It was. It was. It was, and I couldn’t stop it. The anger. The rage. I thought maybe I understood now why Joe did what he did. Why he left. What he knew he needed to do even if it meant tearing himself from everything and everyone he knew. I got it now. Because I could do the same.
I was not a wolf.
But I wanted to give myself over to the wolf so bad.
I said, “What do you want?”
“That’s better,” Richard said. “Because it is about what I want. It’s simple, Ox. You will come to me. And you will come alone.”
“I won’t let you use me to bring Joe. I will never let you have him.”
“It’s not about Joe. It’s about you, Ox.”
A meadowlark sang out somewhere overhead, a thin and aching song.
“What about me? I’m nothing. I’m not—”
“They kept you from me,” Richard said. “And it might have stayed that way. But they didn’t count on David King. They never even thought about him. Do you know what he told me, Ox? While I spilled his blood. He was begging me to stop, begging me to just let him go, please, to please just stop, I’ll do anything you want, please, please, please.” His voice had gone high-pitched and mocking before he chuckled. “He did tell me things, Ox. Before I tore his head from his body. He told me things about you.”
I said nothing, because I knew where this was going. I closed my eyes and wished it wasn’t so.
“Alpha,” Richard breathed in my ear.
“THERE YOU are,” Elizabeth said.
I stood in the doorway to the kitchen. I could hear the others moving around outside. And upstairs. And in the living room.
“Sorry,” I said. “Phone call I had to take. Work thing.”
I kept my voice even. I kept my heart steady. I was in a house of wolves and they would know everything if I let the mask slip even the littlest bit.
“Everything all right?”
I smiled at her. “Everything is fine.”
Her gaze lingered a moment before she nodded. “Well. This dinner won’t cook itself. Get to work, Ox. There’s much to be done.”
“HEY.”
I looked up from the onions I was dicing.
Joe arched an eyebrow at me, leaning against the counter. He crossed his arms over his chest, muscles bulging from the residual pull of the moon. He was beautiful because he was Joe. He was beautiful because he was mine.
“Hey,” I said and it was getting harder already. I didn’t know how I was going to get through this.
“Where’d you go?”
“Phone call,” I said as I shrugged. “Took longer than I thought.”
“Yeah? Work thing?”
I nodded, not daring to speak. I looked back down at the onions.
“Joe,” Elizabeth scolded. “Stop distracting my help. He’s going to cut something off if you keep posing like that. Don’t be gross in my kitchen. Go find something else to do.”
Joe blushed and started sputtering.
I tightened my grip on the knife and swallowed through the lump in my throat.