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The old witch smiled at me. “Children these days.”
“You’re baiting them.”
He shrugged. “Have to get my kicks somewhere. Not every day I’m visited by royalty.”
I snorted. “Royalty.”
“The Bennett line is as royal as it gets.”
“I suppose.”
“Do you?” He tapped his fingers on the table. “I was also speaking about you.”
I sighed as the wolves squawked, trying to pick themselves up by shoving each other. “It’s not like that. Not anymore.”
“Isn’
t it?” the witch asked me, not fooled. He nodded toward the wolves. “Theirs is a story of fathers and sons. Oxnard’s is the same, or so the bones tell me. And then there’s you.”
I touched the roses underneath the raven on my arm. “It’s not the same.”
“It is, Gordo, and the sooner you realize it, the sooner you’ll realize your full potential. You have already set yourself upon the right path. You have found yourself a pack again.”
“Get off me, Carter!” Kelly snarled. “Jesus Christ, you’re heavy.”
“Are you saying I’m fat?” Carter yelped. “I’ll have you know that women like it when I lay on top of them.”
“We’re not your floozies,” Joe growled.
“I should hope not. We’re related. That’s disgusting. Besides, you only wish you could get someone as hot as me. And who the fuck says floozies? What are you, ninety-four and reliving the glory of your youth?”
“Did you just fart?” Kelly screeched, sounding horrified.
“Yeah,” Carter said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “Gas station microwave burritos are not so good on my intestines, apparently.”
“Get off! Get off!”
I groaned, my face in my hands.
“Yes,” the old man said as he chuckled, “you have definitely found yourself a pack.”
I dropped my hands and looked at him. He was smiling quietly, eyes staring off into nothing. “We need—”
“I know what you need,” he said. “And I will help you as best I can. But you cannot go on like this forever, Gordo. None of you can. If, in the end, this endeavor proves futile, you must return to Green Creek. For too long it was without its Alpha and wolves, and only a witch to guide it. And now the witch is gone, along with the Alpha. I fear what will become of it if this persists. There are only a few places of such power left in this world. The balance must be kept. You know this better than anyone.”
“You hear that?” Carter said. “He’s going to tell us how to kill the bad guy!”
“That’s not what he said,” Kelly muttered.
Joe didn’t speak.
I turned to look at them. They were still on the floor, bodies tangled together. But they looked… content. More so than I’d seen them in a long time. Even Joe. I wondered if they’d forgotten how much a pack needed to touch, needed to feel each other’s warmth.
It was time they started remembering that.
Maybe it was time I did too.
IN THE end, I knew the wolves—at least Carter and Kelly—were disappointed with how it all played out. The old witch muttered under his breath and then turned the wooden cup over. The bones spilled across the tabletop, landing scattered almost pointlessly. I never learned to read bones because it was an archaic magic, more tied to sight than the earth like I was. There were times I didn’t even believe in it, but the old witch was one of the few left who practiced, and I had run out of ideas. Maybe it would turn out to be nothing but mindless hocus pocus, but….
