Wolfsong (35 page)

Newer threads.

They were weak. Faint.

But they were there. I didn’t see where they led, but they pulsed gently.

The knock came again.

I approached the door.

Elizabeth growled quietly, coiled and ready to attack.

Mark moved off to my side, out of sight of anyone on the other side of the door.

I put my hand on the doorknob.

Took a breath.

And opened.

We were not attacked.

A man that I’d never seen before stood there.

He wasn’t much older than I was. He was shorter, too, and leaner. His dark eyes crinkled as he squinted up at me, framed by chunky black glasses. His skin was pale and his hair was black, cut almost militarily short. He wore jeans and dusty boots, like he’d been on the road for a while. He was a Beta, and an attractive one at that, but I could tell he knew that.

He arched an eyebrow at me as Elizabeth growled louder.

“Wolf,” I said.

“Ox,” he replied. He grinned and white teeth flashed. “I come in peace and bring tidings of great joy. My name is Robbie Fontaine. You may have known my predecessor, Osmond.”

Elizabeth snarled at him. I heard Mark growling somewhere off to my right.

Robbie winced. “Yeah, probably not the best idea to mention that name. That’s my bad. Won’t happen again. Well, I can’t actually promise that. I’ll probably say some shit I don’t mean. For that, I’m sorry. I’m still sort of new at this.”

“At what?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“Being in the position that I’m in.”

“And what position is that?”

He cocked his head at me, assessing. “Why,” he said, “I’m here to protect you.”

I snorted. “Protect.”

That smile came back. “Indeed. I need to see your Alpha.”

ROBBIE FONTAINE
came from the east.

There was a new Alpha in place. For now. Her name was Michelle Hughes. She’d risen to Thomas’s old position, governing over all packs in the United States.

Including mine.

“She’s a good woman,” Mark said. “Good head on her shoulders. She’ll do the right thing. We’re okay there. She’ll be good, for the next few years.”

Until Joe
was left unsaid.

We sat in the living room, Robbie across from us on the sofa, while we were on the couch, Mark pressed against one side of me and Elizabeth against the other. I thought maybe this would be enough for her to shift back, but she didn’t.

“She sends her condolences,” Robbie said. “She would have come herself, but there are… pressing matters, as I’m sure you understand.”

Mark nodded. It was all very diplomatic.

“Where’s Joe?” Robbie asked. “He’s not here.” He knew that, though. He knew that the moment he entered the house. Probably even before. I didn’t want to think why Elizabeth and Mark hadn’t heard him approach.

I waited for Mark to speak. He didn’t.

I was surprised to find him looking at me. Obviously waiting.

Robbie didn’t miss that little exchange.

I looked back at him. “He’s not here,” I repeated slowly.

“Ox, is it?” he asked me.

I nodded.

“I’ve heard things about you.”

“Oh?”

“Good things. They talk about you. The wolves. They say you’re a human, but that you’re just as strong as us. Trust me when I say it’s hard to impress them. But you’ve done that.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I said.

“Maybe,” Robbie said. “Or maybe you just don’t understand exactly what you’ve done. It’s really rather remarkable.”

I said, “I don’t know you.”

“No,” Robbie agreed.

“I knew Osmond. A little.”

Robbie frowned. “It was a surprise. To all of us.”

“Was it?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“A surprise.”

“Yes.”

“Your surprise ended in my mother’s death. In my Alpha’s death.”

Robbie blanched. “I’m not—”

“I don’t know you. I didn’t know you were coming. You’re a surprise. And I don’t like surprises.”

“I’m not here to hurt you,” Robbie said. “Or take anything away from you.”

“Osmond would have said the same thing,” I said.

Robbie looked at Elizabeth. Then at Mark. They both remained silent at my sides.

I waited.

He dragged his gaze back to me. “Curious,” he said.

“What?”

“You. You’re not what I expected.”

My father’s voice whispered in my head, saying people were always gonna give me shit. “I get that a lot.”

“Do you?”

“Why are you here?”

He blinked several times, as if coming out of a fog. “Osmond was Thomas’s liaison to the interim Alpha when one was necessary. I’ve assumed his position.”

“Thomas is gone.”

“He is,” Robbie said. “But Joe is not. And the Bennett line is very strong. Where is he?”

“Do you know who I am?” I asked, leaning forward.

“Oxnard Matheson,” he said promptly, looking a little surprised to be giving the answer.

“Did Osmond tell you? Or his other wolves? What I am. To Joe.”

His eyes flickered down to my open work shirt, his gaze crawling along my neck. “The human mated to an Alpha,” he said. “But you haven’t mated. Not yet.”

“We will.”

Robbie grinned. It was a nice smile, though I didn’t trust it. “Romantic,” he said.

“How many wolves are looking for Richard Collins?” I asked.

He flinched. It was a small thing, and I didn’t know if it was the question or the change in conversation, but it was there. I noticed these little things now.

He said, “Many.”

“And how many is that?”

The smile slid from his face, and I thought his eyes flashed orange. “Seven teams,” he said. “Made up of four wolves each. A coven is also involved. Because of Livingstone.”

“And Osmond?”

“He’ll be found.”

“It’s been six weeks.”

“These things take time. Where is your Alpha? I need to pay my respects. And there are others. Brothers, I’m told. And the Livingstone heir.”

“You were told.”

“I am very good at what I do,” he said.

I snorted. “Obviously. If they sent you.”

We were quiet. The grandfather clock in the hallway ticked the seconds by.

It was a waiting game.

I didn’t look away.

Funnily enough, Robbie did, after a while.

He averted his eyes down and to the left. His head bowed slightly. I didn’t understand because it was something I’d seen others do to Thomas. It was a sign of—

“He’s gone, isn’t he?” Robbie said.

I didn’t speak.

Robbie sighed. “Shit.”

Three little pinpricks burst along the faint threads in the pack bonds.

Elizabeth and Mark sighed on either side of me, soft and low.

They were coming, and I closed my eyes, wondering when this had happened. When they’d become like mine. Like ours. I could track them, almost. They’d be here in a few minutes. They were traveling fast.

“He went after him?” Robbie asked. “After Richard.”

“He did what he thought he had to,” I said.

“He’s the Alpha,” Robbie said, sounding slightly horrified, “and he
left
the territory? And the pack?”

I stared at him. The little pinpricks of light were brighter now.

“Why didn’t you stop him?” Robbie demanded. “He has a
place
here. And a goddamn
future
to think of.”

“You really think that someone can tell an Alpha what to do?” Mark asked. “Especially a new Alpha?”

“It’s not
right
—”

A loud truck approached the house at the end of the lane.

Robbie narrowed his eyes. And moved toward the window.

The rest of us didn’t move. Because somehow, we knew.

“Humans,” Robbie said. “Three of them. They don’t have guns. Though I think one guy is carrying a hammer. For some reason. We need to act—”

“Sit down,” I said lightly.

Robbie looked startled.

I thought, for a moment, he wouldn’t.

He did, though. He didn’t look away from me.

Tanner, Chris, and Rico burst through the door, eyes wide and frantic. Rico, of course, held a hammer high above his head, wielding it like he was about to crush some skulls.

“Where’s the thing we need to kill?” Tanner growled, eyes darting around the room.

“I know karate,” Chris said. “I took it for three months when I was ten.”

“I have a hammer,” Rico said.

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. But I thought they were ours. I glanced at Mark. “You felt them?”

He was looking at them with something akin to awe. “But they’re all
human
.”

“Hey,” I said, punching his arm. “So am I.”

“That’s different.” He shook his head. “You were because of Joe. That wasn’t a surprise. They’re here because of
you
. And everything we feel is because of
you
.”

Before I could even process what
that
meant, Elizabeth hopped down from the couch and approached the others. She pressed her nose into their hands, each in turn, one after the other.

I was reminded of the sound my mother made the night she’d found out the truth. The little sound of
oh
, shocked and breathy, when Thomas had touched her for the first time.

I knew what Elizabeth was doing.

She was acknowledging them.

Because somehow, in the short weeks since our world had gone to hell, Tanner, Chris, and Rico had become part of our pack.

And I didn’t know how.

THE TEXTS
were getting more sporadic. Sometimes they came in the middle of the night. Sometimes a whole week would go by. I carried my phone everywhere, waiting.

Once, I sent a message first.

things are changing. i don’t know what to do

At three in the morning, he replied.

I know.

I pulled up the covers in his bed over my head and waited until sunrise.

ROBBIE STAYED.

We didn’t want him in the Bennett house because there was no trust there. He didn’t want to be too far away. There were a couple of motels in Green Creek, but people would ask questions if he stayed too long. Mark thought he was all right. I asked if he’d known him from before. Mark shook his head. He’d made some calls and verified Robbie was who he said he was, and Gordo’s wards had let him through to begin with. And since I trusted Mark, trusted Gordo, I told Robbie he could stay at the old house.

The old house, because that’s how I thought of it.

I didn’t think I’d ever live there again. At least not for a long time.

Because there were nights I woke up and felt the heavy magic holding me down, cutting me off from the pack.

There were nights when I didn’t know if I was dreaming or if I was awake, and my mother would be standing at the edge of my bed, tears drying on her face, her eyes
steeling
right in front of me and she would tell me to
run
, to
run away from
—

Those were the nights I missed Joe the most.

I had never been one for nightmares.

Not really.

But now?

Now they were all I had.

I remembered how Joe was when he woke screaming for me.

I didn’t scream when I snapped my eyes open, though I wanted to.

I muffled it down, lodging it in my throat as sweat dripped down my neck.

It was easier that way.

So I couldn’t go back to the house. Not while the floor was stained. Not while the look on her face was still fresh in my head. The wet sound she made when she fell.

Robbie didn’t ask, and he didn’t say anything the day after his first night in the house. The only thing I asked of him was that he stayed in my room and left my mom’s room alone. He had no business in there. And I didn’t want him getting his scent on anything. The door was shut and would stay that way until I could open it and breathe her in.

“Sure, Ox,” he said. “I can do that.” Then, “She wanted you to know, too, that she’s sorry for what you lost. Especially for one so young. She… understands loss. In her own way.”

“Who?” I asked, confused.

“The Alpha.”

My eyes widened a little at that. “She knows who I am?”

His lips twitched. “Yes, Ox. Many people know who you are.”

“Oh,” I said, because I didn’t know what to do with that.

So I did nothing at all.

TWO WEEKS
went by without an update.

I thought I could understand what it felt to slowly lose one’s mind.

I imagined all possible things. Capture. Torture. Death. I thought I would know if something was wrong. I thought I would feel it if anything happened to them. But the reality was, the longer they were gone, the greater the distance, the less I felt. I didn’t think I’d know if any of them were hurt. If Joe was hurt.

Because I could feel the others that had stayed in Green Creek more than I could feel him.

Stronger than I’d ever felt any of them before.

Elizabeth was
blue
, she was so damn
blue
, and I knew she needed to howl her sorrow at the moon, but she kept her song inside and let it fester instead.

Mark was strong and sturdy, as always, but I knew about the photo he kept in his desk drawer. The photo he didn’t think anyone knew about. The one where he and Gordo were Joe’s age, and their arms were around each other’s shoulders, grinning. Gordo was smiling at the camera, looking younger than I’d ever seen him. Mark, though. Mark only had eyes for Gordo.

I never asked if they talked before Gordo and the others left.

I hoped Gordo did the right thing.

But I never had the courage to find out.

Tanner, Chris, and Rico were there too, getting stronger every day. It was a slow process, but they were
bonding
like the rest of us.

Still. Four months in and I thought maybe we were barely holding ourselves together.

Maybe that’s why those two weeks I didn’t hear from Joe hurt more than it should have.

Maybe that’s why I was angry when he finally texted. From a new number, the old phones obviously tossed out.