Brothersong (Green Creek 4)

His black hair hung down around his face, his dark eyes narrowed. He was naked, his skin pale. His shoulders were hunched as he scowled down at me, the hair of the timber wolf receding as he shifted back into human. He looked younger than I remembered him being in the brief moments I’d seen him in Caswell. He could have been my age.

“You fucking idiot,” he grunted, voice deep and raspy. “I told you. To stay away. To go home.”

And I said, “Gavin.”

Something crossed his face, and it was so fucking blue that my heart broke cleanly in two. It was fear and longing, rage and anguish all swirling together in a complicated storm.

He said, “Can’t be here.”

I said, “I found you.”

He said, “Never wanted this. Never wanted you.”

I said, “Too fucking late, you dick. You lie. I can hear it. I can hear it.”

He said, “Let you die.”

I reached up and touched his face. “You’re real.”

He reared back as Livingstone snarled above him. “Why are you here? What do you want?”

I closed my eyes. “To feel like I’m awake.”

And then I only knew darkness.

the only thing/nosy fucker

I stood in a clearing deep in the woods outside of a small mountain town.

The sun was warm on my bare back.

The trees swayed in a cool breeze.

The branches shook. The leaves shuddered.

I said, “What do you want from me?”

And there was no reply.

I said, “What am I supposed to do?”

And there was no reply.

I said, “Who am I supposed to be?”

And my father said, “You always did ask questions. You were curious, even before you learned to walk. I’d turn away from you for just a second, and when I’d look back, you were trying to crawl to the bookshelves. Or into the kitchen. Or to a tree. Once, when you were very young, I lost you.”

I hung my head.

A hand cupped my face, the thumb brushing over my cheek.

“I was tired,” he said. “I wasn’t prepared for what being an Alpha meant. I thought I was, but… your mother was taking a nap. She’d more than earned it. I took you outside, and you were in the grass near the porch. I closed my eyes, and they didn’t open as quickly as I expected them to. And when they did, you were gone.” He sighed, and it sounded like the wind in the trees. “It was white, the panic I felt. It consumed me, blocking my sight and smell and hearing. I almost fell down the steps. I looked around wildly, and I thought, No, please, not you too, please, you can’t leave me, you can’t leave me.”

I couldn’t look at him. It hurt too much.

“So I did the only thing I could.”

“You howled,” I whispered.