by TJ Klune
He stepped back, and his eyes were orange. “We’re going after her, aren’t we? Eventually.”
He wasn’t talking about Elijah. “Yeah. We are. You going to be okay with that?”
He didn’t hesitate. “This is my home. This is my pack. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
I reached up and squeezed the back of his neck. “We’re lucky to have you, Robbie. Even if you insist on wearing those fucking glasses.”
He grinned at me.
OX SAID, “Do it.”
I kicked away the line of silver.
Pappas jumped forward, ready to bite and tear and—
Ox roared.
Pappas stopped.
He blinked, tilting his head toward Ox.
His eyes were violet.
Ox rumbled deep in his chest.
And Pappas listened.
GORDO GORDO gordo
“I know,” I told Mark, squatting in front of him. “I know.”
He pressed his head against my shoulder and breathed me in.
gordo gordo gordo
I WAS not a wolf.
But even I could feel the pull of the moon.
When I’d been alone, when all the wolves had left me behind, I hated it. I hated the way it stretched my skin tight. The way I always felt it overhead.
Eventually the bonds broke.
Eventually I didn’t feel the moon anymore.
But it wasn’t done with me. Not by a long shot.
Here, now, I felt it, maybe more so than ever before.
I was not a wolf.
But I was a part of them.
They were a part of me.
And the moon pulled.
We stood in front of the house at the end of the lane, snow still drifting down around us. Nine members of the Bennett pack. A timber wolf. Pappas.
And all those Omegas.
The full moon was here.
“Cry ‘havoc,’” I whispered as the wolves sang their songs around me, “and let slip the dogs of war.”
pack
WHEN I was a child, a woman named Elijah had held my hand in the diner as she prayed.
And then, even as she slipped a needle into my skin, much like my father had done before her, she rained fire down upon us.
Hunters came to Green Creek and took away almost everyone I loved.
We weren’t ready.
We paid the price for that.
All that remained was a smoking crater strewn with death.
She survived, somehow.
And she had come again.
She meant to finish what she’d started.
She had taken two of my pack away from me.
She thought she had the upper hand, that she had us beat.
But after all she’d brought upon us, after all she was capable of, she still didn’t understand there was one thing that should never be done.
Back a beast into a corner.
Because that’s when it has nothing left to lose, and it will do everything it can to survive.
“I TRUST you,” Ox told me.
“I know.”
“They have Tanner. And Chris.”
“I know.”
“And they’re still alive. Still fighting.”
“I know.”
Ox nodded. “Which is why you will go to them. We will come in from the front. Distract the Hunters. Distract Elijah. Pick them off one by one while we can before going full-bore. And that’s when you will come in from the rear. With any luck, they won’t even know you’re there until it’s too late.”
“Divide and conquer.”
His smile was all teeth. “It’s how wolves hunt in the wild. They separate the flock.”
“And you’re sure they’re in the garage? Chris and Tanner.”
“Have I ever told you what it was like? When I opened my eyes as a wolf for the first time?”
I shook my head. He’d hinted at it, but then we’d realized just how wide open that door was, and everything was focused on shutting it and making sure it was locked.
“I could feel you. All of you. My pack. But it was more than that. I could feel all of them. The people here. In the territory. I felt the grass. The leaves. The birds in the trees. Everything. You know this place, Gordo. I know you do. You are in touch with it in ways that most others are not. But I think it’s more than that for me. You are the earth and I am the sky. So yes. I know they’re in the garage. I know they’re scared. I know they’re hurt. I know they’re as stubborn as they’ve ever been. And we’re going to make the Kings pay for all they’ve done. Their names don’t matter to me.”
“Dirt and leaves and rain,” I muttered.
He cocked his head at me.
“I—it’s something Mark tells me.” I looked away. “It’s what I smell like to him.”
“I will bring him back to you,” Ox said, and I closed my eyes. “To all of us.”
“You can’t promise that,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Watch me,” Ox said.
“I LOVE you,” Joe told us from the porch, Ox at his side. “I love all of you. You are my pack. And this is our town. It’s time to take it back.”
NEVERMORE. NEVERMORE. Never—
I MOVED through the back dirt roads of Green Creek, snow crunching underneath my feet. Mark was on my right and Elizabeth on my left. It wasn’t until after Ox had told them to go with me that I realized what he was doing. He was trying to keep those who remembered the last time Elijah had been here away from her. Carter had been too young. But the three of us were not. I didn’t know whether to thank him or be pissed off.
It didn’t matter.
We could deal with it later.
The stump that had once been my right hand was wrapped with a bandage, and a sock placed over it. Jessie told me that while she trusted my magic, she didn’t know these other witches. We couldn’t know if there was nerve damage. I needed to avoid frostbite. “We’re going to have to get that checked,” she told me, fitting the sock over the stump. “And somehow figure out how to explain how it happened, and how it already healed.”
“Half the town already knows about wolves,” I reminded her. “I saw the doc in there too. What’s a magically healed amputation in the face of that?”
“This is going to explode in our faces.”
“Maybe. But if it does, we’ll deal with it then.”
The forest felt unnaturally quiet, as if it and the nearby town were empty. Rico and Jessie had made their way to the Lighthouse with orders to keep everyone safe in case the hunters somehow found their way to it. Jessie looked like she was going to argue, but Ox told her that he was trusting her to keep the rest of the humans safe. Rico sighed but agreed. “I mean, if I’m going to get shot, it might as well be by my girlfriend. At least I’ll expect it coming from her.”
It was slow going, even though we kept to what were normally dirt roads. The snow was deep, and the drifts even deeper. I stumbled a few times, but a wolf was always there to keep me upright.
gordo gordo gordo.
“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered, putting my remaining hand on Mark’s back.
He was there, somehow. Mark. The bonds between us were frayed and tenuous, but they were holding. Because of Ox or because I bore my wolf’s mark upon my shoulder, I didn’t know. I believed Ox when he said he would find a way.
It was gordo gordo gordo and MateWitch and some wolf-blue song of mine and mine and mine. He was echoing in my head, agitated and twitchy, but I held on to it as best I could. It meant there was hope.
He helped me up again, and I was about to take a step forward when Elizabeth froze, ears perking, tail curved up behind her. Mark growled lowly next to me before he herded me against a large tree.
It took a moment to hear what they did.
Voices.
They were faint at first. But they grew louder as I breathed shallowly through my nose. The vines on my arm began to tighten under my coat, pulling against my skin. My magic was wilder than it�
��d been before, and I felt a phantom sensation where my hand had once been, like I still had fingers that could curl into a fist.
Elizabeth moved a few feet away from us and began to dig in the snow, the powder and ice piling up behind her. Her claws scraped, and I worried she was going to give us away before she finished, lowering herself into the indentation she’d created. She blended in with the snow and trees.
I put my back against the tree trunk, Mark standing in front of me, not even trying to conceal himself.
“Idiot,” I said quietly, reaching up and running a finger between his eyes.
He pressed against my hand and breathed in deeply.
“—don’t know why we had to wait,” a voice said as it got closer. A man. “What the hell is she doing?”
“I think she likes it here,” another voice replied. A woman. “Don’t know why. This place gives me the creeps. Being in an Alpha’s territory is one thing, but two Alphas? She’s going to get us all killed.”
Oh, how right she was.
They were closer.
“I don’t give a fuck what she likes,” the man said. “And just because she thinks the ferals are going to do the job for us doesn’t mean they’re not going to come for us after. I mean, there were already two of them. What if it’s the whole pack by now?”
“They’re easier to put down,” the woman muttered. “Feral wolves don’t think. They’re nothing but animals. It’s the nonferal wolves I’m worried about. She should have just let us burn down the goddamn house. Circle the whole thing with silver and just be done with it.”
The man snorted. “Did you see the look on her face when Grant told her that? I thought she was going to shoot him right there.”
Closer.
“We’re hunters,” the woman said mockingly. “We’re supposed to hunt.”
“Right? I get off on killing these things as much as anyone else, but goddamn, she’s getting careless. This isn’t like it was in Omaha. Or West Virginia.”
“Bennetts,” the woman said. “I don’t necessarily agree with the way she’s going about this, but can you imagine what it’s going to be like for us when we get to say we took out the Bennett pack? We’re going to be legendary.”
Closer.
“As long as we get paid, I don’t care about—”
Mark looked at me with violet eyes.
gordo gordo gordo
I stepped out from behind the tree.
They were young.
Almost kids, really. Maybe younger than Joe.
Such a waste.
They both had their rifles slung over their shoulders.
They hadn’t expected me.
They stopped, eyes wide.
“Hello,” I said.
They took a step back.
Mark rounded the other side of the tree, lips pulled back against his fangs. His tail swished side to side.
They took another step back.
“Your mistake,” I told them, “was talking about killing a pack when a mother wolf could hear you.”
The man snapped, “What are you—”
Elizabeth rose from the snow off to their left.
The woman said, “Oh, please, no.”
They barely had time to reach for their guns before Elizabeth was on them.
It was over without a shot being fired.
Birds took off in the trees, wings frantic as a predator took down its prey.
Hunter blood had once again been spilled on Bennett land.
And we had only just begun.
When Elizabeth lifted her head, red droplets clinging to her whiskers, her eyes flashed orange.
pack, she whispered in my head. packpackpack.
WE CAME in on the opposite side of town, near where we’d found the abandoned car.
Our tire tracks had long been buried by the storm that had since dissipated into flurries.
I wondered what they’d done with Jones. His body. When all was said and done, I would make sure he got a proper burial.
We stayed off the road as we approached Green Creek, the buildings rising up out of the snow. In the distance, I could see the remains of the diner, the tow truck still on its side. I didn’t know if they’d tried to move it to get at the body of the red wolf underneath or if they’d just let it be.
Farther down Main Street, one of the traffic signals was blinking yellow. Beyond it was the garage.
The hunters’ trucks still surrounded it. It didn’t look like they’d been moved since we’d been there last, hunkered down in the diner. I could make out someone moving on the roof. Still others near the trucks. Halogen lights had been set up around the garage, casting a harsh glow in every direction. The power in the town was still out, but the garage was lit like a beacon.
I was uneasy. Elijah wasn’t stupid. We couldn’t underestimate her. She had waited until the full moon for a reason. Whether it was to justify the killing of werewolves under the thrall of the moon, or to wait and see if the feral wolves would either infect or kill the others before she descended, I didn’t know. But the fact that she hadn’t tried anything further since coming to Green Creek was unexpected. I hadn’t believed her when she’d said the humans of the town were off-limits. She was waiting for something, but what, I didn’t know.
But she had Chris and Tanner.
That was more than enough reason for us to descend upon her.
The sky above had begun to darken almost an hour before. The moon was growing brighter through breaks in gray clouds.
We hit the town line, staying out of sight behind the buildings in the shadows.
There were no other hunters this far south. What those two had been doing in the woods, I didn’t know. Maybe they were on patrol. Maybe they were looking for us. It didn’t matter anymore. They couldn’t hurt anyone again.
We were a few blocks away from the garage when we stopped. I leaned against a brick wall. The building had once housed a post office before it’d been closed and moved to Abby. It was now a seasonal gift shop that had closed early for the winter ahead of the storm. The shop owner brought her ancient Buick in for an oil change every three months like clockwork. I hadn’t seen her in the Lighthouse. I hoped she had escaped before the hunters had come.
We waited.
It wouldn’t be much longer.
The wolves sat in the snow on either side of me, huddled close to keep me warm.
I said, “If this doesn’t go well—”
Elizabeth growled.
“If we don’t make it out—”
Mark growled.
“I’m trying to—”
They both growled.
I sighed. “Fine. I won’t be that guy. But never again can you tell me to stop being an asshole when the both of you are just as bad. Especially you, Elizabeth. I don’t know why more people can’t see how much of a bastard you are.”
She snorted.
Mark pawed at the snow.
I reached up to rub a hand over my face, only to remember at the last second that the hand was gone.
“Fuck,” I muttered hoarsely.
gordo gordo gordo
“It’s not—”
BrotherLovePack
“It’s not going to be the same. None of this will be.”
Mark nosed at my stump.
Elizabeth crowded closer.
“I’m going to need you both,” I said, and it was easier than I expected it to be. I didn’t know why I couldn’t see that before. “I’m going to need all of you.”
yes yes yes yes
gordo gordo gordo
“Okay. Okay. We’ll—”
It came then.
A surge that rolled through us.
The strength of our Alphas.
It was time.
A moment later a lone howl rose over the town, echoing down the empty streets.
I knew that wolf.
I knew where it’d come from.
The earth around us pulsed, recognizing its call.
&nbs
p; It fell away.
Shouts of alarm rose from the garage down the street from us.
The wolves were coming.
And there was nothing they could do to stop it.
“Here we go,” I whispered.
Elizabeth and Mark stood at the same time.
I pushed myself up off the building.
I cracked my neck side to side.
The raven spread its wings.
It wasn’t like it’d been before. My hand was gone. My magic felt untethered.
I wondered if this was what it felt like to be feral. To be Omega.
The howl rang out again. It was louder this time. And for a moment, it was still alone. But even before it could start to fade, another wolf began to sing, almost like it was harmonizing with his mate.
Oxnard.
Joe.
And then came the others.
Carter. Robbie. And farther away—much, much farther—Rico and Jessie, howling in our heads. Chris and Tanner, laughing hysterically at the sounds of their pack coming for them.
And then all the wolves began to sing, and it was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. All the Omegas howling with their Alpha, singing a song of war.
It was time to end this.
Even before we rounded the back of the building, the first sounds of gunfire split the air. It echoed through the town, sharp cracks above the shouts of men.
There were little bursts of light in my head, little flashes of pain, and I knew almost immediately it was Omegas being struck. They weren’t pack, not like the others, but they belonged to Ox just as much as we did. It was in the periphery, and I hoped he would be able to forgive himself one day. Forgive me for telling him to bring them here. Whether it was too late for them or not, whether we could find a way to bring them back when all this was said and done, this was going to weigh on him. On all of us.
We moved swiftly and surely. We knew what we had to do. We knew the plan. Divide and conquer. Even as we kept to the shadows, my breath harsh in my ears, I knew the first wave of Omegas would be breaking off into the town, feinting onto the side streets, small groups led by a member of my pack. They’d draw the hunters away. Even as we got closer, I heard the loud shouts of the hunters, and then their trucks fired up and tore off through the snow, giving chase.