“A lot of good that does us now. He’s only god knows where, with Carter and Kelly. With Gordo. Fuck, we don’t even know if he’s alive. If any of them are.”
“They are.”
I stared at her. “You know this.”
“Yes.”
“Because….”
“Because I am a mother. And I am a wolf. I would know if they were gone, sure as I knew when it happened to Thomas.”
My throat felt dry. “I can’t feel them. Not like before.”
She reached out and grazed her fingers along my arm. I didn’t know if I wanted her touching me or not, but she drew her hand away before I could step back. “I don’t expect you could,” she said. “You’re not a wolf. Even if you are more than you used to be, it’s not the same.”
“Have you talked to him?” My heart thudded in my chest.
“No,” she said sadly. “I haven’t. Any of them. If I had, you would know. Ox, I understand why he did what he did, even if I don’t agree with it. It’s a terrible thing to lose a parent. As you very well know. And I don’t mean to minimize anything of yours, but Joe lost his father. And his Alpha. And then had to assume the role he’d be preparing for much earlier than he thought he’d have to.”
“It’s not about what’s right,” I told her. “It’s about revenge. Did you even try and stop him?”
She looked as if I’d slapped her and that was the only answer I needed.
“Look, it’s—”
“What would you have done?” she asked. “If you’d had the chance to make things right and ignored it only to find out your inaction caused others to suffer.”
She didn’t sound like she was judging me, merely curious. “I would have put the pack first,” I told her honestly. “Even though I was angry, and even though I wanted nothing more than to see Richard Collins dead, I would have kept the pack together. To keep them safe. To keep them whole. And once we were all back on even ground, we would have made a decision. Together. That’s what Thomas taught me. He said that above all else, pack comes first.”
She smiled a wobbly little smile. “He loved you,” she said. “Thomas did. Very much. As do the rest of us. Joe, above all others. I don’t know if you understand this, Oxnard, but we need you. More than you could possibly know.”
My eyes burned and I wanted nothing more than for her words to be true. “But what about what I need?” I asked her.
“You need us just as much as we need you.”
“I need him.”
“I know.”
“They need to come back.”
“I know.”
“Will they?”
She touched my arm briefly. “When they can.”
It wasn’t good enough, but I knew it was all she could give.
She said, “Let’s go—”
My phone rang.
It was shockingly loud in the quiet forest.
“Sorry,” I muttered. And for a brief moment, my heart tripped all over itself because I knew this was it. This was going to be Joe, and he’d say he was sorry, that he never meant to be gone this long, that he was coming home, that he’d never leave my side again and everything would be fine.
I fumbled with the phone. The screen was bright in the dark, blurring my eyes, and I couldn’t see, I couldn’t—