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Sometimes I pretended she answered me.
She said, “I love you, Gordo. I love you.”
She said, “I am so proud of you.”
She said, “Why didn’t you believe me?”
She said, “Why didn’t you save me?”
She said, “You can’t trust them, Gordo. You can never trust a wolf. They don’t love you. They need you. The magic in you is a lie—”
My fingers dug into the earth.
CARTER WAS wrinkled and pink and screamed a tiny scream.
I touched his forehead and he opened his eyes, quieting down almost immediately.
Elizabeth said, “Would you look at that. He likes you, Gordo.” She smiled at me, skin pale, tired as I’d ever seen her. But still she smiled.
I leaned down and whispered in his little ear, “You will be safe. I promise. I’ll help keep you safe.”
A tiny fist pulled on my hair.
WHEN I kissed Mark Bennett for the first time, it wasn’t planned. It wasn’t something I set out to do. I was awkward. My voice broke more often than not. I was moody and had a small hair on my chest that didn’t seem to know if it was coming or going. I had zits and unnecessary erections. I accidentally blew up a lamp in the living room when I was angry for no apparent reason.
And Mark Bennett was everything I was not. He was sixteen and ethereal. He moved with grace and purpose. He was smart and funny and still had a tendency to follow me wherever I went. He brought me food while I was at the shop, and the guys gave me shit. Marty would holler that my boy was here, and I had fifteen minutes or he was going to fire me. Mark’s nostrils would flare as I approached, and he would watch me as I rubbed grease from my fingertips with an old cloth I kept in my back pocket. He would say hey, and I’d say hey back, and we’d sit outside the garage, our backs against brick, our legs crossed. He’d hand me a sandwich he’d made. He always watched me eat it.
It wasn’t planned. How could it be when I didn’t know what it would mean?
It was a Wednesday in the summer. Carter was crawling and babbling. No
other wolves had been hurt by the woman known as Elijah. The pack was happy and healthy and whole. Abel was a proud Alpha, doting on his grandson. Thomas preened. Elizabeth rolled her eyes. The wolves ran under the light of the moon and smiled in the sun.
The world was a bright and brilliant place.
My heart still hurt, but the sharp ache was fading. My mother was gone. My father was gone. My mother had said the wolves would lie, but I trusted them. I had to. Aside from Chris and Tanner and Rico and Marty, they were all I had left.
But then there was Mark, Mark, Mark.
Always Mark.
My shadow.
I found him in the woods behind the pack house.
He said, “Hey, Gordo.”
And I said, “I want to try something.”
He blinked. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
He shrugged. “Okay.”
There were bees in the flowers and birds in the trees.
He was sitting with his back to a big-leaf maple. His bare feet were in the grass. He wore a loose tank top, his tan skin almost the color of his wolf. His fingernails were bitten, a habit he had yet to break. He brushed a lock of hair from his forehead. He looked happy and carefree, an apex predator who feared little. He watched me, curious what I was on about but not pushing it.
