“And he took them East. To Maine. To her.”
“They’re better equipped to deal with Omegas.” I didn’t know how much I actually believed that.
But Ox let it go. “And if they couldn’t be saved? If they couldn’t find their tether?”
I stared at him, unblinking. “You know what happened then.”
He banged his fist on the desk. He was still a man, but barely. Ox was always in control and rarely lost himself to anger. Zen Wolf. “I didn’t want to send them to their deaths.”
I shook my head. “Sometimes there’s no other choice, Ox. A feral wolf is dangerous to everyone. Wolves. Witches. Humans. Can you imagine what would happen if a feral wolf found its way into a town? If that woman upstairs gave in to her wolf and trotted into Green Creek? How many people would die before she could be stopped? And if you had the chance to do something about it, and then didn’t, those deaths would be on you. Could you live with yourself knowing you could have ended it before it began?”
He looked away, jaw tensed. He was angry. I didn’t know at who.
“My father told me once that sometimes, for the good of many, you have to sacrifice the few.”
“Your father is a bastard.”
I laughed. “You’re not going to get any argument from me there.”
“But then so was mine.”
“Cut from a different cloth, but the end result was the same. Yours used fists. Mine used words.”
“And mine is nothing but dust and bones,” Ox said. “Even then, he still haunted me for a long time, saying I was gonna get shit all my life.”
“I’m glad he’s dead,” I said, uncaring how it sounded. “He didn’t deserve you. Or Maggie.”
“No. He didn’t. And Mom and me didn’t deserve what he did to us. But he’s gone, and his ghost is fading.”
“That’s—”
“But what about you?”
I took a step back. “What about me?”
He spread his fingers out across the desktop. “Your father. He’s bone and flesh. Magic, still. Again. Somehow.”
“I haven’t heard from him. I don’t know where he is.” The office felt smaller. Like the walls were closing in.
Ox’s eyes widened slightly. “I know that. That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then maybe get to your fucking point, Ox.”
“How did you manage? Before me.”
“Fuck you,” I said hoarsely.
“You said I was your tether.”
“You are.”
“And you said that there hadn’t been one for a long time before me.”
“Ox. Don’t.”
“How did you keep your mind?” he asked gently. “How did you keep yourself from giving in to your animal?”
A wooden raven, but he didn’t fucking need to know that. No one did. It was mine. It was for me. I survived when everyone else had left me behind, and no one could take that from me. Not even Ox. He didn’t need to know there’d been days I’d held on to it so tightly, it’d cut into my flesh, blood dripping down my arms. “Do you trust me?” I asked him through gritted teeth.