Ravensong

by TJ Klune

  Goddamn him for knowing what I was thinking. “Damn right you weren’t.”

  “And you weren’t mine.”

  I wanted a name. Tell me who the fuck it was. I’d find them. I’d fucking kill them. I said, “I don’t care.”

  His eyes flickered orange. “But I swear I’m going to be your last. Fight me. Hit me. Fucking light me up. Hate me all you want—”

  I bristled at that. “Get the fuck out of my head,” because I could hear him whispering gordo gordo gordo along that thread that stretched between us. It bounced around my skull until all I could do was hear him saying my name again and again and again. He was consuming me, and I wanted him to. I couldn’t stand the thought.

  “—but it’s going to happen. You hear me? I will hunt you down if that’s what it takes. You can run from me, Gordo. But I will always find you. I let you go once. I’m not going to make that mistake again.”

  “Fuck you. I want nothing to do with you.”

  He grinned, and it was all teeth. “I felt that. In your pulse. It stuttered. It shook. You lied.”

  “Do you whisper the same things to Dale?” I asked him, jerking my arm out of his hand. “When you fuck him? Do you lean over him and tell him that he’s going to be your only one?” I sneered at him. “Or does he mean nothing to you? Are you just using him to scratch that itch?”

  Something complicated crawled over his face, the smile fading. I couldn’t parse it because it was a jumble of too many things. “He’s not—it’s not like that.”

  “Does he know that?”

  “Deflecting. You’re always deflecting.”

  I snorted. “Bullshit. Just because you don’t want to hear it doesn’t mean it’s deflecting.”

  “I don’t need to—” He frowned. Closed his eyes. He grimaced, throat bobbing as he swallowed. For a moment he looked tense, muscles in his chest and arms clenching tightly.

  I wanted to reach out for him. I didn’t. “What’s wrong?”

  He opened his eyes again. “It’s… nothing. I just—that bite must have taken more out of me than I thought. I’m fine.”

  He did look paler than normal. “Shift, then. You’ll heal quicker. We need to get back to the house before Pappas wakes up. We need to figure out what the hell is going on.”

  He watched me, searching for what, I didn’t know. He nodded and took a step back. Moments later a large brown wolf stood before me. He whispered his songs in my head, and it was getting harder and harder to ignore them.

  HE FOLLOWED me back to my truck, ever my shadow, even though we weren’t the same people anymore. He made a low chuffing sound as I opened the door, and I looked back in time to see him disappearing in the trees, heading toward the Bennett house.

  I laid my head against the steering wheel, the leather cool against my forehead. My thoughts were chaotic, a storm of Mark and Mark and Mark. All the things I could have said. Like how the sound he’d made when Pappas had latched his teeth into his leg caused a red sheen to fall over my eyes. How I could have killed Pappas right then and there without a twinge of remorse. How I would have done it to anybody who tried to hurt him. Nobody hurt Mark Bennett. Especially right in front of me.

  Philip Pappas was lucky I hadn’t boiled him from the inside out.

  If the Alphas hadn’t come when they had—

  I took in a breath. And then another. And then another.

  There was a thrumming along the tangled web.

  It came from Ox. Always Ox.

  It said home pack safe home gordo home.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I muttered. “I hear you.”

  THE HOUSE at the end of the lane was brightly lit for the late hour. Jessie’s car was parked next to Ox’s. Someone must have called her. She wasn’t going to be happy. She had a class to teach in the morning.

  I turned off my truck and opened the door. The air felt colder. I could see my breath. I wanted a cigarette, but Elizabeth didn’t like when I smoked near the house. She said it made her nose itch.

  Speak of the devil.

  “Okay?” she asked as I came up the steps on the porch.

  I nodded. “Mark get back?”

  “He’s inside with the others. Rico? Chris? Tanner?”

  “Handling the SUV the wolves came in.”

  “That’s good.” Then, “Philip has a handprint burned into his flesh. It’s not healing. I’m told that’s your doing.”

  “I had to get him to stop.”

  “From hurting Mark. You must have been very angry.”

  Oh, she was good. “I would have done it for anyone in the pack.”

  She smiled serenely. “I believe you. Still. The skin is charred.”

  “It’s magic. It always takes longer for a wolf to heal. You know that.”

  “Of course. Thank you.”

  “For?”

  “Protecting Mark.”

  “I didn’t—Jesus Christ.”

  “He was worried about you when he left. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him run as fast as he did then.”

  “Not the time, Elizabeth.”

  “Merely recounting our side of the events that transpired in your absence. In case you were wondering.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  Her smile widened. “I don’t believe you. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  For the longest time, I’d had the same contempt for her that I’d felt for Thomas and Mark Bennett. She had known, just as they had, what was coming. She had tried to warn me, even if it’d only been moments before. In my twisted thoughts, that made her just as guilty as her husband. As her brother-in-law.

  It hadn’t helped when she’d returned with the pack and proceeded to manipulate Ox. Oh sure, they’d say of course they hadn’t. Of course they’d given him a choice. They kept the truth of it all from him for as long as they could, even if Joe had given Ox his little stone wolf without Ox understanding what it meant.

  I wasn’t absolved of sin. There was snowman wrapping paper and a shirt with his name stitched on the front that showed I was just as guilty as they were.

  But I’d fought against it. I’d tried to keep him from all of this for as long as I could. But when she’d looked up at me, eyes wet, begging me to help her son, to help Joe, I remembered the woman who had smiled at me from her bed, asking me if I wanted to hold Carter for the first time.

  There were days I couldn’t stand the sight of her.

  There were days I wanted to sit at her feet, my head on her knee.

  There were days I thought she was just like her husband. Because wolves lied. They used. My mother had taught me that.

  And then there were days like today, when I couldn’t help but feel irritatingly fond toward her, even if she was doing her best to piss me off.

  “I don’t care if you don’t believe me,” I told her.

  She rolled her eyes. “Well, that certainly wasn’t convincing.”

  “Bite me.”

  “I’m not the one who wants to bite—”

  “Don’t,” I warned her.

  “You’re quite adamant.”

  “Maybe because you’re not getting it.”

  “Oh, I think I get it just fine.” Her smile faded slightly. “Pappas, though.”

  “What about him?”

  “He has a pack.”

  “Yeah.” Michelle Hughes was his Alpha.

  “Then why is he acting like an Omega? He looked as if he didn’t recognize me when they brought him here.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. He’s… where is he?”

  “Basement. Jessie put a line of powdered silver at the doorway. Since the walls are reinforced, he can’t get out.” She paused, tilting her head. “He’s not talking yet. I don’t know if he’s capable.”

  I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I’ll head down. When the others get here, keep them upstairs. I don’t want to take any chances until we know what we’re dealing with.”

  “Of course. Think about what I said.”

  “Fuck you
very much.”

  She laughed quietly, reaching out and squeezing my hand before letting me walk away.

  CARTER WAS sitting in the living room, Kelly fretting above him. Robbie looked amused as Kelly tried to wipe the remnants of blood away from Carter’s face. “I’m fine,” Carter growled, shoving Kelly’s hands away. “Would you stop fussing? I didn’t even get hurt.” He grimaced. “Just Mark’s blood in my mouth. I don’t know why I always think it’s a good idea to lick open wounds when I’m shifted. I’m disgusting.”

  “I’ll get your toothbrush!” Kelly announced frantically before turning on his heel and running out of the room.

  “Is he always like that?” Robbie asked, staring in wonder after Kelly.

  Carter sighed. “Not… usually. He’s—he doesn’t like it when we’re separated. And then I come back covered in blood, it’s—just a lot for him, sometimes.” He narrowed his eyes as he looked up at Robbie. “And you are not allowed to give him shit for that. I will tear you in half if I ever hear you making fun of him.”

  Robbie looked horrified. “I would never do that.”

  “Just saying.” Carter saw me and tilted his chin in my direction. “All right?”

  “Yeah.”

  His nose wrinkled. “You smell like burnt skin.”

  “I wonder why.”

  “Hand of Fiery Doom?”

  I glared at him. “I told you not to call it that.”

  He shrugged. “Eh. Remind me never to piss you off.”

  “You piss me off all the time.”

  He grinned. His teeth were bloody. “Yeah, but you like me.”

  I did, but he wasn’t going to hear it from me. “Let Kelly take care of you. You know how he gets.”

  His smile softened. “Yeah, yeah.”

  I looked at Robbie. “And if you do anything to hurt Kelly, I’m going to stick my Hand of Fiery Doom so far up your ass, your throat will be on fire.”

  Robbie swallowed thickly as Carter laughed at him.

  I headed for the stairs. I heard the low rumbles of an injured and angry wolf. When I reached the basement, I saw Jessie first, standing against the far wall, a hardened look on her face.

  “Gordo,” she said when she saw me. She pushed herself off the wall. “What the hell is going on?”

  “I don’t know. Not yet, anyway. I want you upstairs. Better yet, go home. You have work in the morning. You’re not needed here now.”

  She tilted her head. “Are you telling me what to do?”

  Jessie could be scary when she wanted to be. I faltered. “Uh. Yes? Or. Asking. I think I’m asking.”

  She nodded slowly. “I thought so. I will.”

  “Good.”

  “After I help burn the bodies of those Betas they brought back.”

  I sighed. She wasn’t that little girl who’d giggled when Chris brought her into the shop for the first time. I didn’t know how I felt about that. “Get Carter and Kelly to help you. After Kelly finishes shoving a toothbrush in Carter’s mouth.”

  “I heard that!” Kelly yelled down the stairs.

  Jessie snorted. “Werewolves, huh?”

  “Fucking werewolves.”

  “The guys?”

  “Doing what I told them to. Because they actually listen to me.”

  She leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “Sure, Gordo.” She glanced at the other end of the basement before bounding up the stairs, ponytail bouncing behind her.

  I turned toward the others.

  The basement was the largest room of the Bennett house, and mostly sparse. The wolves tended to congregate down here after the full moons, sleeping on top of each other in piles, sometimes shifted and sometimes not. The humans had grown to need it almost as much as the wolves, with Rico loudly complaining about the amount of naked related people before usually passing out on top of a mound of overgrown werewolves.

  The far side of the basement had a large room off to the side, separated by a sliding door. The door and the room itself were reinforced with steel. Abel had it built decades before for young wolves still learning to control their shifts. He would stay with them, along with their parents, in order to keep the rest of the pack safe. Thomas had hated that room, thinking of it as a prison, promising that he’d never use it as his father had. Carter and Kelly hadn’t been old enough by the time the pack had left for Thomas to fulfill that promise. But Joe had, and instead, Thomas had taken the pack to the clearing.

  But he’d forced something that night, regardless.

  Your arms are glowing, Ox had said, eyes wide, face pale.

  Ox, who now stood tall and strong, arms crossed over his chest, eyes red as he watched Philip Pappas prowl the edges of the room. Joe stood to his right. Mark was on his left. They’d all dressed, at least partially. Joe and Ox wore jeans and nothing more. Mark had on a pair of sweats and a loose T-shirt. He was still favoring his arm, though it looked as if the skin had mostly mended.

  Ox said, “Gordo. Watch his eyes.”

  I did.

  Pappas was half-shifted, but it was like he was trapped, like he was trying to shift completely but couldn’t. He moved on his hands and feet, his claws scraping along the floor. What remained of his suit hung in tatters off his body. I could see my handprint on his leg, the skin still charred. It had only begun to heal, but it was moving slower than it should have on a wolf of his size and stature.

  His eyes were dark.

  And then orange.

  And then dark again.

  He bared his teeth at the sight of me.

  Then came the violet.

  It was only a second. But it was there.

  “Dammit,” I muttered. “I saw that earlier, but I didn’t—I thought it was a trick of the light.”

  “I don’t understand,” Mark said. “It’s not supposed to be like this. His tether isn’t latching. Like he’s lost it, somehow.”

  “Does he have a mate?” Ox asked. “Did something happen to them?”

  “He was fine when he was here earlier,” Joe said, a frown on his face. He looked so much like his father at that moment that I had to look away. “If anything, it would have been after he left.”

  Mark shook his head. “It wouldn’t have happened this quickly. It takes… time.”

  “Tell that to my father,” I said without meaning to.

  The wolves all turned slowly to look at me. Mark looked shocked.

  “What?”

  “That’s… I don’t know what that is,” Ox said.

  Joe squinted at me. “Did you just… make a joke? I don’t know if I’ve ever heard you make a joke.”

  “It wasn’t a joke. It was an observation.”

  “He can be funny,” Mark said to his nephew. He frowned. “Sometimes.”

  “He wasn’t feeling well earlier,” I said, trying to get them to focus. “When I was talking to him. There was a moment when he looked… I don’t know. Ill. Like he was getting sick. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but….”

  Ox was staring at me again. “When were you talking to him?”

  Shit. “He was trying to poach Robbie. Told him that Michelle would welcome him back if he wanted to.”

  Joe and Ox immediately wolfed out. Possessive assholes.

  “I already told him to fuck off,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Put the claws away. You guys look like idiots. And Joe, good to know you’re over the whole back away from my man thing. I thought you were going to piss on Ox.”

  Joe scowled at me. “I will bite your face off, so help me—”

  “Infection,” Ox said suddenly, watching me closely. “When we were in the woods, you said something about infection. You told me to get away from him right before he tried to bite me.”

  Gooseflesh prickled along the back of my neck. “It was something he said. On the phone. Fraying and breaking.” My thoughts were jumbled as I looked into the room. Pappas was pacing along the far wall, watching me closely. When our gazes met, he snarled at me but kept his distance.
“I didn’t think—it’s not possible.”

  “What is it?”

  You killed him. Richard was the Alpha to the Omegas. When he died, that passed on to you. And oh, they’re fighting it, I’m sure. Resisting the pull. But Green Creek was lit up like a beacon in the dark. Some can’t help but seek you out. Coupled with the draw of the Bennett territory, I’m only surprised there haven’t been more.

  How many more do you think there could be?

  Oh, I can’t even begin to speculate. But they will be dealt with, no matter what. We can’t afford to have our world exposed, no matter what the cost.

  Philip Pappas prowled the edges of the steel room as I said, “We need to talk to Michelle Hughes. Now.”

  feral

  SHE WASN’T amused by the late hour. That much was clear. Regardless, Michelle appeared on the screen in the office as well put together as she’d always been, looking blandly indifferent at the sight of us a little worse for wear.

  She said, “Alpha Bennett. Alpha Matheson. I didn’t expect to speak to you again so soon.”

  “We wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important,” Joe said. He stood shoulder to shoulder with Ox, both of them stone-faced. Robbie fidgeted awkwardly near the desk, darting glances at his Alphas and back at Michelle on the screen. Mark stood off to the side, out of sight.

  “Rough night?” she asked. “The Bennett territory seems to be rather lively as of late. I wonder why that is.”

  “When did you last speak with Philip Pappas?” I asked her.

  She blinked, caught off guard, no matter how quickly she tried to hide it. “Gordo, I’m glad you can join us, as always. May I ask why you’re inquiring about Philip?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “Two days ago. When he was on approach to Green Creek.” She narrowed her eyes. “Has something happened to my second?”

  “He came for the Omega.”

  “Of that I am aware. But there’s something else.”

  “The Omegas. Before the girl. The others you took back. What did you do with them?”

  She cocked her head. I knew she was trying to hear my heartbeat, even across thousands and thousands of miles. “Why do you ask?”