by TJ Klune
This had to work.
It had to.
I bent down over him so my head was just above his, tilting it to the side, exposing my neck. The rumble in his chest turned into a full-fledged snarl, and the song in my head become a cacophony of gordo and yes and PackLoveMateMine.
“Do it,” I told him. “Fucking do it. I want you to. Christ, I want you to put your teeth in me—”
The wolf came forward. Claws dug in again, and fangs snapped, eyes orange, muscles tensing. I fell against him, the juncture between my neck and shoulder resting against his lips. My cock was trapped between us, rubbing against the muscles in his stomach.
I came first, and the petals of the roses shuddered and shook.
His fucked up into me one final time, legs trembling, and—
Mark Bennett bit down.
Pain flashed through me as his fangs sank into my skin. I gasped as it rolled over me, skin shredding, tendons crunching. The roses shriveled up, sinking back down into buds, the vines retracting, the raven opening its beak and screaming nevermore, nevermore, nevermore.
But then it—
here here here i could see i could see through a wolf’s eyes everything bright and
i was young
i was a kid i was a
pup
i was a pup and my father said he loved me he loved me he loved me
he says your brother will be alpha but that doesn’t make you any less special
you are good mark you are good you are kind you are loving and wonderful
thomas thomas thomas will be alpha but you will be
thomas said richard will be his second
not me
not me at all
i understand
don’t i
i’m a wolf i’m a good wolf because my daddy said so
but thomas is
dirt and leaves and rain
there is
DIRT and LEAVES and RAIN
follow
save
protect
i must protect
from bad guys
bad wolves
gordo gordo gordo gordo and it’s
gone it’s all gone everything is gone because everything is blue
i could hear them
they were screaming
the pups the pups were screaming saying no please no please no daddy daddy daddy
hurts it hurts oh my god it hurts
where where where is gordo where is
DIRT and LEAVES and RAIN and and and
gone they’re gone thomas says they’re gone but he is alpha he is
alpha he is my
hunt i must hunt for him biggest animal biggest i can find
so he knows
he knows i can provide
keep him warm
keep him safe
and
no please thomas
please don’t make me go
please don’t take me away from DIRT and LEAVES and RAIN and
thomas says
thomas says i have to
he says i have to go
gordo is gordo is gordo is HUMAN
they are scared of HUMANS
thomas says i can come back i can come back we will come back it will not
it will not be forever
it will not be the end
why does it feel like the end
i love him
please don’t let me go
please wait for me
please love me back
please please please
and he tells me
he tells me i have to go
tells me he doesn’t want me
tells me he doesn’t love me
tells me i’m like the others
like all the other wolves
it hurts
it hurts
it hurts but he’s right
i didn’t do what i could
didn’t do more
he’s
he’s
he’s
It was there, all of this. Everything. Jumbled and broken, more wolf than man. Everything he’d felt. Everything he’d thought. There was pain and wonder, sweet joy and dark jealousy. He’d been close, the last time he’d come to my house, the scent of another man’s spunk on my skin. He’d been close to pushing right by me and finding the owner of the scent and sinking his claws into his throat until blood arced against the walls. He’d wanted to hurt me. He’d wanted to hurt me so badly.
Instead he’d walked away.
He didn’t come back until after Joe had been saved from the beast.
And there’d been a moment, a brief and shining moment, when he’d seen me walking on the street, had heard my heartbeat again from inside the diner where Joe had put french fries under his lips and pretended to be a walrus. He’d told himself to stay away, had told himself that keeping his distance was the right thing to do, but he couldn’t help himself.
And even though I’d been angry, even though I’d wanted nothing to do with him, just standing in front of me again after all these years—inhaling dirt and leaves and rain—had centered him like he hadn’t been in years. He’d struggled for a long time with his tether. Thomas had told him for years (though never unkindly) that it might be best to change it, to find something else to latch on to.
Mark had hated his brother for that, even though he knew Thomas was right. He knew Thomas was only looking out for him, knew that Thomas was aware just how deep his grief ran. But he couldn’t stop the anger he felt, and they’d fought then, fought like they’d never done before. It started out verbal, Mark’s voice rising until he was shouting and Thomas remaining furiously calm like their father had always been.
Mark threw the first punch.
It landed with a crunch on Thomas’s jaw, his Alpha’s head snapping back. Later, much, much later, after his brother was nothing but smoke and ash, Mark would realize that Thomas hadn’t moved. Thomas hadn’t even tried to dodge. He’d taken it. He’d taken the hit as if it were penance. Mark had needed a focus for his anger, and Thomas had known that. Had goaded him into it. He had to have known the reaction he’d get. Gordo had been a topic they did not discuss.
Mark ended on top of Thomas, hitting him again and again and again.
Thomas just took it.
By the time Mark finished, Thomas’s face was a bloody mess and two of Mark’s fingers were broken, jutting out awkwardly. He fell to the side, chest heaving as he lay next to his brother. They stared at the ceiling as their bodies healed, cuts closing and bones resetting.
“I’ll never give him up,” Mark said quietly.
“I know,” Thomas said. “I know.”
They never told anyone about it. That moment.
So, yes. Standing in front of me again after years was something he treasured, no matter what my reaction had been.
And it went on for years, after. But it didn’t matter to him, not really. Oh, sure, it’d hurt sometimes, being so close and yet kept at such a distance. But he felt settled in ways he couldn’t explain. Maybe it was being back in Green Creek. Maybe it was having Joe with them again.
Or maybe it was the fact that his mate was only a few miles away on any given day.
Until he wasn’t.
The beast came, and Mark’s Alpha lay on a pyre in the woods, wolves howling their songs of mourning around them, and he’d thought about that day again. That day where he’d gone after his brother, the rage that had long simmered below the surface finally boiling over. Thomas should have done more. Fought harder. For Gordo. For him. For all of them. He was the Alpha of all, yes, but he was the Bennett Alpha too, and there was a Bennett wolf whose heart was broken, and he’d just taken it. Even when his nose had snapped, even when his cheek had shattered, he’d lain there and taken it. Mark had been shouting down at him, telling him it was his fault, it was all his fault, how could he do this, how could Thomas do this to him.
After they’d healed and wiped away the blood to hide the e
vidence from Elizabeth (who, in the end, would still be able to smell it and would glare at the both of them without saying a word), Thomas had said, “I’ll make this right. I don’t know how. I don’t know when. But I promise you, I’ll do everything I can to make this right.”
And I could feel it now. All of it. How ridiculously proud he was at this moment to have someone such as me as his mate, the love he felt, the dark, animalistic part of him reveling at his cock still up my ass, spunk dripping down the length. He wanted to roll in the scent of our sex that was thick in the room, covering us both in it until everyone knew what we’d done.
He was scared too. Oh Jesus Christ, was he scared. Scared that he’d finally gotten what he wanted and wouldn’t be good enough. Scared that he wasn’t brave enough or strong enough. Scared that he was going to lose all of this. That his tether and mate would disappear into the wolf when he turned Omega.
Because he didn’t know what to do.
How to stop it.
It was there still, low and vibrating. Even now he could feel it. It wasn’t as loud as it’d been before, but it was there.
And it terrified him.
This wolf.
This foolish, wonderful wolf.
I blinked slowly down at him. He stared up at me, a look of reverence on his face. My hand was still wrapped around his neck, though I wasn’t holding on as tight as I had been.
He reached up, pressing his fingers against my face. “I never thought—” His voice broke. He shook his head before he tried again. “I never thought it could be this way. Feel like this. You—I saw things. Gordo. You—I’m so sorry. About everything. All of it. I’m so sorry.”
I turned my face and kissed the palm of his hand. “You can’t leave me.”
“Never, never, never.”
“I won’t let you.”
“I know.”
“I’m too old for this shit.”
And my god, how he smiled up at me. “Move good for an old man.” He jerked his hips, causing my eyes to roll back in my head.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
“Yeah.” His fingers fell from my face to the bite mark between my neck and shoulder. It would scar, I knew. I’d seen Joe’s and Ox’s. Elizabeth’s, though hers wasn’t as pronounced as it’d once been.
Blood had trickled down from the wound onto my chest, bisecting the tattoo of the wolf and the raven. He ran his thumb down the wet stripe, smearing it into the ink.
The others were there. In my head. But they were faint. They would know what had happened. Know what we’d done. At least Ox and Joe would. They would know to stay away. Mark wouldn’t want them coming here so soon after.
I moved my hand from around his neck and—
My eyes widened. “Holy shit.”
“What? What’s wrong?”
I coughed, a lump suddenly in my throat. I never thought of this. What it would mean for him. I wasn’t a wolf. I couldn’t bite him. Not like he’d done to me. It would have healed quickly, no matter the intent. He would not have carried my mark, not like I carried his.
I should have known it’d be something else.
There, embedded into the skin of his neck, was a raven, a near twin to the one on my arm.
It was no bigger than the width of my hand. Its wings spread to either side of his throat. Its head was bowed, resting over his Adam’s apple, and when he swallowed it looked as if it was moving. Its talons and the fan of its tail feathers stretched toward the hollow of his throat.
I had his mark on me.
And now he had mine.
I reached down and touched the wings. They felt warm beneath my fingers.
“What is it?” he asked again, tilting his head back to allow me better access. “My throat is—it feels strange. Did you bruise me?”
I shook my head. “My magic, it—everyone will know now. Here. The tips of the wings go to here.” I ran my finger along the length of the feathers. “And the head is here. The tail feathers here.”
“A raven.”
“Yes. I didn’t—I didn’t know that would happen.”
“Does it look like yours?”
“Exactly like mine.”
He pulled me down and kissed me, deep and slow. There was blue there, still. I thought maybe it was part of us. But it was quiet under all the green. “Good,” he whispered against my lips. “Good, good, good.”
open the door/make them pay
I WOKE to a furious pounding on the door.
I opened my eyes slowly. It took me a moment to remember where I was. And what had happened.
My body was sore. My neck throbbed. Muscles ached.
But it was more than that. There was an undercurrent to it all, something wild that I couldn’t get a grasp on.
It was dark. Snow lashed against the window.
I reached for Mark and—
The space next to me in the bed was empty.
And cold.
There again came a knocking at my chamber door.
“Nevermore,” I muttered, groaning as I pushed myself up and out of the bed.
I found a pair of sweats on the floor and slid them on. The air was cool. My skin pebbled.
That undercurrent grew stronger.
I took a step and—
gordo can you hear
—I took a breath, groaning as the pounding in my head intensified, and I reached for the door, the chamber door, the bedroom door, the doorknob hot underneath my hand, and I twisted it, twisted it as hard as I could, throwing my shoulder against it and—
It opened.
But not into my house.
The sun was shining early morning light through a window off to my left.
The room I was in was small and tidy, the carpet underneath my feet cream-colored and thick. There was a kitchen off to the right, and a teakettle bubbled on the stove. I—
“Gordo.”
It was like I was moving underwater. My limbs felt weighted and heavy. It took ages for me to turn my head to the right to see—
A witch sat in a high-back chair. His eyes were milky white, and his lips were moving quietly, mumbling words I couldn’t quite make out. A tear trickled down his cheek.
Patrice.
The albino witch.
Next to him stood an older woman. One hand was on Patrice’s shoulder. The other held a lit cigarette, the smoke curling up around her fingers.
Aileen.
“Can you hear me?” she asked.
I tried to say yes, yes, I can hear you, but it came out garbled, as if I were speaking through a mouthful of rocks.
“We don’t have much time,” she said, and one moment she was next to Patrice, and the next she was in front of me, blowing a thick ring of smoke in my face. “Patrice is barely holding on as it is. The witches around Green Creek are strong.”
“What is this?” I managed to say.
The ember on the tip of her cigarette burned. Smoke leaked from her nose. “This is the last chance, boyo. I told you things were changing. I just didn’t know how much. A wolf came to me. Stood right in this very room. He was white. Brighter than I’d ever seen before. Do you understand?”
No. I didn’t. I didn’t understand any of this. I didn’t—
I was in my bedroom. There was—
Aileen slapped me across the face. “Gordo. Focus.”
Everything was blue. Everything felt blue and red and oh my god, there was violet—
I grimaced at the throbbing in my shoulder. I reached up and pressed against the mark in my neck. The pain was heavy, and it grounded me.
Aileen shook her head. “You certainly don’t do anything halfway, do you? There was a wolf, Gordo. He came to me. I knew him. Even though I’d never met him in this life, I knew him. Gordo, he said you have to open the door. You have to throw it wide open if you expect to survive this.”
“The… door?”
“Yes,” she said, and she sounded frantic. Patrice started seizing behind her, spit dribbling down his lips
, hanging in a long string. “Shit. They’ve found him. Gordo, it’s the door. You have to open the goddamn door. We’re coming, okay? We’ll do what we can, but he said you have to open the door. He said you’d understand. That I had to tell you nevermore and you’d understand. Thomas said nevermore—”
Thomas.
Thomas.
Thomas, Thomas, Thomas, because he was Alpha.
He was packpackpack.
The floor opened up beneath me and I—
I opened my eyes.
I was in my room.
My shoulder throbbed.
The bed next to me was empty.
I blinked, slow and sure.
The bedroom door was open.
The house was dark.
The light outside the window was weak, the snow still falling.
That undercurrent was still there, garbled and strange. It felt familiar, it felt like mine, it felt like PackLoveMateHome, but it was twisting, it was twisting, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.
The door, Aileen had said.
I have to open the door.
I didn’t—
A creak of a floorboard from somewhere inside the house.
“Mark?” I whispered as I rose from the bed. I found a pair of sweats on the floor and quickly threw them on. “Mark, is that—”
I wasn’t dreaming. I couldn’t be dreaming. Not again.
If that had even been a dream.
I moved through the house. Everything seemed to be in its place. Nothing had moved.
Mark stood in the kitchen. His back was to me. He was nude, and his head was bowed. In his right hand he held the wooden raven.
“Mark?” I asked. “What’s—”
He said, “Gordo,” but it came out sounding harder than I’d ever heard him speak my name before. Animalistic. Meaner, filled with—
No. No, oh god, please no—
“You need to run,” he said, his shoulders shaking. “I can’t—I can’t fight it. It’s—”
There was a sharp crack as the wooden raven splintered. One of the wings fell to the floor.
The shift came over him slowly. Thick black claws grew at the tips of his fingers and toes. The muscles under his skin began to ripple. Chestnut-brown hair sprouted over his shaved head.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. Not now. Not after we’d come this far. Not when I wore his mark just as sure as he bore mine. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t—