“What’s your tether?” I asked. As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I wanted to take them back. It felt like a deeply personal question that I had no right to ask.
But he said, “Pack. It’s always been my pack. Not the individuals, per se, but the idea behind what pack means.”
“Family,” I said.
“Yes. And so much more. It can be harder when it’s individuals.”
“What if I’m tied to two people?”
He frowned. “We’ll see, won’t we?”
THERE’S A third Bennett brother, the people in the hallway whispered.
He looks just like the others.
Why are they still with Ox?
WE NEEDED a bigger lunch table.
Or maybe just a bigger bench.
I was surrounded by Bennetts. Kelly on my left. Joe on my right. Carter on the other side of him. They’d herded me to one side of the table, pressing in as close together as they could, Joe talking about this and that and everything he could even possibly think about.
Jessie looked amused, sitting across from us. I thought there was something else buried in that smile, too, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.
I’m sure to anybody else in the cafeteria, it looked odd. The four of us and her.
I didn’t care.
Joe talked and talked and talked. To me. To Carter. To Kelly.
Never to Jessie.
He gave me an apple slice.
I gave him some potato chips.
He said quietly, “I’m happy I’m here. With you.”
I said, “Me too.”
“DID YOU love him?” I asked Mark one fall afternoon.
“Who?”
“Gordo.”
He said, “Don’t,” and walked away.
I didn’t follow.
I MADE Gordo drop the wards around the house and the Bennetts came over for dinner at our house one Sunday.
At first, he refused. “It’s not safe.”
I said, “I belong to a pack of overprotective werewolves who live next door. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t be safer.”
“Christ,” he muttered. “Remember when you didn’t say much at all? Those were the good old days.”
That hurt. More than I thought it would. I must not have been able to keep it from my face because he sighed and said, “Ox.”
“Yeah?” I looked down at my shoes. I knew I didn’t always say the best things or the smartest things, but I thought I’d been getting better. I was trying.
His hand curled around the back of my neck and there was a pulse of something between us. It wasn’t as strong as it was with Joe or the pack, but it was there and it was warm and kind and it felt like home. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“I know,” I said, trying to brush it off. “It’s okay.”
His fingers tightened. “No,” he said. “It’s not okay. No one should ever make you feel like shit. Especially me. It’s unacceptable.”
“I know.”
“I’ll be better, okay? I’m not the best, I know. But I’ll do right by you. I swear.”
“I know.”
He squeezed my neck and dropped his hand. “I won’t drop the wards,” he said. “Not completely. I’ll modify them, though. For Joe. Carter and Kelly.”
“And the rest of the pack,” I said.
He looked away. “Yeah, Ox. For the rest too.”
WE WERE having Sunday dinner for the first time at my house.
Mom was very nervous. She flitted about in the kitchen like a little bird.
I asked her why, and she said, “They’re just so fancy. We’re not fancy people, Ox.”
“They don’t care about stuff like that.”
“I know.”
“You look pretty,” I said. And she did. She always did. Even when she was tired. Even when she was sad.
She laughed and said, “Hush, you.” She swatted me with a dish towel and told me to make the salad while she checked on the lasagna.
Joe was the first through the door. His eyes darted around, taking in everything as quickly as he could. His chest heaved, breathing in as much as possible. His eyes were wide, almost blown out.
“Joe,” Thomas said, coming up behind him. “Calm. Even breaths.” I could hear the command in his voice, one that sent shivers along my skin. It was easier now to hear it for what it was. The Alpha. I wasn’t a wolf, but I still wanted to bare my neck to him.
“It’s a lot,” Joe said quietly, trying to slow his breathing. “All at once.”
I didn’t understand, but I thought I wasn’t meant to.
Elizabeth came in, followed by Carter, Kelly, and Mark. Mom chattered away, her nerves showing through in the up-and-down cadence of her voice. Either she didn’t notice or chose not to question when the Bennetts touched almost everything in sight, dragging their hands along the couch. The dining room table. The chairs. The countertops. Carter and Kelly sprawled along chairs at the table, spreading themselves out as far as possible.
I knew what they were doing. They were making this place smell like them. Like pack.
Scents were important. They didn’t want it to be just me and Mom. They needed to be mixed in too.
I hugged each of them in turn. Carter and Kelly rubbed their noses against my neck.
Joe took my hand. “Your room,” he said. “I want to see your room.”
He pulled me up the stairs without waiting for an answer. I didn’t even need to tell him where to go. He held out his other hand and let his fingers drift along the walls, head darting from side to side. He growled lowly for a brief moment and his hand tightened in mine. I didn’t ask what it was. I didn’t know if I wanted to know.
But then we were in my room and he was all over. He didn’t stand in one place for more than a second, and he touched everything he could get his hands on.
He muttered to himself, saying, “It’s strong in here, so strong, strong, strong” and “I can cover it up, I can make it go away” and “Mine, mine, mine.”
I let him. I let him do what he needed to do.
And then he stopped in front of my desk. Sucked in a sharp breath.
“Joe?” I asked, taking a step from the doorway.
“You kept it?”
“What?”
He didn’t answer. I stepped up behind him. He was getting taller. The top of his head reached the middle of my chest. I felt of pang of something bittersweet. I didn’t know why.
And then I saw what he was looking at.
The little wolf made of stone.
I was confused. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Ox,” he said in a choked voice. I looked down. His hands were curling into the desk, leaving little claw marks, scoring the wood. His eyes flashed orange and I said, “Hey.” I put my hand on his shoulder and it was there again, that warmth, like it’d been with Gordo. But if Gordo had felt like a warm fire, then the pulse, the pull with Joe felt like the sun.
He sighed and the claws pulled back and away.
“I like your room,” he said quietly. “It’s just like I thought it would be. Cluttered and clean.”