He sighed.
I looked back at Joe. He looked stricken but resolute.
“That’s it, then.”
“Yes.”
“You’re just going to go after him.”
“Yes.”
“You’re going to hunt him down.”
“Yes.”
“And leave the rest of us here to… what? Wait for you? To hope that he doesn’t kill you? To hope he doesn’t come back here where you’ve left us unprotected? Is that what an Alpha does?” I didn’t mean to say that last part. It just came out. And I saw the hurt on Joe’s face before he carefully slid his face into a blank expression. He’d never done that to me before. Hidden himself away. We were open with each other. Always. Until this last week, when he’d apparently kept secret far more than I thought he was capable of.
He said, “I don’t expect you to understand, Ox. Not completely. This is something I have to do.”
“It’s not. You don’t have to do shit. You really think this is what Thomas would have wanted? Do you really think this is what he wanted for you? He wouldn’t have—”
Joe’s eyes flashed red. When he spoke, it was through a hint of fangs. “He was my father, not yours. You don’t get to—”
“Joseph,” Elizabeth said, her voice a whip crack of warning.
But the damage was already done.
I took a step back, suddenly unsure about everything. My place here with the pack. With Joe. It was funny how just a few words could make me question everything.
Joe made a wounded noise, broken and soft. “Ox,” he said. “I didn’t mean that.”
And I knew that. Or at least I thought I did.
But it still hurt more than anything. Especially coming from him. My father still haunted me, even though he was bones in the ground.
And for the first time, I felt my own mask slipping into place, forcing back the hurt. The anger. The sheer terror at the idea of Joe leaving. I wasn’t scared for us, those that he was leaving behind. I was scared for him.
And they’d all decided this. Without me.
The human in the pack.
“How long?” I asked, voice short and clipped.
The wolves looked anxious. Gordo frowned.
“Ox,” Joe said, voice soft.
“No,” I said. “You want to do this? Fine. You want to make decisions without including me? Go ahead. Obviously things aren’t the way I thought they were. But since you’re capable of making these decisions, you can answer the goddamn question. How. Long?”
The blank look was gone from his face. Now he looked like a scared little boy, not the Alpha of the Bennett pack. Most every single part of me was screaming to go to him. To hold him close and never let him out of my sight again. To make this right somehow, because I thought that was supposed to be my job.
But I didn’t.
“As long as it takes,” he said quietly.
“And the rest of us?”
“You’ll stay here.”