But Joe was never there.
They said it was a burglary gone wrong. That my mom had come home and interrupted someone at the house. I had an alibi, of course. I was with the Bennetts. The Bennetts, who everyone respected. Who everyone was in awe of. The town might not have understood them, but they understood the way they looked. The wealth they had. The things they’d done for the town.
The coroner said it looked as if my mother’s throat had been slit with a serrated knife of some kind.
I told the police we didn’t have anything of the sort.
It must have come from the intruder.
And where is Thomas? the police asked.
Away on business, Elizabeth said. Out of the country. Will be for months.
Later it would be said that Thomas died of a heart attack overseas.
But for now, he was just gone.
When will he be back? the police asked.
Hopefully soon, she said.
Somehow, her voice remained even.
Outsiders couldn’t see the cracks.
But I could.
MY MOTHER was buried on a Tuesday.
There was nothing special about Tuesdays, but it was the first day we were able.
The town mourned her along with us.
With me.
The preacher said placating things about God, and the mysteries of his plan. We might not understand why these things happen. All we can do is hope to know that things happen for a reason.
The sun was shining when she was lowered into the ground.
The pack never left my side.
Joe held my hand through it all, but we never spoke.
Tanner, Chris, and Rico were there. They pushed everyone out of their way and didn’t even bother trying to shake my hand. The three of them wrapped themselves around me and held on for dear life. There was a little flare of something from them that I felt crawl along my skin, but it was lost under the weight of what I faced.
Jessie was there too. She waited until she could stand in front of me. She whispered something I didn’t remember. Her lips pressed against my cheek, lingering and sweet.
Joe watched as Jessie squeezed my hand.
He looked away as she left.
Later, after I’d stood in line and let people cry on me and shake my hand and tell me how sorry they were, I stood above the hole in the ground where my mother lay. It wouldn’t be filled in until everyone left.
The pack stood away, amongst the trees. Waiting.
It wasn’t fair. None of this was.
I said, “I’m so sorry,” and thought about the day we’d lain on our backs, her in her pretty dress with the blue bows, and watched the clouds go by.
THOMAS WAS burned on a Tuesday night.
There was nothing special about Tuesdays, but we’d already buried my mother that afternoon, and it was better to have it all said and done.
Those same people that had filled the house in the days that followed Richard’s attack now filled the forest. Some were in human form, but most had shifted into wolves. My pack had all shifted, aside from Gordo and myself. But we walked with them, Elizabeth and me on either side of Joe. The others brought up the rear. I curled my hand on Joe’s back and held on for all that I was worth.
No one spoke about God and his infinite plans. In fact, it was near silent as we watched Thomas’s body atop the pyre constructed in the clearing in the woods. The wolves gathered around me. My wolves. Everyone else kept their distance.
It was Gordo that started the fire.
As he approached the pyre, I wondered if Thomas had felt him as part of the pack before he’d taken his last breath. If he’d felt the witch come back at last. We hadn’t spoken about it. About what it meant. About what would happen now. I hadn’t even tried. There was a small resentment that they’d kept me out of that office, those secret meetings, but I pushed it away.
He placed both hands on the pyre.
His tattoos came to life.
He bowed his head.
There was a lick of fire underneath his fingers.
It caught the wood and the fire spread.
I stood there and watched him burn.
Joe led them, after.
It’s called a chorus howl, Thomas whispered to me. The harmonies allow any tricksters to think the group is bigger than it is.
And they did. They sounded like they were in the hundreds, rather than dozens.
Gordo had muffled the territory so no one in Green Creek would know. His magic was useful when he wasn’t trying to deny his place.
Still, I wondered if people in town could hear it. Or, at the very least, feel the passing of one king to another. They lived in the territory, after all.
I felt it. I felt all of it.
The fire was hot against my face.
The songs howled around me were as loud as I’d ever heard them.
They hollowed me out. Made my skin brittle and tight. I was a shell compared to what I’d been only days before. I didn’t know what to fill the space with. I didn’t know if there was anything to fill the space with.
The fire died down, eventually. Until it was nothing but ember and ash.
It’d be spread later throughout the territory.
But for now, the strange wolves left.
Our pack remained.
We inhaled the smoke and it filled our lungs until we coughed it away.
Gordo left then. Hands in his pocket, head lowered.
Mark was next. He headed away from the Bennett house, deeper into the woods. We wouldn’t see him again for two days.
Carter and Kelly left with their mother, one on either side of her, holding her upright as she stumbled, legs weak.
It was just Joe and me then.
He sat on his haunches, watching the last lick of flame, the last burst of sparks.
I sat beside him, leaning against his side.
He huffed out a breath as he towered over me.
I pressed against him harder.
He snorted, eyes flashing.
The heat from the pyre began to fade away.
And still we stayed.
Night birds cried.
An owl called.
I said, “I’m here.”
Joe scratched the grass with a giant paw.
I said, “Whenever you’re ready.”
His ears twitched.
“We’ll figure this out.”
He whined in the back of his throat.
“We have to.”
He bent his head down, running his nose along my cheek. My neck. Behind my ear, huffing his scent onto me like he hadn’t done since he’d become the Alpha.
I loved it.
And him.
But I couldn’t say it. The words stuck in my throat.
So I hoped he felt it in my scent. Because that was all I could give.
It should have stopped there. That should have been the end of this terrible day.
It wasn’t.
Other words found their way from my throat, saying the very last thing I should have said.
But I was buried then. In anger. In grief.
So I wasn’t thinking about what could happen.
Just what I wanted.
I said, “He took from us.”
I said, “He took part of our pack away.”
I said, “He hurt us.”
I choked, “He took my mom.”
Joe began to growl.
I said, “He’s gone.”
I said, “We have to find him.”
I said, “We can’t let this happen to anyone else.”
I said, “We can’t let this happen again.”
I said, “We have to protect the others.”