Wolfsong (17 page)

“Ox,” Mom said.

“Inside,” I snapped at her.

She went inside. I knew she’d be reaching for the phone.

Marie laughed. “Little human has some bite to him. Did the wolves teach you that?”

“This is the territory of the Bennett pack,” I told her. “You don’t belong here.”

“Bennett,” she said. “
Bennett
. Like that name means anything anymore. Let me tell you about the
Bennetts
.”

“The fuck is this?”

Gordo was at my side. His face was twisted in anger. His arms were covered by his work shirt, but I knew the tattoos on his skin were starting to shift.

Marie hissed. “Witch.”

“Wolf,” he snarled back. “You got balls, lady, showing your face here. Thomas Bennett is on his way. What do you think he’ll do when he sees you?”

A flicker of fear crossed her face before it disappeared. She smiled again, more fangs than not. “The fallen king? Coming out of hiding? Oh glory be!”

“It’s not hiding when you’re in your own territory,” I said.

“With humans in his pack,” she said. “Low, even for him. Belly dragging across the dirt.”

My hands curled into fists.

Marie grinned at me. “Aren’t you just precious? I could gut you, you know. Right here. Before you could move. Your Alpha has been hidden away long enough. He’s weaker now. Even I can feel it. I could take you and he could do nothing.”

“Try,” I said, and Gordo tensed.

But she didn’t. She took a step back. Looked over her shoulder before turning back. She smiled a little and said, “Say hi to your mom for me, Ox,” and then she was off, down the street until she disappeared.

THEY CAME
two nights later.

They were feral. Four of them. Not a pack, as they had no Alpha, but somehow still working together.

They’d made a mistake, though. By showing themselves. Or, at least by Marie showing herself.

Thomas made Mom and me stay at the Bennett house in those days that followed Marie cornering me. I told him Gordo needed to be there too. Thomas didn’t argue. Gordo did. I told him to shut the fuck up. I might have sounded slightly hysterical.

Mom went to work during the day. Carter and Kelly went with her.

Gordo and I went to work. He didn’t let me out of his sight, even when we had to take a longer than normal lunch break so he could strengthen his wards.

Joe stayed home from school. I brought his homework, and he took it from me with steady hands.

Thomas and Mark holed themselves up in Thomas’s office, whispering angrily into a phone, speaking to people I’d never heard of.

Elizabeth kept us calm, hands casually in our hair as she walked by.

On the second night, we sat down to dinner. Conversation was quiet. Silverware scraped against clay plates. Then Gordo took in a sharp breath and sighed. “They’re coming,” he said.

Alpha and Beta eyes shone around us.

We knew the plan. We’d trained for this.

I thought my hands would shake as I picked up a crowbar infused with silver, a gift from Gordo. They did not shake.

Thomas and Mark. Carter and Gordo. Out on the porch.

The rest of us stayed inside. Elizabeth and I in front. Kelly with Joe and my mother.

I saw them approach in the dark. Their violet eyes shone amongst the trees.

Thomas said, “This is Bennett territory. I will give you a chance to leave. I suggest you take it.”

They laughed.

A man said, “Thomas Bennett. As I live and breathe.”

Another man said, “And a witch no less. Smells like… Livingstone? Was that your
father
?”

Gordo Livingstone. His father, who’d lost his tether and hurt a great many people.

But Gordo didn’t reply. It wasn’t his place. The Alpha spoke for them all, even if Gordo wasn’t pack.

Thomas said, “One chance.”

The third man said, “The children will suffer. Especially little Joseph. I don’t think it’ll take much to break him.” There was a nasty smile on his face, and I would have murdered him where he stood without a second thought if Elizabeth hadn’t tightened her hold on my arm.

Thomas said, “You shouldn’t have said that.”

And Marie said, “You talk too much.”

And then there were claws and fangs and desperate snarls. The wolves half shifted and tore into each other. Thomas’s eyes were fire-red and he seemed bigger than the others, so much bigger. I wondered why the Omegas thought they ever stood a chance.

Gordo went after the first man. His tattoos shone and shifted, and I could smell the ozone around him, lightning-struck and cracking. The earth shifted beneath the Omega’s feet, a sharp column of rock shooting up and knocking him into an old oak tree.

Carter took the second man, and they were all teeth and tearing skin. Carter roared angrily as the Omega sliced sharp lines down his back, and Kelly gave an answering snarl behind me, taking a step toward his brother before Joe grabbed his hand, eyes wide and frantic.

Mark raised the third man over his head and brought him down over his knee, and the crack of the Omega’s back was sharp and wet. The Omega fell to the ground. His arms and legs skittered and seized.

Thomas took on Marie. Her red hair flew around her wolfed-out face. His red eyes tracked her every movement. He was grace. She was violence. Their claws hit and caused sparks to flare in the dark. He moved like liquid and smoke. She was staccato. She had already lost, but didn’t know it yet. She would. Soon.

But.

We didn’t know there was a fifth. Maybe the wolves should have known. Maybe they should have been able to sense him. Maybe the breaching of the wards should have tipped Gordo off. But there was blood and distraction, magic and breaking bone. Our family was fighting, and they might have been winning, but not without taking hits.

Senses were overloaded. Hackles were raised.

My mother was at the rear of us.

She said, “Ox.”

So I turned.

An Omega had her. He held her against him, her back to his front. His arm circled around her, elbow against her breasts, hand and claws around her throat.

I said, “No.”

The Omega said, “Call them off.”

I said, “You’ll regret this. Every day for the rest of your miserably short life.”

He said, “I will kill her right now.”

I said, “You will
regret
this.”

The big bad wolf smiled. “Human,” he spat.

My mom said, “
Ox
,” and it was so soft and sweet and full of tears and I took a step toward her.

“Let her go.”

The Omega said, “Call. Them.
Off
.”

And Joe. Joe. Sixteen-year-old Joe. Standing off to the side. Forgotten because the Omega had eyes on
me
, like he could sense that
I
had any power here. Like
I
had any control over the pack. Either he was mistaken or thought he knew something I didn’t.

But Joe. Before I could take another step, he was moving, legs coiled, claws out. Jumped-kicked off the wall. Launched himself up and over the Omega. Brought his claws down into the Omega’s face. Eyes punctured and skin split. The Omega screamed. His hand around my mother’s throat fell away.

Mom wasn’t stupid. She had trained. She saw what was coming. She elbowed the Omega in the stomach. Brought the heel of her foot up into his balls. Ducked away.

Joe spun off him, dropping to the floor.

I took three steps.

The blind Omega growled, “There will always be
more
.”

I said, “You shouldn’t have touched my mother,” and swung the silver-infused crowbar like a bat. It smashed upside his head, skull cracking, blood flying. Skin burned and hair smoldered. The Omega grunted once and fell to the floor. His chest rose once, hitching, failing. Then it stopped.

The sounds of fighting fell away outside of the house.

I took a deep breath. I tasted copper on my tongue.

Mom said, “You okay?” She touched my arm.

I said, “Yeah. You?”

And she said, “Yeah. Better now.”

I said, “Joe.”

And he looked at me, eyes blown out, hands at his sides dripping blood onto the floor. I didn’t stop to think. I didn’t care. I stepped away from my mother and pulled him close. He fisted his hands in the back of my shirt, claws tearing lightly at my skin. I didn’t care because it told me I wasn’t dreaming and we were alive. His nose was in my neck because he was so tall now. So much bigger than the little boy I first found on the dirt road. He breathed me in and his heart beat against my chest, the blood of the werewolf I’d killed pooling at our feet.

DAYS LATER,
I asked Gordo, “What else is out there?”

And he said, “Whatever you can think of.”

As it turned out, I could think of many things.

THOMAS LED
me through the trees and told me there were many packs, though not as many as there used to be. They killed each other. Humans hunted and killed them like it was their job. Like it was sport. Other monsters hunted and killed them.

“This was a fluke,” he said. “Others know not to come here.”

I didn’t know who he was trying to convince, him or me. So I asked, “Why?”

“Because of what the Bennett name means.”

“What does it mean?” I remembered Marie calling him a fallen king. Her body was nothing but ashes now, burned and spread across the forest.

“Respect,” he said. “And the Omegas failed to understand that. They thought they could come into my territory. My home. And take from me. We spilled their blood because they didn’t know their place.”

“I killed him because he threatened my mom.”

Thomas slid his hand to the back of my neck and squeezed gently. “You were very brave,” he said quietly. “Protecting what’s yours. You’re going to do great things, and people will stand in awe of you.”

“Thomas,” I said.

He looked at me.

“Who are you?” Because there was something more that I didn’t understand.

He said, “I am your Alpha.”

And I accepted that for what it was.

low-slung shorts/you and joe

IT WAS
not a gradual thing.

Wait.

That was a lie.

I didn’t
know
it was a gradual thing.

But it must have been. It
had
to have been.

Because it’s the only thing that explained the cosmic explosion that was the feeling of
want
and
need
and
mine mine mine
. The force of it was ridiculous. It had to have been there. For a long time.

JOE TURNED
seventeen in August. We threw a party as we always did. There was cake and presents and he smiled at me so widely.

He was seventeen that September when he started his senior year in high school. Kelly was at the beginning of his MBA. Carter worked with Mark and Thomas. Elizabeth did the things that made her happy. Gordo decided to wait on opening a second shop. Mom smiled more than she used to. I worked and breathed and lived. I had blood on my hands, but it was in service of the pack. I had nightmares about dead wolves with their heads bashed in. I woke up sweating, but every time I saw my mother’s smile, the guilt eased just a little bit more.

Jessie kissed me one night in October. I kissed her back and then stopped. She smiled sadly at me and said she understood. I didn’t tell her that I hadn’t been with anybody since the night the Omegas came because I couldn’t lose focus. I couldn’t be distracted. And that I didn’t feel that way about her anymore. So I just apologized and blushed and she shook her head and went home.

In November, Carter dated a girl named Audrey and she was sweet and pretty and laughed hoarsely. She liked to drink and dance and then one day she didn’t come around anymore. Carter shrugged and said it wasn’t meant to be. Just some fun.

Snow fell in December and I ran with the wolves through the powder, a winter moon shining out overhead, my breath trailing behind me as the pack howled their songs around me.

A man came to the Bennett house in January and talked for a long time with Thomas in his office. He was a tall man with shrewd eyes and he moved like a wolf. His name was Osmond, and as he left later that night, he stopped in front of me and said, “Human, eh? Well, I guess to each their own.” His eyes flashed orange. And then he left and I seriously considered throwing my mug of tea at the back of his head.

In February, a young man followed Joe home from school. Joe looked bewildered but didn’t make him leave. He was Joe’s age and his name was Frankie and he was short and had black hair and these great big brown eyes that followed Joe everywhere. He was scared of me and this amused Joe greatly. I walked into Joe’s room in the middle of the month to see Frankie lean forward and kiss Joe on the lips. Joe froze. I froze, but only for a moment before I stepped back out of the room and quietly closed the door. I smiled quietly to myself even as this strange twisting little thing curled in my stomach. I walked away and hoped he was happy. That little curl in my stomach never really went away, but I learned to ignore it.

It was March when he knocked on the door at three in the morning shouting, “Ox, Ox,
Ox
,” and I panicked, grabbing the crowbar, telling my mother to stay in her room. She had a dagger already pulled out, and I stopped to tell her that she looked like a badass. She rolled her eyes and told me to go see what was wrong.

I opened the door and Joe said, “
Ox
.”

He wasn’t injured. There was no blood. Nothing was chasing him. He was okay. Physically. It didn’t matter. I pulled him close and his hands were in my hair and he
shuddered
as he pressed against me.

“What happened?”

He said, “Frankie,” and I wondered at the state of my head and heart when I began to plot the death of a seventeen-year-old boy who loved chunky peanut butter and cartoons. I told myself that if he’d hurt Joe, there wouldn’t be pieces left to bury.