Wolfsong

by T. J. Klune

  I choked out, “I’m sorry.”

  The wolf huffed and leaned forward, neck on my shoulder, head curling around my back, pulling me close.

  I fell against him, pushing my face against his chest.

  He smelled of the forest. Of pine and oak. Of a summer breeze and a winter wind. I’d never smelled that on him before, not like this. Not this strong.

  He let me stay against him, waiting for me to stop trembling. He was warm. I was safe.

  Eventually, I calmed.

  I pulled away, the side of his head trailing against my ear.

  He sat in front of me, tail thumping along the ground.

  He waited.

  I looked down at my hands. What could I say to him? What could I possibly say to let him know how sorry I was? How I should have done more to keep his pack together? How I thought I’d done my best. How I only wanted to keep them all safe. How I did what I thought was right. How angry I was that a monster could come and take everything away from me, could steal me from the people I loved the most. How his son was the only person I could ever see myself with.

  And how, when I’d needed him the most, he’d been there for me.

  As my friend.

  As my packmate.

  As my Alpha.

  As my father.

  I looked up at him.

  If a wolf could smile, then I thought it would look like he did right then.

  I said, “I have a choice, don’t I?”

  He cocked his head at me.

  I said, “To go with you.”

  He looked back behind him, toward the woods. There was movement there now. In the trees all around us I could hear the sounds of other wolves. Yipping. Barking. Singing. Howling. There were dozens of them. Maybe hundreds.

  They called to me. They sang, we’re here we’re ready when you are pack and son and brother and love we’re ready and we can wait for as long as you need.

  Thomas turned toward me.

  I said, “Or I could go back.”

  He huffed again.

  I said, “My daddy told me I was gonna get shit. Before he left. Did you know that?”

  He whined low in his throat.

  “He told me that. He said I was just a dumb ol’ Ox who was gonna get shit all my life. But he was wrong.”

  The wolves in the forest howled.

  “He was wrong,” I said. “Because Joe found me. And brought me to you. You gave me purpose. You gave me a home. A pack. A family.”

  The wolf’s eyes were wet and bright.

  “You are my father,” I said, though my voice broke. “In everything but blood.”

  And I felt it then. The bond. The thread that stretched between us, even in death. It wasn’t as strong as it had been, and it probably would never be while I still lived, but it was there.

  And there was a whisper along it.

  The quietest of voices.

  It said, Take care of them for me, my son.

  Thomas Bennett leaned forward and pressed his nose to my forehead.

  And I said, “Oh.”

  I OPENED my eyes.

  I was in a darkened room.

  There was heat on all sides of me.

  I felt safe and warm.

  And more. Because there was more.

  There were soft thumps overlapping in the room.

  Some were in time with each other.

  Others were not.

  But they were all slow and sweet.

  It took me a moment to figure out what they were.

  Heartbeats.

  I could hear hearts beating.

  Picked them out one by one.

  There were ten of them in the room with me.

  There should have been eleven.

  There should have been eleven.

  There should have been—

  “Hush,” a voice whispered near my ear. A cool hand came to my heated brow and brushed my hair off my forehead. “You’ll wake the others.”

  “I wasn’t even talking,” I muttered weakly.

  “I know,” Elizabeth said. “But you don’t have to. Not anymore.”

  I knew what she meant. Why she meant it. It didn’t seem possible.

  And I knew the heartbeat that was missing.

  “Joe?” I asked.

  “Close your eyes,” she said near my ear. “Because things are different now and you must find a way to hold on to your humanity. Close your eyes, Ox. And listen.”

  I did.

  I heard many things.

  I felt even more.

  There were the heartbeats of my pack, lying around me on the living room floor at the house at the end of the lane. Pillows and blankets had been placed around us, and everyone had curled up against each other, reaching and touching in some way, the wolves curled around the humans. I was at their center. Elizabeth was somewhere near my head. There was an empty space to my right.

  I heard their breaths.

  The little sighs they made in their sleep.

  I smelled them too. Sweat and dirt and blood, but underneath that it was the forest and the trees, sunlight filtered through a canopy of leaves, and that smell right before a thunderstorm, ozone-sharp and earthy.

  But there was another smell. A baser smell, embedded into each of them.

  I recognized it as my own.

  They all smelled like me.

  Like their Alpha.

  It wasn’t just mine, though.

  Because inlaid with my own scent, there was the heavy scent of another.

  And this one, oh this one sunk its claws into me at the base of my neck and the base of my spine and yanked.

  I growled, more animal than human.

  The pack stirred around me but did not awaken. I heard their heartbeats elevate slightly at the sound that crawled up from my throat.

  I let it pull me farther.

  There was the house at the end of the lane.

  There was the smell of pack that had sunk into the wood.

  There were voices, echoes of the past, people gathering on a Sunday because it was tradition.

  There was the scent of another Alpha, but it didn’t rankle.

  It was built into the rest of the house.

  Every board. Every wall. Every tile.

  He was here, with us.

  And he always would be.

  Farther.

  There were the grounds around the house at the end of the lane.

  A little tornado demanding that his parents tell him of candy canes and pinecones. Of epic and awesome.

  There was another house.

  An old house.

  A house once saddened by the cowardice of a father.

  A house made whole by the love of wolves.

  The blood on the floor, hidden from sight but buried in the bones.

  She had laughed here.

  She had popped soap bubbles here.

  She had sat at a table and told me we’d be all right, she’d showed me that we’d both be all right.

  There was a line, a connection between these two houses, a thread stronger than I’d ever seen that bound them together. They weren’t separated. They were one and the same. They had been for a very long time.

  Farther, I had to go farther.

  It pulled.

  I pushed.

  Through the grass. Through the trees.

  I heard every bird.

  I heard every deer.

  I heard the possums hidden in the brush.

  The voles underground.

  The squirrels up the sides of the tree.

  There was a town in the mountains.

  There were people who lived in this town.

  I couldn’t feel them, not like I could feel the pack.

  But I was aware of them.

  Like I was on the outside, barely looking in.

  There was a sense of them.

  My pack were bright beacons in the dark.

  The people of Green Creek were fuzzy stars at the edges of space.

 
; But they were there.

  I pushed.

  It pulled.

  The pack shifted around me, heartbeats syncing up one by one, both human and wolves.

  Elizabeth sighed.

  There was a clearing in the middle of the woods.

  It tasted of lightning and magic.

  Of claw and fang.

  And in the middle of this clearing sat a man who had once been a boy.

  A boy who I had loved.

  Then a monster had come to town with murder on his mind and tore a hole in our heads and hearts.

  The boy chased after the monster with revenge in his bloodred eyes.

  The monster was gone now.

  And so was the boy. Because a man had taken his place.

  And this is where it pulled me, this is where I pushed it, because there was a thrum under my skin, the movement of an animal wanting to burst out of me.

  The people of Green Creek were fuzzy stars.

  The pack around me were lights in the dark.

  This boy, this man was the sun, bright and all-consuming.

  The animal in me roared to be freed.

  Elizabeth Bennett whispered, “Go.”

  I went.

  I WAS out the door and into the grass when it happened.

  There was a great ache in my body, a pain I’d never experienced before. My muscles seized as I stepped off the porch and dropped to my hands and knees. I couldn’t find a way to draw in a breath. Everything was too loud. The heartbeats. The forest. Green Creek. They were all screaming for me, they were screaming OxOxOx and I opened my mouth to scream back, but the sound that came out was low and guttural, a snarl no human could have made.

  My bones began to crack and break, the pieces rearranging themselves. Hair began to sprout along my skin, and it was black like the deepest part of the night, and I couldn’t stop it, I couldn’t fight it.

  Claws popped out from underneath my fingernails, the strain of it tremendous.

  There was a brief moment, a human moment, when I realized what was happening, that it shouldn’t have been possible, that I had died, Richard’s hand in me, my guts spilling out of me. I believed in magic. I believed in the impossible. I believed in werewolves and the call of the moon.

  I almost didn’t believe this was happening.

  It’s a dream it’s a dream it’s a—

  It wasn’t a dream, though, because the pain was extraordinary. It had to be, with the way everything inside me was breaking and shifting. I cried out again, my voice even less human than it’d been before. It came out garbled, and there was the thought of I’m turning, oh my god I’m turning I’m—before it dissolved.

  The pain faded.

  I was I was I was I was I was I was I was I AM

  a wolf

  colors there are

  blacks and whites

  blue there is blue i see blue it’s

  in the moon it’s in the moon

  it’s green

  everything is green

  there are others

  here i can feel the others

  it’s pack it’s home it’s mine it’s ours ours ours ours

  they’re here

  in pack house they’re they’re standing there standing there and watching

  i am

  Alpha

  i am their

  Alpha

  eyes

  my

  eyes

  are

  Alpha

  yes they are mine

  all of them

  oh my god the woman said the young woman the human woman who i

  knew because she was mine

  not mine

  both pack but nothing else because of him because of him because of

  he’s turned the wolf mother said he’s turned because he feels him calling

  holy shit alfa one of the human men said that is a gnarly fucking wolf

  yes

  i am wolf i am gnarly am gnarly wolf

  uhhh other human man said why is he growling at us like that

  can’t you feel it in the bonds the witch said laughing witch my witch my he’s being a smug fucking bastard he liked when you called him gnarly

  yes because i am

  Alpha

  i am big

  and strong

  i take care of my pack they are mine they are

  mine to protect because i am

  Alpha

  oh jesus the last human man said he’s going to be insufferable after this

  i show them my teeth

  they are not afraid they laugh because they are not afraid

  good i don’t want them to be

  afraid of me because they are mine

  and i am theirs theirs theirs but

  but

  where is mine

  where is mine

  where is mine mine mine

  sing for him

  i need to sing

  loud song so he can hear me in the trees

  i sing

  the trees they shake with it with my song they shudder and shake my song is

  the trees are mine

  the grass is mine

  all of this is mine

  my territory

  answer me

  sing me home sing for me sing it—

  song song song song song song song song song song songsongsongsongsongsong

  in the clearing

  i hear it i hear it it’s for me it’s calling me he’s calling me because he is

  my

  pack

  my

  mate

  my

  Alpha

  i sing for him i sing back for him i sing for him to hear i am coming mate i am

  i run

  toward the song he sings for me

  i run

  toward the heart that beats for me

  i run

  because he has called me

  because he is singing me home

  through the trees

  i sing

  my song is

  i sing

  i’m coming

  please don’t leave

  please wait for me

  please love me

  i am wolf

  i am Alpha

  i am yours

  you are

  mine mine mine mine

  i see you

  do you see me

  are you angry

  are you scared

  are you mad at me

  you smell sad

  you smell like me but sad please don’t be sad why are you sad i am here with

  you and you don’t have to be

  boy man wolf Alpha

  please

  ox he said ox ox

  why won’t you look at me

  why won’t you see me i am here with you i am

  your skin tastes like salt

  crying

  are you crying

  don’t cry

  you can’t be sad

  i don’t like it when you’re sad

  he said i thought

  he said his hand

  he said it was in you ox

  he said you bastard

  he screamed how could you

  he screamed how could you leave me

  he is angry at me

  please don’t be angry

  i am here i am wolf Alpha pack mate

  and i can feel it

  it’s clawing at me

  my wolf

  it wants to bite

  and kill

  i am so angry now

  you are angry

  i am angry

  you can’t stop me

  you can’t stop this

  this is

  i am wolf

  i am

  Alpha

  he said no no ox no i’m sorry

  he said that’s not how this is supposed to be

  he said i am here

  i am here with you for you ox because you have always done the same to me you are candy
canes and pinecones you are epic and awesome you are the only reason why i was able to get through the years i was gone i cut us off and tried to push you out of my mind but when it was late when it was dark i would think of you of coming home to you of being with you being happy being home because ox you’re my home without you i am nothing i am no one you are my love my life my pack my mate so i need you to focus i need you to listen to my heart to my voice to my breaths i am your Alpha and i can’t do this without you so you come back you come back you fucking come back to me ox

  i listen

  his breaths

  his voice and words

  his heart

  and i

  i am

  i am

  I AM OX I AM OX I AM—

  shifting and

  “Holy fucking shit,” I gagged as I fell to human knees. There was a hand on my back, the fingers warm against my skin, as I fought back against my churning stomach. The world was too loud around me, like I could hear every single thing in a ten-mile radius. I was assaulted by the smells of the forest.

  The shift tried to push its way forward again, my claws digging into the dirt. My gums itched, and I wanted to push for it, I wanted it to come.

  He said, “Ox.”

  I growled at him.

  The Alpha said, “Ox.”

  Everything paused.

  He knelt in front of me.

  He took my face in his hands and tilted my head up until I could see his eyes.

  They were red, a burning fire red, and they called to me, even now, even through the storm in my head, the wolf clawing just underneath the surface.

  He said, “Listen to me.”

  He said, “You’re here.

  He said, “With me.”

  He said, “And I will never leave you.”

  I said, “I don’t believe you.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  Yes. Yes. Yes. I grimaced as my muscles tightened. “I can’t—”

  “Ox,” he said sharply. “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes,” I bit out. “Yes. Yes.”

  “Then I need you to trust me now,” he said. “I am your Alpha. But you’re also mine. Ox, I bit you to save you. You’ve turned. You’re no longer human. You’re a wolf, Ox. Like me. And Carter and Kelly. Mom. Mark. You’re a wolf, okay?”

  “My eyes,” I managed to say. “What color are my eyes?” Because I couldn’t help but think they were violet, that I didn’t have a pack anymore, because I was never part of the pack to begin with. Joe was the Alpha. He’d come home and he would be in charge and they’d have no place for me, they wouldn’t need—

  “Red,” he said quietly. “Your eyes are red.”

  “Fuck,” I breathed and everything snapped into place.

  I NEVER thought about control.