“Because of what the Bennett name means.”
“What does it mean?” I remembered Marie calling him a fallen king. Her body was nothing but ashes now, burned and spread across the forest.
“Respect,” he said. “And the Omegas failed to understand that. They thought they could come into my territory. My home. And take from me. We spilled their blood because they didn’t know their place.”
“I killed him because he threatened my mom.”
Thomas slid his hand to the back of my neck and squeezed gently. “You were very brave,” he said quietly. “Protecting what’s yours. You’re going to do great things, and people will stand in awe of you.”
“Thomas,” I said.
He looked at me.
“Who are you?” Because there was something more that I didn’t understand.
He said, “I am your Alpha.”
And I accepted that for what it was.
low-slung shorts/you and joe
IT WAS not a gradual thing.
Wait.
That was a lie.
I didn’t know it was a gradual thing.
But it must have been. It had to have been.
Because it’s the only thing that explained the cosmic explosion that was the feeling of want and need and mine mine mine. The force of it was ridiculous. It had to have been there. For a long time.
JOE TURNED seventeen in August. We threw a party as we always did. There was cake and presents and he smiled at me so widely.
He was seventeen that September when he started his senior year in high school. Kelly was at the beginning of his MBA. Carter worked with Mark and Thomas. Elizabeth did the things that made her happy. Gordo decided to wait on opening a second shop. Mom smiled more than she used to. I worked and breathed and lived. I had blood on my hands, but it was in service of the pack. I had nightmares about dead wolves with their heads bashed in. I woke up sweating, but every time I saw my mother’s smile, the guilt eased just a little bit more.
Jessie kissed me one night in October. I kissed her back and then stopped. She smiled sadly at me and said she understood. I didn’t tell her that I hadn’t been with anybody since the night the Omegas came because I couldn’t lose focus. I couldn’t be distracted. And that I didn’t feel that way about her anymore. So I just apologized and blushed and she shook her head and went home.
In November, Carter dated a girl named Audrey and she was sweet and pretty and laughed hoarsely. She liked to drink and dance and then one day she didn’t come around anymore. Carter shrugged and said it wasn’t meant to be. Just some fun.
Snow fell in December and I ran with the wolves through the powder, a winter moon shining out overhead, my breath trailing behind me as the pack howled their songs around me.
A man came to the Bennett house in January and talked for a long time with Thomas in his office. He was a tall man with shrewd eyes and he moved like a wolf. His name was Osmond, and as he left later that night, he stopped in front of me and said, “Human, eh? Well, I guess to each their own.” His eyes flashed orange. And then he left and I seriously considered throwing my mug of tea at the back of his head.
In February, a young man followed Joe home from school. Joe looked bewildered but didn’t make him leave. He was Joe’s age and his name was Frankie and he was short and had black hair and these great big brown eyes that followed Joe everywhere. He was scared of me and this amused Joe greatly. I walked into Joe’s room in the middle of the month to see Frankie lean forward and kiss Joe on the lips. Joe froze. I froze, but only for a moment before I stepped back out of the room and quietly closed the door. I smiled quietly to myself even as this strange twisting little thing curled in my stomach. I walked away and hoped he was happy. That little curl in my stomach never really went away, but I learned to ignore it.
It was March when he knocked on the door at three in the morning shouting, “Ox, Ox, Ox,” and I panicked, grabbing the crowbar, telling my mother to stay in her room. She had a dagger already pulled out, and I stopped to tell her that she looked like a badass. She rolled her eyes and told me to go see what was wrong.
I opened the door and Joe said, “Ox.”
He wasn’t injured. There was no blood. Nothing was chasing him. He was okay. Physically. It didn’t matter. I pulled him close and his hands were in my hair and he shuddered as he pressed against me.
“What happened?”
He said, “Frankie,” and I wondered at the state of my head and heart when I began to plot the death of a seventeen-year-old boy who loved chunky peanut butter and cartoons. I told myself that if he’d hurt Joe, there wouldn’t be pieces left to bury.
“What did he do?”