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.”