by TJ Klune
“Great. Wonderful. Fantastic.”
“I don’t—”
“Whoa,” another voice said. “It’s, like, super intense in here right now.”
I barely resisted the urge to bang my head against the desk.
Robbie Fontaine stood next to Ox, glancing curiously back and forth between us. He wore a work shirt with his name stitched into it, a gift from Ox that I’d rolled my eyes at, given that no one had asked me about it. He wore thick hipster glasses that he absolutely did not need. His eyes were so dark they were almost black, and he was grinning that knowing smile that I couldn’t stand. He winked at me when he caught me watching him. He was insufferable.
“You guys fighting again?” he asked.
“I didn’t hire you,” I told him.
“Oh, I know,” he said easily. “Ox did, though. So.” He shrugged. “Kind of the same.”
“The last time you tried to work on a car, you set it on fire.”
“Right? Weird. Still don’t know how that happened. I mean, one moment everything was fine, and the next there were these flames—”
“You were supposed to be rotating the tires.”
“And they somehow spontaneously combusted,” he said, speaking slowly as if I was the asshole. “But that’s why we have insurance, right? Besides, I only work the front office now. I have it on good authority that people like having a little eye candy to look at when they drop off their cars. I suppose that’s to be expected when the rest of you look so… you know. Brutish.”
“I didn’t hire him,” I told Ox.
“Don’t you have things to do?” Ox asked him.
“Probably,” Robbie said. “But I think I’d rather be standing right where I am. What’s Gordo being a fucking idiot over? Is it the whole Mark thing?”
“I’m trying to work here,” I reminded them. It was useless, but it still needed to be said. Ox had a bug up his ass, which meant he was going to say his piece. Ever since he’d become an actual Alpha, he’d been insufferable that way.
“Why are we staring at Gordo?” another voice said, and I groaned. “Lobito, are you giving the boss man shit again?”
“Rico, I know you’re supposed to be doing the oil change on that Ford and the Toyota.”
My friend grinned at me as he squeezed into the office. “Probably,” he said. “But! The good news is that I will get to them eventually. What’s happening in here seems to be far more interesting. In fact, hold on a second.” He leaned out the doorway toward the interior of the garage. “Oye! Get your asses in here. We’re having an intervention.”
“Oh my god,” I mumbled, wondering how my life had become this way. I was forty years old, and I belonged to a pack of meddlesome bitches.
“Finally,” I heard Tanner mutter. “It was starting to get sad.”
“Even I was getting worried,” Chris said. “And you know how I don’t like getting worried.”
The office was small, and I was sitting behind the same old chipped desk that Marty had bought secondhand years before. A moment later five grown men squeezed inside the doorway and were staring at me, waiting for me to do something.
I hated them so goddamn much.
I ignored them and went back to working on the expense invoice.
Trying to work on the expense invoice.
I’d told Ox there was no need to update the software. It was working just fine.
But he said that Robbie said he couldn’t handle a program that had been made in the late nineties. I’d responded diplomatically, saying that Robbie probably hadn’t even had pubes in the late nineties. Ox had stared at me. I had stared back.
The software was updated the next day, much to Robbie’s glee.
I spent the next four days trying to figure out ways to send him back where he’d come from.
The computer chimed another error message as I hit F11.
Rico, Chris, and Tanner all snickered at me.
Maybe if I threw the computer at their heads, it would start working like it was supposed to.
I would certainly feel better.
But chances were they’d come back with their stitched-up, broken faces, and then I would feel bad and maybe actually start to listen to their bullshit—
“He’s pouting,” Rico whispered to Chris and Tanner.
“Aw,” they said.
That was the problem with having your oldest friends as your employees and members of your pack. You had to see them every day and could never escape them, no matter how hard you tried. This was, of course, all Ox’s fault for telling them about werewolves and witches to begin with, a mistake I had yet to forgive him for.
“You realize I could kill you with nothing but the power of my mind,” I reminded them.
“I thought you said you couldn’t do that?” Tanner asked, sounding a little worried.
“That’s because he can’t,” Ox said. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“This is your fault,” I told him.
He shrugged.
“Zen Alpha bullshit.”
“Isn’t it weird?” Rico asked. “I mean, ever since that day when he and Joe had mystical moon magic sex and became mates or whatever—”
“Would you stop calling it that?” Ox growled, eyes flashing red.
“Well, that’s what it was,” Chris said.
“He bit you and everything,” Tanner pointed out.
“And then you came out smelling like a whorehouse with a weird smile on your face,” Rico said. “And bam! Zen Alpha by way of mystical moon magic sex. That must have been one hell of an orgasm.”
That… wasn’t far from the truth. As disturbing as it felt, there’d been a singular moment when we’d all been hit with a wave of something while Ox, the kid I’d watched grow up right before my eyes, and another Alpha wolf fucked and—
“Oh, Jesus,” I groaned, wishing I was anywhere else.
“Yeah,” Rico said. “I’m thinking about it now too. I mean, butt sex and whatever, but no homo, right?” He frowned as he looked at Ox. “I mean, that’s not a prerequisite for being in a pack, right? Because I don’t know if I’ve told you this, but I’m pretty freaking hetero. Even if I’ve seen more naked men in the past few years than I’ve seen my entire life. Because werewolves.”
“Well,” Chris said. “There was that one time that you—”
“Oh, that’s right,” Tanner said. “That time that you—”
“Tequila,” Rico said with a shudder.
“What time where you did what with who?” Robbie asked.
Rico frowned at him. “Why do you sound so surprised? I could get any guy I wanted!”
“I mean, you guys are attractive, I guess. For old people.”
We all glared at him except for Zen Alpha, who stood with his arms crossed, exuding serene.
“Old?” Rico said slowly. “Little wolf, I might not like you right now.”
“Maybe get you some tequila and see if you change your mind,” Robbie said, waggling his eyebrows. “Is this shop talk? Am I doing shop talk right now? Beers and boobs!”
“Your fault,” I told Ox again. “All of this. Every single person in this room aside from myself is your fault.”
Ox smiled calmly. It was infuriating. “You’re being a fucking idiot.”
Dammit. I thought they’d been distracted enough. “I’m actually working right now, in case you couldn’t tell. Which is something you should consider doing.”
No one moved.
“You’re all fired,” I tried instead.
They just stood there.
I tried a different route. “Fuck you all very much.”
“Just tell him you love him,” Robbie said. “Even old people like you deserve to get your head out of your ass.”
“How’s Kelly? And take off those glasses. You don’t need them and they make you look stupid.”
He immediately turned red and began to sputter.
Ox put his hand on Robbie’s shoulder, and there was hush a
nd calm and packpackpack, and Robbie started breathing evenly. Even my anger at their intrusion faded slightly, which was unfair. In less than a year, Ox had become as strong an Alpha as I’d ever seen. Maybe even more so than Thomas or Abel Bennett. We thought it had to do with him having been a human Alpha before Joe had been forced to bite him.
Whatever the reason, Ox was unlike any werewolf I’d known. And since he and Joe had officially mated, their reach extended over all of us, the packs combining, though not without difficulties. Carter and Kelly still tended to defer to Joe and the others to Ox, but they were both our Alphas when it came down to it. I’d never heard of a pack headed by two Alphas before, but I was used to witnessing the impossible in Green Creek.
Ox was careful, though, because there came a point where the question of free will arose. If Ox or Joe wanted to, they could force their own will upon their Betas or their humans and make them act as they saw fit. It was a thin line to walk, being an Alpha versus exerting their control. If they wanted to, both of them combined could make us mindless drones.
But the look of horror on Ox’s face the first time he’d accidentally done that was enough to show it would never happen. Not that I thought he would ever do it to begin with. It wasn’t the type of person he was, no matter what he’d become.
But there were moments, like this one with Robbie, where he’d push and we’d all feel it. It wasn’t about control. It was about being pack, about being connected in ways I’d never felt before. Even when it’d been a handful of us on the road circling around Joe, it hadn’t been like this. Those years were born of desperation and surviving in the big wide world. We were home now, and complete.
For the most part.
Which was why they all stood in this small office, ready to dig into me again.
But before they could, a sharp twinge rolled over my arm. I looked down to see two lines begin to ripple quickly, glowing a deep forest green.
Ox and Robbie stiffened.
Even the humans felt it, if the looks on their faces were any indication.
Ox’s eyes were on fire and his voice deep when he said, “The wards. They’ve been breached.”
OX, ROBBIE, and I were in Ox’s old truck. I was behind the wheel, Robbie between us as Ox radiated anger near the window. The others were following behind in Rico’s car. It was the middle of October, and the leaves in the trees around Green Creek were bursting in orange and red. Halloween decorations lined the shops on Main Street. Styrofoam pumpkins sat in the diner windows. The sky was already beginning to fade toward night, and the sidewalks were full as people left work.
We were barely out of town when Ox’s phone rang. He put it on speaker and set it on the dash.
“Ox,” a low voice said. “You felt it.”
Joe Bennett, sounding as if he were growling through a mouthful of fangs.
Ox said, “Yes. From the woods.”
“The others.”
“With me. Jessie is still at the school. You?”
“Mom. Carter. Kelly. All at home.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ox glance at me. Then, “Mark?”
A brief hesitation. “He’s on his way.”
“We’ll be there soon.”
The phone beeped as Ox shoved it in the glove compartment. I counted down from three in my head, and as soon as I hit one, he said, “Gordo. He’s going to—”
“Drop it, Ox. It doesn’t matter.”
“This isn’t over.”
“I said drop it.”
“I’m really uncomfortable right now,” Robbie mumbled between us.
We drove the rest of the way in silence.
WE HIT the dirt road that led down to the Bennett houses. Rocks and dust kicked up around us as the steering wheel tried to jerk in my hands. The others were close behind us.
“Brakes need work,” I said mildly.
“I know.”
“Maybe bring it in. Could get you a deal.”
“You know the owner or something?”
“Or something.”
He was still tense, but he rolled his eyes, showing many teeth when he smiled. Robbie sighed between us, hand on his Alpha’s arm.
The houses came into view. The blue one where Ox had once lived with his mother. The much larger Bennett house, set farther back in the trees. The pack SUVs were parked in front next to Jessie’s little Honda.
“I thought she was staying at the school?” Robbie asked.
Ox growled low in his throat. “She was supposed to. She never listens.”
She was waiting on the porch with the others. Her long hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, a grim look on her face. She was harder than that little girl Chris had brought into the shop all those years ago after their mother died, and stronger. In fact, out of all the humans in the group, she was probably the deadliest. She carried only a staff inlaid with silver, but she had knocked almost everyone in the pack on their back at one point or another.
Elizabeth stood next to her. She was as graceful as always, looking as regal as the queen she was. She didn’t move as much as she seemed to float. She was older now, the lines on her face more pronounced. She had survived the loss of her pack before building another one, only to lose her mate and Alpha to the claws of the beast and her sons to the road. She had scars, but they were buried underneath her skin. Her grief had lessened over the years, and she no longer looked as haunted as she once was. Ox had told me that she had started painting again, and though it was blue, he thought the green relief would come soon.
Carter and Kelly stood on either side of their mother. Their time on the road had changed them, and in the year since they’d returned, they still sometimes struggled to reconcile who they were now with who they once had been. Carter was still big, a muscular wolf who was quicker to anger than he’d been before. His head was still shaved as if he was a soldier.
Kelly had lost some of his mass since he’d come back. He was the softer of the two, and though he still looked like his brothers—all that blond hair and those sky-blue eyes—he’d let himself settle better back home than Carter had. Carter sometimes still looked as if he wasn’t sure he’d finally made it home. Kelly had found his place again, and it was almost as if he’d never left.
But they all bore the past few years of monsters and separations like badges of pride. They weren’t the kids they once had been. They had witnessed things most would never see. They had fought for their lives and their packs against a beast who had taken much from them. They’d won, but we were not without our losses.
Joe stood a little ways away from them. His arms were folded behind his back, head tilted slightly up. His eyes were closed, and I knew he was breathing in his territory and whatever had breached the wards I’d placed. I had a good idea of what it was, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
Ox was out the door even before I’d turned off the truck. He pointed at Jessie as he walked by them, saying, “I told you to stay at the school.”
“Remember last week when I knocked you against the tree?” she asked sweetly, tapping her staff against her shoulder.
He snapped his teeth at her, but she just laughed. He made his way to Joe, put his hand to the back of his neck, and squeezed. They stood side by side without speaking. Watching, waiting.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Robbie asked, and I flinched. I’d forgotten he was sitting right next to me.
“Get out. And take off those damn glasses.”
He winked at me, sliding over the bench seat and through the door Ox had left open. Kelly stiffened slightly at the sight of him as Robbie walked toward the house. I didn’t know what the hell was going on between the two of them, and I didn’t want to. I had other things to worry about.
The guys had pulled up behind me and were chattering nervously as I opened the driver’s door. Rico was popping the clip out of one of his .40 S&W semiautomatics. Tanner was doing the same. Chris looked as if he were about to stab hi
mself in the eye with one of his knives. They worried me greatly.
I tried not to notice who wasn’t there.
It didn’t work out too well.
“Elizabeth,” I said, nodding as I approached the porch.
She smiled softly at me. “Gordo. Never a dull moment.”
“No, ma’am.”
“He’s on his way.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You were thinking it.”
Jessie coughed, but it sounded like she was covering up a laugh.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I’m sure,” Elizabeth said evenly. She reached out and rubbed a hand along my arm, leaving a trail of light as my tattoos lit up under her touch. It’d taken a long time to get used to being touched by wolves again, and I tended to avoid lying in the piles they sometimes did, but I didn’t shove them away anymore. Ox was pleased at it, as was Joe. I put up a good front.
“Ox talk to you?” Carter asked.
“He tried.”
“Stubborn, huh.” He eyed me up and down. “Should probably work on that.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Did you put him up to it this time?”
He said, “No,” and at the same time, Kelly said, “Sure did.”
Jessie coughed harshly again.
“Assholes,” I muttered. “Mind your own damn business.”
“Grumpy old man,” Kelly teased.
“That’s what I called him,” Robbie said. “But then he got the murder eyebrows he sometimes does. Like right now.”
They all laughed at me.
I left them on the porch.
Ox and Joe still weren’t speaking when I approached, though Ox’s hand was still on Joe’s neck. Joe glanced at me as I came to stand at his side. His eyes flashed at me, and I felt the pull of pack as my arm brushed his.
It’d been… difficult, trying to reconcile the difference between my Alpha and my tether. There’d never been two Alphas in charge of a single pack before, and for a while, I wasn’t sure it was going to work. I was drawn to Joe because he was all I’d known for three years. I was tied to Ox because he kept me sane.
It hadn’t been fair to him. To Ox. Making him my tether as I had, all over a work shirt with his name stitched in the front. He didn’t know about the monsters in the dark. But the roar in my head lessened, the anger quieting anytime he was near. By the time I realized what was happening, it was too late. And then the Bennetts returned to Green Creek, bringing with them a lifetime of memories I’d forced myself to forget.