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“Gordo,” he said, and he’d never sounded like that when speaking my name, like he was pleading with me. “This was not a decision made lightly. In fact, it is one of the hardest choices I’ve had to make in my life. And you have every right to be angry with me, but I need you to listen. Can you do that for me?”
“Why?” I asked, my lip curling into a sneer. “Why the fuck should I listen to anything you have to say? You told me the pack was leaving but that I’m not. Obviously that means I’m not your—wait. Wait a goddamn minute.” I closed my eyes, my hands curling into fists at my sides. “How long have you known?”
“I don’t—”
“Elizabeth. Just now, she told me—she knew. What was happening. She didn’t just overhear.” I opened my eyes. Thomas’s head was bowed. I glanced over my shoulder at Mark. He wouldn’t look at me. “You all knew. Every single one of you.” I nodded toward Osmond. “It’s why he’s been coming here. You’ve been… what. Planning this? How long?”
“A while now,” Osmond said. “We were waiting for Kelly to be born before—”
“Osmond,” Thomas warned.
“He has a right to know,” Osmond said, furiously calm.
“You’re damn fucking right I do,” I snarled at them. “How could you even think about leaving me behind? What have I ever done to make you—”
“You’re human,” Osmond said.
Mark growled at him angrily. “You don’t get to—”
“Mark,” Thomas said sharply. “That’s enough.”
Mark fell silent.
“And Osmond, if you speak again without prompting, I will ask you to leave my territory. Are we clear?”
Osmond didn’t looked pleased at that. “Yes, Alpha.”
/> Thomas looked at me again. I didn’t know what he saw. I was fifteen years old and being betrayed by the one person I never thought capable of such a thing.
He said, “I need you to hear me. Can you do that, Gordo?”
I thought about hurting him. Making him feel like I felt. Flayed open and bleeding.
But I wasn’t my father.
I nodded tightly.
He said, “You are human, and wonderfully so. I hope that will never change. But there is… distrust. Amongst the wolves. Because of the hunters. Because of what they have done. We aren’t the only ones who have lost those we loved.”
I was horrified. “I would never hurt—”
“I know,” Thomas said. “You have my trust. You always have. I have faith in you, maybe more than anyone else in this world.”
“But?”
“But others are not so easily persuaded. There is… fear. Hunters and….”
“And?”
“Tell him,” Mark spat from behind me. “He deserves to know. Since you’ve made this decision, you tell him.”
Thomas’s eyes filled with fire, but it was brief. It faded away, and he was left looking far older than I’d ever seen him. He looked down at his hands. “Livingstone,” he eventually said.
“What? I don’t—” It hit me then. “My father. They think I’m going to be like my father. I’m human, as were the hunters. I’m a witch, just like my father. And you’re letting them use that against me. They don’t trust me. And since they don’t trust me, you are leaving me here. You chose them over me.”
“No, Gordo. Never that. I would never—”
“Then stay here.”
