“Are you with me?”
I hesitated. I knew what he was asking. It wasn’t formal, not by a long shot, but he was an Alpha, and I was a witch without a pack.
Take care of my nephews.
I said the only thing I could.
“Yes.”
His shift came over him quickly, his face elongating, skin covered in white hair, claws stretching out from the tips from his fingers. And as his eyes burst into flames, he tilted his head back and sang the song of the wolf.
THREE YEARS
ONE MONTH
TWENTY-SIX DAYS
torn apart/dirt and leaves and rain
I WAS six when I first looked upon an older boy shifting into a wolf, and my father whispered, “That’s Abel’s son. His name is Thomas, and one day he will be the Alpha of the Bennett pack. You will belong to him.”
Thomas.
Thomas.
Thomas.
I was in awe of him.
I WAS eight, and my father took a needle and burned ink and magic into my skin. “It’s going to hurt,” he told me, a grim look on his face. “I won’t lie to you about that. It’s going to hurt like nothing you’ve ever felt before. You’ll think I’m tearing you apart, and in a sense, you’re right. You have magic in you, child, but it hasn’t yet manifested. These marks will center you and give you the tools to begin to control it. I will hurt you, but it’s necessary for who you’re supposed to become. Pain is a lesson. It teaches you the ways of the world. We must hurt the ones we love in order to make them stronger. To make them better. One day you’ll understand. One day you’ll be like me.”
“Please, Father,” I begged, struggling against the restraints that held me down. “Please don’t do this. Please don’t hurt me.”
My mother looked to speak, but my father shook his head.
She choked on a sob as she was led from the room. She didn’t look back.
Abel Bennett sat beside me. He was a large man. A kind man. He was strong and powerful, with dark hair and dark eyes. He had hands that looked as if they could split me in two. I’d seen them grow claws to tear into the flesh of those who dared to try to take from him.
But they could be soft too, and warm. He took my face in them, thumbs brushing the tears away from my cheeks. I looked up at him, and he smiled quietly.
He said, “You are going to be something special, Gordo. I just know it.”
And as his eyes started bleeding red, I breathed and breathed and breathed.
Then the needle pressed against my skin and I was torn apart.
I screamed.
HE CAME to me as a wolf. He was large and white, with splashes of black on his chest and legs and back. He was larger than I would ever be, and I had to tilt my head back to see the entirety of him.
The stars were out above, the moon fat and bright, and I felt something thrumming through my blood. It was a song that I couldn’t quite make out. My arms itched something fierce. Sometimes I thought the marks on my skin were starting to glow, but it could have been a trick of the moonlight.
I said, “I’m nervous,” because this was the first time I was allowed to be out on the full moon with the pack. It had been too dangerous before. Not because of what the wolves could do to me, but because of what I could have done to them.
He cocked his head at me, eyes burning orange with flecks of red. He was so much more than I ever thought someone could be. I told myself I wasn’t frightened of him, that I could be brave, just like my father was.
I thought I was a liar.
Other wolves ran behind him in a clearing in the middle of the woods. They yipped and howled, and my father was laughing, tugging on my mother’s hand as he pulled her along. She glanced back at me, smiling quietly, but then she was distracted.
But that was okay, because so was I.
Thomas Bennett stood before me, the man-wolf who would be king.
He whuffed at me, tail wagging slightly, asking a question I didn’t have an answer to.
“I’m nervous,” I told him again. “But I’m not scared.” It was important to me that he understood that.
He lowered himself to the ground, lying on his stomach, paws out in front of him as he regarded me. Like he was trying to make himself smaller. Less intimidating. Someone of his position lowering himself to the ground was something I wouldn’t understand until it was too late.
He made a low whining sound from deep in his throat. He waited, then did it again.
I said, “My father told me that you’re going to be the Alpha.”
He pulled himself forward, belly dragging along the grass.
I said, “And that I’m going to be your witch.”
He came a little closer.
I said, “I promise that I’ll try my best. I’ll learn all that I can, and I’ll do a good job for you. You’ll see. I’m going to be the best there ever was.” My eyes widened. “But don’t tell my father I said that.”
The white wolf sneezed.
I laughed.
Eventually I reached out and pressed my hand against Thomas’s snout, and for a moment I thought I heard a whisper in my head.
packpackpack.
“IS THIS what you want?” my mother asked me when it was just the two of us. She’d taken me away from the wolves, from my father, telling them she wanted to spend time with her son. We were sitting in a diner in town, and it smelled of grease and smoke and coffee.
I was confused, and I tried to speak through a mouthful of hamburger.
My mother frowned.
I grimaced and swallowed thickly.
“Manners,” she scolded.
“I know. What do you mean?”
She looked out the window onto the street. The wind was sharp, rattling the trees so they sounded like ancient bones. The air was cold, people pulling their coats tightly around them as they walked by on the sidewalk. I thought I saw Marty, fingers stained with oil, walking back to his auto garage, the only one in Green Creek. I wondered what it felt like to have marks on my skin that could wash away.
“This,” she said again, looking back at me. Her voice was soft. “Everything.”
I glanced around us to make sure no one was listening in, because my father said our world was a secret. I didn’t think Mom understood that, because she hadn’t known such things existed until she met him. “The witch stuff?”
She didn’t sound happy when she replied. “The witch stuff.”
“But it’s what I’m supposed to do. It’s who I’m supposed to be. One day I’ll be very important and do great things. Father said—”
“I know what he said,” and it was sharp. She winced before looking down at the table, her hands folded in front of her. “Gordo, I—you need to listen to me, okay? Life is… it’s about the choices we make. Not the choices made for us. You have the right to set your own path. To be who you want yourself to be. No one should decide that for you.”
I didn’t understand. “But I’m supposed to be the witch to the Alpha.”
“You’re not supposed to be anything. You are just a child. This can’t be placed upon your shoulders. Not now. Now when you can’t decide for yourself. You shouldn’t be—”