Ravensong (Green Creek 2)

“Don’t,” I begged. “Don’t do this. Leave. Drive away.”

He didn’t hear me. He pushed open the door and climbed out of the car.

I reached for him and—

here he’s home i’m home hear his heartbeat resting sleeping home home home

—my hand went right through him, my hand that had been taken from me but was here now, in this place.

He walked toward the front door.

It turned violet, and the ground cracked beneath our feet.

From somewhere behind me, I heard the snarl of a feral wolf.

I screamed at him to stop.

I saw the moment it hit him. His nostrils flared. His eyes flashed orange.

His shoulders slumped.

But still he knocked on the door.

I answered eventually, standing there with jeans low on my hips, the marks of another man littering my skin.

“Who?” Mark asked, and now, with everything I’d seen, with all that we’d been through, I could hear the sound of his heart breaking in that single word.

“You don’t call, you don’t write,” the younger version of myself said, as if I didn’t have a care in the world. “What’s it been? Five months? Six?”

Six months. Fifteen days. Eight hours.

“Who is he?”

The house shook. I was the only one who could see it.

I grinned, and I hated how it looked. “Don’t know. Got his name, but you know how it goes.”

“Who the fuck is he?”

I stood up straight. The tattoos glowed briefly, the roses shifting, the raven spreading its wings. “Whoever the fuck he is is no goddamn concern of yours. You think you can show up here? After months of radio silence? Fuck off, Mark.”

“I didn’t have a choice. Thomas—”

“Yeah. Thomas. Tell me, Mark. Just how is our dear Alpha? Because I haven’t heard from him in years. Tell me. How’s the family? Good? Got the kiddos, right? Building a pack all over again.”

I took a step up behind Mark. I leaned forward, and even though it wasn’t real, it couldn’t be real, I felt the heat of his skin near mine. “Don’t listen to him,” I whispered fiercely. “I’m here. I’m here with you.”

“It’s not like that,” Mark snapped.

“The fuck it isn’t.”

“Things have changed. He’s—”

“I don’t care.”

“You can shit all over me all you want. But you don

’t get to talk about him like that. Regardless of how angry you are, he’s still your Alpha.”