“He’s a Fontaine,” I said with a frown. I didn’t understand what she meant.
“Sure,” she said. “Anyway, call if you get a chance. The phone number’s the same.”
I nodded and she turned toward the office, where Chris was just getting off the phone.
I turned on Robbie. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” Robbie said. “I mean, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Robbie.”
“Ox. Let’s finish this oil change.”
“We were fixing the alternator.”
“Huh.” He looked down at the car. “That makes more sense than what I thought we were doing.”
“She’s a friend.”
He scowled. “You didn’t hear her heartbeat. Or smell her.”
“Oh god, I hate werewolves,” I muttered.
“She stunk like arousal.”
“You shouldn’t go around smelling people.”
“I can’t help it! Tell her to not go around smelling like she wanted to hop on your dick!”
“Who wants to hop on dicks?” Rico asked as he and Tanner walked over.
“No one,” I said quickly.
“That girl,” Robbie said. “Jessie.”
I sighed.
“That’s Ox’s ex-girlfriend,” Tanner said.
“From high school,” Rico added helpfully. “Because those are the relationships that last forever.”
Robbie looked slightly horrified. “You dated her?”
I put my face in my hands.
“But you’re mated to the Alpha!”
That stopped me cold. I dropped my hands. I glared at Robbie and said, “I’m not mated to anyone. If I was, you can sure as shit bet he’d be here and—”
The others stared at me as I cut myself off. This wasn’t the time for that. Not now. Maybe not ever.
“Ox,” Rico said gently, like he was approaching a cornered animal. “You know he’d—”
So I said, “Don’t.”
He didn’t.
I muttered something about going to lunch and left them standing there.
THEY CAME four days later.
During those four days, I got more pissed off. I had problems, and I couldn’t think of a single way to be rid of them.
Because werewolves were my problem.
Packs were my problem.
Maybe I just wanted a normal life, away from everything that shouldn’t exist.
Maybe I wanted to leave all of this behind and find a place where wolves didn’t know my name.
Thomas had told me once that the longer a human was in a pack, the stronger the scent of pack would be until it was a part of them, ingrained into everything that they were.
Any wolf would know I belonged to others, no matter how much I scrubbed my skin.
And it grated at me.
I stayed away from the others as much as I could. I worked later, not leaving the shop until well past midnight. The guys at the shop tried to push me, but I snapped at them to leave me alone.
Mark and Elizabeth didn’t push.
I didn’t want them to, but I was confused as to why I thought they should.
I should have known Elizabeth would wait until she thought I was ready. Sometimes, I thought she knew me better than I knew myself.
I rubbed my hand over my face as I walked down the dirt road toward the house at the end of the lane. It was probably foolish of me to be out in the dead of night alone, but I had faith in Gordo’s wards, even if I was losing faith in the man himself.
I was tired. Of a lot of things.
I sensed Elizabeth before I actually saw or heard her. I didn’t think this happened to most humans in wolf packs, but I didn’t know any others to ask. And the thought of asking questions these days was exhausting. Especially on top of everything else.
I said, “I know you’re there,” and expected her to walk out from the trees as a wolf.
Instead, she said, “Of course you do. I wouldn’t have thought anything less.”
She melted out of the shadows, moving with an inhuman grace. She wore a loose pair of sweats and an old sweatshirt of Thomas’s, the sleeves falling over her hands. Her eyes flared briefly in the dark, that Halloween orange that reminded me so of her son. There was an ache in my chest at the very thought of him.
And she knew. Because that’s just something she could do.
She said, “Ah. I wondered if that was it.”
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” I grumbled.
She laughed quietly. “I can’t not. It’s who I am.”
“Lurking in the forest in the middle of the night is who you are?”
“I don’t lurk.” She sounded moderately offended.
“You kind of do,” I said. “It’s part of your whole… thing.”
“I like you,” she said seriously. “Very much.”
I couldn’t stop the smile on my face even if I tried. “I know. I like you too.”
I started walking toward the house at the end of the lane.
She fell into step beside me.
“You’ve been avoiding us,” she said.
“I’ve been busy,” I said.
“Ah,” she said. “At the shop.”
“Yeah.”
“Must have been big.”
“What?”
“The influx of people to Green Creek who all needed their cars worked on at the same time.”
I glared at her.
She smiled serenely back at me.
“Dozens of them,” I said.
“You’re upset.”
I stopped walking and fisted my hands at my sides.
“It’s okay to be upset,” she said.
“I’m not upset,” I growled at her.
“Of course not,” she said. “You’re only avoiding your pack, and when you do see us, it’s like you despise us. Not upset at all.”
“I don’t despise anyone,” I said.
“That certainly can’t be true. There are many people out there to despise.”
“Elizabeth—”
“We don’t blame you.”
I blinked. “For what?”
“Blaming us.”
I took a step back. “I don’t—”
“It’s okay if you did. Or do. I don’t know that I wouldn’t if I was in your position. It’s certainly a proper place to rest your grievances.”
I hung my head.
“After all,” she continued, “if you’d never heard of wolves, none of this would have happened. If we hadn’t come back to Green Creek, you never would have met us and your mother would be sleeping in her bed. Or, rather, I hope she would have been, because you can never really know what might happen. Life can be funny that way.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
“Because someone has to,” she said. “And since Joe’s not here, I need to be the one to do it.”
My anger flared, a bright and burning thing. She felt it, if her eyes widening slightly meant anything.
She said, “He didn’t want to leave you, Ox.”
I laughed bitterly. “Really. Because he sure as hell left pretty damn quick for someone who didn’t want to leave.”