But it wasn’t the beast who rose.
A pale hand appeared. Human. Five fingers reached toward the sky. They flexed once, twice before another hand appeared, the skin bloodied.
And then Robert Livingstone stood.
He was nude, his body covered with nicks and cuts in various stages of healing. His white hair fluttered around his head in the breeze. He only had one eye, the other shut tight and scarred over, a mass of tissue that wrapped around the side of his head. He shook himself and craned his neck from side to side.
“Jesus Christ,” Kelly whispered through the phone. “He can shift.”
He took a step toward us.
Gordo reached for the door handle. I grabbed his arm, held on tight. He glared over at me, trying to pull away. I said, “Don’t. Not like this. We can’t take him like this. Think of Mark, Gordo. He’s waiting for you. Please don’t do this.”
He slammed his hand on the steering wheel. “Fuck. Fuck!”
I glanced back and saw Gavin standing on his hind legs, staring back at his father. The wolf was stiff, his hair standing on end.
Livingstone tilted his head back and howled. It rolled over us, and I felt it down to my bones.
The call of an Alpha.
It echoed around us, and I felt the pull of it, the desire to submit, to bare my neck even though I knew he’d tear my throat out.
Gavin took a step toward him, chest bumping against the tailgate.
I reached back through the window, grabbed his tail, and yanked as hard as I could. Gavin jerked his head back at me, eyes violet.
“No,” I growled at him. “You don’t belong to him. He can’t have you. Fight it, you hear me? You fight it.”
Gavin stared at me for a long moment before turning back to look at his father.
I saw the moment it hit Livingstone.
When he realized Gavin had made his choice.
Something crossed his face. It was blue and blue and blue, but underneath I felt the pulse of black, of rage, his wrath rising up and smothering all else. The blue faded as his face twisted. His eye burned red. He nodded slowly.
And he said, “So this is how it will be, then. I see.” He pressed his fingers against his face, the skin dimpling. He pulled his hands away and looked down at them. “What have I become? This… thing.” He dropped his hands. For a moment he looked like a frail old man, lost and confused. But then it melted away as his face hardened, his brow furrowing as his eyes narrowed. “You did this to me. Gordo. My son.”
“Go,” I said.
Gordo was transfixed, still staring at his side mirror.
Livingstone took a step toward the truck. “You can’t leave well enough alone. You never could, even when you were a child. And here you are again. I thought… I thought the boy would be enough. The princeling. I thought Gavin would….” He shook his head. “Why must you force my h
and? I left you alone. I took what was owed to me and I left you alone.”
“Gordo!” I shouted. “Fucking drive.”
Gordo jerked out of his stupor. He looked at me like he didn’t recognize me. Then light filtered in again, and he looked ahead. I could hear Kelly shouting into the phone, but I ignored it. Gavin was snarling, and Gordo wasn’t moving. I glanced back to see Livingstone take another step. He turned his face toward the sky.
He said, “I can see the truth of it all. Of what I was supposed to become. And what I’ll do with it. This will end one way or another. Gavin. Come to me. Stay by my side. I never understood the ties that bind a pack together. I do now.”
I gripped his tail as hard as I could, but Gavin made no move to jump out of the truck.
A tear trickled down Livingstone’s cheek. “Even you, then? You stand with them? They take. They always take. They don’t know how to do anything but. Bennetts. All of them Bennetts.” He wiped his face. “Your world will burn. I’ll make sure of it. And in the end, when you’re begging me for mercy, pleading with me to spare their lives, I will remind you of this moment. When you turned away from me, your own father. And I will tell you no.”
“Kelly!” Gordo shouted. “Are they ready?”