Ravensong

by TJ Klune

  I said, “Yeah, sure. Okay.”

  We got drunk. I had the third kiss of my life with a boy from a school two towns over. He tasted of cherries and beer, and I didn’t regret a single thing until I opened my eyes the next morning and promptly threw up over the side of the bed.

  WE TOOK our time. What should have taken two days of straight driving, we stretched out and out and out.

  On the fifth day, when we slept out under the stars because we couldn’t find a motel, Kelly asked me if I was nervous.

  “About?” I asked, taking a deep drag off my cigarette. The tip flared brightly in the dark. It reminded me of wolf eyes.

  He wasn’t fooled. He nudged his boot against mine.

  “No,” I said.

  “How did you do that?”

  “What?”

  “You just lied. But your heart didn’t give you away.”

  “Then how do you know I lied?”

  “Because I know you, Gordo.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said, and that was that.

  I WAITED for Thomas to call me and tell me he needed me, that the pack needed me with them and that he was sorry he’d ever left me behind.

  The call never came.

  I DREAMED sometimes. Of him. His broken body crawling toward me, his brown paws digging into the dirt, a low whine coming from his throat. I’d wake up gasping, and I’d reach for the wooden raven as if it meant something, as if it would help in any way.

  It didn’t.

  And then there were the nights I dreamed of Thomas Bennett, his son Joe crouched above him, begging him to get up, to just get up, my magic the only thing holding the beast back from taking what he so desperately wanted. I dreamed of that impulse I’d had, that tiny, miniscule impulse where I’d thought about dropping the barrier and letting Richard descend upon Thomas because he deserved it. He’d taken everything from me, and in that moment, when Joe lowered his claws to his father’s chest and the beast howled in anger, I’d understood Richard Collins.

  I never told anyone about that.

  I TURNED seventeen and lost my virginity. His name was Rick, and he was rough and unkind, his lips latching on to the back of my neck as he thrust into me, and I relished the pain because it meant I was alive, that I wasn’t numb to the way the world really worked. He came and slipped from me, the condom sliding from his dick and landing wetly on the pavement in the alleyway. He said thanks, I needed that, and I said, yeah, sure, my pants around my ankles. He walked away, and I laid my head against the cool brick, trying to breathe.

  I SAID, “He’s circling.”

  Joe looked at me, head cocked. He wasn’t the boy who’d left Green Creek three years before. He was harder now, and bigger. His head was shaved, his beard in need of a trim. He had filled out and was as big as his brothers. He wore the mantle of the Alpha well, and I thought if the boy that he’d once been wasn’t lost for good, he would do great things.

  “Richard. He’s circling. Whatever he’s after. His endgame. You. Green Creek. I don’t know. But it’s coming, Joe. And you need to be ready.”

  There was a song in my head, and it sang, PackBrotherWitch what makes you think i’m not and let him come let him come let him come.

  I thought then the boy I’d known was gone.

  I WAS seventeen when I graduated early. I wanted it done and over with.

  Mark was there.

  I looked for the others.

  He was alone.

  “They wanted to be here,” Mark said.

  I nodded stiffly.

  “But Thomas didn’t think it was safe.”

  I laughed bitterly. “Doesn’t seem to have a problem with me being here.”

  He said, “It’s not that. It’s—Elizabeth’s pregnant.”

  I closed my eyes.

  WE CROSSED into Oregon on a back road in the middle of nowhere.

  There were no signs.

  But I knew.

  So did the wolves.

  Carter’s and Kelly’s eyes were orange.

  Joe’s were red.

  They were singing. I tilted my head back and sang along with them.

  MARTY DIED.

  One moment he was there and laughing and yelling at me to get my ass in gear, and the next he was on his knees, his hands clutched to his chest.

  I said, “No, please, no.”

  He looked at me with wide eyes.

  He was gone before I even heard the sirens of the ambulance.

  That night I called my pack, needing to hear their voices. I got an answering machine.

  I didn’t leave a message.

  “OH MAN,” Carter said. “Do you think Mom will make her roast for us? Like, roast and carrots and mashed potatoes.”

  “Yeah,” Kelly said. “And there will be so much gravy. I’m going to put gravy on everything.”

  That sounded good to me too.

  HE LEFT me the garage.

  I blinked in disbelief at the lawyer standing in Marty’s old office. “Excuse me?”

  “It’s yours,” he said. He wore a frumpy suit and seemed to be perpetually sweating. He reached up with a handkerchief and wiped his brow. The collar of his shirt was soaked. “The garage. The house. The bank accounts. All of it. He amended his will two years ago. I advised against it, but you know how he is. Was.” He wiped his forehead again. “No offense.”

  “Son of a bitch,” I breathed.

  GREEN CREEK was two hours away when Joe pulled over to the side of the road.

  His hands tightened on the steering wheel.

  We didn’t speak.

  We just breathed.

  Finally I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “Okay, Joe. Okay.”

  He nodded, and after a beat, we drove on.

  Eventually, we passed a sign on the side of the road. It was in need of a paint job, the wood splintered and worn.

  It said WELCOME TO GREEN CREEK.

  “HIS NAME is Joe,” Mark whispered to me over the phone. “And he’s perfect.”

  I blinked away the burn.

  Later, I would hear from Curtis Matheson that they’d bought the blue house they’d been renting. Got it for real cheap too, or so he said.

  WE DITCHED the SUV northwest of town. The summer air was sticky and warm.

  Joe walked into the woods, hands outstretched, fingers brushing along tree trunks.

  His brothers followed as they always did.

  I brought up the rear.

  The earth pulsed beneath my feet with every step I took.

  My tattoos ached.

  The raven’s wings fluttered wildly.

  Eventually we found ourselves in a clearing.

  Joe fell to his knees and bent forward, putting his forehead into the grass, hands on either side of his head.

  We stood above him. Watching. Waiting.

  THERE WAS a knock at the door.

  I groaned, the early morning light filtering in through the window. It was my day off, and I could tell the hangover was going to be a bitch. My mouth felt rank, my tongue thick. I blinked up at the ceiling.

  It was about that time I realized I didn’t know the name of the man snoring in the bed next to me.

  I remembered bits and pieces. He’d been at the roadhouse the night before. I wasn’t legal to drink, but no one cared. I’d been four beers in, and I’d seen him eyeing me from the other end of the bar. He looked like a trucker, worn ball cap pulled low on his head, eyes hidden in shadow. He was the type that had a wife and two point five kids back home in Enid, Oklahoma, or Kearney, Nebraska. He’d smile at them and love them, and when he was on the road, he’d look for any willing thing with a warm hole. He needed to work his way up to it, though, and I waited for him to down his whiskey, making sure he was watching as I tilted my head back, exposing my neck as I took a long drink from the wet bottle. His eyes tracked the slow movement of my throat as I swallowed down the beer.

  I left a few bills on the bar, rapping my knuckles against the wood before pushing my
way up from the stool. Things were hot and hazy. A trickle of sweat dripped down my hairline to my ear.

  I was out the door, cigarette lit. I took maybe three steps before the door opened again.

  He wanted to take me in the alley.

  I told him I had a bed a few blocks away.

  He gripped my hips as he mouthed at my neck, scraping his lips up until his tongue was in my ear.

  He told me his name, and I told him mine, but it was lost.

  He fucked like a man used to furtive gasps in back rooms or rest stops. I choked on his cock, his grip tight in my hair. He told me my mouth was pretty, that I looked so good on my knees. He wouldn’t kiss me, but I didn’t mind. He pressed me facedown against the mattress, grunting as he fucked me.

  When he finished, he slumped onto the bed next to me, mumbling how he just wanted to close his eyes for a while.

  I got up and picked up the condom he’d let fall to the floor. I flushed it and then stared at myself in the mirror for a long time. There were teeth marks on my neck, a bruise sucked into my chest.

  I turned off the light and collapsed next to him.

  And now a knock, knock, knock at my door.

  The nameless man snored. He looked rougher in the morning light. Tired, and older. He hadn’t even taken off his wedding ring.

  “Yeah,” I said, voice like gravel. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

  I pushed myself off the bed, finding yesterday’s jeans on the floor. I pulled them up, not bothering to button them. They hung low on my hips. I shuffled to the door, wondering how much coffee I had left. I hadn’t been shopping in days.

  I opened the door.

  Mark’s nostrils flared.

  His gaze skittered over the marks on my neck and chest.

  I leaned against the doorway.

  “Who?” he asked in a barely contained growl.

  “You don’t call, you don’t write,” I said, rubbing a hand over my face. “What’s it been? Five months? Six?” Six months. Fifteen days. Depending upon what time it was, eight or nine hours.

  “Who is he?”

  I grinned lazily at him as I scratched my bare hip. “Don’t know. Got his name, but you know how it goes.”

  His eyes flashed orange. “Who the fuck is he?” He took a step toward me.

  You can’t trust them, Gordo. You can never trust a wolf. They don’t love you. They need you. They use you.

  I stood up straight. The raven shifted. Roses bloomed. The thorns tightened. “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.”

  His jaw tightened. “I didn’t have a choice. Thomas—”

  I laughed. It wasn’t a very nice sound. “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.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “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.” He was pissed. Good. “Regardless of how angry you are, he’s still your Alpha.”

  I shook my head slowly. “No. No, he’s not.”

  Mark took a step back, startled.

  I gave him a mean smile. “Think about it, Mark. You’re here. You can smell me. Underneath the spunk and sweat, I’m still dirt and leaves and rain. But that’s it. Maybe you’re too close, maybe you’re overwhelmed by the very sight of me, but I haven’t been pack for a long time. Those bonds are broken. I was left here. Because I was human. Because I was a liability—”

  He said, “It’s not like that” and “Gordo” and “I promise you, okay? I would never—”

  “A little late, Bennett.”

  He reached for me.

  I knocked his hand away.

  “You don’t understand.”

  I snorted. “There’s a world of things I don’t understand, I’m sure. But I’m a witch without a pack, and you don’t get to tell me shit. Not anymore.”

  He was getting angry. “So—what. Poor you, huh? Poor Gordo, having to stay behind for the good of his pack. Doing what his Alpha told him. Protecting the territory and fucking anything that moves.”

  I felt dirty. Nasty. “You wouldn’t touch me,” I said flatly. “Remember? I kissed you. I touched you. I begged for it. I would have let you fuck me, Mark. I would have let you put your mouth on me, but you told me no. You told me I had to wait. That things weren’t right, that the timing wasn’t right. That you couldn’t be distracted. You had responsibilities. And then you disappeared. For months on end. No calls. No check-ins. No how you doin’, Gordo? How you been? Remember me? Your mate?” I rubbed a couple of fingers against the mark on my neck. It burned so good. “I would have let you do so much to me.”

  His eyes burned. His teeth were sharper. “Gordo,” he growled, sounding more wolf than man.

  I took a step toward him.

  He tracked every movement, ever the predator.

  “You can, you know,” I told him quietly. “You can have me. Right now. Here. Choose me. Mark. Choose me. Stay here. Or don’t. We can go anywhere you want. We can leave right now. You and me. Fuck everything else. No packs, no Alphas. No wolves. Just… us.”

  “You would have me be an Omega?”

  “No. Because I can be your tether. You can still be mine. And we can be together. Mark, I’m asking you, for once in your life, to choose me.”

  And he said, “No.”

  I expected it. I really did.

  It still hurt more than I thought it would.

  For a moment my magic felt wild. Like it couldn’t be controlled. Like it would burst from me and destroy everything in sight.

  I was my father’s son, after all.

  But the moment passed, and left in its wake was nothing but a smoking crater.

  He said, “Gordo. I can’t—you can’t expect me to—it’s not like that—”

  I took a step back.

  His anger was gone. Only fear remained.

  “Of course you can’t,” I said, voice hoarse. “What was I thinking?”

  I turned and went back into the house, leaving the door wide open.

  He didn’t follow.

  The unknown man was blinking blearily as I went back into my bedroom. “What’s going on?”

  I didn’t answer. I went to the nightstand and opened the drawer. Inside was a box, and in this box was a stone wolf I’d taken out time and time again, a promise broken over and over. I turned on my heels and was back down the hall, my mother’s voice in my head, telling me wolves lie, they lie, Gordo, they use you, and you may think they love you, they might even tell you they do, but they lie.

  They always do.

  I was a human.

  I had no place with wolves.

  He was still standing on the porch.

  His eyes widened when he saw the box in my hand.

  He said, “No.”

  He said, “Gordo.”

  He said, “Just wait. Please just wait.”

  I held it out to him.

  He didn’t take it.

  I said, “You take it. You take it now.”

  Mark Bennett said, “Please.”

  I thrust it against his chest. He flinched. “Take it,” I snapped.

  He did. His fingers trailed against mine. Gooseflesh prickled along my bare shoulders. The air was cool, and I thought I was drowning.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

  “You tell Thomas,” I said, struggling to get the words out while I still could. “You tell him I don’t want anything to do with him. That I don’t want to see him again. You tell him to stay out of Green Creek.”

  Mark looked shocked. “Or what?”

  “Or he won’t like what I’ll do.”

  I let myself have one last look at him. This man. Thi
s wolf. It was a second that lasted ages.

  And I turned and went inside, slamming the door shut behind me.

  He stood on my porch for a long minute. I could hear him breathing.

  Then he left.

  I allowed myself one last tear over Mark Bennett.

  But that was it.

  I would see him again, though I didn’t know it then. Years would go by, but one day he would return. They all would. Thomas. Elizabeth. Carter. Kelly. Joe. Mark. They would come back to Green Creek, and behind them, a beast that would mean the death of Thomas Bennett.

  WE SURROUNDED Joe as we stood in front of the Bennett house for the first time in three years, one month, and twenty-six days.

  In front of us stood a pack that we didn’t belong to.

  Elizabeth.

  Rico.

  Chris.

  Tanner.

  Jessie.

  A wolf in glasses who I didn’t recognize.

  Mark.

  A man whose father had told him once that people would give him shit for the rest of his life. That he wouldn’t amount to anything.

  And somehow, he had become an Alpha.

  ONE

  YEAR

  LATER

  fucking idiot/song of the alpha

  OXNARD MATHESON said, “You’re being a fucking idiot.”

  I didn’t look up from the computer. I was trying to figure out how to work the expense reports on the new program a certain bespectacled wolf had downloaded, but technology was an enemy I had yet to destroy. I was giving very real consideration to putting my fist through the monitor. It had been a long day.

  So I did what I did best. I ignored him in hopes that he would go away.

  It never worked.

  “Gordo.”

  “I’m busy.” I hit a button on the keyboard and the computer chimed an error message at me. I hated everything.

  “I can see that. But you’re still a fucking idiot.”