Ravensong

by TJ Klune

  “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.”

  He said, “No,” even though it was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do.

  I saw the moment it hit me.

  That single word.

  My face stuttered… and then hardened. It was over even before it had begun.

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

  I took a step back.

  “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.

  “This isn’t how it ends,” I told him as he watched the empty doorway, the house filling with shadows as it shook on its foundation. “I know it feels like it, but this isn’t our ending. We find our way back to each other. No matter how long it takes, we find our way back again. It’s how we always are. It’s how we’ll always be.”

  The younger version of myself came back into the doorway, a box in hand.

  Mark said, “No.”

  Mark said, “Gordo.”

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

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

  He said, “Please.”

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

  He did.

  I screamed at him, at myself.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

  The door slammed in his face. The violet of the wood pulsed brightly. The house began to split apart.

  He stood there for the longest time, listening to the sound of my racing heart on the other side of the door, even as the roof caved in.

  Eventually he turned and walked past me, walked through me, and I felt him giving in to his wolf, giving in to—

  run must run must put paws on ground hurts it hurts it hurrrts and

  —the animal that lurked underneath. But this was different. It wasn’t like it should have been. He was a Beta here, eyes like Halloween, and though he felt himself collapsing, he should have remained that way, should have felt the pull of his pack.

  But it wasn’t the same.

  I could feel the wild call of the feral wolf, and it’d sunk its claws into him, dragging him by the throat into—

  I turned to follow him and—

  I stood on the outskirts of the clearing.

  Mark Bennett was on his knees, his clothes having been shredded during his shift. His head was tilted back toward the sky, and he held that little box in his hand as he howled at the sun, sang for the hidden moon. It was a song of sorrow, an aria of grief that thundered through the trees as if the very sky was cracking right down the middle.

  I felt it coming.

  I began to run toward him.

  But I was too late.

  The gnarled hand of a half-shifted wolf burst through the ground beneath him, wrapping around his bare thigh, claws digging into his skin and causing blood to bloom like roses. Then came another, and another, and another, the last of which was thickly muscled, an entire arm rising from the ground, dirt and grass still stuck to its rotting skin. It reached up and wrapped its hand around his throat where my mark should have been, where the raven should have been from the very beginning.

  The hands began to pull him down into the earth.

  His eyes were open toward the sky.

  They were ice.

  Then orange.

  Then they flickered violet.

  His mouth opened in a silent scream, fangs lengthening as he clutched the box that held his stone wolf, a gift he’d given that I’d taken for granted. That I’d thrown back in his face.

  I was halfway to him when I slammed into an invisible barrier, the pain bright and glassy as I fell back. I pushed myself back to my feet, reaching out to find what was keeping me from him, to find what it was that would keep us from each other.

  My palm pressed flat against—

  Wards.

  They were wards.

  Unlike any I’d ever felt before.

  The magic here was ancient. It was ugly and rotten, and I swore I felt it squirming against my skin. I ground my teeth and pushed against it, pushed with everything I had even though my hand was long gone and—

  It pushed back.

  And I knew it then.

  Though I hadn’t felt it in years.

  I knew it.

  Magic, it—it has a signature. A fingerprint. Specific to a witch. But amongst family, it’ll be similar. Not the same, but familiar. If my father did this, if this is his magic breaking the tethers of the Omegas, his magic is in them.

  And they’re recognizing him in me.

  It was him.

  Robert Livingstone.

  The proof I needed.

  And he was stronger than I was.

  I couldn’t break through.

  Oh, but how I screamed for the wolf. How I banged my hands against the wards until my bones splintered. How I tried everything to get to him.

  He was up to his chest now. In the earth, those feral wolves pulling him down.

  But nothing I did was enough.

  Until—

  Magic comes from the earth. From the ground. From the trees. The flowers and the soil. This place, it’s… old. Far older than you could possibly imagine. It’s like… a beacon. It calls to us. It thrums through our blood. The wolves hear it too, but not like us. It sings to them. They are… animals. We aren’t like them. We are more. They bond with the earth. The Alpha more so than anyone else. But we use it. We bend it to our whim. They are enslaved by it, by the moon overhead when it rises full and white. We control it. Don’t ever forget that.

  My father had taught me that.

  I stepped back from his poison.

  I breathed in the scents of the territory around me.

  It smelled of dirt and leaves and rain.

  I sank to my knees and dug my fingers into the earth.

  Once, the moon had loved the sun.

  Once, there was a boy.

  Once, there was a wolf.

  He had sat with his back against a tree.

  His bare feet were in the grass.

  The boy leaned forward and kissed the wolf.

  And knew then that nothing would ever be the same.

  An unkindness of ravens swirled around me, feathers rustling.

  The air was redolent of roses.

  And I gave everything I could. For him.

  For my wolf.

  “Gordo.”

  I opened my eyes.

  Mark Bennett stood before me, on the other side of my father’s wards. Not as he’d been before, but as he was now. We could never be who we once were.

  He smiled his secret smile. His eyes were blue.

  He said “hey” and “hi” and “hello” and “you came for me, you really came for me.”

  I said, “I did,” and “I had to,” and “You need to fight this, you need to fight this. For your pack. For me. Please do it for me.”

  He nodded slowly before glancing over his shoulder.

  Behind him, the younger version of himself was fighting against the wolf-hands.

  And I thought maybe he was winning.

  Mark turned back toward me. “He has to stay here, doesn’t he?”

  “Yeah,” I said miserably. “We can’t—I can’t fix this. Not on my own. But we can contain it. We can close this door and keep it locked until we’re ready. I’ll help you. It’ll be you and me, okay? It’ll be you and me, and I will keep you safe.”

  “Why?”

  “I w
ould do anything for you.”

  He reached up and touched the raven on his throat. “Because you’re my mate?”

  I laughed wetly. “Yeah. Because I’m your mate.”

  Oh, how that pleased him. How he smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling, and I was consumed by the sight of him.

  And then beside him, against the wards, was a door.

  “Will this work?” he asked as we walked toward it.

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because we’re the goddamn Bennett pack. Nothing will stop us. Not anymore.”

  “It’s gonna be rough.”

  “We’ve survived worse.”

  The smile faded slightly. “We have, haven’t we?”

  “And we’re still standing.”

  He said, “Okay,” because it was that easy for him. To have faith in me.

  “You push. You hear me? You push as hard as you can. And when you’re through, we close the door—”

  A loud roar came from behind him.

  The other Mark, the Omega, had burst out of the ground, the hands that had been trying to drag him down sinking into the earth.

  He was caught in his shift, back rippling as the wolf came forward, face elongating, spittle dripping into the grass beneath him. His body shook as hair sprouted along bare skin, as his fangs sank into his lips, causing blood to spill.

  He looked up at us.

  His eyes glowed violet.

  He roared again.

  And began to run.

  “The door!” I screamed. “Get through the door!”

  I pulled on the doorknob, the metal burning into my hand as I pulled with all my strength. Mark threw himself against it from the other side, and I could hear the feral wolf getting closer and closer and—

  The door flew open, knocking me to the side.

  Mark burst through, sliding in the grass.

  The Omega howled in triumph.

  I kicked out against the door, and it slammed shut just as the feral wolf crashed into it. The wards pulsed as the door seemed to bend, and a nauseous feeling bowled through me, like I could feel the infection my father had caused.

  But the door held.

  Even as the feral wolf charged at it again and again and again, it held.

  Mark collapsed beside me, both of us on our backs, breathing heavily.

  I took his hand in mine.

  Or I tried to.

  It didn’t work.

  Because I didn’t have a hand anymore.

  He gripped my forearm instead, turning his head toward me.

  He said—

  “GORDO.”

  I opened my eyes.

  I was in the clearing.

  The air was cold.

  The sky was bright with stars.

  “Gordo.”

  I blinked.

  Three faces appeared above me, foreheads wrinkled.

  “You think he’s all right?” one asked.

  “His brains aren’t leaking out his ears,” another said. “So I think he’ll be okay.”

  “I don’t think that’s physically possible,” the third said.

  “Of course it is. I saw it on the internet.”

  “Oh, because you saw it on the internet—”

  “Jesus Christ,” I groaned. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Rico, Tanner, and Chris smiled. “Yeah,” Chris said. “He’s all right.”

  And then I remembered.

  Mark.

  I sat up quickly. “Did it work? Did it work? Where is he? Oh god, please tell me where he—”

  “Gordo.”

  I turned my head.

  Mark Bennett was sitting a few feet away, Jessie crouched in front of him.

  My breath hitched.

  He was here.

  He was really here.

  I was moving even before I gave it much thought. I needed to be as close to him as I could. He wrapped his arms around me as I crashed into him, and his breath was warm in my ear when he said, “I’ve got you. I’ve got you. I’ve got you,” and I heard the wolfsong and the ravensong rising through us, etching themselves into our skin.

  IT TOOK longer than I thought it would before I let him go. Every time I decided to pull away, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. He didn’t seem too bothered, so I didn’t worry.

  Over his shoulder I could see Kelly. His shoulders were shaking as he sobbed against Carter’s chest. Elizabeth held them both, and she kissed each of them in turn over and over again. Robbie stood above them, arms across his chest, as if he was guarding them.

  Carter must have felt me staring and gave me a small smile. Whatever Kelly had seen, whatever he’d done to bring Carter back, seemed to have worked.

  For the most part. The timber wolf lay a few feet away, eyes on Carter. Whatever we’d done hadn’t been enough to force his shift.

  Beyond them was a group of strangers, people I’d never seen. They huddled together, shivering in the night air. Ox and Joe stood side by side in front of them.

  “I know you’re scared,” Ox said, and Mark held me tighter. “And I know you’re confused. But there is nothing here for you to fear. You are safe now. My name is Ox. This is my mate, Joe. We are the Alphas of the Bennett pack. And we’re going to help you find your way home.”

  epilogue

  THEIR EYES were still violet.

  All of them.

  They were Omegas.

  Mark and Carter too.

  Even with the bonds between us.

  My father’s magic was strong.

  But the doors had been shut.

  Robert Livingstone had hurt us.

  But he should have killed us.

  Because now we were pissed.

  And there was nothing he could do to stop us.

  I STARED at the computer as I sat in my office. Robbie had updated our software yet again, and I couldn’t figure it out. Every key I hit on the computer made the goddamn thing chime, and I was a few seconds away from grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and rubbing his face in it.

  Out in the garage, the radio was turned to some sort of butt rock, most likely Tanner’s doing. I could hear them laughing and shouting at each other as they worked. It should have been irritating, but it was soothing in ways I couldn’t explain. It was normal. It was years and years of our shared history. It was the sound of survival. Two months later, and they could laugh.

  I sighed and sat back in my ancient chair, tilting my face toward the ceiling. There was a small water stain in the corner that I’d never gotten around to doing anything about. I stared at it for a while until someone cleared their throat in the doorway.

  “I’m fine,” I said, because they were nothing if not predictable.

  “Okay,” Ox said easily.

  I looked at him, the chair creaking underneath me. “I’m fine.”

  He shrugged, rubbing oil from his hands with an old rag. “That’s good. I’m just happy to see you back here.”

  “I needed time.”

  “I know. We all did.”

  “Robbie updated the software again.”

  “Yeah. He does that. Thinks it’ll help.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “He’s making a website. For the garage.”

  “Goddammit,” I muttered.

  Ox grinned. “Couldn’t hurt.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

  I rolled my eyes. “They’re doing fine without me.”

  “Oh, I know they are. I just thought you’d want to be there. You’re very… particular about how things are set up in your house.”

  My eye twitched.

  “Mark has a lot of stuff.” I stood up, the chair rolling into the wall.

  “Yeah,” Ox said. “Had to rent one of those twenty-footers.”

  “I have to go,” I said, fumbling for my keys.

  Ox laughed and stepped aside as I walked past him through the doorway. W
ithout thinking too much about it, I reached out and grabbed his hand, squeezing it just once before letting it go.

  “You too, Gordo,” my Alpha told me. “You too. We’ll see you tonight.”

  Oh, he would. We had a message to deliver.

  Tanner and Chris were bent over a 2009 Toyota Camry with a transmission problem. They looked up at me as I headed toward the front of the garage.

  “Uh-oh,” Tanner said. “He’s got that look.”

  “Someone is either going to get murdered or laid,” Chris said. Then he frowned. “I wish I didn’t know that much about him.”

  “I’m taking the rest of the day off,” I told them, trying desperately to ignore the knowing grins on their faces. “I want the parts ordered for the Buick before you leave. And don’t forget to call Mr. Simmons and tell him that there is absolutely nothing rattling around that we could hear. For the sixth time.”

  “Sure, boss,” Tanner said easily. “Glad to have you back.”

  “Go kill or have sex or whatever,” Chris said. He grimaced. “Holy fuck, do we need better boundaries.”

  That was the first thing they’d said that I agreed with in weeks.

  Rico was in the break room, feeding Bambi grapes by hand as she sat in his lap.

  I didn’t understand straight people.

  “Gordo,” Rico said, sighing dreamily, “Bambi has decided to do me the honor of forgiving me for the whole secret society of werewolves thing! Isn’t that amazing?”

  “You can still get out of this,” I told her. “No one would blame you.”

  “Eh,” she said. “The so-called anonymous donation I received to help rebuild the Lighthouse went a long way to putting him back in my good graces. That and the fact there was enough for me to buy it outright.”

  “I wasn’t the one who blew up the bar,” Rico said, sounding outraged. “If you’re gonna be pissed at anyone, it should be Gordo. He’s the one that—”

  “Sacrificed a hand?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

  Rico gaped at her. “But—but I got shot. I have a scar.”

  “Bambi, nice to see you again,” I said. “Rico, back on the clock in five or you’re fired.”

  “Bullshit!” he cried after me. “Like you would ever let me go, brujo.”

  Robbie was squinting over some invoices, pen scratching in the logbook. His glasses were perched low on his nose. He looked up at me when I went to grab my coat. “Heading out already?” He waggled his eyebrows. “Maybe a little afternoon de—and by the look on your face, I should not finish that sentence.”