Wolfsong (65 page)

It wasn’t that I was dreaming.

It wasn’t that I was awake.

It was that I was either dead or almost there.

Thomas Bennett stood in front of me, face level with mine.

I choked out, “I’m sorry.”

The wolf huffed and leaned forward, neck on my shoulder, head curling around my back, pulling me close.

I fell against him, pushing my face against his chest.

He smelled of the forest. Of pine and oak. Of a summer breeze and a winter wind. I’d never smelled that on him before, not like this. Not this strong.

He let me stay against him, waiting for me to stop trembling. He was warm. I was safe.

Eventually, I calmed.

I pulled away, the side of his head trailing against my ear.

He sat in front of me, tail thumping along the ground.

He waited.

I looked down at my hands. What could I say to him? What could I possibly say to let him know how sorry I was? How I should have done more to keep his pack together? How I thought I’d done my best. How I only wanted to keep them all safe. How I did what I thought was right. How angry I was that a monster could come and take everything away from me, could steal me from the people I loved the most. How his son was the only person I could ever see myself with.

And how, when I’d needed him the most, he’d been there for me.

As my friend.

As my packmate.

As my Alpha.

As my father.

I looked up at him.

If a wolf could smile, then I thought it would look like he did right then.

I said, “I have a choice, don’t I?”

He cocked his head at me.

I said, “To go with you.”

He looked back behind him, toward the woods. There was movement there now. In the trees all around us I could hear the sounds of other wolves. Yipping. Barking. Singing. Howling. There were dozens of them. Maybe hundreds.

They called to me. They sang,
we’re here we’re ready when you are pack and son and brother and love we’re ready and we can wait for as long as you need.

Thomas turned toward me.

I said, “Or I could go back.”

He huffed again.

I said, “My daddy told me I was gonna get shit. Before he left. Did you know that?”

He whined low in his throat.

“He told me that. He said I was just a dumb ol’ Ox who was gonna get shit all my life. But he was wrong.”

The wolves in the forest howled.

“He was wrong,” I said. “Because Joe found me. And brought me to you. You gave me purpose. You gave me a home. A pack. A family.”

The wolf’s eyes were wet and bright.

“You are my father,” I said, though my voice broke. “In everything but blood.”

And I felt it then. The bond. The thread that stretched between us, even in death. It wasn’t as strong as it had been, and it probably would never be while I still lived, but it was there.

And there was a whisper along it.

The quietest of voices.

It said,
Take care of them for me, my son.

Thomas Bennett leaned forward and pressed his nose to my forehead.

And I said, “
Oh
.”

I OPENED
my eyes.

I was in a darkened room.

There was heat on all sides of me.

I felt safe and warm.

And more. Because there
was
more.

There were soft
thumps
overlapping in the room.

Some were in time with each other.

Others were not.

But they were all slow and sweet.

It took me a moment to figure out what they were.

Heartbeats.

I could hear hearts beating.

Picked them out one by one.

There were ten of them in the room with me.

There should have been eleven.

There should have been
eleven
.

There should have been
—

“Hush,” a voice whispered near my ear. A cool hand came to my heated brow and brushed my hair off my forehead. “You’ll wake the others.”

“I wasn’t even talking,” I muttered weakly.

“I know,” Elizabeth said. “But you don’t have to. Not anymore.”

I knew what she meant. Why she meant it. It didn’t seem possible.

And I knew the heartbeat that was missing.

“Joe?” I asked.

“Close your eyes,” she said near my ear. “Because things are different now and you must find a way to hold on to your humanity. Close your eyes, Ox. And listen.”

I did.

I heard many things.

I felt even more.

There were the heartbeats of my pack, lying around me on the living room floor at the house at the end of the lane. Pillows and blankets had been placed around us, and everyone had curled up against each other, reaching and touching in some way, the wolves curled around the humans. I was at their center. Elizabeth was somewhere near my head. There was an empty space to my right.

I heard their breaths.

The little sighs they made in their sleep.

I smelled them too. Sweat and dirt and blood, but underneath that it was the forest and the trees, sunlight filtered through a canopy of leaves, and that smell right before a thunderstorm, ozone-sharp and earthy.

But there was another smell. A baser smell, embedded into each of them.

I recognized it as my own.

They all smelled like me.

Like their Alpha.

It wasn’t just mine, though.

Because inlaid with my own scent, there was the heavy scent of another.

And this one, oh
this
one sunk its claws into me at the base of my neck and the base of my spine and
yanked
.

I growled, more animal than human.

The pack stirred around me but did not awaken. I heard their heartbeats elevate slightly at the sound that crawled up from my throat.

I let it pull me farther.

There was the house at the end of the lane.

There was the smell of pack that had sunk into the wood.

There were voices, echoes of the past, people gathering on a Sunday because it was tradition.

There was the scent of another Alpha, but it didn’t rankle.

It was built into the rest of the house.

Every board. Every wall. Every tile.

He was here, with us.

And he always would be.

Farther.

There were the grounds around the house at the end of the lane.

A little tornado demanding that his parents tell him of candy canes and pinecones. Of epic and awesome.

There was another house.

An old house.

A house once saddened by the cowardice of a father.

A house made whole by the love of wolves.

The blood on the floor, hidden from sight but buried in the bones.

She had laughed here.

She had popped soap bubbles here.

She had sat at a table and told me we’d be all right, she’d showed me that we’d both
be all right
.

There was a line, a connection between these two houses, a thread stronger than I’d ever seen that bound them together. They weren’t separated. They were one and the same. They had been for a very long time.

Farther, I had to go farther.

It pulled.

I
pushed
.

Through the grass. Through the trees.

I heard every bird.

I heard every deer.

I heard the possums hidden in the brush.

The voles underground.

The squirrels up the sides of the tree.

There was a town in the mountains.

There were people who lived in this town.

I couldn’t feel them, not like I could feel the pack.

But I was
aware
of them.

Like I was on the outside, barely looking in.

There was a sense of them.

My pack were bright beacons in the dark.

The people of Green Creek were fuzzy stars at the edges of space.

But they were
there
.

I pushed.

It
pulled
.

The pack shifted around me, heartbeats syncing up one by one, both human and wolves.

Elizabeth sighed.

There was a clearing in the middle of the woods.

It tasted of lightning and magic.

Of claw and fang.

And in the middle of this clearing sat a man who had once been a boy.

A boy who I had loved.

Then a monster had come to town with murder on his mind and tore a hole in our heads and hearts.

The boy chased after the monster with revenge in his bloodred eyes.

The monster was gone now.

And so was the boy. Because a man had taken his place.

And this is where it
pulled
me, this is where I
pushed
it, because there was a thrum under my skin, the movement of an animal wanting to burst out of me.

The people of Green Creek were fuzzy stars.

The pack around me were lights in the dark.

This boy, this
man
was the sun, bright and all-consuming.

The animal in me roared to be freed.

Elizabeth Bennett whispered, “
Go
.”

I went.

I WAS
out the door and into the grass when it happened.

There was a great ache in my body, a pain I’d never experienced before. My muscles seized as I stepped off the porch and dropped to my hands and knees. I couldn’t find a way to draw in a breath. Everything was too loud. The heartbeats. The forest. Green Creek. They were all
screaming
for me, they were screaming
OxOxOx
and I opened my mouth to scream back, but the sound that came out was low and guttural, a snarl no human could have made.

My bones began to crack and break, the pieces rearranging themselves. Hair began to sprout along my skin, and it was
black
like the deepest part of the night, and I couldn’t stop it, I couldn’t fight it.

Claws popped out from underneath my fingernails, the strain of it tremendous.

There was a brief moment, a
human
moment, when I realized what was happening, that it shouldn’t have been possible, that I had
died
, Richard’s hand
in
me, my guts spilling
out
of me. I believed in magic. I believed in the impossible. I believed in werewolves and the call of the moon.

I almost didn’t believe this was happening.

It’s a dream it’s a dream it’s a—

It wasn’t a dream, though, because the pain was extraordinary. It had to be, with the way everything inside me was breaking and shifting. I cried out again, my voice even less human than it’d been before. It came out garbled, and there was the thought of
I’m turning, oh my god I’m
turning
I’m—
before it dissolved.

The pain faded.

I was I was I was I was I was I was I was I
AM

a wolf

colors there are

blacks and whites

blue there is blue i see blue it’s

in the moon it’s in the moon

it’s green

everything is green

there are
others

here i can feel the
others

it’s pack it’s home it’s mine it’s ours ours ours
ours

they’re here

in pack house they’re they’re standing there standing there and watching

i am

Alpha

i am their

Alpha

eyes

my

eyes

are

Alpha

yes they are mine

all of them

oh my god
the woman said the young woman the human woman who i

knew because she was mine

not mine

both pack but nothing else because of him because of him because of

he’s turned
the wolf mother said
he’s turned because he feels him calling

holy shit alfa
one of the human men said
that is a gnarly fucking wolf

yes

i am wolf i am gnarly am gnarly wolf

uhhh
other human man said
why is he growling at us like that

can’t you feel it in the bonds
the witch said laughing witch my witch my
he’s being a smug fucking bastard he liked when you called him gnarly

yes because i am

Alpha

i am big

and strong

i take care of my pack they are mine they are

mine to protect because i am

Alpha

oh jesus
the last human man said
he’s going to be insufferable after this

i show them my teeth

they are not afraid they laugh because they are not afraid

good i don’t want them to be

afraid of me because they are mine

and i am theirs theirs theirs but

but

where is mine

where is mine

where is mine mine mine

sing for him

i need to sing

loud song so he can hear me in the trees

i sing

the trees they
shake
with it with my song they shudder and shake my song is

the trees are mine

the grass is mine

all of this is mine

my territory

answer me

sing me home sing for me sing it—

song song song song song song song song song
song songsongsongsongsongsong

in the clearing

i hear it i hear it it’s for me it’s calling me he’s calling me because he is

my

pack

my

mate

my

Alpha

i sing for him i sing back for him i sing for him to hear i am coming mate i am

i run

toward the song he sings for me

i run

toward the heart that beats for me

i run

because he has called me

because he is singing me home

through the trees

i sing

my song is

i sing

i’m coming

please don’t leave