I knelt in front of Robbie.
I cupped his face in my hands. His eyes were wide and wet. One of the wolves behind me—Carter, I thought—growled, but was cut off with a low bark from Joe.
Elizabeth and Mark nosed along Robbie’s sides and stomach, licking at the bloody hair, while he kept his eyes on me. I tightened my grip, just slightly.
“I know what you were doing,” I said in a low voice, though all the wolves could hear me. “But you can’t do that.”
He whined and tried to lick my hands, but I held him still.
“I don’t need you to fight for me,” I said. “Especially when there was no need to fight at all. Not against each other.”
He shifted then, and I felt it under my hands, the way his bones broke and reformed, the way the hair receded, the muscles jumping. It was like I was holding a bag of writhing snakes, and I shuddered at the feel of it.
I didn’t hold a wolf’s face in my hand. It was now a man.
And he was furious.
He snapped, “He was in your head. I could hear him. He had no right to—”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, dropping my hands.
Robbie gritted his teeth and shook his head, eyes darting over my shoulder in a glare.
“Robbie, I asked you—”
“He’s right,” Rico said. “We could… hear him.”
I looked back at the others. They stood nervously behind me, well away from the wolves, but ready to attack if needed. They weren’t angry like Robbie, but they were spooked.
“What do you mean?”
Rico glanced at Tanner, who nodded once. “Like, when we hear you. Just. You’re our alfa, okay? Big boss man. We can feel the others, we can, but not like… not clear. Not like we can hear and feel you. And Joe was… loud. Everything. It was overwhelming.”
Elizabeth and Mark shifted too, their bodies straining.
“I will never get used to that,” Rico muttered. “Hi, Mrs. Bennett. How lovely to see you. You’re naked. Again.”
Elizabeth ignored him. “We could hear him too.”
“I thought you always could,” I said. “You told me that you—”
“Not like this. The bond between a mother and her sons is different than this.”
I looked to Mark, who nodded.
“Shit,” I muttered.
“Ox,” Elizabeth said. “This isn’t forcing an issue you’re not yet ready to face. If anything, it’s reinforcing the fact that there is something between you two. That there has always been since the day you first met. That’s nothing new. You’ve known that for a very long time.”
“It shouldn’t be like this,” Robbie said. “He’s pushing himself back onto Ox and—”
“Robbie,” Elizabeth said. “Enough.”
“But he can’t do that—”
Carter and Kelly snarled at him.
Robbie looked to me.