I struggled against the arms around me. They were stronger than I was, and I was getting crushed. I couldn’t breathe. I was caught.
“Joe!” I shouted. “Where are you, Joe? Come back! Please come back!”
“I’m here,” he said. “I’m here. I’m here. We both are. Carter, open your eyes. Open your eyes.”
I moaned, still trying to get away. “No. This isn’t real. None of this is real. I need to wake up. I need to wake up—”
“Carter.”
I opened my eyes.
I was in the cabin on the bed.
Kelly kneeled next to me. His hands gripped my legs, holding them down.
“That’s it,” Joe whispered in my ear, and I sagged back against him. “That’s it. We’ve got you. We’re here. You’re awake. We’ve got you.”
Kelly said, “Look at me.”
I was helpless not to. I sucked in a deep breath, greedy for the scents of pack and home, knowing if this was a dream, it would be the end of me. I couldn’t come back from this if it wasn’t real. It’d always been Kelly I saw. If it were Joe too, and they were ghosts, I wasn’t going to recover.
Kelly nodded. He took my shaking hands as I reached for him. His skin was warm, familiar. His heart was loud. He looked tired, and his hair was longer than when I’d seen it last. And there was green there, so much green between the three of us, but it was wrapped in blue, and I wanted to take it away from them both, wanted to keep them from ever feeling like that again.
I said, “Yell at me.”
Kelly blinked. “What?”
“Yell at me,” I begged him. “Both of you. Yell at me. Shout. Scream. Tell me you hate me. Tell me how angry you are. Tell me how stupid I was. Please.”
Kelly shook his head. “I’m not going to—”
Joe squawked when I jerked away from him. Kelly fell back on his ass in the dirt. I stood from the bed, the blanket falling off me. I was wearing clothes that weren’t mine. They were warm and clean and smelled like packpackpack. I squeezed my eyes shut.
When I opened them again, Kelly and Joe stood a few feet away, looking unsure. Joe was bigger than he used to be. Power radiated from him in soothing waves. My throat closed when I realized he was just like how Dad had been. A king. He looked like our mother, but he felt like our father.
The Alpha of all.
Discordant. Everything. Joe, tiny little Joe following after me, telling me that he couldn’t keep up, he wasn’t as big as me, wait up, wait up, wait up!
And then there was this man, this great man standing before me, and all I wanted to do was fall to my knees in front of him, to bare my neck and beg for him to understand, beg for them both to yell at me so I knew they still loved me.
Joe said, “I hate your beard.”
I gaped at him.
He shrugged. “It looks terrible. You need to shave.”
I said, “What.”
Kelly said, “And you need to cut your hair. Probably wash it too.” His nose wrinkled. “Probably need to wash a lot of things.”
I said, “What.”
Joe took a step toward me. “I know you’re confused. And I know you don’t think this is real. Your head is a little… messed up right now.” His gaze hardened. “That’s what happens when you break from your pack. I had to force it on you. It was the only way to get through to you. You were Omega, Carter. You were turning Omega again. I couldn’t let that happen.”
I said, “I don’t….”
Kelly said, “You feel it?”