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“I can,” he said.
“Why?”
He reached out for my hand, hung on as if I were a lifeline. “Because pack is family. And family is everything. An Alpha is only as strong as his pack. And you are my strength.”
He brought my hand up to his throat, wrapping my fingers around his neck. I felt him breathing. I felt the steady pulse of his heartbeat.
He spoke only truth.
His truth.
I sank to my knees before him, his hand still pressing my own against his throat. He swallowed thickly, his Adam’s apple rising and falling against the webbing between my thumb and pointer finger. The wolf circled around us, brushing against the both of us, eyes still brightly violet.
I said, “Joe.”
He said, “Robbie.”
And I said, “Alpha, Alpha, Alpha.”
His eyes filled with fire. His claws prickled my skin. There was a moment, a brief and shining moment, when I thought I heard his voice in my head, when I thought I felt the thrum of bonds connecting us, and though they were tenuous, they held.
And in this whisper, I heard
pack
pack
pack
Then it was gone, as if it’d never been there at all.
But it was enough.
The road behind us stretched on, but it wasn’t meant for me. Not now. Not yet. And when I put feet to it, I wouldn’t be alone.
“Never again,” Joe whispered. “I promise.”
And for the first time since I returned, I believed Joe Bennett.
We stayed until the full moon, though it felt dangerous to do so. The longer we waited, the more time Livingstone had to prepare. Help was coming, Ox told us, and we needed all we could get. And it was better to be on the other side of the full moon. The wolves in Caswell wouldn’t be as strong. Neither would we, but that was left unsaid.
July 5, 2020.
A Sunday.
It started with Tradition.
We laughed a lot that day. There was food, more than even a pack of wolves could eat. And stories, so many stories, told by each member of the Bennett pack.
Elizabeth spoke of a dream she’d once had. Of her husband and how he brought her stone wolf back to her.
Joe told us about a time when it’d been just him and his father. He’d been little, sitting atop his father’s shoulders as they wandered through the forest.
Rico regaled us all with a story of how he, Chris, and Tanner had gotten Gordo high for the first time when they were thirteen, and how all the lightbulbs in his house had burst at once. They’d chalked it up to a power surge at the time, but now he knew it was because Gordo had been talking about Mark in a disgustingly dreamy voice. We all laughed at that, even as Gordo glared at Rico.
Mark said how full his heart had been the first time he’d seen Gordo after the Bennetts returned to Green Creek, that even though Gordo was yelling at him to stay the hell away, Mark had wanted nothing more than to hug him and never let him go.
Chris and Tanner took turns, almost giggling, as they reminisced about when Jessie had first come to Green Creek and how Ox had acted like an idiot at the first sight of her, following her around like a creepy stalker.
