And we walked on.
THAT NIGHT, I dreamt of him.
He was waiting for me on the dirt road, the sun filtering through the leaves, little splashes of light on the ground like puddles of rippling water. He smiled so brightly as I reached my hand for his, our fingers curling together like they always had.
We walked slowly toward the house at the end of the lane.
We didn’t speak.
We didn’t have to.
It was enough just to be.
ROBBIE WAS awkward around me for a few weeks after that. He stammered and blushed and avoided me when he could.
Elizabeth smiled and said it happened every now and then.
“He’d be very lucky,” she said to me as we sat on the porch watching the sunset. “Both of you would.”
“I belong to someone else,” I said.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad for that.”
And she never brought it up again.
MORE OMEGAS came.
We were stronger then.
Better. Faster.
More complete.
They prowled the edges of the wards, teeth snapping. There had to be at least fifteen of them. Maybe twenty.
“Human,” one spat at me.
I said, “I’ll only tell you once.”
Violet eyes flared.
“Leave. While you still can.”
They snarled at me.
I tapped my crowbar against my shoulder. “If that’s the way it’s going to be.”
My pack roared behind me, humans and wolves alike.
The Omegas took a step back, suddenly unsure.
But that was as far as they got.
THREE YEARS.
One month.
Twenty-six days.
home
IT WAS a Wednesday.
We were at the garage when I felt the wards change. Like they were shifting. Like they were breaking.
I was in the office, and it felt like I’d been struck by lightning.
“The fuck was that?” I heard Tanner say out in the shop as he dropped something metal to the floor.
“Jesus Christ,” Rico muttered.
“Ox?” Chris called out. “You—”
The door to the waiting area slammed open, Robbie skittering through the garage as he ran toward the office. “Did you feel that?” he demanded as he came through the door. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said through gritted teeth, even though it felt like my skin was electrified. “It was the wards. Something happened to them.”
Robbie paled. “More Omegas?”
I shook my head. “Something different. Something else.” The others crowded in the doorway, Chris’s phone already to his ear even as mine rang. I heard Chris say something to Jessie as soon as she picked up. “Elizabeth,” I breathed as I put my own phone to my ear.
“You felt it,” she said.
“Yes. What is it?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Something is coming.”
“Were the wards broken?”
“No. I don’t think—it’s like they changed. Somehow.”
“Robert?”
“I don’t know. Ox. I think it’s coming this way.”
“You stay there,” I growled. “With Mark. We’re coming.”
“Be careful.”
I hung up the phone.
“You hear that?” Chris said to Jessie. “Get to the house.”
“Keep her on the phone,” I told Chris. “I don’t want her there before us.” Chris nodded as I stood. “Robbie, Tanner, with me. Rico, go with Chris. You follow behind us. We get to Jessie, she leaves her car there and gets in with you. Understood?”
They nodded, eyes narrowed, teeth bared.
WE REACHED the dirt road without seeing anyone, though the electric feeling intensified the closer we got. I gripped the steering wheel, knuckles turning white. My teeth were clenched and I was angry.
Jessie was already waiting for us and she didn’t hesitate, moving from her vehicle in with Chris and Rico, hair pulled back, staff clutched in her hands. I watched in the rearview mirror until she shut the door, then took off down the road, dust kicking up in plumes behind us.
We passed the old house first. It stood as it always did.
The house at the end of the lane was the same. Elizabeth and Mark were waiting for us on the porch, half-shifted, eyes bright even in the sunlight.
“Anything?” I demanded as I threw open the door to the truck.
“No,” Mark said. “No one has approached the house.”
“They will,” Elizabeth said, looking off into the trees.
I walked backward toward the porch, scanning the tree line. Everything looked the same. The trees swayed, the birds sang. The territory felt like mine, like ours. But there was something else there, sliding along on top of it, not quite fitting, but close. I didn’t know if this was Richard and Robert, trying to trick us. Because even though my skin was crawling, it felt like something I should recognize, but it was making me anxious. Snappish. I wanted to prowl in front of the house, warning any intruders away.
The others gathered behind us on the porch, spread out in the formation we had trained with so many times. They didn’t need to be told. They just knew. The wolves were spread out amongst the humans, claws out and ready. I could feel their strength at my back, all of them, and I hoped whoever was stupid enough to come at us felt it too before we made sure they wouldn’t do it again.
The electricity intensified.
“It’s coming from the north,” Mark muttered. “From the clearing.”
It was also moving.
“What is it?” Rico asked, sounding nervous.
“I don’t know,” Mark said. “It’s almost like—”
The wolves all tensed, hearing something that we couldn’t.
“Four of them,” Robbie growled. “Moving fast.”
“Stand together,” I said. “Whatever it is, we stand together—”
I heard it now. In the forest. The footsteps, the running strides. A flash of color in the thick trees, something red and something orange and it—
“Oh my god,” Elizabeth said, because she understood first.
ONCE, WHEN it was just the two of us at the house, she’d decided it was time to play Dinah Shore again. Joe and the others had been gone for almost two years.
She put the old record on, and while the singer crooned about being lonely, she looked at me and asked me to dance.
“I don’t know how,” I said, trying not to blush.
“Nonsense,” she said. “Everyone can if they can count.”
She took my hand.
She moved slowly with me as she counted out the steps, my hand dwarfing hers. She moved us in a circle, the song repeating over and over again.
When she no longer needed to count, when I felt the song seep into my bones, she said, “We stayed behind because we had to.”
I stuttered in my step, but caught myself before it got out of control. She smiled quietly at me as I counted under my breath.