AT SOME point during the third month, we became cohesive.
There were still times where we clashed. You couldn’t have twelve people together like that and always get along.
But the clashes were few and far between, and were always shut down before they could escalate into something more.
Most stayed at either the Bennett house or the old house more often than they didn’t. Joe and I didn’t think to move from my old bedroom, even though the bed was too cramped. We fell asleep together, we woke together. We would rise in the mornings, him to take the wolves out into the woods, me to lead the boys to the garage, Jessie to work, a line of cars rolling through Green Creek in the early hours.
No matter what, though, every morning Joe would touch the wolf he’d given me, that little stone wolf that sat on my desk. He’d run his fingers over it, over the head and down the back to the tail. There would be a look of such reverence on his face, like he couldn’t believe I’d kept it, that I still wanted to keep it.
Without fail, we’d be late, because I’d have him pressed up against a wall, groaning as I sucked on his tongue.
He’d push for more. For me to fuck him. For him to fuck me.
But I couldn’t. Not yet.
I’d seen what had happened to Elizabeth when Thomas had died.
I’d seen how far she’d gone into her wolf.
If something happened to me now, well. I knew they would be upset. They’d feel it down to their bones. Joe might not recover. Or he would, and be stronger for it.
But if we were mated and something happened to me?
I didn’t think Joe could come back from that.
Because being mated meant being more than we were now.
He wanted it. I knew that. I wanted it more than anything else.
But I couldn’t do that to him. Just in case. I couldn’t take that chance.
Most likely we’d always have something over our heads. But I couldn’t think of anything worse than Richard Collins.
I told myself again and again that once he was gone, I would take everything Joe would give me.
Because Richard would be gone. He wouldn’t take this from me. From us. We were stronger than we’d ever been before. We were together. We were a pack like we’d never been before, all of us. We worked together. We lived together. We ate together. We were a family, and I’d already lost too many people to ever allow anyone else to be taken from me again. If it meant giving up my own life to make sure they were safe, then fine. So be it. As long as they were safe, I would have done my job as Alpha.
I didn’t want to die. But I wanted them to live more. And there was guilt with that.
Because I was there at night when the nightmares came. Joe Bennett was twenty-one years old, but he still dreamed of the things that had been done to him. Whenever he would start thrashing and whimpering, caught in the claws of whatever was in his head, I would wrap myself around him, holding him tightly, whispering in his ear that he was safe, that he was home, that I would never let anything happen to him. Not while I still breathed.
He would always sleep deeper after that. Safe, while I watched over him.
This was my family.
These people were my pack.
I would have done anything for them.
Which is why when Richard Collins came again, he came for me.
beast
THE BEAST said, “Hello, Ox.”
My grip tightened on the phone.
I tried to keep my heart from racing.