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He turned his head sharply, chin touching his right shoulder. I could make out one of the wings of the raven on his neck. He flexed his hands, and the carving he’d made for me when we hadn’t yet known how much a heart could break fell to the floor in pieces.
He inhaled deeply.
I could see the fangs in the low light.
He opened his eyes.
They were violet.
It hadn’t been enough.
I hadn’t been enough.
He said, “Run, Gordo, please run, run so I can chase you, so I can hunt you, so I can find you and taste you and fuck you with my teeth—”
I was already running.
He howled behind me, the song reverberating through the bones of the house around us. I felt it deep in my skin, flashes of pain as if I were held down by an Alpha and my father was whispering his poison in my ears.
Outside. I needed to get outside.
Before I could reach the front door, it imploded, the wood cracking as a shifted Alpha burst through, eyes blazing red. He landed in front of me and my hands went into his fur, digging in deep. Ox, it was Ox, it was—
Ox knocked me to the side even as he began to shift toward human. There came the snarl of a feral wolf, angry and crazed, and I hit the floor, turning my head in time to see Ox catch Mark by the throat. His hand completely covered the raven on Mark’s skin.
Mark tried to claw at him, tried to rip his skin apart. He kicked up with his feet to get at Ox’s stomach, meaning to eviscerate and cause as much damage as he could. He missed, barely, as Ox raised him high above his head as far as he could stretch, before he slammed Mark onto the ground. The floorboards that the guys from the shop had helped me lay one long, hot summer years ago cracked loudly as Ox pushed Mark through them. Mark grunted painfully, and I knew his bones were already trying to put themselves back together.
Ox’s eyes burned like fire as he roared in Mark’s face.
The song of the Alpha, even as he bled onto the Omega wolf below him.
It startled Mark. His violet eyes widened and he cried, “Alpha. Alpha. Alpha.”
Ox loosened his grip.
Mark immediately snapped his head toward me, violet flaring brightly, snapping his teeth.
Oxnard said, “I’m so sorry for this,” and let go of his throat before bringing a closed fist down on the side of Mark’s head.
Mark grunted and his body went slack.
And in the ruins of my living room, all we felt was blue.
HE TOLD me. How he felt it. How he felt it when Mark bit me. Felt it when we mated. It was a surge of power that rolled through him. Through Joe. Through the pack.
But it hadn’t lasted.
“It started to splinter,” he said quietly as we trekked through the snow. Mark was slung over his shoulder. “It started to fray. It was like… it was being poisoned. Shriveling. I hadn’t felt it like that before. Not since they were infected.”
The snow whispered down around us. It crunched under our feet. Somewhere above, hidden away behind the clouds, the moon grew fatter, calling out for her love, who always ran from her. She would be at her fullest soon enough.
“I thought,” I said in a choked voice, “I thought it would help. I thought it would….”
“I know,” Ox said, though he wouldn’t look at me. “I know you did.”
Thankfully he didn’t say what we were both thinking.
That instead of slowing it down, we’d sped it up.
