by TJ Klune
My breath hitched in my chest, and my voice was just a whisper when I spoke. “Thomas?”
He turned his head slightly, a small smile on his face. “Gordo. Oh, I do love to hear your voice.”
“I’m… I don’t—”
“That’s okay.” He turned to look back up at the moon.
“Is this real?”
“I think so.”
“I’m hurt.”
“Yes. Protecting your Alpha. I’m so proud of you.”
My eyes burned as I hung my head. I didn’t know until that very moment how much I longed to hear those words from him. “Mark,” I choked out. “He… he’s changed. An Omega.”
“I know. But he is not lost. None of them are. You are so much more than what they think, Gordo. All of you. My wife. My sons. My pack.”
I crawled toward him, almost falling face-first into the ground when I went to put my right hand down only to realize it wasn’t there anymore. It was a smooth stump, looking fully healed. There were barely even scars.
I didn’t let it deter me.
Not now.
Not from him.
Not ever.
I reached him, and for the first time since I could remember, I could feel him. My Alpha. I pressed my forehead against the back of his neck, and he said, “Oh. Oh, Gordo. I’m so sorry. I am. But it’s you, okay? One day it’ll be you and me forever. We are going to be our own pack again. And you will always be my witch.”
And as the wolves sang their songs around us, I kissed the skin of my Alpha’s neck and pulled away to—
I TOOK in a great gasping breath, sitting up quickly.
My head hurt.
My arm was throbbing.
I was cold.
And surrounding me, moving in a slow circle, were dozens of Omega wolves.
“It’s okay,” a voice said near my ear. I turned my head slightly to see Ox still holding on to me. “They’re… they won’t hurt us. I have them. It’s… heavy. But I’ve got it. All of you are helping.”
Two people moved in front of me, crouching down. The brown wolf crowding my side growled angrily at them, eyes flashing, but he made no move toward them.
Aileen looked older than I remembered, the lines on her face deeper. But her eyes were knowing, always knowing. She reached out and pressed two fingers against my heated forehead. Almost immediately, the clouds in my head began to part.
Patrice looked startling against the snow and the blood that had soaked into it. His skin was as white as the snow around us, his freckles like little spots of fire on his skin. He was ethereally beautiful.
He was frowning as he reached toward me. He took my arm gently in his, lifting it up.
My hand was gone.
But the stump was on its way toward healing, far more than it should have been. Gone was the open wound. In its place was a mass of red scar tissue that felt warm and achy. It looked months old rather than minutes. He held my arm gently, twisting it this way and that as he studied it. “It’ll do,” he said with a sigh. “Best I got.” He set my arm down carefully before he looked up at me. “Foolish witch,” he said, not unkindly.
“You are lucky we were here, boyo,” Aileen snapped. “And that it was only your hand. She could have taken your head off with that thing, and where would you be then?”
“Headless,” I muttered, and heard Ox choke behind me.
Aileen rolled her eyes. “Don’t get smart with me, Gordo. I have had just about enough excitement for one day, and we’ve only just begun.”
I struggled to stand up. Ox tried to help me, but Mark growled at him. Ox backed off as I glared at the wolf. He pushed himself against me, snout nosing under my good arm until I lifted it around him. He rose fully to his feet, pulling me up with him. Vertigo swam through me for a moment, but it passed.
The Omegas continued to move in a wide circle around us. They kept their gazes on all of us, darting back and forth but lingering on Ox. They didn’t seem to be paying me any attention. It was almost as if I wasn’t even there.
Except for Mark. He stood pressed against me.
Ox was in control. Somehow, he was in control of all the feral wolves.
I shook my head. “I don’t know how I’m going to—” I had to stop and swallow past the lump in my throat. I tried again, voice rougher than it’d been before. “I don’t know how I’m going to be any use now. I can’t use—”
“Bah,” Patrice said dismissively. “Dat won’t matter much. It’s a hand, Gordo. Not where your magic came from. It’s in your marks. Boustabak. Dat raven. It’ll hold. You have pack. You have a mate. You’ll learn.”
“That’s not—”
“It is, boyo,” Aileen said sharply. “In the end, it’s not going to matter much. Not to who you are. Only thing it’s going to be a problem for is if you were right-handed to begin with. I’m sure Mark will help you learn how to jack off with the left.”
“Jesus Christ.”
She coughed. It sounded harsh in her chest. “Now that that’s out of the way, you gotta get moving. Those hunters. They aren’t going to wait. Things are changing, Gordo. Whispers in the wind. I can hear them. It’s not the same. Not anymore. It’s going to come to a head sooner rather than later. These feral wolves were just the first step. The hunters yet another. It’s escalating, I think. Michelle Hughes is going to tighten her grip. She’s had a taste now. And soon she’s going to know exactly what you all are capable of.” She glanced at Ox before looking back at me, a grim look on her face. “There’s never been anything like the Bennett pack. Or this place. She’s going to do whatever she can to find out why. And she will try to take it.”
“And the Omegas?” I asked. “The infection?”
Patrice shook his head. “Dat don’t matter. Your Alpha here, he’s got ’em. In dere heads. You can feel it. I know you can. Hell, I can feel it, and I’m not even in your pack.” He turned to Ox. “I don’t know where you came from, boy, but I don’t tink I’ve ever seen someone like you before.”
“I can bring them back,” Ox said quietly. He was looking at the Omegas that moved around us. “After. When this is done. They’ll… still be Omegas. The infected ones. But I think it’ll hold. Until….”
“Until you kill Robert Livingstone,” Aileen said grimly. “This is deep magic. Deeper than I ever thought anyone could go. We can’t fix it. Not until we know what he’s done. And if he dies, there’s a chance his spell dies with him. That’s what I got from Thomas when he—”
“Thomas?” a trembling voice asked.
I turned. Elizabeth Bennett stood nude, eyes alight in the dark. She was staring at Aileen, an indecipherable look on her face.
Aileen sighed. “Yes. It’s… it wasn’t clear. The visions never are. I see… I think he knew. That we would be needed.” She glanced at me before looking back at the mother wolf. “It was faint. And quick. But we—”
I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t know if I wanted to. She had to know. They all did. “I’ve seen him. Before. At the door. And here. Now.”
Joe made a wounded noise, bowing his head, wrapping his arms around his middle.
Elizabeth took a step toward me, her bare feet sinking into the snow. Her skin was pebbled with gooseflesh, but she moved with great deliberation until she stood before me. She trailed her fingers along my injured arm, running along the tattoos. The runes and roses glowed under her touch. She looked up at me, and there was never a moment in my life I wanted to protect her more than I did right then. “He found you again.”
I nodded, unable to speak.
“Did he speak to you?”
“He said he loves us,” I said quietly. “Loves you. And that I was his witch.”
Carter tilted his head back and howled mournfully. The timber wolf whined and rubbed against his side. The Omegas seemed agitated at the sound, but they stayed away, still moving slowly in a circle around us.
“You see now, don’t you?” Elizabeth asked, reaching up to cup my face. Her hands w
ere warm and kind.
“I think so. It… hurts. To know what I’ve lost. What we’ve lost. It hurts.”
“And it will. Maybe forever.” Her thumbs brushed over my cheeks. “But it will become a part of you, and one day it’ll be bearable.” A single tear fell from her eye. “But you will never forget your Alpha.”
“He said he was proud of me,” I whispered, fearing that saying it any louder would make it untrue.
And oh, how she smiled. “He is, Gordo. As am I. As we all are. You were lost, I think. For a long time. But you have found your way home. Though it was not without consequence.”
I winced. “That might be an understatement.”
“I know. But we will figure it out. We always do. You’re not alone, Gordo. And I promise you that you never will be.”
She stepped away, dropping her hands from my face. I watched as she shifted in front of me, and I remembered being told that it was easier to deal with grief as a wolf. Human emotions were complex. Wolf instincts were not. She was blue, so blue, but mixed in was green, wrapping around her, keeping her safe. She nosed Mark’s throat before she went to stand back next to Carter, who licked one of her ears.
“We will stay here,” Aileen said quietly. “Clean up what remains. There are enough of us who have come to Green Creek to rebuild your wards while you do what you must. Nothing will escape, not while we stand watch. You have many allies, Alpha Matheson, whether you realize it or not. You must remember this, because there will come a time when it’ll seem that the whole world is against you. You have powerful enemies. But I can see your strength. I will pray that it is enough to do what you must.”
Ox nodded. “Thank you. For coming for my witch. For us.”
“Peace, Alpha. May your pack one day know peace.” She stepped back.
Patrice reached up and rubbed his thumb over Ox’s forehead. A little trail of light formed a symbol on Ox’s brow, an inverted S. The Omegas rumbled around us. Carter yipped. Mark growled at my side.
Ox breathed in deeply. His eyes burned. “What did you do?”
“Focus,” Patrice said. “Dat’s focus. Dere tied to you, Alpha. All of dem. It’ll pull harder den you ever imagined. Tightened those bonds a bit. Not much, but it’s da best I can do.”
Ox bowed his head in deference. “Thank you.”
The witches moved away from us. The Omegas parted, letting them pass through without incident. They moved toward the bridge.
“Gordo.”
“Oxnard.”
“I—you need—”
“Shut up, Ox.”
He frowned. “It’s not—”
“Would you do the same for me?”
“Always.”
“Then shut up.”
He sighed. “Only you wouldn’t accept gratitude after getting your hand cut off.”
“We have bigger things to worry about now. We can talk about it later, when I come off my inevitable meltdown.”
“He’ll wait on you hand and foot,” Joe said. “Or maybe just foot, now.”
We turned slowly to look at him.
He blinked at us. “Too soon?” He nodded. “Yeah. Too soon. Sorry, Gordo.”
Ox took a step forward.
The circle of the Omegas broke. They amassed in front of him. Some were half-shifted. Most were wolves. There had to be at least sixty of them. All their eyes were violet. It was more than Richard Collins ever had.
Oxnard Matheson said, “I called you. And you came. I have made mistakes in the past. I cut myself off from all of you. I closed that door, even though you needed me. I have no right to ask anything of you, but in the end, I must. There are people here. Hunters. They have come into Bennett territory uninvited. And they have come to take away everything I hold dear. They already have two of my pack, and I will not accept that. If you help me, if you stand with me, then I promise you, I will do everything in my power to bring you back. To put your minds back together, no matter how long it might take. You are the forgotten. The lost. But if we survive today, I will find a way to bring you home.”
The Omega wolves tilted their heads back and howled for their Alpha. The sound rolled over us, causing me to shake down to my bones.
It was loud and angry.
Feral and harsh.
I hoped Elijah and her hunters heard it too.
THEY WERE waiting for us when we arrived back at the house at the end of the lane. The sky was nearly cloudless, a cold, clear blue. The sun was bright. And the moon was full and pale, but visible. I remembered the story Abel had told me about her love.
Rico was standing on his own, eyes wide as he watched us approach. He was muttering something I couldn’t hear.
Jessie was next to him, tapping the crowbar on her shoulder, eyes narrowed.
Robbie stood at the bottom of the stairs next to Kelly, who was wringing his hands. He looked as if he didn’t know whether he wanted to step in front of Kelly and snarl, or pull him back into the house. He did neither. Instead he said, “That’s a lot of Omegas.”
Elizabeth went to them first, shifting as she approached the house. Jessie reached down to a pack at her feet, pulled out a robe, and tossed it down the stairs. Elizabeth caught it midshift and wrapped it around her shoulders as the wolf melted away.
“What happened?” Kelly demanded. “We felt—I don’t know what it was. But it was awful. It was like someone died, but—”
“Gordo?” Rico asked. “Why are you holding your arm like that? Did you break it?”
“Not exactly,” I muttered.
“Gordo saved Ox,” Elizabeth said. “He was hurt, but it’ll be okay.”
“I don’t understand,” Robbie said, sounding confused. “It was like—”
I held up my arm.
Silence.
Then:
“What the fuck,” Rico squeaked.
“Who did that?” Jessie growled. “And please tell me they’re already dead.”
“How is it healed already?” Robbie demanded, eyes flashing.
Kelly came first, Kelly who had stood in the doorway of a dilapidated motel in the middle of nowhere, watching me shave my head, and told me I had to do it to him next, had to make him look like me. I thought he’d been my pack first, before Joe and Carter, because of that. His hands hand been gentle when they pressed against my shoulders, and he hadn’t fidgeted when I’d done the same to him. I remembered how prickly his scalp had felt when I’d run my fingers over it after I’d finished. He’d still been a child then, a grieving child far away from home.
That child was gone now.
The man he’d become stood before me.
And he leaned forward, pressing his forehead against mine, eyes open and staring at me.
I didn’t look away.
“You idiot,” he said. “You stupid idiot.”
“Had to get you to stop being angry with me somehow.”
He choked on a laugh. “Oh, I’m still mad at you. But now it’s for entirely different reasons. I’ll probably need to come to the shop to give you a hand now. I don’t know the first thing about cars.”
“Too soon,” Joe muttered, sliding into a pair of jeans Jessie had given him. “Already tried it.”
I shoved Kelly away. “Asshole.”
He shook his head as he went to his brother. The timber wolf didn’t seem pleased to see him again, but Kelly ignored it, falling to his knees in the snow, wrapping his arms around Carter’s neck.
“I’m fine,” I told Jessie and Rico, who were starting to fuss.
“Yeah, sure you are,” Rico snapped. “I get shot, and you just had to go and try and one-up me. I’m going to have a sexy scar, and you’re going to be able to get a sexy hook. Pirates always beat scars, Gordo. You know that. You stay away from Bambi. You don’t get to try and take her away from me when you already got a wolf.”
“Why does it feel like this is a conversation you guys have had before?” Jessie asked us suspiciously.
“Weed is a hell of drug,” Ri
co told her. “Though it does make more sense that Gordo would be the pirate instead of me.”
“Why would that be?” Jessie asked.
“Because I’m straight,” Rico explained. “And Gordo likes to plunder the booty.”
“I hate you so fucking much,” I told him.
“Nah. That’s a lie. Don’t even try it. And, as a sidebar, is it almost time to kill the bad guys and get Chris and Tanner back? Because I’m going to need them here with me to help me get over the trauma of getting shot and having a one-handed boss. They’ll help me come to terms with this brave new world we find ourselves in.”
“Men,” Jessie grumbled. “You’re all fucking idiots.”
“Hey! This has hands down—sorry, Gordo—been one of the worst days ever. Show a little respect!”
I loved them more than I could ever say. “Yeah. It’s almost time.”
“Good,” they muttered in unison, sounding more wolfish than the actual wolves. The hunters should never have come to this town.
And because he was the only one left, and still stood near the porch looking ridiculously unsure, I waved Robbie over.
He came, trying not to stare at my arm but failing miserably. “Who did this?” he asked, voice hushed.
“A witch.”
“Is she dead?”
Mark growled as I said, “Very.”
Robbie nodded frantically. “Great, that’s great, that’s—”
“Kid, you need to calm down. Take a breath. We’re fine. We’re all—”
He surprised me by leaping forward and throwing his arms around me. I grunted at the impact, and Mark snapped at him, fangs flashing but not actually sinking into skin. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he whispered into my neck.
I rolled my eyes and wrapped my good arm around his back. Kid was soft. “Yeah, yeah. Enough with the feelings, all right? We’ve got bigger things to worry about.”