His eyes tracked every step I took.
I knelt in front of Robbie.
I cupped his face in my hands. His eyes were wide and wet. One of the wolves behind me—Carter, I thought—growled, but was cut off with a low bark from Joe.
Elizabeth and Mark nosed along Robbie’s sides and stomach, licking at the bloody hair, while he kept his eyes on me. I tightened my grip, just slightly.
“I know what you were doing,” I said in a low voice, though all the wolves could hear me. “But you can’t do that.”
He whined and tried to lick my hands, but I held him still.
“I don’t need you to fight for me,” I said. “Especially when there was no need to fight at all. Not against each other.”
He shifted then, and I felt it under my hands, the way his bones broke and reformed, the way the hair receded, the muscles jumping. It was like I was holding a bag of writhing snakes, and I shuddered at the feel of it.
I didn’t hold a wolf’s face in my hand. It was now a man.
And he was furious.
He snapped, “He was in your head. I could hear him. He had no right to—”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, dropping my hands.
Robbie gritted his teeth and shook his head, eyes darting over my shoulder in a glare.
“Robbie, I asked you—”
“He’s right,” Rico said. “We could… hear him.”
I looked back at the others. They stood nervously behind me, well away from the wolves, but ready to attack if needed. They weren’t angry like Robbie, but they were spooked.
“What do you mean?”
Rico glanced at Tanner, who nodded once. “Like, when we hear you. Just. You’re our alfa, okay? Big boss man. We can feel the others, we can, but not like… not clear. Not like we can hear and feel you. And Joe was… loud. Everything. It was overwhelming.”
Elizabeth and Mark shifted too, their bodies straining.
“I will never get used to that,” Rico muttered. “Hi, Mrs. Bennett. How lovely to see you. You’re naked. Again.”
Elizabeth ignored him. “We could hear him too.”
“I thought you always could,” I said. “You told me that you—”
“Not like this. The bond between a mother and her sons is different than this.”
I looked to Mark, who nodded.
“Shit,” I muttered.
“Ox,” Elizabeth said. “This isn’t forcing an issue you’re not yet ready to face. If anything, it’s reinforcing the fact that there is something between you two. That there has always been since the day you first met. That’s nothing new. You’ve known that for a very long time.”
“It shouldn’t be like this,” Robbie said. “He’s pushing himself back onto Ox and—”
“Robbie,” Elizabeth said. “Enough.”
“But he can’t do that—”
Carter and Kelly snarled at him.
Robbie looked to me.
I didn’t want to hurt him. Nor did I want to embarrass him any more than he probably already was. Not in front of everyone.
“I can take care of myself,” I told him quietly.
“I know,” he retorted. “But you shouldn’t have to. I don’t know them. I don’t know what they’ll do—”
“I do,” I said. “I know them. I’ve known them for a very long time.”
“Not what they’ve become,” he said. “People change, Ox. You know that. You knew them a long time ago. You don’t know what they’ve done in the last three years. Where they’ve been. What they’ve seen.”
“Do you trust me?”
He blinked. “Of course I do. You’re my Alpha.”
“Then you have to trust me on this,” I said, trapping him neatly. And probably a bit unfairly.
He took a step back, glancing between me and the other pack. Joe stood between his brothers, not making a single sound, just watching. Waiting. He was letting me handle this, but I also knew he was trying to figure out just how close the bond between Robbie and me was.
Robbie scowled at me. “That’s not how this works.”
“Maybe. But nothing about us is how normal things work. We’re not like everyone else. And then there’s the fact that he could have killed you.”
“I can handle myself.”
“He’s an Alpha, Robbie.”
“But—”
“Stop,” I said, my voice deepening the smallest amount.
He flinched.
Carter and Kelly whined.
“Go,” I said. “All of you. Run. Robbie, stay here.”
He groaned.
The others left, Mark and Elizabeth shifting back into wolves. She pressed her nose against my hand before she followed Mark into the trees. Carter and Kelly waited at the tree line for Joe, who hadn’t yet moved. They glared at Robbie, daring him to make a move.
“I’ll be right behind you,” I told Joe.
His eyes flashed red before he turned toward his brothers and disappeared into the dark.
“You love him,” Robbie said as soon as they were out of earshot.
“Does it matter?” I asked. “He’s an Alpha invited here tonight and you attacked him. What the hell were you thinking?”
“He shouldn’t have been—”
“Robbie. That wasn’t for you to decide.”
He looked hurt at that. “How am I supposed to protect you if you—”
“He gave me his wolf. When he was ten years old. Did you know that?”
Robbie made a choked noise, face slackened by shock.
“I didn’t know what it meant. Not at the time. But he gave it to me. The day after he met me. Because he knew. And when I found out what it meant, I tried to give it back. I tried to tell him he was wrong. That he’d chosen the wrong person. That I wasn’t good enough for someone like him, someone brave and smart and kind. And he wouldn’t hear any part of it. Because I was it. He’d already decided that I was it for him.”
“I didn’t know that,” Robbie said quietly. “Not that it went back that far.”
“There has always been him and me,” I said. “And I think there always will be, no matter what we decide to do. Even if we’re just friends. Or allies. Or something more, there will always be him and me, because that’s what we chose.”
“You love him,” Robbie repeated.
I didn’t have it in me to deny it. “For a very long time,” I said, staring out to where Joe had disappeared.
“I’m sorry,” Robbie said, sounding hurt and confused. “I shouldn’t have—”
I held out my arm for him, and he rushed over, curling into my side, his head near my chest as he wrapped his arms around my waist, claws prickling my skin. He trembled as I dropped my arm onto his bare shoulders, running my hand through his hair.
We were quiet for a time.
Eventually, he sniffed. “So,” he said. “Kelly is kind of cute.”
I tilted my head back and laughed.
WE FOUND the packs in the forest late into the night.
I pushed Robbie toward them. He shifted and fell on four legs. He looked back at me once and nodded before turning and trotting toward Rico and Elizabeth.