“And I need him.”
He opened his eyes. I thought I saw a flash of red. “Tell me.”
“He’s not like Joe. Joe’s gonna be Alpha, and he’ll be big and strong like you, and everyone will listen to him because he’ll know what to do. You’ll tell him. But Kelly is always going to be a Beta like me. We’re the same.”
“I’ve noticed.”
I needed him to understand. “When I have bad dreams, he doesn’t make fun of me and tells me everything is going to be okay. When he hurt his knee and it took a long time to heal, I cleaned it up for him and told him it was okay to cry, even though we’re boys. Boys can cry too.”
“They can,” my father whispered.
“And I think about him all the time,” I told him. “When I feel sad or mad, I think about him and I feel better. That’s what tethers do, right? They make you happy. Kelly makes me happy.”
“He’s your brother.”
“It’s more than that.”
“How?”
I was frustrated. I didn’t know how to put the thoughts in my head into words. Words that would show him just how far it went. Finally, I said, “It’s… he’s everything.”
For a moment I thought I’d said the wrong thing. My father was staring at me strangely, and I squirmed. But instead of a rebuke, he pulled me toward him, and it was like I was a cub again as I turned around, settling between his legs, my back against his chest. He wrapped his arms around me, his chin on the top of my head. I breathed him in, and in the back of my mind, a voice that had once been weak whispered as strong as I’d ever heard it.
packpackpack
“You surprise me,” my father said. “Every day you surprise me. I’m so lucky to have someone such as you as mine. Never, ever forget that. And if you say your tether is Kelly, then so it shall be. You’ll be a good wolf, Carter. And I can’t wait to see the man you’ll become. No matter where I am, no matter what has happened, I’ll remember this gift you’ve given me. Thank you for sharing your secret. I’ll keep it safe.”
“But you’re not going anywhere, right?”
He laughed again, and even though I couldn’t see him, I knew he was smiling all the way up to his eyes. “No. I’m not going anywhere. Not for a very long time.”
We stayed there, under a tree in the refuge outside of Caswell, Maine, for what felt like hours.
Just the two of us.
And when we finally went home, Kelly was waiting for us on the porch, gnawing on his bottom lip. He lit up when he saw me and almost tripped as he ran down the stairs. He managed to stay upright, and he tackled me into the grass as our father watched. He threw his hands up over his head as he howled in triumph, a cracked thing that didn’t sound anything like the other wolves.
I grinned up at him. “Wow. You’re so strong!”
He poked my nose. “You were gone forever. I got bored. Why did it take so long?”
“I’m here now,” I told him. “And I won’t leave you again.”
“Promise?”
“Yeah. I promise.”
And as I hugged my tether close, listening to him talk excitedly in my ear about how Joe had stuck two Cheerios up his nose and how Mom had gotten mad when Uncle Mark had laughed, I told myself it was a promise I’d always keep.
“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST,” I snapped. “Do you have to follow me everywhere? Dude. Seriously. Back off.”
The timber wolf glared at me.
I tilted my head, listening.
Everyone was in the house. I could hear Mom and Jessie laughing about something in the kitchen.
I jerked my head toward the woods.