“Yes.”
She sighed. “Can you show her mercy?”
“Yes.”
“Can you keep her from hurting anymore?”
“Yes.”
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the forehead. “Be her Alpha, Ox,” she whispered. “She would thank you for it, if she could.”
Then she was gone.
Kelly gave us one last look before he followed his mother, shutting the door behind him.
The Omega whined, spittle dripping down her chin.
“I’ll do it,” I told him. “I’ve done it before. This doesn’t have to be on you. You don’t have to do this, Ox.”
He was watching the Omega. “My father told me I was going to get shit all my life.”
“I know.” If he wasn’t already dead, I would have hunted him down and killed him myself.
“That people would never understand me.”
“Yeah, Ox.”
“That I would never be able to do the right thing.”
“He was wrong.”
Ox looked at me. “He was. Because I have you. And Joe. The pack. I have a family. People who don’t give me shit. People who understand me.”
“You still don’t have to do this.”
The Omega snarled in my direction. For a moment I thought she was going to launch herself at me, but Ox growled at her, and she cowered back into the corner.
His hands were in fists at his sides. “Do you think it hurts? Losing your mind.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t?”
“Do you?”
“My mother.”
Ah. “It wasn’t the same for me. I didn’t—my mother wasn’t the same as Maggie.”
“No. I don’t expect anyone was the same as her. She was… special.”
“I know, Ox.”
“I felt cold. Like I had ice in my head. Everything was frozen. It ached, and I couldn’t find a way to stop it. All I wanted was revenge, even if I didn’t mean it. I made mistakes.”
I didn’t know if we’d ever get past the decisions that followed the coming of the beast. “Joe would have gone even if you hadn’t said anything.”
“Maybe. You lost your pack once.”