Heartsong (Green Creek 3)

“How do they fight it?” I asked. “How are they not completely insane by now?”

“Ox,” Kelly said.

“Because he’s different. That’s what you said.”

“He is. I think my father knew that. Saw something in him the rest of us didn’t. Oh, we loved him right away. He was this shy, awkward kid. Big, but awkward. And Joe…. Joe didn’t talk for a long time before he found Ox.”

“Because someone took him,” I said without thinking. “Someone hurt him.”

Kelly looked at me sharply. “How do you know that?” His eyes widened. “Are you remembering something?”

I shook my head, and I hated the way his face crumpled. “Something Ezra—” I caught myself. I coughed. “Robert Livingstone told me.”

The skin around his eyes tightened. “What did he say?”

I was about to tell him when a terrible thought struck me, one I wished I never had to have. And it tumbled out before I could stop it. “Is that what this is all about?”

He was quiet for a moment, like he was steadying himself. “What?”

“You,” I said, and I hated myself for it. But I had to get it out there. I had to know. “The others. The pack. All of this. Is this why you finally decided to come find me? So you could figure out what I’d learned in Caswell?”

“Is that what you really think?”

“I don’t know what to think,” I said roughly. “You said it yourself. You thought I’d betrayed you. You thought I was like this Osmond or Pappas. You let me go. Carter said the pack figured out where I was eight months after I was gone. Elizabeth said I was gone for thirteen months total. That means there was five months where you just left me there. Like you—”

Abandoned me is how I meant to finish, but I couldn’t get the words out through the lump in my throat. It made me sick to my stomach. The wounded look on his face only made it worse.

He closed his eyes, breathing in deeply through his nose. “Like the only reason we decided to rescue you was because we thought you could tell us what we needed to know about Michelle Hughes and Robert Livingstone.”

“Right,” I whispered. Then, louder, “I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? Oh, Rico probably didn’t like it, which is why he’s acting like he is. But if I did hurt Chris and Tanner, then why the hell aren’t they terrified of me? Why are they acting like they give two shits about me?”

He slammed his hand on the table as his eyes flashed open. The noise of the diner died around us as people looked over. People who had waved enthusiastically at me when we’d come through the diner door. People who had told me how happy they were I was finally back and asked just where had I been all this time? Their eyes had shifted side to side, and they’d whispered pack business, right? like it was some great secret.

Dominique was behind the counter, watching me like she thought I would shift right then and there and attack.

The humans in the diner didn’t know what I’d done. But she did. That much was clear.

“They act like they give a shit because they do,” Kelly said through gritted teeth. “It took them time—hell, it took all of us time—but they know what happened wasn’t your fault. You had no control over your wolf.”

“How do you know that?” I asked angrily. “Maybe I did. Maybe if I get my memories back you’ll see I’m just like Osmond. Just like Pappas. Just like Livingstone or Alpha Hughes or anyone else who wants to hurt you. Maybe there was no magic at all and I did what I did because I wanted to.” I was panting by the time I finished, my throat raw.

“You weren’t,” Kelly said. “You aren’t. You’re not like them. You never have been. And you never could be.”

I laughed bitterly. “Sure, you can say that. But how do I know it? I don’t even know who I am.”

“He didn’t take everything.”

“He took enough.”

Silence fell over the table, awkward and heavy. I wished Kelly had never come to the garage, or even better, that I was still trapped in the basement behind a line of silver. It seemed safer down there.

Kelly said, “I knew. The moment I saw you standing on the porch when we came back from hunting Richard Collins. I knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That you were my mate.”

I hung my head.