by TJ Klune
Jessie sighed. “I really wish I hadn’t said that. It sounds so ridiculous now.”
“Ignore my son,” Elizabeth told me. “It was really rather sweet the way Mark wanted to take care of you. I highly doubt he would have licked you in your sleep.”
Carter opened his eyes. They were a normal pale blue. “You said once that you woke up and Dad was sniffing your hair.”
Kelly groaned, tilting his head back on the couch.
Robbie reached down and awkwardly touched Kelly’s shoulder. Surprisingly, Kelly didn’t try to shrug him away. Robbie blushed slightly, pushing his glasses up his nose, but he didn’t move his hand.
“Those clothes look big on you, papi,” Rico said to me. “As if they’re not your own. Kind of like a certain wolf gave them to you so you could smell like him.”
I scowled.
Mark preened.
I scowled harder.
“They’re out there,” Ox said, and we all fell silent. “I can feel them. It’s like… a shadow. Covering the earth.”
He was staring out the window, watching the snow fall. It didn’t look as if it was letting up. The light was already fading, which meant it was late afternoon.
Joe looked over at him, studying him in profile, but he didn’t speak.
Ox spoke again. “This… Elijah. Gordo. I’m told she is known to the Bennett pack. Those who came before.”
I nodded, though he couldn’t see me, as I tried to find the words to explain to my friend, my Alpha, this boy who had become more than any of us thought possible. “I… yes.”
“Okay,” Ox said, exhaling slowly. “I’ve already heard from Elizabeth. What she knows. Of what happened to your pack. I would hear from you now. Why.”
Ox was angry.
“He wasn’t—” Mark started, but I took him by the hand and squeezed tightly. He looked over at me, and I shook my head slightly. He frowned but didn’t speak.
This was on me.
Maybe Mark had been right with what he’d said in his room. About trust. About secrets. I was in this pack. I was the witch to the Bennetts. My family had been intertwined with theirs for generations. It was a long history twisted so deeply into my bones that even when I thought I could, I would never fully be free of it.
And I didn’t want to be.
Thomas Bennett was a wolf.
But he’d also been human.
He made mistakes, yes. Like his father. And mine.
The difference between Thomas and Abel and my father, however, was great. The wolves did what they thought was right.
My father had given in to his grief.
This wasn’t about Mark, at least not all of it.
When we’d been on the road, the Bennett brothers and me, it’d been different. We’d done what we had to do to survive. I’d told myself it had nothing to do with seeking vengeance for Thomas Bennett. I was there because Joe had asked me to follow him. They needed someone to watch over them.
I didn’t think that was true anymore.
Part of me had gone because of Thomas Bennett. He’d sunk his claws into me deep when I was a kid, and no matter how complicated our relationship had become, he’d been torn from me just the same.
Quoth the raven, I thought.
Nevermore.
I said, “Pappas.”
“Feral,” Ox said. “The man he was is gone, I think. There’s only the wolf.”
“Okay.”
He turned to face me. I had a queer moment when I remembered a little boy hiding behind his daddy’s leg. He’d never had root beer before. “Do you think he’s complicit?”
I shook my head. “No. Not completely. I think… I think Michelle Hughes kept things from him. How much he knew about the infection is one thing. The hunters, though. Elijah? He couldn’t have.”
“But he knew of her,” Ox said.
“Yes.”
“Because you told him.” It wasn’t an accusation, though it felt like one.
“Yes.”
“Why?” Joe asked. “I mean… I don’t understand, Gordo. How long did you know about her?”
“Since we found David King in Fairbanks.”
Joe’s eyes flashed. “And you didn’t think to say anything?”
“I didn’t tell any of you about David King until long after he left,” Ox reminded him. “Not yet. Remember?”
Joe looked at him, a frown on his face. “That’s not—”
“And then when Richard came. He came for me. And I still said nothing.”
“That’s because you’re a self-sacrificing asshole,” Rico said. Then, “No offense, alfa. Okay. Maybe some offense.”
“You did it because you were trying to keep us safe,” Joe argued. “And even then, Gordo saw right through it.”
“Then it’s possible that Gordo was trying to do the same, isn’t it?”
They all looked at me.
Goddammit. “I….”
Mark squeezed my hand. I hadn’t even realized I was still holding it.
“I thought it would be enough,” I said. “If they knew. We’d… everything here. Everything we’d been through. It was too much. Thomas. The years we were separated. Richard. I’d hoped that by telling Pappas, and by him telling Michelle, that they’d do something about it. For all I knew, she was already gone. I didn’t want to make things bad again. Not when we were still healing. We—I didn’t know how to be pack. Not like it was before. Not with everyone here. It’s not that I didn’t trust any of you. It’s more that I didn’t trust myself. And I thought if something came of it, if need be, I could take care of it on my own.”
“Men,” Jessie said, sounding pissed off. “You’re all bunch of asshole martyrs. No wonder Elizabeth and I are the smartest people in the goddamn room.”
“I concur,” Elizabeth said, staring up at me. “They’re lucky to have us.”
“They’d probably run off half-cocked without a single idea about what they’re doing,” Jessie said.
Elizabeth nodded. “And get themselves infected.”
“Oh,” Rico said. “Can we joke about that now? I wasn’t sure if it was still too soon or what. Because if you think about it, it’s funny because—yep, from the looks I’m getting, it’s still too soon. Shutting up now.”
“There’s more,” I said, wincing slightly.
“Of course there is,” Chris said. He knocked his shoulder against Tanner’s. “Remember the days when the weirdest thing in our lives was when Gordo tried to grow that pussy-tickler mustache?”
“Those were the days,” Tanner sighed. “We made that Wanted poster with his mustache face on it and posted them all over town, telling everyone to protect their children.”
“You tried to grow a mustache?” Mark asked me.
“Gross,” Kelly said, nose wrinkling. “We can smell that, Uncle Mark.”
“What is it, Gordo?” Ox asked me.
Best to get it over with. “You felt it too. The wards. When they were corrupted.”
He nodded slowly. “Elijah said there were witches. Which means they aren’t trying to keep anything out. They’re trying to keep us all in.”
“Yeah. But I also felt something else. Heard something else.”
“What?” Joe asked.
“My father.”
Silence.
Then, “Great,” Carter groaned. “We’ve got a weird religious chick who wears skins of her kills on her back and who has pet feral Omegas on chains, one of which tried to sniff me and kill me at the same time. Witches who have the town surrounded doing creepy magic to keep us in. Michelle Hughes is some kind of stupid evil chick, and Mark and I are slowly going nutso. And now you’re saying that your dear old dad is talking in your head? Fuck this day. Fuck this entire day.”
I couldn’t agree more.
WE SLEPT that night together.
All of us.
The couches and chairs were moved away.
Thick, heavy blankets were spread out on the floor. Piles of pillows.
I lay with my head pressed against Ox’s leg, failing to resist the urge to be close to my tether.
Mark must have felt the same, because he never went far. We lay facing each other in the dark, his ice-cold eyes ever-watching. There was a moment before I drifted off to sleep, hearing the voices of my Alphas singing in my head, when Mark reached up and traced a finger over my cheeks. My nose. My lips and chin.
A kiss was pressed against my forehead.
And then I slept.
THE PHONES didn’t work.
The internet was down.
We were cut off.
PAPPAS PROWLED the length of powdered silver on the ground. He snarled at the sight of me, hackles raised.
Ox roared at him with everything he had.
His violet eyes flickered, and I thought maybe he—
No.
They flared again.
He was lost.
“We’ll have to deal with him,” Mark told me later, staring off into nothing. “We can’t risk him hurting anyone or spreading whatever’s in his bite. We’ll have to deal with him. Soon.”
I wanted nothing more than to burn the world down.
WE MADE our way through the snow. The trees were heavy in white around us. Ox and Joe had shifted, leaving large paw prints behind them. Mark walked on two legs beside me as we trailed behind the wolves.
It was still snowing, but it wasn’t coming down as hard as it’d been the day before. The sky above was a dark gray, and the morning sun was hidden somewhere behind the clouds. I knew the moon was there too, widening toward fat and full. I wasn’t a wolf, but even I could feel it.
Carter had complained about being left behind, saying he was Joe’s second, therefore he should go to face the witches. Joe had looked as if he were about to give in, but Elizabeth intervened, and without her saying a word, it was understood that Carter wasn’t going anywhere. He’d sighed but slumped back against Kelly, who hadn’t gone more than a few feet from his brother since they’d woken up.
Robbie volunteered to accompany us, but Ox had told him to stay. He didn’t want Michelle’s people to play games with his head.
Birds called out, singing in the trees.
The ice crunched underneath our feet.
Our breath billowed around us.
Mark said, “Your father.”
“My father,” I muttered, stepping over a tree that had fallen years before.
“In your head.”
“Right.”
“Is that normal?”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, sure. Wolves going crazy. Jesus-freak hunters. Betrayal from on high. Dear old Dad in my head. Sure, Mark. Everything about this is normal.”
“Why, though?”
“Why what?” I asked, watching the massive wolves walk ahead of us, their tails brushing together.
“Why is he in your head?”
“Because he has boundary issues?”
Mark squinted at me. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”
“I don’t fucking know, Mark. I haven’t seen him since I was a kid and he murdered sixteen people along with my mother after she murdered the woman he was having an affair with.”
Mark snorted. “So. Pretty normal, then.”
I gaped at him. “Are you seriously deciding that now is a good time to try and find a sense of humor?”
“I’ve always been funny.”
He was such a liar. “No, I don’t know why he’s in my head. I don’t know what it means. I don’t even know if it was real. Or if he’s even in Green Creek. If there’s a bunch of Michelle’s asshole witches here, do you really think he’d try and show his face?”
Mark rubbed his jaw. “Unless he’s also working with Michelle.”
I glared at him. “Don’t. Don’t you fucking say that. You’re going to jinx us, and I will fucking light you on fire without a second thought.”
He grinned at me. “Nah. I don’t think you would.”
I liked him better when we despised each other. “He would never do that. Not like Elijah. It would be beneath him.”
“Because he hates wolves. That’s what you told Michelle. He would blame them for… everything.”
“Yeah.”
Mark grabbed my gloved hand. I turned to look at him, a question on my face.
He was studying me thoughtfully, and it made me uncomfortable. I was so used to hiding everything from him, and this shift between us, this thing I’d spent most of my life ignoring, wasn’t something I had prepared for. I was dizzy with it.
He said, “You’re not him.”
I tried to tug my hand away, but he held on tight. “I know.”
“Do you?” he asked. “Because I don’t know if—”
“Jesus fuck, Mark. I told you I didn’t want to hear your bullshit about—”
“He made his choice,” Mark said, “to do what he did. And even though you could have done the same, even though you had every right to hate us with everything you had, you didn’t.”
“I did,” I retorted, suddenly angry for reasons I didn’t understand. “I did hate you. And Thomas. And Elizabeth. I hated wolves and packs. I hated you.”
“But part of you didn’t,” Mark said, sounding sure. “Your story, it—” He shook his head. “You could have become the villain, Gordo. And it would have been within your rights. Instead you just chose to be an asshole.”
“Are you… complimenting me? Because if you are, you’re doing a really bad job at it.”
He smiled his secret smile, but it faded almost as soon as it appeared. “You’re not your father.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
I jerked my hand away. “That’s not what this is about. It’s about some jackasses that think they can come into our territory and fuck with us. It’s about the fact that I haven’t gotten to kill anything in weeks, and it’s starting to piss me off.”
“You do get grumpy when that happens.”
“Right,” I said, scowling at him. “So maybe stow the introspective shit until later, okay?” He opened his mouth to respond, but I cut him off. “And I swear to god, if you say there may not be a later, I won’t be responsible for what happens next.”
The smile returned. “Your threats don’t sound so bad now that I know you’ve got my wolf tattooed on your chest.”
“Bite me,” I snapped, stalking off after the Alphas.
Mark chuckled behind me. “Oh, I will.”
Fucking werewolves.
ONCE THERE had stood an old covered wooden bridge that crossed over a stream along a dirt road leading out of Green Creek.
Then Richard Collins had come with Osmond and the Omegas, and it had been destroyed in everything that followed.
The bridge, it was said later, had been too old. It hadn’t been maintained as well as it should have.
Many were surprised it hadn’t fallen sooner.
A donation had come to the town by a notable family. Elizabeth Bennett, on behalf of her late husband, had given fifty thousand dollars for it to be rebuilt.
There had been a ceremony the following summer. A ribbon-cutting where Elizabeth Bennett had stood with her sons, all three dressed smartly in perfectly tailored suits. The rest of the pack had watched with a rather sizable crowd as the mayor made a canned speech of appreciation. The ribbon had been cut, and people had cheered.
The new bridge was almost an exact replica of the old one, though far sturdier. It was part of the charm of Green Creek, the town council who had approved the design said. A gateway to a small mountain town.
The only real difference was the plaque on the Green Creek side of the bridge, six words etched into metal:
May our songs always be heard.
People had been perplexed at the legend.
But we knew. Oh
, how we knew.
The bridge now looked like a postcard, red wood barely visible through heavy snow.
And there were people standing in front of it.
They were dressed well for the cold weather. There were four of them, and though I didn’t recognize a single one of them, I knew them as witches the moment I set eyes on them. I’d told my Alphas that magic had a signature, a fingerprint. The feral wolves knew that more than anyone, which was why I was convinced my father was behind the infection.
And I could feel the wards in front of us, though they were no longer my own. Pappas had asked me if the wards were infallible. How much he’d known at the time, I doubted we’d ever find out. But I thought maybe that was his way of trying to warn us. I hadn’t listened. Or at the very least, I hadn’t understood what he’d been trying to say.
But the wards weren’t infallible. I was strong, and my magic was expansive, but even my wards in the Bennett territory couldn’t survive the onslaught of multiple witches bent on manipulating them. Magic wasn’t wish fulfillment. It was harsh and rough, pulling from the blood and bones of the witch, focused with the ink etched into my skin.
The witches—three men and one woman—looked wary as we approached. They eyed the Alphas, who stopped just short of the wards. The wolves couldn’t see them, not like I could, but they could feel them. Ox told me once that the scent of magic made his nose itch like he was about to sneeze. It smelled ozone-sharp and smoky.
“Alphas Bennett and Matheson,” the woman said stiffly. She was trying to be deferential, but we were so far past standing on ceremony, it was ridiculous. “We are honored to be in your presence. Alpha Hughes sends her regards.”
“Yeah,” I said dryly. “Maybe take your honor and shove it up your—”
Ox growled at me.
Mark decided to take over, which was probably better for all of us. He knew diplomacy, where I only wanted to break some bones. “What our witch meant to say was we aren’t exactly here to receive regards from Alpha Hughes. So take your honor and shove it up your ass.”
Maybe not so diplomatic.
Joe growled at him.