The wolf was gone. There was only the door.
But I could still feel him under my skin.
He was with us.
He would always be with us until the day we stood in a clearing and were together again.
But if I had my say, it would be a long time before that happened.
I didn’t reach for the doorknob. It was useless to me. I wasn’t going to open the door.
I was going to break it.
With the strength of the pack behind me, I pressed my palms flat against it.
Little pinpricks of light shot through the grain of the wood. They were Alpha red and Beta orange and Omega violet. There was the blue of all we had lost and the sweet green of relief that it had finally come to this.
My arms were covered in roses, an unkindness of ravens.
The roses bloomed.
The ravens flew.
And I pushed.
The door vibrated underneath my hands. The growling and scratching on the other side grew louder.
I pushed harder.
The door rattled in its frame, and I gritted my teeth as a bright pain lanced through my head, sharp and terrible. It was fighting back against me, the magic in my blood curdling.
It said, I know what you’re doing.
I know what you think you’ll achieve.
And maybe… maybe you’ll win.
You are stronger than I thought possible.
But this is just a battle, Gordo. One tiny little fight.
There is still the war.
I will bring it to your doorstep.
I will take what is rightfully mine.
And there is nothing you can do to stop me.
You will lose, in the end.
You will lose everything.
I looked up at the door, and between my hands, between the pinpricks of light, the wood began to warp outward. I didn’t understand what I was seeing, at least at first. I knew that voice. God, how I knew it. Once, while an Alpha wolf h
eld me down, the same voice had told me it was going to hurt, it was going to hurt like nothing I’d ever felt before.
You’ll think I’m tearing you apart, and in a sense, you’re right. You have magic in you, child, but it hasn’t yet manifested. These marks will center you and give you the tools to begin to control it. I will hurt you, but it’s necessary for who you’re supposed to become. Pain is a lesson. It teaches you the ways of the world. We must hurt the ones we love in order to make them stronger. To make them better. One day you’ll understand.