He grinned. Bowed his head. Extended his hands in a neat little flourish. “At your service.”
His rotted eyes flashed again.
I said, “I’ll kill you. For everything you’ve done.”
His smile widened. His teeth were more wolf than man. “I can see why Thomas likes you. Human or not, you’ve got a little somethin’ somethin’, am I right? Forty-five seconds, Ox.”
I said, “Don’t do this. Take me. Leave them alone. I’ll go with you.”
His smile faded. “So quick to sacrifice yourself?”
“Just take me.” Another step forward. “I’ll go quietly. Wherever you want.”
“You’ll kill me, you’ll go with me, which is it? You’re confusing the situation, Ox. How fickle the will of men.”
I struggled to take a breath.
“Thirty seconds, Oxnard. And I have no use for a human aside from getting me what I want. You just won’t do.”
And another step and there she was. I could see her. In the living room. There were other men with her. Omegas, all of them. Their eyes were violet-bright, and my mother… oh god, my mother was on her knees, facing me. Gag in her mouth. Tears on her cheeks. She saw me and her eyes widened and she leaned toward me, and one of the Omegas grabbed her hair, snapping her neck back and—
“Kill you,” I said hoarsely. “All of you. Every one of you. I swear it. I swear on all I have.”
They laughed.
Osmond’s Betas were kneeling on either side of her, blood spilling from wounds that hadn’t closed. Wouldn’t close.
“Fifteen seconds,” Richard said.
I said, “I don’t have my phone I don’t have it I don’t have it I swear I don’t,” and I couldn’t breathe because this was MOM and JOE and THOMAS and he was making me choose, he was making me decide between them.
He said, “Kill the Betas,” and before I could even take another step, two Omegas stepped forward and grabbed the heads of the kneeling wolves. A quick snap of the wrists and there was a crack and pop of bone and tissue and they fell to the floor, legs jerking and hands shifting to claws. Their heads had been twisted so far around that the skin had torn and blood spilled. There would be no coming back from that. No healing. The Omegas stood above them and waited for them to die. It didn’t take long.
“I’m serious, Ox,” Richard said quietly. “There are things I need. Things that must be done before I can leave here. I will do anything to take what’s mine, what’s owed to me. Can’t you see that? Ox, she’s scared. This is your mother. You’re not mated to Joe. Not yet. You can find another. There will be a nice boy or girl for you down the road, but you can never have another mother, Ox. She’s your only one. Please don’t make me hurt her. I would feel so bad about that. I would. I really would.”
And I knew that. I did. I did. She was my one and only. The only one I’d ever have.
“I’ll go back and get them,” I said. “I promise. I’ll get them and bring them back.”
Richard sighed. “Ox. Ox. Ox. That’s not how this goes.” He sounded so disappointed. He walked toward my mother.
I looked at her, and I was seven again. Or six. Or five and I was looking at my mommy, asking her what I should do, begging for her to tell me just what the fuck I should do because it was all violet and blue and all I could see was red.
And my mother looked back at me. With those dark eyes. She was no longer crying. Her face was wet, as were her eyes, but tears no longer fell. There was fire and steel buried in a cold resolve and she just looked at me and I knew. I knew what she was doing.
She was being brave and stupid and I hated her.
I hated her for it.
Because she was making the choice for me.
She was saying good-bye.
I said, “No. No, no, no.” And took a step toward her.
The Omegas snarled.
Richard was a few steps away.
And her eyes flickered behind me to the door I’d come in. The door she was telling me to leave through when she moved.
“Mom.”
She nodded.
Richard said, “This is touching. Last chance, Ox.”
I croaked, “Mom.”
She smiled around the gag. A bright and shining smile that was the most awful thing I’d ever seen.
And then she moved.
It was grace. It was beauty. Fluid, like water and smoke. She coiled down and then rose up quicker than I’d ever seen her move before. Her head snapped back, smashing into the Omega behind her. His nose broke as he cried out and I took a stumbling step backward because if I moved quick enough, if I stepped out of the house and out of the magic that choked me, then I could call for my pack and they would save us, save her, and we would never have to be alone again.
Except Richard’s hand curved into black claws.
His raised his arm in the air.
I remembered the night of my sixteenth birthday when we’d danced in the kitchen.
The way she had smiled at me.
The soap bubble on my ear.
How she had laughed.
And as I pushed through the door to sing my family home, the hand of the beast came down across her throat.
The floor was wet, after. Around her.
The sound she made was wet.
Her eyes were wet. Her lips.
And her throat. Her throat.
Her throat.
And she started to fall and I pushed the door open and the magic held and it pulled and I screamed out my song of loss and horror and pushed through it.
When I came out on the other side, there was a hole in my chest where a bond had broken, and I knew. I knew, I knew, I knew.
And I sang then. I crawled on my hands and knees and sang.
I sang a song for my mother, heart shattered and soul-deep.
They knew. My pack. As soon as my song hit their ears, they knew.
Their answering howls were rage and fury and despair.
And I crawled toward them, calling back, begging for them to take away this pain. Begging for this to be a dream. A nightmare. But I had read that there was no actual pain in dreams. I remembered that through the haze of magic and darkness. I remembered that. And this couldn’t be a dream, then, because all I could feel was pain. It rolled over my whole body until I was gagging with it.
Joe reached me first as a wolf, shreds of clothes he hadn’t bothered to discard hanging off him. He pressed up against me and shuddered along with me, whining deeply as he rubbed his nose over me. He shifted and growled, “Ox, Ox. Please. Please just look at me. Please. Where is it? Why do you smell like blood? Did he hurt you? Please don’t be hurt. Please tell me what’s wrong. You can’t be hurt. You just can’t. You can’t ever be hurt.” And his hands ran over me, trying to find any injury.
Wolves flew by us, toward the house.
The sun was setting behind the mountains.
Joe took my face in his hands and kissed my forehead, my cheeks, my chin.
He said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Like it was his fault. Like he had done this.
And for a moment, an awesomely terrible moment, I thought he had. I thought all of them had. The Bennetts. Because if they’d never come back, if I’d never met them, never heard them speak or seen their secrets unfold before me, my mom would still be with me. We’d be sadder. We’d be quieter. We’d be lonelier.
But we would be.
And the moment passed.
It passed because I had been given a choice. Between her and them.
And I’d chosen.
The air was warm and birds were singing and Joe’s hands were smooth, but I felt none of it. I heard none of it.
There were no tears on my face.
I didn’t cry because my father had told me men didn’t cry.
I pushed Joe’s hands off me and stood.
Thomas stepped out of my house. He had shifted from his wolf. He gripped the porch railing and closed his eyes. Osmond came out from behind
him. I could hear the others moving inside the house.
I said, “Where is he?”
And Thomas said, “He’s gone into the woods.”
“Can you track him?”
Thomas took a step toward me. “Ox. I’m—”
“Can you track him?” I repeated.
Osmond said, “Yes. But it’s what he wants. How many?”
“Five or six,” I said. “Omegas, all.”
Osmond closed his eyes. “They’re gathering behind him. He’s leading them. There’ll be others. He’s trying to become the Alpha to the Omegas.”
Elizabeth came out, her face ashen. She was still clothed, so she must not have shifted. She pushed past Osmond and Thomas and reached for me even before she’d reached the bottom of the stairs. Her arms came around me and held me close. Mine stayed at my sides.
She said, “Ox.”
I said, “We find him. Tonight.” I didn’t look away from Thomas.
She said, “Oh, Ox,” and there was a hitch in her breath.
“He won’t run,” Osmond said. “This was planned.”
And Thomas said, “Call Gordo. We need to move soon.”
I SAT on the porch, my crowbar in hand.
The pack curled around me. Joe wouldn’t leave my side.
I had never felt this cold before.
It was full dark when Gordo returned.
He got out of the car and said, “Ox.”
I stood.
He said, “I’m sorry.”
I said, “For what?”
“What happened. I’ve… made some calls. She’ll be taken care of.”
“What does that mean?”
“I won’t let anything happen to her.”
It was too late for that. “That’s good.”
He took a step toward me. “I can take you away from here. Away from all of this.”
And the wolves growled around me.
I ignored them. “And go where?” I asked.
“Anywhere you want. We can leave Green Creek and never look back.”
Joe stood and moved around in front of me. “Back off,” he snarled, and I knew his eyes were orange.
“Joseph,” Thomas said, his Alpha voice rolling through us. “Stand down.”
Joe looked like he’d been struck. He said, “Ox. You can’t.”
Gordo said, “He can. He can do anything he wants.”
“Can I?” I asked.
“Yes,” Gordo said. “Anything.”
I turned to Thomas. “Can I?”
“Yes, Ox,” he said quietly.
“Good,” I said. “I want to hunt down Richard Collins and kill him.”
No one spoke.
Then, “Ox,” Gordo said, sounding like he was choking. He took another step toward me.
My hand tightened on my crowbar.
“This isn’t what she’d want,” he said.
And I said, “Don’t you tell me what my mother wanted.” My voice shook. I didn’t know if it was with sadness or rage. “Don’t you dare.” Because she was still lying in our house in a puddle of her own blood and he didn’t get to say anything about her. Elizabeth had told me she’d covered her with a blanket and I’d wanted to say thank you, but said nothing instead because of how inconsequential it was. A fucking blanket.
“Please,” Gordo said. “Let me take you away from here. Away from all of this.”
“I don’t run from things,” I said as cold as I could. “I’m not you.”
And he took a step back, eyes going wide.
A hand on my shoulder. I thought it would be Joe. Or Thomas. Or Elizabeth.
But it wasn’t.
It tightened with the barest hint of claws as Mark said, “Stop, Ox. I know it hurts. I know it burns like nothing you’ve ever felt before. But stop. This isn’t his fault. Don’t say something that you won’t be able to take back.”
I ground my teeth as I bit back words I knew would hurt. That was the danger with knowing and loving others. You always knew things about them to throw back in their faces.
I was capable of doing that. Most people were.
But it came down to a choice.
So I swallowed down the hurt (it’s his fault it’s your fault it’s all of you because you brought this here you made this happen why couldn’t you just leave us alone why did joe have to give me his wolf i hate you all of you) and asked, “Will you help me?”
Gordo said, “Ox. This is… this isn’t the end, okay? I promise. It seems like it. It feels like it. But it’s not the end. I swear to you.”
And then Osmond said, “Gordo, you should know. There was a… dampening. On the Matheson house. A powerful one. It didn’t just mute the bonds. It made it so that no one outside the house could sense any distress in them.”
Gordo said, “My father. The wards to the north. They were modified. And I never felt them change. He’s the only one that could have done it. It felt like him. But different.”
“Could you change them back?” Osmond asked.
Gordo nodded. “I’m better than I used to be. He doesn’t know that. He might have seen how complex they were at first, but he won’t know just how deep they go. It was like an infection on the surface. I healed them.”
Osmond’s wolves appeared out of the dark. “North,” one said. “They went northwest.”
“How many?”
“Ten or so. Maybe more. Maybe less.”
Osmond looked to Thomas. “What’s northwest of here?”
“A clearing,” Thomas said. “One we use often. He knows of it. We played there as children. It’s a sacred place for my family.”
“He’s spiraling,” Osmond said quietly. “Coming into your territory. Knowing the magic that’s here in this forest. It’s old, Thomas. And on the far side of a full moon? He can’t possibly think he’ll win.”
“He’s probably heard the stories of the fallen king,” Thomas said. His voice was bitter and dark. It was the first time I’d ever heard him sound like that. “He no doubt thinks me weak. That all he has to do is divide and conquer. He started with the humans because all he knows of humans is how easily they can break. He didn’t expect to find the strength in them.”
His words were proud, but I felt nothing from them. I couldn’t.
He looked at me and said, “If I asked you to trust me and stay here, would you do it?”
“No.”
“Ox.”
I said, “That’s not fair.”
Red curled into his eyes. I felt the pull of it, the need to submit blooming deep within me. “I could make you,” he said. “You know I could.”
“You wouldn’t, though.”
“Oh? And why wouldn’t I? I am your Alpha. You do as I say.”
“That’s not who you are. And I trust you to remember that. But I’m not staying here. Where you go, I go.”
He looked sad. “Sometimes we go places where others cannot follow.”
“He took her from me.” My voice shook.
Thomas said, “I know.”
He stepped forward then. Stepped forward until he was standing in front of me. He put his hand on my neck and pulled me to him, my face at his throat. A soothing rumble rose up from his chest and he whispered, “I am so sorry this has happened to you. I wish I could take away all of the pain you feel. But I wouldn’t, even if I could, because that pain shows you you’re alive. That you’re breathing. That you can take another step. And where you go, I will go too. We will finish this and then our pack will help put your mother to rest. You are not alone, Ox, and you never will be.”
The crowbar fell to the ground as I gripped him tightly.
I still didn’t cry.
alpha
THEY WAITED for us in the clearing. The stars were bright overhead, and the violet Omega eyes shone in the dark. I counted fifteen. All wolves. Omegas weren’t supposed to group like this. It was almost like they were pack. They didn’t have an Alpha, not yet, so they couldn’t be Betas. But they seemed united som
ehow.
Richard said, “Thomas.”
And Thomas said, “You shouldn’t have come here.”
Richard laughed. “You knew this would happen one day.” He glanced over at me before looking back at Thomas. “Humans, Thomas. Really? Still? Have you learned nothing from the past? You should be thanking me for taking care of the problem for you.”
I was not an Alpha, but layers of red fell over my eyes and all I could think of was death and murder and blood.
Thomas said, “That’s always been your problem, Richard. You underestimate the value of those you deem beneath you. Just because you can’t appreciate their value doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”
Richard’s eyes flashed. “Your idolatry was amusing thirty years ago. It’s since lost its meaning.”
Gordo’s voice was low when he asked, “Where is he?”
Richard smiled. “Who?”
“You know who.”
“Ah. But I just want to hear you say it.”
It was a game to him. All of this was.
“My father.”
Richard said, “Yes. Him. He had… other matters to attend to. He sends his regards. I’m sure you’ll see him soon.” He scanned over the rest of us until he stopped on Joe. “Well, you’ve certainly grown up. Hello, Joseph. It’s lovely to see you again.”
And that was enough. That was it. No more. He could speak to me as he wanted. He could say shit to Thomas. And Gordo. They could take it. They could. But this man had killed my mother and now he was talking to Joe and I was done.
But apparently so were Carter and Kelly because they flew forward as I snarled, their claws extended, their teeth bared.
I followed because they were my brothers.
I followed because of my mother.
I followed because of Joe.
The bonds were there. Between us all.
We were pack. We were outnumbered, but we were still pack.
I raised my crowbar and smashed it down on a clawed arm that swiped at me. Bone cracked before the claws tore at my stomach. The Omega screamed as his skin burned away at the touch of silver. He started to shift to his wolf, but I spun low on my heels, launching myself up halfway through, arcing the crowbar up in a golf swing. The shock of the impact shook through my hands as the Omega’s jaw broke. Shards of teeth and blood sprayed from his mouth and splattered over his face as he rocked back. The curve of the crowbar slid through the skin on the underside of his jaw and hooked behind the ridge of his teeth. I jerked my arms as hard as I could and tore his lower jawbone from his skull.