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“You can’t know that.”
Carter shrugged. “Yeah, but it sounds good, so. Go inside and help the others. Can you do that for me?”
Kelly’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“I just… I need to talk to Gordo. I’ll follow you in a second.”
Kelly looked at me suspiciously. I kept my face blank. He dropped his brother’s hand without another word and headed for the house. His mother touched his arm as he walked by. She leaned over and whispered something in his ear. He stood stiffly by her side until she finished speaking and kissed his cheek. She let him go, and he disappeared into the house.
Carter took a step toward me, but before he could get any closer, the timber wolf grabbed him by the coat, biting down and trying to pull him away. Carter slipped on the snow, turning over his shoulder to glare at the wolf. “Dude, I’m going to kick your wolfy ass if you don’t leave me the fuck alone. I don’t know what your deal is, but I don’t like weird fucking ferals getting all up in my shit.”
The wolf growled at him, jerking on his coat again.
“I need to talk to Gordo.”
The wolf didn’t thi
nk that was a good idea.
“Jesus Christ. Look, just… back off for a second, okay? This is my pack. No one here is going to try anything. Stop it, or I’m going to make Gordo blast you with his Force lightning.”
The wolf let go of Carter’s coat and snarled at me.
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t have Force lightning. Why do I have to keep telling you all that?”
“Whatever,” Carter said dismissively. “That’s not the point. Stop trying to undermine my totally credible threats to this stranger wolf who doesn’t understand the concept of personal space.”
He took another step toward me.
The wolf growled at him.
He smacked it upside the head.
For some reason, it subsided.
“Of all the things I have to deal with now,” Carter muttered, but the wolf stayed where it was as Carter approached me.
Elizabeth remained quiet.
Carter stood in front of me. He wasn’t…. The road had changed him. He’d become harder. Toward the end, we all had. But being back home, he’d softened, at least a little. Not as much as his brothers, but enough. He hadn’t been who he once was, but none of them could be. Not after their father. Not after everything they’d seen.
But in the past year, he’d settled, somehow, in his skin. He was his Alpha’s second, this brave boy who was fiercely protective of those he loved.
And now this.
I knew why Joe had called for him now.
Jessie wasn’t just making a cage for Mark.
She was making one for Carter too.
He studied me, and I didn’t know what he was looking for. He said, “It’s… you felt it. I know you did. When we were on the road. You tried to fight it. I didn’t know why, at first. I didn’t understand. Everything you’d been through. And maybe I still don’t know it all. But somewhere along the way, you became pack. To me. To us. And I trusted you then to watch over my brothers and me. And when we got home, to watch over the rest of us. You didn’t want it. This burden. And I’m sorry for that. But you have it anyway. Because you’re family. My family.” He shook his head. “And I need you to promise me something. Because I can’t ask anyone else to do it.”
“Carter—”
He held up his hand. “Just—listen. Please? This is hard enough as it is. I need—if you can’t turn us back. If you can’t… fix this, then I need you to promise me that you’ll be the one. To—”
“Fuck you,” I said hoarsely. “Fuck you, Carter.”
