“Hmm,” my mother said. Then, “Ox? What do you think?”
Everyone held their breath.
And I… what.
Stared, maybe. My skin felt too tight.
Like it would split.
Like it would split and then I’d wake up because it was just a dream. All of it was just a dream.
And so I said, “Why?” because that was the one thing I couldn’t quite figure out. The one thing I couldn’t get. My daddy was dead but he’d said I was gonna get shit, and this wasn’t shit. This was terrifying, this was opportunity. This was responsibility, and it wasn’t shit. It wasn’t shit at all.
“Why what?” Joe asked. He sounded confused.
“Why me?”
Now he scowled. “Why not?”
“You’re going to be Alpha one day.” And he’d be a great one.
“And?”
I looked down at my hands. “That’s important.”
“I know.”
“I’m not….”
“You’re not what?”
“You know. Anything.”
Then he was in front of me and he was pissed. He practically vibrated with it. “Shut up,” he said. “Just shut up.”
I said, “Joe—” but he cut me off with, “You don’t get to say that. You don’t get to even think something like that.”
“You’re seventeen—”
He was snarling now, and I knew if I looked up at him, his wolf would be fighting through. “So? You think I don’t know what I’m doing? You think that because I’m only seventeen I don’t know what I’m talking about? I haven’t been a kid for a very long time, Ox. That was taken away from me the first time he made me scream into the phone so my mom could hear it as he broke my fingers. I haven’t been a kid since he ripped it from me and made me into something else. I know what this is. I know what I’m doing. Yes, I’m seventeen years old, but I knew the day I met you that I would do anything for you. I would do anything to make you happy because no one had ever smelled like you did. It was candy canes and pinecones. It was epic and awesome. And it was home. You smelled like my home, Ox. I’d forgotten what that was like, okay? I’d forgotten that because he took it away from me and I couldn’t find it again until I found you. So don’t you sit there and say I’m only seventeen. My father gave Mom his wolf when he was seventeen. It’s not a matter of age, Ox. It’s when you know.”
My voice was hoarse when I said, “But I’m not—”
“Shut up!” he cried. “You know what? No. You don’t get to decide what you’re worth because you obviously don’t know. You don’t get to decide that anymore because you have no fucking idea that you’re worth everything. What do you think this is? A joke? A decision I made just for the hell of it? It’s not. It’s not destiny, Ox. You’re not bound by this. Not yet. There’s a choice. There is always a choice. My wolf chose you. I chose you. And if you don’t choose me, then that’s your choice and I will walk out of here knowing you got to choose your own path. But I swear to god, if you choose me, I will make sure that you know the weight of your worth every day for the rest of our lives because that’s what this is. I am going to be a fucking Alpha one day, and there is no one I’d rather have by my side than you. It’s you, Ox. For me, it’s always been you.”
So I said, “Okay, Joe.” I looked up at him. His wolf was close to the surface.
And he said, “Okay?”
I said, “Okay. Okay. I don’t know if I see the things you do.”
“I know.”
“And I don’t know if I’ll be good enough.”
“I know you will,” he said, eyes flashing orange.
“But I promised you. I said it will always be you and me.”