set you on the proper path. It will begin to lead you home.”
“Home,” Kelly breathed.
“Home,” the witch repeated.
Carter stepped back from the table. “Great! Wonderful. Awesome. What the hell are you all doing still standing around? We gotta get moving. Alaska, here we come!” He was already halfway out the door before he turned and stuck his head back in. “Thank you. Your help is appreciated. But also, maybe consider not hanging the skeletons of someone’s pet from your ceiling. It’s very I-shouldn’t-be-trusted-to-babysit-your-children. Just a suggestion.”
And then he was out the door.
Kelly stood to follow. He paused, looking at Joe and me before he turned to the old witch. “Thank you,” he said quietly and then went after his brother.
“How are we supposed to know you’re telling the truth?” Joe asked.
“Joe,” I snapped at him. “Don’t insult—”
“It’s fine,” the old witch said. “He doesn’t know me. It’s a fair question to ask.”
“But—”
“Gordo.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at both of them.
The witch said, “You don’t have to trust me, Alpha. I am not your pack. I live here, in this place, and I know how it looks. How I appear. But I have a certain… fondness for wolves. I always have.” He stood slowly and moved toward a bookshelf on the far wall. He took a large volume from the middle shelf. He turned and came back to the table, sliding the book toward Joe.
Joe glanced at me. I jerked my head toward the witch.
He took the book.
The cover was made of leather, red and cracked. There was a faded gold leaf carved into it.
Joe opened it slowly.
It’d been hollowed out.
Inside, resting atop a deep blue cloth, was a small, ornate stone wolf.
“His name was Arthur,” the old witch said quietly. “He gave that to me when we were young. And we lived and loved until one day, he and our entire pack were taken from me by the rage of men. I begged and pleaded with them, but my words fell on deaf ears. They… well. They saved Arthur for last. I managed to escape. And after, I knew nothing but revenge. It consumed me. When finally the last man had fallen, I no longer recognized myself.” He reached up and dragged a finger across his face. “I was old. And I still hadn’t allowed myself to grieve. I felt hollow, Alpha. And there was nothing left to fill my empty heart. I had taken the lives of those who had harmed me and mine, but I was alone.” He took the book back from Joe, placing his hand atop the wolf. “I sit here, day after day, waiting for release. Waiting for death. Because I know when my heart no longer beats, my beloved will be waiting for me, and we will howl together in the stars.” He chuckled wetly, shaking his head. “You cannot become me. You cannot let yourself become consumed. If you do, you run the risk of never finding your way home. Trust an old witch when he says he understands more than most. I have loved a wolf with my whole heart. I know, Alpha. I know.”
Joe nodded slowly. He turned to leave but stopped himself. Instead, he went to the old witch and knelt by his chair. He brought both hands up and cupped the ancient face before him. He allowed his half shift to come over him, his eyes burning in the dark room. His claws scraped against the man’s face, little pinpricks denting in the skin. A low rumble emanated from his throat.
“Oh,” the old witch said, sighing happily as his eyes closed. “Oh, oh, how wonderful it is to hear a wolf again. These old bones are singing. Thank you, Alpha. Thank you.” He turned his head and kissed a sharp claw.
Joe stood abruptly and left the little house in the cove.
The fire was almost out.
“Thank you,” I said quietly.
The old witch wiped his eyes. “Bah. I have done my part. Now you must do yours. I fear your journey is far from over. There is Richard Collins, yes, and he can never be brought back. But there is far worse than the likes of him. Do not let yourself be distracted.”
“My father.”
“Yes,” he whispered. “Richard Collins is nothing but a weapon, blunt and focused. But even one such as him can be manipulated. Monsters always can. Your story will not end with Richard Collins. I fear there is more ahead for you, Gordo.”
I nodded slowly. I was almost to the door when I heard my name said again.
I didn’t look back.
“What I said to Joe, it was meant for you too.”
My hands trembled.
“A wolf needs his tether, yes. But so does a witch. You have had three in your lifetime. Oxnard. Your pack here. But before them, there was another.”
I turned angrily. “It can’t be like that again. Not after—”
“Only because you won’t let it. You carry so much anger in your heart, Gordo. Just like your father. It’s all you’ve known for too long. Those boys, they… they look to you. Would you have them become the man you are now? Or the man you were supposed to be?”
“It’s better this way.”
“For who?” He laughed bitterly. He scooped the bones back in the cup. “For you? Or for Mark Bennett? Because I have never seen a wolf love another as much as he loved you. Not even Thomas and his mate. He loved you. He loved you. And you forsook him. Do you know what I would give? For just one more day with—” He cut off with a choking sound. His hands shook as he spilled the bones once more. They clattered on the table. They looked like nothing to me. “It’s happening,” he whispered.
“What do you see?”
He looked away. “It’s… hidden. Most of it. The bones aren’t everything. You know that as well as I do. They can’t be everything.”
“Tell me.”
The old witch sighed. “You will be tested, Gordo Livingstone. In ways that you haven’t yet imagined. One day, and one day soon, you will have to make a choice. And I fear the future of all you hold dear will depend on it.”
A chill ran down my spine. “What choice?”
He shook his head. “I cannot see that far.”
“That’s not fair.”
He looked up at me with sightless eyes. “For those called upon, it never is.”
I turned and walked out of the house.
The wolves watched
me through the windshield.
I flexed my hands.
And then walked down the porch and into the gravel.
We were halfway down the driveway when the wolves sighed as one.
“What is it?” I asked.
Joe Bennett said, “His heart. It just… stopped. He’s….”
We headed north.
Joe wouldn’t speak again until we were face-to-face with the hunter David King.
WE CROSSED the border into Canada again.
It felt… different, this time. Like we were finally headed in the right direction.
I wondered how often hope felt like a lie.
I STARED down at the wooden raven.
I zipped the pocket closed before I could pick it up.
I needed to focus.
OUTSIDE OF Fairbanks, Alaska, it was the middle of an oddly mild winter. Patches of green grass peeked through snow, and the stench of blood surrounded a cabin in the middle of the woods.
“He was here,” Carter said, eyes blazing. “He was here.”
“Is he gone?” I asked.
Kelly nodded. “There’s a heartbeat inside, but it’s human. It’s beating really fast. Like it’s scared.”
“It could be a trap,” I said, eyeing the cabin. “We need to move—goddammit.”
Carter had already taken off toward the cabin.
His brothers followed.
“Fucking idiots,” I muttered, but ran after them.
Carter had already burst through the cabin door, causing it to splinter and break off its hinges. He was half-shifted, hair sprouting along his face as his fangs grew. Kelly was right behind him, more in control but eyes bright orange. A large bird screeched overhead as Joe hit the porch, shoes having split as his feet sprouted claws.
I was inside the house only seconds later.
There was blood. A lot of it. It splattered the floor and walls. The cabin was one large room, a kitchen off to the right and a living room/bedroom to the left. The small table in the kitchen had been overturned. The chairs had been tipped over. An old futon lay in pieces, the mattress torn to shreds and streaked with red.
And there, slumped against the wall, was a naked man.
His chest and torso and legs had been slashed. He had ragged, gaping wounds that I knew had been made by claws. His breath was stuttering in his chest, and the skin that wasn’t covered in blood was slick with sweat. His eyes were closed.
Richard Collins was gone.
Carter and Joe prowled around the cabin, nostrils flaring.
Kelly knelt before the injured man, hand shaking as he reached out to—
The man’s eyes snapped open, his hand up before we could move and wrapping around Kelly’s wrist. Kelly fell back on his ass, startled at the sudden movement. His brothers were snarling, and I—
“Wolves,” the man whispered. “It’s always the wolves.”
And then he passed out.
I CLEANED and bandaged his wounds as best I could with what I could find in the debris of the cabin. Kelly helped me right the futon while Joe and Carter disappeared into the forest surrounding the cabin, seeing if they could pick up the scent.
Kelly was crouched next to me, grimacing as I wrung out a cloth over a basin of water, now more red than clear. “He was here.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, dropping the cloth to the floor.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why was he here? Who is this guy? Why would Richard want him?”
I pointed to a mark on the man’s chest, near his right shoulder. It’d been split right down the middle, but I could still see the shape of it. The design. The ink in his skin.
Kelly squinted at it. “Is that… a… crown?”
“It’s a sigil. The mark of a clan.”
Kelly took in a sharp breath. “Of hunters?”
“Yes.”
“Why are we helping him? He wants to kill us!”
“I doubt he can do much of anything right now. Turn off the eyes, kid.”
Kelly ground his teeth together, but the orange faded to its natural blue. They weren’t as frozen as his uncle’s, but it was close.
I looked away.
“Do you know it?”
I sighed. “I do.”
“And?”
“It’s not important. They’re all gone now. He’s nothing but an outlier. Probably got out when he was your age.” Because I didn’t recognize him. He hadn’t been one of the bodies lying on the ground while I’d walked through the forest, Mark weak and broken at my side. If he had been, if I’d come across him still breathing, I would have put my hands over his mouth and nose and—
“Gordo?”
Kelly was staring at me, a strange look on his face. I realized just how tense I was. I couldn’t let him see me like this. Not now. Not when—
“Go check on your brothers. See if they need your help.”
“But—”
“Kelly.”
He growled at me but stood and did as he was told. He pushed against the useless door, the hinges creaking, wood splintering further. I heard him howl as he left the house, and there was a burst of BrotherPack where before Carter sang back hereherehere from somewhere in the woods.
I scrubbed a hand over my face and looked back at the man.
His eyes were open.
“Wolves,” he whispered. “Wolves, wolves, wolves—”
“Hey,” I said sharply before he could get more agitated. “Hey. Look at me. King, look at me.”
That got him. His eyes widened briefly as he turned his head toward me. “Who are—” He coughed weakly. “Who are you? How do you know my name?”
“The tattoo on your chest. The mark of your clan.”
“An old life.”
“I figured as much.”
He blinked slowly. “You’re not a wolf.”
“No.”
“Your arms are glowing.”
“They tend to do that.”
“You’re a witch.”
“Astute, for a hunter.”
His teeth were bloody when he grinned. “I told you. That was an old life.”
“Was he here?”
King closed his eyes. “The beast. Yes. Yes. He was here.”
Fuck. We must have missed him by an hour. Maybe less. For all I knew, he could still be somewhere nearby. I needed more. I remembered the words of my father and muttered under my breath, a hand outstretched over King’s body. A mark on my left wrist flared to life, and I pulled some of the pain, the agony, the hurt from the hunter and into me. I grimaced against the sharpness of it, the way it rolled up my arm and into my chest and gut, moving like molten lava. If he lived, it’d be slow going for a while.
“Ahhh,” he said, relaxing into the shredded mattress. “That’s… that’s nice.”
“It isn’t much,” I warned him. “And it’s not permanent.”
“That’s okay. Pain means I’m alive. Probably won’t win any beauty contests, but if I hurt, it means I’m still here.”
“Richard Collins.”
His eyes opened again. They were clearer than they’d been before. “He came for me. I thought—I grew lazy. I didn’t look over my shoulder as much. It’d been years since—” He shook his head. “I didn’t even hear him coming.”
“You know why he came.”
“Yes.”
“Because of what your clan did.”
“Yes.”
“The wolves outside. Do you know who they are?”
“Does it matter?”
“Bennetts. All of them. And I am Gordo Livingstone.”
He was up and moving even before I said my name. He moved quickly for a man so injured. I didn’t know where the knife came from, but it flashed toward me. But I had been running with wolves for going on three years, and I wasn’t the man I used to be.
He brought the knife down toward me as I brought my forearm up under his wrist. It knocked the trajectory of the knife up and over my shoulder. I b
ackhanded him across the face and then reached back, grabbing his wrist and twisting it just before the point of breaking. He grunted as the knife clattered to the floor behind me. I shoved him back onto the bed.
His chest was heaving as he stared at me with wide eyes.
“That was rude,” I told him mildly.
“I had no part in what happened to you,” he said, sounding panicked. “I had already been shunned by my clan beforehand.”
“Why were you shunned?”
“Because I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t—I couldn’t kill.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “A hunter who can’t kill is useless. My father couldn’t stand the sight of me. He turned to my brother Daniel instead. And then there was always my sister. She….”
“Who is your sister?” Then, “Oh, Jesus—”
“Meredith King. Elijah.”
I wrapped my hand under his chin, fingers and thumb digging into his cheeks. Blood and sweat made my grip slick, but I held on tight. My teeth were bared as I bent so close to his face that our noses brushed. “I could kill you right now and no one would stop me. Your family killed mine. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t break your neck right here.”
“I don’t have a family,” he said, voice breaking. “And it doesn’t matter. Not anymore. If he found me once, he could find me again. If it’s not you, then it will be him. Or those kids out there. I haven’t had a thing to do with my family in decades, but I am still a King. I can never escape that.”
I squeezed tighter. It would be so easy. All I would have to do was twist my hand to the right, and his neck would pop and—
“Gordo.”
I closed my eyes.
“Gordo, let him go.”
“You don’t know who he is. What his family has done.”
There was a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t. But this isn’t who you are.”
I laughed bitterly. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”
The grip on my shoulder tightened. “I am your Alpha. I know you better than you think.”
“Goddamn you,” I breathed, letting King’s face slip from my grasp. He gasped, shoulders shaking as I fell back on my ass.