canes and pinecones you are epic and awesome you are the only reason why i was able to get through the years i was gone i cut us off and tried to push you out of my mind but when it was late when it was dark i would think of you of coming home to you of being with you being happy being home because ox you’re my home without you i am nothing i am no one you are my love my life my pack my mate so i need you to focus i need you to listen to my heart to my voice to my breaths i am your Alpha and i can’t do this without you so you come back you come back you fucking come back to me ox
i listen
his breaths
his voice and words
his heart
and i
i am
i am
I AM OX I AM OX I AM—
shifting and
“Holy fucking shit,” I gagged as I fell to human knees. There was a hand on my back, the fingers warm against my skin, as I fought back against my churning stomach. The world was too loud around me, like I could hear every single thing in a ten-mile radius. I was assaulted by the smells of the forest.
The shift tried to push its way forward again, my claws digging into the dirt. My gums itched, and I wanted to push for it, I wanted it to come.
He said, “Ox.”
I growled at him.
The Alpha said, “Ox.”
Everything paused.
He knelt in front of me.
He took my face in his hands and tilted my head up until I could see his eyes.
They were red, a burning fire red, and they called to me, even now, even through the storm in my head, the wolf clawing just underneath the surface.
He said, “Listen to me.”
He said, “You’re here.
He said, “With me.”
He said, “And I will never leave you.”
I said, “I don’t believe you.”
“Do you trust me?”
Yes. Yes. Yes. I grimaced as my muscles tightened. “I can’t—”
“Ox,” he said sharply. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” I bit out. “Yes. Yes.”
“Then I need you to trust me now,” he said. “I am your Alpha. But you’re also mine. Ox, I bit you to save you. You’ve turned. You’re no longer human. You’re a wolf, Ox. Like me. And Carter and Kelly. Mom. Mark. You’re a wolf, okay?”
“My eyes,” I managed to say. “What color are my eyes?” Because I couldn’t help but think they were violet, that I didn’t have a pack anymore, because I was never part of the pack to begin with. Joe was the Alpha. He’d come home and he would be in charge and they’d have no place for me, they wouldn’t need—