Everything felt too loud. Too real. Too bright. I wanted to hurt myself to know if I was dreaming or awake. Of all the things he could have said, I expected that the least.
And it wasn’t fair.
I croaked out, “What?”
He didn’t look up at me, eyes trained on the floor. When he spoke, he sounded smaller than I’d ever heard him. He said, “I don’t know a lot. Not anymore. Everything changed. You did. The pack. The people in it. This place isn’t like it was when we left. And Carter and Kelly. They—just. They fit again. Like it was nothing. Like we hadn’t been gone at all. With Mom. With Mark. With all those strangers. And with you. And Gordo. Gordo, Ox. He didn’t even need to worry. Because he always had you. Even though he tied himself to me somehow that night. Even though he became mine, he was always yours. They all are. And I’m here just—I don’t know why I’m here. I messed up, Ox.” He wiped his eyes and something shattered in my chest. “I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was keeping you all safe. But I was selfish. Because I just wanted to keep you safe. To keep you away from the monsters. If you didn’t know me, if you had never met me, you wouldn’t be here right now. Your mom would be alive. And you would be happy. I thought you’d want it that way. The longer I was gone, the easier it would be to forget me and everything I’ve done to you. I wanted to come home, Ox. All I wanted to do was come home, because without you, I don’t have a home.”
“Joe—” I said.
He raised his hand, cutting me off. “Just—let me. I know you… have a choice. Still. And I know I’ve done nothing to make you still choose me. And I’m okay with that. Because if there’s”—his voice was strangled and harsh—“someone else, or if there could be, I don’t want to stand in the way of that. I just want to be wherever you are. As your friend. Or packmate. Or just me and you like it was before all of this.
“You don’t have to keep the wolf, Ox. You don
’t have to. I just needed to be near you, because I’m tired. Okay? I’m so tired of this. Of running. Of not getting what I want. I just want you. Please just let me have you. Please. Nothing else matters if I can’t have you. Just let me, please just let me. You’re the Alpha here now, but please don’t make me leave.”
His face was wet by the time he’d finished. He had shifted partway, close to losing it to the wolf completely. I didn’t know how strong his control was anymore, given that I’d only seen him shift once on the night of the full moon.
And it wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, at least with this. Joe would never hurt me, not physically.
I didn’t want to fight this anymore. I didn’t want to fight him.
I took a step toward him.
His eyes flared again.
“Don’t,” he said. “You can’t. Ox, I’m slipping.”
“You won’t,” I said.
“You can’t know that,” he pleaded. “It’s not the same. I can’t find my way back because it’s not the same.”
I knew that. We both did. Some might have seen us and wondered how we’d gotten this far. After everything we’d been through. After everything we’d both done. He’d left. I’d stayed. I took his place, whether I’d meant to or not. I’d spent a good while angry at him. He spent the same time angry at himself.
None of that mattered, though. Maybe it would again, and soon, but right now, I just couldn’t take the thought of not touching him one second longer.
“No,” he said, “no, no, no, you can’t—”
I stood in front of him.
His back was against the door.
Our knees knocked together.
My hands brushed his.
It felt like such a tremendous thing, after all this time.
He growled at me, more wolf than man, and I took his face in my hand, that half-shifted face, white hair sprouting and receding, like he was stuck somewhere between the two. As soon as my fingers touched his skin, he shuddered against the touch and there was a moment when I thought it wouldn’t be enough. That too much had come between us for him to ever find his way back again.
Because I understood now what his choice had cost him. He might have been an Alpha and he might have had his brothers and Gordo with him to keep him sane, but he was almost an Omega too, having cut ties from his tether in order to give himself to his wolf. He hadn’t been able to focus on me because I kept him human. He’d given that up for the wolf. To become the predator. The hunter.
It couldn’t have all been for nothing.
These past three years couldn’t have been nothing.
They weren’t.
Because I was here, standing tall, even though I felt like crumbling.