Wolfsong

  “Robbie,” Carter said, as if I was stupid. “He’s your tether.”

  “I’m not a wolf.”

  “You’re an Alpha,” Carter pointed out. “I don’t know that it matters.”

  “You feel just like we do, just without the change,” Kelly said. “It’s close enough. He keeps you grounded.”

  “Joe has no right to be pissed about that,” I growled. “He doesn’t get a say.”

  Carter and Kelly tensed.

  Carter said, “He’s just—”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t have to explain anything to him. Not yet. And even if Robbie was my tether, I don’t have to justify myself to him. Or to you. You were gone. You cut us out. You say it was to keep us safe, and you say you would do the same thing again. That’s fine. But don’t expect to come back here and have things be the way you left them. We did what we had to do in order to survive because that’s now how life works. We don’t put ourselves on hold because you—”

  “No one asked you to,” Carter said, gripping my hand tightly. “And I don’t know that we expected you to. But I know Joe—he hoped, Ox. Even if he never said anything, even if he turned into a broody Alpha asshole, he hoped. I know he did. So cut him some slack since you’ve moved on from—”

  I sat up, knocking the two wolves off me. “Moved on?”

  Kelly and Carter exchanged another one of their looks. “With Robbie,” Carter said slowly.

  “There is nothing between me and Robbie. Sure, I mean, he kissed me—oh for fuck’s sake, stop growling. I told him no, okay? And he understands. It’s not like that between us. It won’t ever be. For me.”

  “Because of Joe,” Carter said, far too smug.

  I said, “Not because of Joe,” and they both grinned when they heard the lie.

  “You need to fix this,” Carter said.

  “You need to go fuck yourself,” I said.

  Kelly squinted at me. “Does being an Alpha automatically make you a douchebag? Because between you and Joe—”

  I punched him in the shoulder. Hard.

  He laughed at me and pushed me back down so he could lie on me again. I didn’t fight it. I didn’t want to fight it.

  Carter moved closer so his head was in the crook of my arm.

  It didn’t feel like giving up. It felt green. The both of them.

  I didn’t know what to do about Joe.

  I said, “It’s not just him.”

  They waited.

  I tried to find the right words. “Robbie. It’s all of them. It’s the pack. They’re my tether.”

  Silence.

  Then Carter said, “Like it was for Dad.”

  “That’s how it always was for him,” Kelly said. “Always pack.”

  I touched their arms. Their shoulders. Their necks. Their faces. They leaned into the touch and all I thought was pack pack pack.

  As the sun began to set, I asked, “Do you really think he knew?”

  “Who?”

  “Your dad. About me.”

  “Yeah, Ox. We think he knew. I think maybe we all did.”

  THEY DROPPED me back off at the shop.

  Gordo was the only one still there.

  It was strange seeing him sitting behind his desk again.

  He said, “It was their idea.”

  I snorted and leaned against the doorframe. “Throwing them under the bus?”

  He shrugged. “They’ll survive.”

  “How’s it feel? Being back.”

  He ran his hands over my—his desk. “Like I’ve been gone too long.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “Tanner let me back into my house. He had the keys.”

  “We cleaned it. Once a month or so. Making sure it was good for when you came back.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You said when.”

  “What?”

  “You said when I came back. Not if.”

  “Oh. I guess.”

  “Did you think—”

  I looked away. “Maybe. I hoped.”

  Gordo cleared his throat. “It felt weird. Standing in there. Like I didn’t remember how I’d got there. Like I was dreaming.”

  I knew about dreaming. “That’s how I feel anytime I step back into the old house. Like… I’m not awake. Like it’s not real. But it is. It’ll take some time. Before it’s real again for you.”

  “Is it real for you?”

  “Most of the time,” I said honestly.

  We were quiet for a little while.

  He said, “Joe patrols at night. For hours.”

  “I know.”

  He drummed his fingers on the desk. “Of course you would. Because you can feel it now. Like he can. Maybe even better. You knew, didn’t you? The second we stepped back into Green Creek.”

  I nodded. “You touched your wards. To see that they were still up.”

  “I don’t understand how this is possible.”

  “I don’t either.” I didn’t know if we ever would. It seemed odd to be considered a strange thing in among people who could change into wolves on a whim.

  “You need to talk to him.”

  “Are you saying that as my friend? Or as his witch?”

  He stiffened slightly. “Would it matter?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you know?”

  “I was yours first.” I smiled. “Though I think Mark would disagree with that.”

  He glared at me.

  I stared right back.

  He looked away first. Then, “Then Joe probably would too.”

  And he had me there. “For which one of us?” I countered.

  “You going to fix this?” he asked, ignoring my question.

  “You’ve been home for less than a week,” I said, “after three years. Things change.”

  “We noticed.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning we came back and you had your own pack. With people we didn’t know. It sucked, Ox.”

  “I made do with what I had. You left us in pieces. I had to try and put us back together. You don’t get to blame us for anything. Not after what you did. All of you.”

  “And you did good, kiddo,” he said. “It’s just going to take a while to get used to it all again. We don’t blame you, Ox. None of us do. You made the choices you had to, and no one can fault you for that.”

  I almost believed him.

  I TURNED down his offer for a ride.

  I walked home.

  Joe was waiting again in the shadows on the dirt road.

  I couldn’t do this now. I’d already been through too much today.

  I made to walk past him again and—

  He reached out and grabbed my arm, stopping me.

  His nostrils flared.

  “My brothers,” he said. “And Gordo.”

  I said nothing.

  “You can’t do this,” he growled. “With them. And not with me. Not forever.”

  “Not yet,” I spat out.

  He let me go.

  I didn’t look back as I walked away, though every step was harder than the one before it.

  THAT NIGHT I ran along the edges of the territory, making sure we were safe.

  Thomas said, You’re different, Ox. I don’t think even I know how different. It will be truly a sight to behold. And I, for one, can’t wait to see it.

  My mother popped a soap bubble on my ear.

  Somewhere on the other side of the territory, a wolf sang a song for all the forest to hear.

  It was blue, everything about it was blue.

  howled for you/always been mine

  “HOW WOULD this work?” I asked Mark and Elizabeth. It was seven days since the others had returned, and one day before the full moon. We walked through the woods, brushing our hands against the trees, leaving our scent on the bark. They’d chosen not to shift, knowing I needed advice.

  “What would that be?” Mark asked.

  I rolled my eyes.
“You know.”

  “Maybe, but it helps to hear you say it,” Elizabeth said.

  I held back the retort and just said, “Joe.”

  “Between the two of you?” Mark asked.

  “No. Well, yes, that too. But that’s not what I meant. Between all of us.”

  Mark chuckled. “Of course that’s what you’d be thinking of. Everyone else but yourself.”

  “It’s my job,” I said.

  “That may be,” Elizabeth said, “but there’s a time to be selfish, Ox.”

  “I can’t,” I admitted. “Not yet.” I hated those two words more than anything.

  “You’re angry still,” she said, touching my arm.

  “It’s not something I can just get over.”

  “But you have already,” Mark said. “With Gordo. Carter. Kelly. Maybe not completely, but you’ve started.”

  “And?” I asked, trying to play dumb. “That has nothing to do with—”

  “Why should Joe be any different?”

  “Because he is different.” It was petty, but I didn’t like feeling cornered. “He’s not the same to me as everyone else.”

  And they knew that. But they’d also talked to him since I’d been back. Every day. They went back and forth between the old house and the main house. They spent the day with him while I was at work with the rest of my pack and Gordo. They hugged him, they touched him, they listened to him breathe. They didn’t wake up from nightmares where Joe was gone again, that he hadn’t said anything, he’d just been gone like he never was at all—

  “You’re not dreaming, Ox,” Elizabeth said quietly, and again I wondered just how connected we all were. Because sometimes I thought they were always in my head. “I know it seems like you are. The edges are fuzzy and you can’t quite make sense of what’s happening, but I promise you, this isn’t a dream.”

  “What do you talk about?” I asked, not looking at either of them. “When I’m not there.”

  Mark sighed. “Not much. Carter and Kelly do most of the talking. Joe… doesn’t say very much.”

  I felt guilty at that, even though I didn’t know if I should have. Apparently, he’d been like that for a long time now. I didn’t know what else had changed. I didn’t know how to ask.

  “I have to let this go,” I said. “But I don’t know how. I’ve tried. I have. It’s killing me to know he’s right there and I’m not doing anything about it.”

  “Then do something,” Elizabeth said. “You’ve never been indecisive before, Ox. Don’t start now.”

  I snorted. “That’s bullshit. There’s plenty of times I haven’t been able to make a choice.”

  She slapped me upside the head, and I glared at her. “Fix this,” she said. “Before I lose all my patience and take care of it myself. You don’t want that to happen.”

  “You really don’t,” Mark said. “She’ll become like a little gnat, always buzzing in your—”

  “Don’t even get me started on you,” Elizabeth said. “You’re in the same boat, Mark, I swear to god. You just wait until this is finished, and I’m going to start on—”

  Mark raised his hands in surrender. “Hey, all right. All right. I hear you.”

  “Either end it or don’t,” Elizabeth said to me after glaring at her brother-in-law. “Forgive him or don’t. Just don’t make him wait. It’s not fair. To either of you. Men. Useless. All you do is make things difficult just because you can.”

  “Could a pack have two Alphas?” I asked, trying to distract them.

  She narrowed her eyes at me, knowing what I was doing. But she allowed it. “Who’s to say we couldn’t? We already have a human Alpha. We’re not exactly orthodox here. We never really have been, even when we were supposed to be. There’s tradition, and then there are the Bennetts.”

  I was still learning that. “And if I say no,” I said slowly. “If I rejected him. If I kept the packs separate.”

  “It would be your choice,” Elizabeth said. “And we would know you thought you were making the right one.”

  “But you wouldn’t agree.”

  “Maybe,” Mark said. “Maybe not. But it’s not about that. You have… instincts we don’t.”

  “I could say the same about you.”

  “True,” he said. “But our instinct is to trust you to make the right decision for the pack.”

  “Even if you disagree?”

  “Even then.”

  “That feels like I’m controlling you. That you’re not getting a choice in this.”

  “We are,” Mark said kindly. “We chose you.”

  “They’re your sons. Your nephews.”

  “And you’re our Alpha,” Elizabeth said, eyes flaring orange. “This is the way things are.”

  This wasn’t how I wanted things to be. “I don’t want to come between you.”

  “You couldn’t, even if you tried,” she said.

  And that was that.

  HE WAS waiting for me on the dirt road.

  Looking hopeful. Scared. Angry. Tense.

  Because I’d talked to all of them. Except him. And he knew that.

  I was tired. Of all of this. Something had to give. And it needed to be from me.

  I just needed to find the words.

  I reached him, and I knew he thought I was going to walk by. Maybe say not yet again, throwing those words back in his face like I’d been doing since he’d come home.

  His shoulders were already starting to slump.

  So I said, “Hey, Joe,” and hoped it was a start.

  He was startled. He opened and closed his mouth a few times. He made a growling noise deep in his chest, a low rumble that made my skin itch. It was pleased, that sound, like even just me saying his name was enough to make him happy. For all I knew, it was.

  It cut off as quickly as it started. He looked faintly embarrassed.

  I scuffed my foot in the dirt, waiting.

  He said, “Hey, Ox.” He cleared his throat and looked down. “Hi.”

  It was weird, that disconnect between the boy I’d known and the man before me. His voice was deeper and he was bigger than he’d ever been. He radiated power that had never been there before. It fit him well. I remembered that day that I’d really seen him for the first time, wearing those running shorts and little else.

  I pushed those thoughts away. I didn’t want him sniffing me out. Not yet. Because attraction wasn’t the problem right now. Especially not right now.

  I cleared my throat, and he looked back up at me.

  Our eyes met like a car crash, colliding and breaking away.

  It was awkward in a way it’d never been before.

  But it was something. More than we’d had in a very long time. I couldn’t help but think of the single kiss we’d shared, the driest brush of his lips against mine as we lay side by side. I will come back for you, he’d said, and hadn’t I believed him? Hadn’t I believed every single thing he’d told me?

  I had.

  And he had come back. Like he said he would.

  It’d just taken longer than we thought.

  “You—” he said as I said, “There’s—”

  We stopped.

  He coughed. “You first.”

  I nodded, because it had to be me. “Tomorrow. It’s the full moon.”

  “Yeah? I guess it is.” He knew, but he was humoring me.

  “What are you doing for it?”

  He shrugged and scratched the back of his neck. “Hadn’t really thought about it.”

  Which I thought possibly was a lie.

  “If you’re not busy. We could. Run. Your pack. And mine.”

  He looked surprised. “You’d do that?”

  “You were here first, Joe. It’s your land.”

  “But it’s—”

  “Just. Will you do it?”

  He nodded furiously. “Yes. Yeah. I can. We can. It’ll be—”

  “Good,” I said. “It’ll be good.”

  And I didn’t know what else to say aft
er that. Because I had too much to say.

  So I said nothing at all.

  We stared at each other for a little while. Taking each other in. I tried to force myself to take a step closer to him, just to… be. But I couldn’t.

  “Okay,” I said finally. “Tomorrow, then.”

  He frowned as I moved to walk around him down the dirt road to the old house.

  “Ox,” he said quietly as we were shoulder to shoulder.

  I held my breath and waited.

  “Are we—” He stopped. Shook his head. Let out a frustrated groan. “We have to talk. About everything I need you to know. Everything. There are things you have to hear. From me. I need you to—just. I need you.”

  I tried to ignore the heat along my skin to focus on what was important. “Is he coming?”

  He knew who I meant. “I think so.”

  “Are we safe for now?”

  “Yeah. Yes. It can wait a few days. But—”

  “Then the rest of it can wait too.”

  “Ox.”

  I said nothing.

  He sighed. “Okay.”

  Somehow I was able to walk away.

  THE SKY was darkening the next day when my pack gathered at the old house, standing in the kitchen. I still avoided the living room whenever possible. Elizabeth and Mark still slept at the house at the end of the lane, but Robbie had moved back to the old house, taking over the spare bedroom, knowing Mom’s room was off-limits. Apparently, him being there didn’t sit well with Carter and Kelly, and they told me as much. I didn’t know what Joe thought.

  “Are you sure about this?” Robbie asked me. “We don’t even know them.”

  “I’d like to think I do,” Elizabeth said lightly. “I gave birth to most of them.”

  Robbie grimaced slightly. “Sorry.”

  “For giving birth?” she teased.

  He blushed and mumbled something incoherent.

  “He’s got a point,” Jessie said. “Full moons with you are different. We know these wolves. Most of the humans here don’t know them. Are you sure they’re in control enough? Have you even seen them shift since they’ve been here?”

  I hadn’t and said as much.

  “They broke away,” she said. “How is that different from them being Omegas?”

  “They had an Alpha,” Mark said. “They still do. They may not have… been here, but they still had an Alpha to draw strength from. They tethered themselves to him.”