friend
love
mate
give him
more
give him
everything
more
more
more
—expansive than it should have been. It was the way we trained together, the way we laughed together, the way we ate together on Sundays because it was tradition. It was how we loved each other and would die for every single person in this pack pack pack.
It was a wolf who one day whispered to a wide-eyed boy it’ll be you and me forever and we are going to be our own pack and I will be your Alpha, and you will be my witch.
You are my family.
This wolf.
This great white wolf.
They had held me down, yes. An Alpha. My father.
They had held me down while magic was etched into my skin.
I hadn’t been given a choice.
My mother had seen that, in her own way.
And there.
There through the they don’t love you, they need you, they use you spinning furiously around us all, stood a door.
It was strong, because I had made it that way. This was my Alpha and tether. My friend and brother.
It’d held.
I pressed my ear to the door.
On the other side, something scratched against it, snarling angrily.
Many somethings.
I stood upright.
I looked over my shoulder.
Behind me stood my pack.
All of them. Even Chris and Tanner, though they flickered in and out. I didn’t know what it was costing them to be here, but I loved them more than I could ever say.