Ravensong (Green Creek 2)

He was such a liar. “No, I don’t know why he’s in my head. I don’t know what it means. I don’t even know if it was real. Or if he’s even in Green Creek. If there’s a bunch of Michelle’s asshole witches here, do you really think he’d try and show his face?”

Mark rubbed his jaw. “Unless he’s also working with Michelle.”

I glared at him. “Don’t. Don’t you fucking say that. You’re going to jinx us, and I will fucking light you on fire without a second thought.”

He grinned at me. “Nah. I don’t think you would.”

I liked him better when we despised each other. “He would never do that. Not like Elijah. It would be beneath him.”

“Because he hates wolves. That’s what you told Michelle. He would blame them for… everything.”

“Yeah.”

Mark grabbed my gloved hand. I turned to look at him, a question on my face.

He was studying me thoughtfully, and it made me uncomfortable. I was so used to hiding everything from him, and this shift between us, this thing I’d spent most of my life ignoring, wasn’t something I had prepared for. I was dizzy with it.

He said, “You’re not him.”

I tried to tug my hand away, but he held on tight. “I know.”

“Do you?” he asked. “Because I don’t know if—”

“Jesus fuck, Mark. I told you I didn’t want to hear your bullshit about—”

“He made his choice,” Mark said, “to do what he did. And even though you could have done the same, even though you had every right to hate us with everything you had, you didn’t.”

“I did,” I retorted, suddenly angry for reasons I didn’t understand. “I did hate you. And Thomas. And Elizabeth. I hated wolves and packs. I hated you.”

“But part of you didn’t,” Mark said, sounding sure. “Your story, it—” He shook his head. “You could have become the villain, Gordo. And it would have been within your rights. Instead you just chose to be an asshole.”

“Are you… complimenting me? Because if you are, you’re doing a really bad job at it.”

He smiled his secret smile, but it faded almost as soon as it appeared. “You’re not your father.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

I jerked my hand away. “That’s not what this is about. It’s about some jackasses that think they can come into our territory and fuck with us. It’s about the fact that I haven’t gotten to kill anything in weeks, and it’s starting to piss me off.”

“You do get grumpy when that happens.”

“Right,” I said, scowling at him. “So maybe stow the introspective shit until later, okay?” He opened his mouth to respond, but I cut him off. “And I swear to god, if you say there may not be a later, I won’t be responsible for what happens next.”

The smile returned. “Your threats don’t sound so bad now that I know you’ve got my wolf tattooed on your chest.”

“Bite me,” I snapped, stalking off after the Alphas.

Mark chuckled behind me. “Oh, I will.”

Fucking werewolves.

ONCE THERE had stood an old covered wooden bridge that crossed over a stream along a dirt road leading out of Green Creek.

Then Richard Collins had come with Osmond and the Omegas, and it had been destroyed in everything that followed.

The bridge, it was said later, had been too old. It hadn’t been maintained as well as it should have.