I said, “How do you always know?”
Thomas didn’t even act surprised at the question. “You’re mine,” he said simply. “I’ll always know.”
“Because you’re the Alpha?”
“That too,” he said, eyes never leaving mine.
And I heard all the things he’d left unsaid.
THE BEAST came for me, there in the darkened woods.
My Alpha lay quietly underneath an old oak tree whose branches rattled in the wind. His chest rose shallowly and held. It fell and took forever to rise again.
Richard crouched.
I narrowed my eyes.
I said, “You should have stayed out of my territory.”
Richard leapt.
His claws reached for me.
His jaw opened wide.
I brought the rock up and—
A flash of white, crossing in front of me.
Richard yowled as he was thrown to the side.
A wolf stood in front of me, hackles raised, head crouched low to the ground, teeth bared in a furious snarl at Richard, who was pulling himself back to his feet.
Joe.
Joe was here.
Joe was all right.
This wasn’t a dream, because my back ached something fierce.
I reached out and curled my fingers in the fur on his neck.
I felt the rumble deep within him.
It sang to me.
Richard flashed rotted eyes as he glared at Joe, moving slowly around us.
Joe moved with him, always staying between us. I could feel the anger in him, the rage and the anguish. I tried to reach for the others, the strings that connected us all to make sure none of our pack had been lost, but everything was jumbled. My head hurt and I couldn’t focus on anything but the green relief of having Joe here, of knowing that he was okay. That he wasn’t still lying beneath a tree, back snapped and writhing.
We could do this. We could—
Richard ran at us without making a sound. Joe tensed beneath my hand, readying himself for the impact. I dug my heels into the earth and fought every instinct that told me to run, because I was not a coward, and I was going to fucking stand with my mate—
Lights shot up around us, rising from the earth, the ground beneath our feet groaning as it shifted. Richard collided with the light and was thrown back as if electrified, eyes rolling up into the back of his head as he landed at the base of an old oak. He twitched, legs skittering on the ground, digging through the dirt.
“Ox,” a voice said from behind me.