“Thomas,” I started. But then I stopped because I wasn’t sure of what I wanted.
He waited, like he always did.
I want the bite.
I thought to say it. I really did. I opened my mouth to say just that, but I couldn’t get the words out. I couldn’t make it so.
He knew. Of course he knew. “I’ll be here,” he said. “If and when you’re ready. If not me, then Joe.”
“He’s going to be great, you know,” I said quietly. “Because of what you’ve taught him.”
Thomas smiled. It was a rare thing, and it made me feel good to see it. “An Alpha is only as strong as his pack.”
I ASKED him one day when Joe would become the Alpha.
He said it would be when the time was right.
I asked him what would happen to him then.
He said he would serve as his son’s Beta.
I asked him what it would feel like to give up all that came with being an Alpha.
He said it would feel green.
I didn’t ask him how he knew.
SOMETIMES THOMAS sent just me and Joe out to the clearing.
Sometimes we talked.
Sometimes we didn’t say anything at all.
He said it was for the bond between us.
SOMETIMES I thought they were keeping things from me.
It was just a feeling I had.
ground you walk on/the fallen king
SHE WAS in the kitchen singing along with her radio when I said, “Mom, can I talk to you?”
She looked over her shoulder as she stirred a saucepan on the stove. She smiled and said, “Hi, baby,” and I almost turned and ran out of the room. I was eighteen years old, and I was scared of my mother.
She must have seen something on my face because she turned down the heat on the stove and turned. She reached out and touched my arm. “Okay?”
I shook my head. “Uh. Maybe? I think so. Possibly.”
She waited.
I loved her. And she loved me. So I said, “I’m pretty sure I like girls.”
She said, “Okay.”
And so I said, “And guys.” My palms were sweaty.
“Okay.”