Wolfsong (16 page)

He knew. Of course he knew. “I’ll be here,” he said. “If and when you’re ready. If not me, then Joe.”

“He’s going to be great, you know,” I said quietly. “Because of what you’ve taught him.”

Thomas smiled. It was a rare thing, and it made me feel good to see it. “An Alpha is only as strong as his pack.”

I ASKED
him one day when Joe would become the Alpha.

He said it would be when the time was right.

I asked him what would happen to him then.

He said he would serve as his son’s Beta.

I asked him what it would feel like to give up all that came with being an Alpha.

He said it would feel
green
.

I didn’t ask him how he knew.

SOMETIMES THOMAS
sent just me and Joe out to the clearing.

Sometimes we talked.

Sometimes we didn’t say anything at all.

He said it was for the bond between us.

SOMETIMES I
thought they were keeping things from me.

It was just a feeling I had.

ground you walk on/the fallen king

SHE WAS
in the kitchen singing along with her radio when I said, “Mom, can I talk to you?”

She looked over her shoulder as she stirred a saucepan on the stove. She smiled and said, “Hi, baby,” and I almost turned and ran out of the room. I was eighteen years old, and I was scared of my
mother
.

She must have seen something on my face because she turned down the heat on the stove and turned. She reached out and touched my arm. “Okay?”

I shook my head. “Uh. Maybe? I think so. Possibly.”

She waited.

I loved her. And she loved me. So I said, “I’m pretty sure I like girls.”

She said, “Okay.”

And so I said, “And guys.” My palms were sweaty.

“Okay.”

“Like… you know.”

Her eyes widened slightly. “
Oh
. That’s….” She squinted at me. “Equally?”

“What?”

“You like girls and guys. Equally? Or one more than the other?”

I shrugged. “Maybe the same? I can’t say for sure because I’ve never done anything with a guy.” I winced. “I really wish I hadn’t said that.”

She blushed. “Well. You’re eighteen. You can… you know. Do. That. As an adult.”

“Oh god,” I groaned.

“No, no. It’s okay!” She sounded nervous. “I just…. You always hear that parents just
know
these things about their kids. I… didn’t know.” She frowned. “Does that make me a bad mom?”

“No! Er. No. Nope. You’re… great. At. The mom thing.”

She sighed. “Ox.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t care about stuff like that.”

“What stuff?”

“If you’re gay or whatever.”

“Bisexual,” I said as if that would make it any better.

“Bisexual,” she said. “Okay.”

“This is awkward.”

“Is it?”

“Isn’t it?”

“You look scared,” she said.

I looked down at the floor. “I didn’t want to make you mad,” I managed to get out.

And then her arms were around my waist and her head was against my chest. I put my forehead on her shoulder and hugged her back.

“I could never be mad at you for being who you are,” she said quietly. “And I’m sorry if I ever made you think that.”

“So. It’s not. Weird? Or anything?”

She laughed. “Ox. You are a part of a pack of werewolves and you’re asking me if something like this is weird?”

“You’re pack too,” I said quickly.

And she was. To an extent. Ever since that moment when Thomas had touched her head and she’d become aware of just how strange the world could be, she’d been pack. It had taken her weeks to accept what she’d seen, and maybe a little longer to believe it down to her bones. Kelly told me that for a long while, she’d stunk of fear anytime she’d come into contact with the Bennetts. I told him not to take it personally, and he’d just laughed and put his arm around my shoulders and said that of course they wouldn’t.

She didn’t come with us on full moons most times, but Thomas had insisted that she train like the rest of us when she could. At first, she was quiet and awkward. At first, she did little.

I don’t know what changed. Maybe it was when Thomas took her on a walk through the forest and spoke with her about things I never asked about after. Maybe it was when Elizabeth took her to lunch and they drank peach wine and giggled like little girls. Maybe it was me and how she saw I needed this. Needed them.

I didn’t know what caused the change. But one day, she came with her eyes flashing, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, and she managed to sweep my legs out from underneath me. I was dazed, looking up at the clouds through the trees and she just
laughed
.

God, I loved that woman. More than anything.

Which is why I was so scared at disappointing her. With something so stupid as sex.

“Is there… you know.” She looked up at me. “Anyone special?”

I shook my head. “Not since Jessie.”

“Not a lot of pickings around here.”

“Uh.”

“You’ll meet someone,” she said, suddenly fierce. “You’ll see. A girl or a boy and they’ll worship the ground you walk on because you deserve to be treasured. And I’ll be there to say I told you so because you’ve earned it. If anyone in this world has earned it, it’s you.”

CARTER WENT
to college. I found a rare weekend to go visit him. Kelly and Joe wanted to go, but they had homework and Elizabeth put her foot down.

Carter was okay with that.

He had a dorm room to himself.

He introduced me to a few people, but I forgot their names almost immediately because it’d been weeks since I’d seen my friend. He must have felt the same because he made the people leave and we lay on the floor, his head on my legs, and he said, “You smell like home.”

We stayed there until the sun went down.

He took me to some club and got us in. I didn’t know how. He said it was probably because we were bigger than everyone else.

The music was loud. The lights were flashing. I didn’t know how he could stand it, given that all his senses were heightened. I could smell booze and sweat and the cloying sticky perfume of a woman who came out of nowhere and rubbed herself against me before she disappeared back into the crowd.

Carter just laughed.

He said, “Here,” and handed me a glass of
something
.

I drank it. It was fruity and it burned.

He did too, but alcohol did nothing to wolves, unless they drank enough to kill a normal human. He’d told me once that he just liked the taste. He wondered what it’d be like to be drunk. I wondered what it’d be like to feel the pull of the moon.

I saw the glint of orange in his eyes.

It was hot in the club. Sticky and moist.

One moment I was laughing as two women came and sandwiched him on the dance floor, and the next there were pretty green eyes in front of me. Pale skin. A wicked smile with a hint of teeth.

He said, “What’s your name?”

And I said, “Ox.”

“Ox. That’s unique.”

I grinned because I felt good. “I guess. Who’re you.” My limbs were loose. The bass crawled along my skin.

He said, “Eric,” and, “You want to dance?”

“I’m not very good. I’m too big.”

That wicked smile curved even farther. “That right?”

He pulled me by the hand and led me through the crowd. Carter caught my eye and asked a question that only I could hear and I shrugged and turned away.

Eric pressed himself against me, a long hot line of sweat and flesh. There was a roll of his hips against mine and I said, “
Wow
.” He laughed.

The song changed and I felt lips against my neck, a quick flick of a tongue.

Later, I was in a bathroom stall. Eric was on his knees. My dick was in his mouth, my head back against warm ceramic tile that shook with the beat of the music. My fingers were in his hair and everything was hot and wet. I grunted a warning and he backed away, jacking me until I came on the dirty floor. He stood up and kissed me while he jerked himself off. He sighed into my mouth. He tasted like stale beer and mint. He came on his hand. I felt raw.

“Thanks,” he said, zipping up his pants. “That was great.”

“Sure,” I said, because I was unsure of what else to say. “You too.”

And then he left.

I stood in the bathroom for a while, but it smelled of piss and my head hurt.

I couldn’t find Carter and I tried to find that thread, that thing inside that said
BondPackBrother
, but I was overwhelmed by everything and so I said, “Carter, Carter, Carter,” and for a moment nothing happened. And then he was in front of me, eyes narrowed, hands on my arms, looking me up and down, trying to find where I’d been injured.

His nostrils flared and he said, “Was it consensual?” and I blushed and looked away.

It took a moment, but I nodded.

His arm went around my shoulder and he chuckled near my ear, his forehead pressed against my hair. “You dog,” he said.

“Says the werewolf.”

He growled near my ear. “Was it good?”

“Shut up.”

“Was it
awesome
?”

“Shut up, Carter.”

“Did you
swoon
?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“Look at you,” he said. “Getting blowies in public. My little Ox is all grown up.”

“Bigger than you,” I muttered, and he just laughed and laughed.

He pulled me away. It wasn’t until we got out onto the street that I saw the lipstick smeared across his lips. Across his neck. I told him he was a whore. He snarled, and I ran. He chased me, orange eyes flashing happily. He pretended to let me win.

We slept in the same bed, curled around each other because we were pack, and I knew he missed home.

I showered for a very long time before I left the next morning.

When I got back, Joe asked, “Have fun?”

And I said, “Sure, Joe,” but it felt like a lie.

NICK HAPPENED
a year later. He came in to Gordo’s all dusty from the road. The clutch on his bike had blown out a few miles outside of Green Creek. He stayed for a week. I fucked him on the last three days he was in town. He left and I never saw him again.

Joe was fourteen and he didn’t talk to me for three weeks after that. Said he was busy. Finals were coming up and he had to study.

“Sure,” I said, trying not to worry at the strain in his voice. “You okay?”

“Yeah, Ox.” He sighed into the phone. “I’m okay.”

I almost believed him.

I HAD
just turned twenty-two when monsters came to town.

For all Gordo’s warnings about how big and scary the world could be, for all Thomas’s notions of a territory protected, nothing had ever happened. No one came. Nothing attacked. I never asked questions about other packs or what else existed if werewolves were real. I lived in a bubble in a small town in the middle of the mountains and I thought that’s where I’d always be.

Everything was good. Everything was fine.

Carter had just graduated and moved back to work with his father.

Kelly was taking online courses so he didn’t have to leave the pack.

Joe was sixteen and still waited for me on the dirt road almost every day.

Gordo was thinking of opening another shop in the next town over.

Mom smiled when she ran with the wolves at night.

Jessie moved back to Green Creek and was a teacher at the school.

Tanner, Rico, and Chris took me out for beers, and we ate our weight in buffalo wings.

Mark was close to telling me about him and Gordo.

Elizabeth was painting in pinks and yellows.

Thomas smiled out to the trees, a king content with his domain.

I should have asked more questions. About what was out there. About what they could want. But I was naïve, and dangerously so.

I was walking toward the diner for lunch. I rubbed the grease from my fingernails. My hands were callused, signs of hard work. I marveled at how I had a place here. In Green Creek. My father had said I was gonna get shit, but he was dead and I had a place. Friends. Family. I had people. I was something. I was somebody.

It was a bright June day and I was alive and happy.

And then a woman said, “Well. Hello.”

I stopped. Looked up.

She was wrong. Off. Dark. Beautiful with red hair and pale skin and a shark’s smile on her face, all bite and teeth. She wore a pretty summer dress, blues and greens. She was barefoot, and I wondered if her feet burned on the cement from the sun.

“Hello,” I said. There didn’t seem to be anyone else on the sidewalk.

She took a step toward me. She cocked her head to the side and I thought,
Wrong
.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
“My name is Marie,” she said. “What’s yours?”

“Ox.”

“Ox,” she breathed. “I do like that name.” She was close enough to touch and I didn’t know how that had happened.

“Thank you,” I said. “That’s very nice of you.”

She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “You smell like….”

“Like?”

She opened her eyes. They flashed violet, like an Omega. “Human. Tell me, human. You play with wolves?” She took another step toward me.

I took an answering step back. In my head, Thomas was telling me to remember my training. To remember what he’d taught me. I didn’t think it was really him, but I couldn’t be sure. I knew Gordo had wards up all over town, so surely he would have known if another wolf had breached them.

“You should leave,” I told her. “Before.”

“Before?”

“You know why.”

“Ox? What’s going on?”

“Shit,” I muttered. I looked over Marie’s shoulder. Mom was hanging out the diner’s door, watching me with concern on her face.

“Go back inside,” I told her as Marie looked back at her and wiggled her fingers in an obscene wave. Her fingernails were painted blue.

“She smells like you,” Marie said to me. “Did you know that? Like you and wood smoke and autumn leaves. And I know what she smells like now. Scent memory, Ox. It never leaves.”