I pressed my own down against his.
He wrapped his fingers around my wrist.
I did the same to him.
We breathed in sync.
And I pushed.
The raven spread its wings.
The bonds between us all flared to life.
I heard them.
Even the ones who weren’t with us. They whispered in my head, telling me they were here, they were here with us, with me. That no matter what happened, no matter what came down upon us, we were Bennetts, and this was our territory. This was our home. And no one was going to take that away from us.
We were the goddamn Bennett pack.
And our song would always be heard.
I pushed through everything, even as the vines and thorns began to tighten around my arm. I saw it—
heard it felt it touched it yes touched it because he is me and i am him i am
wolf
i am
alpha wolf
—and it was stronger than I expected it to be, stronger than it’d been before. There was Dinah Shore singing about how she didn’t mind being lonely when she knew my heart was lonely too. There was Joe, Joe, skinny little Joe, saying it was pinecones and candy canes, it was epic and awesome. There was the quiet hum of an SUV underneath us, tires spinning on the road, and boy-wolves talking about how when they got home, there’d be mashed potatoes and carrots and roast, and all of us ignoring the tears on their faces. There was a woman, a wonderful woman, a sweet woman, saying there was a soap bubble in his ear, and they were dancing, oh god, they were dancing and everything was fine and nothing hurt. It was—
too much it was too much it was too much for me for me for me to
take
i can’t take it
i can’t do this
i can’t
it’s
—brighter then, and heavier, and there were brothers lying on top of each other, breathing each other in after being apart for so long. It was the feeling of a body heavy with child, a hand on the wide curve of a stomach, whispering sweet nothings of warm love. It was the way the humans felt amongst the wolves, like they’d once been lost but had finally found their way home. It was a wolf who didn’t belong anywhere finally finding somewhere he could stay, somewhere he could call his own. It was so big, it was so much bigger than I thought it could ever be, so much—
more
i need
more
gordo gordo gordo
pack
brother