He said, “When you broke up, I ran into the forest and howled at the moon.”
He said, “And then I smelled men on you.”
He said, “I smelled them on you and I had to stop myself from tearing you apart.”
He said, “I wanted to tell you to wait.”
He said, “I wanted to tell you that you needed to wait for me.”
He said, “But I couldn’t. Because it wasn’t fair to you.”
He said, “And then Frankie came and I… I don’t know. I never thought….”
He said, “You confuse me. You aggravate me. You’re amazing and beautiful, and sometimes, I want to put my teeth in you just to watch you bleed. I want to know what you taste like. I want to leave my marks on your skin. I want to cover you until all you smell like is me. I don’t want anyone to touch you ever again. I want you. Every part of you. I want to tell you to break the bond with Gordo because it burns that you are tethered to someone besides me. I want to tell you I can be a good person. I want you to know that I’m not. I want to turn you. I want you to be a wolf so we can run in the trees. I want you to stay human so you never lose that part of yourself. If something were to happen to you, if you were about to die, I would turn you because I can never lose you. I can never let you leave me. I can’t let anything take you from me.”
He said, “Richard told me things. Terrible things.”
MY BREATH caught in my chest. My hand froze in his hair.
Stars shone overhead. The grass felt cool at my back. Joe’s head was heavy on my stomach. I looked down at him. His eyes glittered back up at me, dark and more feral than I’d ever seen them.
I could have said, “Hush. We don’t need to talk about him.”
I could have said, “It doesn’t matter anymore. He can’t touch you.”
I could have said, “I’ll find him and kill him for you. Tell me where he is.”
What I said was “Did he?”
I didn’t know if that was the right thing to say.
Joe let out a shuddery breath. “Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“Ox.”
“Yeah?” I managed to say through the rage and murder in my heart.
“It’s okay.”
Of course he could smell it. I wonder what scent anger had. I thought it probably burned.
So I said, “Okay.”
“You need to know. Before.”
“Before?”
He turned his head slightly and rubbed his nose against my side, along a rib. “So you know. Everything.”
“You’re not broken.”
He said, “You don’t know that.”
I said, “I do. You’re alive. If you can take another breath, if you can take another step, then you’re not broken. Battered, maybe. Bruised. Cracked. But never broken.”
He said, “Richard told me that my family didn’t want me anymore, that they’d given me to him and wanted me to bleed.”