“You mean to kill. You’re okay with that?”
“Nothing about this is okay, Ox. But Joe’s right. We can’t let this happen to anyone else. Richard wanted Thomas, but how long before he goes after another pack just to become an Alpha? How long before he amasses another following, bigger than the one before? The trail is already growing cold. We have to finish this while we still can. This is revenge, pure and simple, but it’s coming from the right place.”
I wondered if I believed my own lies.
In the end:
“You should talk to him. Before you go.”
“Joe?”
“Mark.”
“Ox—”
“What if you don’t come back? Do you really want him to think you don’t care? Because that’s fucked-up, man. You know me. But sometimes, I think you forget that I know you just as well. Maybe even more.”
Goddamn him.
SHE STOOD in the kitchen of the Bennett house, staring out the window. Her hands were curled against the counter. Her shoulders were tense, and she wore her grief like a shroud. Even though I hadn’t wanted anything to do with wolves for years, I still knew the respect she commanded. She was royalty, whether she wanted to be or not.
“Gordo,” Elizabeth said without turning around. I wondered if she was listening for wolves singing songs I hadn’t been able to hear for a long time. “How is he?”
“Angry.”
“That’s to be expected.”
“Is it?”
“I suppose,” she said quietly. “But you and I are older. Maybe not wiser, but older. Everything we’ve been through, all that we’ve seen, this is just… another thing. Ox is a boy. We’ve sheltered him as much as we could. We—”
“You brought this upon him,” I said before I could stop myself. The words were flung like a grenade, and they exploded as they landed at her feet. “If you’d stayed away, if you hadn’t brought him into this, he could still—”
“I’m sorry for what we did to you,” she said, and I choked. “What your father did. He was—it wasn’t fair. Or right. No child should ever go through what you did.”
“And yet you did nothing to stop it,” I said bitterly. “You and Thomas and Abel. My mother. None of you. You only cared about what I could be to you, not what it would mean for me. What my father did to me meant nothing to you. And then you went and left—”
“You broke the bonds with the pack.”
“Easiest decision I ever made.”
“I can hear when you lie, Gordo. Your magic can’t cover your heartbeat. Not always. Not when it matters most.”
“Fucking werewolves.” Then, “I was twelve when I was made the witch to the Bennett pack. My mother was dead. My father was gone. But still, Abel held out his hand to me, and the only reason I said yes was because I didn’t know any better. Because I didn’t want to be left alone. I was scared, and—”
“You didn’t do it for Abel.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”
She finally turned and looked at me. She still had the afghan around her shoulders. At some point she’d pulled her blonde hair back into a ponytail, locks of which were loose and hung about her face. Her eyes were blue, then orange, then blue again, flickering dully. Most anyone who looked at her would have thought Elizabeth Bennett weak and frail in that moment, but I knew better. She was backed into a corner, the most dangerous place for a predator to be. “It wasn’t for Abel.”
Ah. So that was the game she wanted to play. “It was my duty.”
“Your father—”
“My father lost control when his tether was taken from him. My father has aligned himself with—”
“We all had a part to play,” Elizabeth said. “Every single one of us. We made mistakes. We were young and foolish and filled with a great and terrible rage at everything that had been taken from us. Abel did what he thought was right back then. So did Thomas. I’m doing what I think is right now.”