He stopped his pacing and his shoulders sagged. “Ox, you can’t think like that.”
I snorted. “Yeah? It’s actually pretty easy to.”
“Your father did this to you,” he said with a scowl. “I should have kicked his ass when I had the chance.”
I looked up in surprise.
“I don’t like this,” Gordo said. “At all. But I’m going to say it anyway, okay? Anyone should count their lucky stars if they got to call you their own. I am not giving you my approval because it doesn’t matter to you anyway. Nothing I can say matters at this point.” His voice cracked. “But he had better treat you like you hung the moon or I will tear him from this earth.”
I reached out and squeezed his shoulder, trying to stop my knees from buckling. Of course everything he said to me mattered. How could he think otherwise? I said, “Gordo. Gordo. His wolf. He gave me his wolf. The stone wolf.”
Gordo smiled sadly. “I figured he did. When he came to see you?”
I shook my head. “The day after I met him. When he was ten. I didn’t know what it meant. They said I had a choice.”
And there it was. That look on his face. That fear.
He said, “Even then?”
I said, “Even then,” and of course, “Gordo. Gordo,” because a realization struck me and I was so fucking blind.
“Yeah, Ox.”
“Did…?” I almost stopped. But then, “Mark did. Didn’t he? Gave you his wolf.”
The tattoos on his arms flared briefly as he hung his head.
I rubbed my hand through his hair. It was getting long. I needed to remind him to get it cut. He’d forget so many things if I didn’t tell him.
He said, “Yeah. Yes.” He coughed. “He did. And I gave it back.”
WE WERE running at the full moon.
The wolves surrounded me as the trees whipped by.
They whined and yipped and lived and laughed.
Joe kept crowding me closer and closer. He was almost as big as Mark now. When he became the Alpha, he’d be the size of Thomas.
We came to our clearing. The others spread out ahead, chasing each other. Nipping at paws and tails.
Joe didn’t leave my side.
He told me once that when the wolf took over, all human rationality left. He could understand and he could remember, but it was on a baser level, all animal and instinct.
He was still Joe, but he was a wolf.
Who apparently decided I didn’t smell enough like him.
He rubbed his torso over my legs and thighs.
He pressed his head and snout against my chest and neck, dragging his nose across my skin.
Carter and Kelly approached, wanting to play.
Joe growled at them, a rumble that came out as a warning. Stay away, it said.
They cocked their heads at him and lay down flat.