“Layers,” he said with a chuckle. “So many layers. She is mine and I would do anything for her. She makes me stronger because of that. An Alpha needs it more than any other. I wouldn’t be without her.”
“And that’s what I’ll be to Joe?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Or more. You’re different, Ox. I don’t think even I know how different. It will be truly a sight to behold. And I, for one, can’t wait to see it.”
“See what?”
“Your everything,” he said.
The sun disappeared behind a cloud overhead. “Why did you let him?”
“Let him?”
“Give me his wolf.”
“Because he chose to.”
I frowned. “You could have stopped him.”
“I suppose.”
“Carter said you tried to.”
“Because we didn’t know you.”
“But you let him anyway. Why?”
Thomas touched my shoulder. “Because Joe of all people should have been allowed to make a choice. After all he’d been through. And for the first time since we’d gotten him back, he had a choice. He chose to speak to you. He chose to bring you back to the house. He chose to hold your hand. That’s what life is, Ox. Choices. The choices we make shape what we’ll become. For a long time, Joe’s choices were taken from him. And then they were ruled by fear. But you came along and he made his own choice. So yes. I could have stopped him. I could have told him to wait. I could have told him no. But I didn’t because he chose. He chose you, Ox.”
“Who was it?”
Thomas looked away.
I said, “I need to know.”
“Why?”
“Because if I’m choosing this, I’m choosing all of it.”
His name was Richard Collins. He’d been an Alpha until it had been stripped from him. He’d raped and murdered members of his own pack. Fed humans to the more feral of them. He was a monster and he did not care. They tore the Alpha from his body, but he escaped before they could do anything more.
Thomas and Richard had been friends when they were children. Here. In this territory. They were pack and they loved each other very much. As brothers.
Human hunters had come one day.
Thomas and his father had been away.
They tortured Richard’s mother and father in front of him. Many others too.
Flesh charred and the air filled with ash.
Much of the Bennett pack was gone.
Richard had gone away then.
No one knew how he’d become an Alpha. Magic, maybe. Murder. Sacrifice.
He was cruel and he took life and hope away, until he was caught.