“If it means—”
“Ox. No more secrets.”
I squinted up at him. “Is that because you can read me now like this?”
He snorted. “I could always read you, Ox. We’re… I just could. You’re Ox.”
“You’re Joe.”
“Right,” he said.
I looked up at the stars. “Do they know?”
“Who.”
“Alpha Hughes. The others. Back East.”
“No. I told Robbie to wait.”
“Until?”
“You.”
“Why?”
“We’re a team, Ox. You and I. I can’t do this without you. And you shouldn’t have to do this without me. Not anymore.”
“I can,” I admitted. “Do this without you. I just don’t want to.”
He chuckled, and it was a nice sound to hear. “Good.”
“Hey, Joe?”
“Yeah?”
“What do I look like?”
“You look like you.”
“As a wolf.”
“You look like you,” he repeated. “I would have known you anywhere. And I will.”
The sky was starting to lighten.
Birds were beginning to call out.
I was overwhelmed by the sheer everything of it.
He said, “You’re big, Ox. Bigger than I’ve ever seen before. Bigger than me. Than my father. But it makes sense, you know? Because that’s how you’ve always been to me. Bigger than anything else. The day I saw you, I knew things would never be the same. You’re all- encompassing. You dwarf everything else. When I see you, Ox, all I see is you.”
He said, “Your eyes are red, like mine. But your wolf is black, Ox. Black like the dark. All of you. Not a single variation. Your tail is long, and your paws are big. Your teeth are sharp. But I can still see you in the wolf. I can see you there, in the eyes. I know you, Ox. I would know you anywhere.”
He said, “You didn’t shift because of the moon, but because you had to. Because your wolf knew it had to find me. So I could prove to you that I could bring you back. Once upon time, there was a lonely boy, a broken boy who didn’t know if he could shift, and it took one person to show him how. And now I’ve done it for you because that’s what we do for each other. That’s what pack is. That’s what this all means.”
He said, “You’re mine, Ox,”
He said, “I’m yours.”