Wolfsong (63 page)

And, for the first time, panic.

It started in my chest, a slow roll that crawled through me, little pinpricks that turned into something so much stronger than I’d ever felt before. It wasn’t
just
panic. Or, at least, not just my own.

It was the panic of the pack.

The bonds had reopened.

No, no, no, no.

Thomas whispered,
The Alpha’s greatest gift to his pack is sacrifice. Because he must protect them above all others, at all costs. Even if it means his own life.

They would come.

As soon as they recovered from the anger, the rage, the pain, they would come.

I tried to push the threads down, but they were bright and electric, like live wires. I couldn’t push them away because they were
aware
.

They were coming.

And Richard didn’t know it.

I couldn’t take the chance.

I couldn’t let any of them get hurt.

It would take time for them to find me. They thought I was at the garage.

Maybe there’d be enough time to—

But there was one, one that was brighter than all the others. Closer. Angrier.

I felt his fury. I felt his magic.

Gordo.

Gordo was here.

Gordo was here
.

I rolled over onto my back. The crowbar was off to my left, within reach.

Richard towered above me, a look of disgust on his face.

I said, “If I give you this. If you take this from me, you give me your word that you’ll leave them alone. All of them. The pack. The people. Green Creek.”

“I don’t know that you’re in a position to ask me for
anything
, boy,” Richard growled. “You are
human
. You may be an Alpha, but it was
never
yours to have. I will take it from you and you will—”

“Don’t you want to know how I did it?” I asked, clutching my wrist to my chest. “How a human became an Alpha?”

He paused. Then, “I’m listening.”

“They’ll hear,” I said. “The Omegas. They’ll hear and they’ll try to do the same. They’ll take it from you. They’ll try to become an Alpha themselves. You don’t want that.”

He crouched down next to me. Stupid man. I hated him more than anything in the world.

“You should speak now,” he said in a low voice. “Before I run out of patience.”

And I said, “Fuck you.”

I moved quicker than I ever had before. I was fueled by sorrow and despair, by ire and that feeling, that goddamned feeling of my
father
, my daddy saying
you’re gonna get shit, Ox
, because here he was, here was Richard fucking Collins proving my dad right. He was giving me
shit
, and I wasn’t going to take it now. I shouldn’t have to begin with.

But most of all, it was pack that pushed me, pack that allowed me to move as I did, it was pack and pack and
pack
, these people, these wolves that were my family. And Joe, who I could feel rising within me, Joe who was scared and furious and
coming
, oh god he was
coming
for me.

I pushed along the thread toward Gordo, stronger than it had been since he’d come back, saying
the humans the humans the humans you can’t let them hurt you have to help them save them help them
, even as my fingers curled around the crowbar in the dirt.

Richard’s eyes flickered to my hand.

I swung the crowbar in a rising arc. It smashed into the side of his head with an audible crunch, the breaking of bone jolting down the bar into my arm. He grunted and started to drop to the side.

Gordo came then.

He stepped out from behind the truck, tattoos blazing brighter than I’d ever seen them before. The raven flapped furiously, and I swore I could actually
hear
its cry when it opened its beak, a loud, shrill call that vibrated deep into my bones. I felt the
thrum
of his magic on the ground as it pulsed deep within the earth. It called to me, saying
AlphaAlphaAlpha
and I
pushed
into it, grabbing the thread between Gordo and me as tightly as possible.

Even before Richard hit the ground, a snarl already forming on his broken face, the ground around the humans and the Omegas shifted and broke apart. Great columns of earth rose up with a loud roar, knocking the humans forward and the Omegas back.

Osmond was moving forward as I pushed myself to my feet. His focus was on Gordo, claws outstretched, snout elongating as he ran toward him. I flipped the crowbar until the curved end faced away from me and swung it down at Osmond’s legs as he tried to run by. The crowbar smashed into his shins as I put my all into that hit. He cried out at the crack of bone, the sizzle of skin, but I pushed through the swing as hard as I could, sweeping his feet out from under him. He fell forward into the dirt, the momentum causing him to skid along the road facedown, coming to a halt near Gordo’s feet.

I didn’t stop, turning away from them, trusting Gordo to have my back. I ran toward the broken earth, sliding in the dirt as I fell to my knees in front of the humans. They were dazed and unsure. I started with Judith, ripping the gag from her mouth.

“You have to help me,” I said, cupping her face as the earth continued to crack behind her. “You have to get them out of here. Untie them and take the truck. Go to Green Creek. Don’t stop until you’re at the garage. You stay there.” I let go of her a moment and dug the keys out from my pocket. She started to lose focus, whimpering and looking around with a dazed expression. The others were moving slowly.

“Hey!” I snapped at her. “Listen to me. Are you listening?”

She whispered, “Ox?”

I held up two keys in front of her, inches from her face. “This is the key to the truck. This is the key to the garage. Do you understand?”

“I…. Ox, their
eyes
, it’s—”

“Judith, your son will
die
if you don’t get him out of here.”

She recoiled, but the fog in her eyes began to clear. She steeled herself, automatically reaching for the keys and William at the same time. She undid his bindings while I helped the other three. “You follow her,” I told them. “She’ll keep you safe. You don’t stop until you’re at the garage and
lock the doors behind you
.”

I hoped the wards would be enough. They had to be. We had no other choice.

Judith picked up William, who clung to her, arms around her neck. I pushed the keys into her hands, even as the Omegas began to growl. She turned back to me, and said, “Thank you, thank you, we’ll—
watch out
!”

I was slammed into the ground by something heavy that landed atop me, crying out as pain lanced across my back where four sets of claws dug in. I had a mouthful of dirt as the wolf on my back growled near my ear.

The weight suddenly was lifted off me, and the wolf yelped in pain.

I was pulled up, hands on either arm. A woman was on my left (Megan?), a man on my right (Gerald, I thought his name was Gerald). Another man stood in front of me, breathing heavily, my crowbar in his hands. His name was Adam, and he worked at the hardware store, a kind man with terrible acne scars.

He said, “Holy fucking shit.”

I stumbled forward, grabbing the crowbar from him. “Thank you.”

He nodded at me, eyes wide.

“Ox!” Gordo shouted. “You need to get them moving.
Now
. Osmond’s gone, and I don’t know where he is.”

I spat onto the road, blood and dirt mixed together. “Go,” I snapped at them. “Get out of here. Hurry!”

They didn’t wait for me to tell them again. They pushed each other toward the truck even as there was another low growl from behind me.

I turned.

Richard Collins was full wolf, snout bloody, nose split. He pushed himself up on four legs, eyes violet, lips curling up around his fangs. He pulled himself to his full height, smaller than Joe and Thomas had ever been, but still a big fucking wolf.

“Omega,” I said. I wasn’t surprised at that. He was too far gone into his wolf to be anything but.

He snarled at me.

I took a step back, tightening my grip on the crowbar.

He coiled down, preparing to jump.

Then, a wolfsong rolled over us, echoing as loud as it’d ever been. It was howled with rage and terror.

It was the song of an Alpha.

“No,” I whispered.

He’d found us. Already.

I couldn’t let this happen. Joe couldn’t be here. Not when there was the chance that Richard would hurt him. Would take him away from the pack. A pack needed an Alpha to survive, so they wouldn’t become Omegas. Thomas had been our Alpha. Then Joe after Thomas’s death. Then me, because of necessity.

But Joe had come back.

And he was the true Bennett Alpha.

They needed him.

And I had to make sure he survived.

I looked back at Richard, who’d been distracted by the call of the Alpha.

“Hey!” I shouted at him. “I’m right here, you fucking asshole!”

And then I ran. Away from our territory. Away from the wards.

Away from my pack.

Away from Joe.

“Ox!” Gordo cried out behind me. “
Don’t do this
!”

There was another song then.

It was deep and guttural, more scream than howl.

The song of a predator having found his prey.

I headed for the bridge, no real destination in mind, just
away away away
.

There were piles of writhing earth ahead where Gordo’s magic had called up the rock and the soil to cover the Omegas. I jumped over them, Omega claws breaking through and trying to grab me. A single claw scraped against my calf and there was a moment I thought I wouldn’t make it. I felt the scrape against my skin, a small flare of pain, but the Omega couldn’t grab me in time.

I landed on the other side of the Omegas, glancing over my shoulder in time to see them rise from the earth, teeth bared and eyes violet. Gordo was farther behind them, staring after me, horrified. A large wolf prowled between them, waiting for me to get enough distance away to make it a good hunt.

The Omegas went for Gordo before he could trap Richard. His tattoos flared to life again as they rushed toward him. The ground under his feet shifted, rocks rising from the earth and spinning around him. He flicked his wrists and they shot toward the approaching Omegas, knocking them back and down.

Richard ignored them.

He only had eyes for me.

I ran because I had people I loved to keep safe.

I ran because Richard had shifted his attention from Joe to me, and I would do everything to keep it that way.

The bridge was dark. I could hear the wood creaking.

Then, the pounding of a wolf’s paws against the dirt.

He was coming for me.

For a moment, I swore there was another wolf running with me, a great wolf, an Alpha wolf, a wolf I knew had died years before.

For a moment, I swore my mother ran with me, arms pumping, feet stomping upon the earth, hair trailing behind her.

I pushed myself harder.

I wouldn’t be able to outrun Richard forever, but if I could get far enough away, then I’d—

I was close to the old bridge.

I would cross it and hope it was stable enough. The drop was only ten feet to a creek below, but I didn’t want the whole thing coming down on top of me.

I hit the bridge, feet against the wood.

It groaned under my weight, the beams above me shuddering with every running step I took.

I was at the middle, sure I was going to make it. I didn’t know where I’d go next, but I was going to fucking
make it through
—

Osmond dropped down from the shadows on the far side of the bridge, half-shifted, face smeared with blood and dirt. I skidded to a halt, almost falling forward. I caught myself at the last second.

A wolf snarled behind me.

I glanced over my shoulder.

Richard Collins stood at the other end of the bridge. He took a step toward me.

“It’s over,” Osmond said. “You’ve lost.”

I nodded. “Looks like.”

“You would never have won.”

I chuckled darkly. “Jesus Christ. Fucking get on with it.”

Osmond narrowed violet eyes. “What?”

“Don’t fucking talk at me,” I snarled at him. “You want me? Come and fucking
get me
.”

Osmond growled.

Richard roared.

And they ran toward me.

The bridge shifted and groaned.

There was a crack of wood from up above.

They leapt, just like I knew they would, but flying toward me.

I waited until the last possible second, hearing the sound of claws slicing the air before I dropped to my knees.

I threw my arm up, crowbar in hand, ends facing toward Richard and Osmond.

Their momentum was too great to change directions midair.

Richard struck the crowbar first, the point end impaling his chest, snapping bone and muscle even as the silver started to burn. My arm jerked the opposite direction with the force of the impact. The curved end of the crowbar smashed into Osmond’s throat. The silver scalded, and the pressure from Richard’s impact forced the curve
into
Osmond’s neck, stabbing and tearing through his throat. Blood sprayed out on either side of me even as their claws cut into my arms and chest, seizing and skittering along me as the pain from getting speared with silver started rolling through them.

My arms were drenched in blood, mine and theirs. I couldn’t hold the weight of both of them up, and the crowbar slipped from my bloody hands. They fell to the floor of the bridge with a loud crash, arms and legs kicking as they both gagged and flashed their teeth, trying to pull away from the bar lodged in their neck and chest. The bridge shook and creaked.

I scrabbled away, kicking out when Osmond reached for me, pushing my back up against the wooden wall of the bridge.

They were collapsed just out of reach, connected by the crowbar.

Both sets of violet eyes were on me.

There was pain, but it was distant. I couldn’t tell what blood was my own.