Heartsong (Green Creek Book 3)

Once, when I was just a cub, my father sat me in his lap.

He said, “There are things you don’t understand.”

He said, “Things that you’re too young to hear.”

He said, “But I need you to hear them anyway.”

I looked up at him with stars in my eyes. I loved him. He wasn’t like us, but he was my father, and it was all that mattered.

He said, “You have something in you. Something that will grow and grow and grow. It’s a bad thing. You have to fight it. You can’t let it consume you. It’s a monster, Robbie. And it will eat you if you let it. And then you’ll be the monster.”

I trembled in his arms. “I don’t wanna be a monster.”

He brushed my hair off my forehead. “I know. And I will do everything I can to make sure it never happens. But if it does… well.” He smiled. “We’ll worry about it then, won’t we? Can you keep a secret?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Tell me.”

He leaned over, his lips near my ear. He whispered, “There’s a monster inside all of us. But some of us learn to control it.”

The farther away I got from Caswell, the more it pulled in my head.

I was in Connecticut when I pulled over to the side of the road and vomited. I retched until I was dry-heaving, a thin line of noxious spittle hanging from my bottom lip. I spit as my stomach rolled.

The air was hot, rising from the black roadway in wavy lines.

I sat back in my seat, wiping my mouth.

“Fuck,” I muttered as I closed my eyes.

I allowed myself another minute before I closed the door and pulled back onto the road.

I slept that night near a field in a tiny village in Pennsylvania with the odd name of Bird In Hand.

I lay in the back seat, overwarm and aching, the moon and stars as bright as I’d ever seen them.

My sleep was thin and restless.

My mother was in the back seat with me, running her hands through my hair as I sounded out words from the book she’d given me. The pages in the book were filled with wild things, great and horrible beasts that raised their claws. I struggled with some of the words, but she helped me through them.

“Good,” she said into my hair. “You’re doing so good.”

She was crying.

When I looked up to ask her what was wrong, why she was sad, why she was blue, she wasn’t there.

I didn’t know if I was awake.

It was early evening when I found it.

As I saw the red wooden sign with LIGNITE in white, I knew.

Lignite was dead. It’d been dead for a very long time.

A few buildings remained, their bones nothing but piles of stone, a vague outline of what had once been.

The forest had overtaken it.

The trees were thick.

The road into Lignite was small and covered in potholes. I hadn’t seen another car in a long time.

I didn’t know where to go.

A bridge. Shannon had said there was a truss bridge, but I didn’t know what the fuck a truss bridge was. My phone was no help. I had no service. The GPS had cut out ten miles back, and I didn’t want to turn around. If I did, I thought I would keep driving.

I stopped the car on the side of the road near an old collapsed building. It was cooler than I expected it to be when I opened the door and got out of the car. An electric hum ran through my skin, and I fought the urge to shift. It felt safer.

“Hello?” I said.

My voice echoed around me, and it was as if the trees were greeting me.

Hello… ello… lo… lo… lo.

I was alone.

I closed the car door. The sound was startling in the great quiet.

I looked around, unsure of where to go.

Through the trees to my right, I thought I saw the flash of something in the failing sunlight. I walked toward it.

The trees felt different here, unclaimed.

This wasn’t wolf territory, or at least it wasn’t currently.

I growled at a rodent that skittered off through the forest.

The flash came again, brighter than it’d been before.

It looked metal.

I began to run.

I ran alone. No wolves.

It didn’t take long.

The bridge was as old and dead as the buildings. The struts below had turned brown with rust. The metal railings along the top were in better shape, though not by much. The trees around the bridge swayed in the cold breeze.

Before I stepped onto it, I hesitated. My shadow stretched out long in front of me, looking monstrous.

The pavement was cracked, the yellow dividing line faded into almost nothing.

The bridge groaned.

I didn’t look back.

I stepped onto the bridge.

Nothing happened.

I took another step. And then another. And then another.

In the middle of the bridge, the moon caressed my neck, prickling my skin.

“I’m here,” I said.

Nothing.

“I’m here.”

Nothing.

I raised my voice. “I’m here! Goddammit, you told me to come here, you told me to find you, and I’m here!” I spread out my arms as I spun in a slow circle. Above, the first stars were coming out, and the moon, the fucking moon was calling for me, saying i see you here you are you are here you are you are you are.

“What do you want from me? What more do I possibly have to give! Do you know what it took for me to get here? Do you? You’re all fucking with my head, and I won’t—”

“Robbie.”

I whirled around.

A young woman stood on the bridge. She looked wary, and she stepped no closer, but she was an Alpha, and I fought against the instinct to bare my neck to her.

“Who are you?” I asked harshly.

“Alpha Wells. Shannon. We spoke on the phone. Do you remember?”

I glared at her. “Of course I remember. You told me to get here. You sounded fucking nuts, but here I am. You said you had answers.”

She nodded. “I do. Though not all of them.”

“Malik,” I said suddenly, and she narrowed her eyes. “John. Jimmy. Those are the names you told me. Your pack.”

“Yes.”

“Where are they?”

Something complicated crossed her face, there and gone. “Why?”

“Is this a trap?”

“No, Robbie. It’s not a trap. Not for you, anyway.” She looked over my shoulder in the failing light. “Are you alone? Did you tell anyone you were coming here?”

“No.”

She cocked her head as she listened to my heartbeat. I bristled but said nothing. “Do you want to hurt me?”

That shocked me into laughter that echoed around us before I cut it off. “What? Why the hell would I want to hurt you?”

“I had to ask. To make sure you’re you.”

That discordant feeling returned, the divide in my head where things were real and unreal at the same time, separated by a thin veil made of glass. “Who else would I be?”

“A weapon,” she said quietly. “A monster capable of great harm. Savage. Fang and claw hell-bent on spilling as much blood as possible. Feral.”

I took a step back. “I’ve… never done that. I’ve never hurt anyone.”

(what are you doing

robbie

robbie

please don’t

please don’t do this

oh my god what’s wrong with you

you’re not

please please please i don’t want to die

please you’re hurting me robbie you’re hurting me

oh god no

no

let me go let me go LET ME GO LETMEGOLETME)

The bridge creaked beneath my feet as more stars appeared. I tilted my head back, stretching my neck, barely holding the shift at bay.

“I’m not a monster,” I told the waning moon.

“We were wrong,” Shannon said as my eyes flooded with orange fire. “We thought… we thought we knew what had happened. In the compound. We were wrong. All of us. We made mistakes. And we suffered because of it. But it wasn’t as bad for us. Because we had each other. We’re pack. Even after all we’d lost, we’re pack. We’re together. But I understand loss. That void. Where something is taken. Torn away. I can only imagine what it must have been like for them.”

“Who?” I demanded, my voice a low growl, more wolf than man. “Who are you talking about? Why am I here? What have you done? I’m not a monster. I’m not a weapon. For fuck’s sakes, you’re describing an Omega. Can you see me? Can you see what I am? I’m a goddamn Beta!”

She said, “I thought I knew. What it meant to be Omega. What they were. I was wrong. Brodie showed me that. And I will never let him go.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

She smiled sadly. “I know. But you will. One day all will be well and we will live free and without fear.” Her eyes flooded with red. “I’ll fight for that with everything I have. Can you say the same?”

“Alpha, I mean no disrespect, but can you get to the fucking point? Because I’m getting real tired of your shit.”

She nodded. “You’re right, of course. Here. Let me show you.”

She tilted her head back toward the moon, her shift starting to overcome her. Her face elongated as thin white hair grew around her nose and mouth. The white faded into rust red, almost like a fox. And she was fox-like, her snout shorter than most other wolves I’d seen. It took me a moment to recognize her for what she was.

A maned wolf.

I’d never seen one before.

I didn’t even know there were maned wolf shifters.

She didn’t howl. Instead, a deep guttural bark crawled from her throat and out of her mouth, reverberating along the bridge and slamming into me. She did it again. And again. And again.

The sounds faded away into nothing.

“What is this?” I asked her. “What is—”

An answering howl.

I fell to my knees.

An Alpha.

A second howl rose up from the trees, singing in chorus with the first.

A third Alpha.

I pressed my hands against the ground, claws scraping into the pavement.

The howls came again, and I could hear the voices in them, saying we’re coming we’re coming WE’RE COMING.

I stood quickly, my half-shift overcoming me. I growled at the Alpha across from me. She was going to kick my ass, but I’d go down swinging.

I rushed toward her.

And slammed into an invisible wall as a burst of magic sprang up around me.

I fell back, nose bloodied and broken. It began to knit itself back together, and I wiped the blood away, flicking it onto the ground. I pressed my hand against the barrier. It felt familiar, just off enough to be unknown, but still recognizable.

It felt like Ezra.

I tried to push through it, but it was unyielding. I slashed at it, my claws sending out bright sparks. It didn’t change no matter how hard I struck.

“Yeah,” a voice drawled from behind me, “that’s not gonna do anything. Jesus Christ, kid. You can’t still be that stupid.”

I whirled around.

An older man stood at the other end of the bridge. The tattoos on his arms were bright in the low light, lines and symbols that meant old magic. A raven on a bed of roses on one of his arms fluttered its wings, beak opening soundlessly. The man had one hand raised toward me. The other was—

His arm ended in a stump at the wrist.

“Witch,” I hissed at him. I ran toward him only to smash into another barrier. It knocked me back, but I stayed on my feet. I snarled in anger.

He rolled his eyes. “Or maybe you can still be that stupid. Good to know some things don’t change, no matter—”

A low growl came from the shadows behind him.

The witch sighed. “Yeah, yeah. I hear you, you overgrown mutt.”

I recoiled as a large brown wolf stepped onto the bridge. Its eyes were violet.

An Omega.

It pressed up against the witch, bumping its snout against the stump of his arm.

“I know,” the witch said. “Hand, sanity, blah, blah, blah. Look. It’s him. It’s really him.” All the bravado seemed to fall away from the witch as he looked at me. His eyes were wet as he shook his head. “Christ, kid. Aren’t you just a sight. All that hair, man. You used to keep it short. Still have the glasses, though. Figures.”

“Let me out,” I snarled at him, banging my hands against the barrier. “You can’t keep me in here forever!”

The witch laughed, though it sounded hollow. “I know,” he said as the brown wolf tilted its head. “But better to be safe than sorry. Especially after….” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Not now.” He was plaintive when he said, “Kid. Robbie. Look at me.”

I bared my fangs.

“You know me.”

I slammed my hands against the barrier again. “I don’t.”

He said, “You do. You know me very well. Somewhere deep inside, you do. It’s there, I think. Still. Locked away behind a door. My name is Gordo. And I’m the witch of a wolf pack. Your wolf pack.” He took a step toward me even as the brown wolf growled in warning. “We’ve waited for this moment for a long time. We… tried, kid. We tried so hard to find you. To get to you. You know me. You know me.”

He dropped his hand.

The barrier fell away as the magic dissipated.

I charged at him.

He didn’t stop me as I wrapped my hand around his throat and lifted him off the ground. The brown wolf snarled in fury, but they smelled like each other, their scents mixed in, all dirt and leaves and rain and ozone. They were mated. I squeezed the witch’s neck tightly as I glared at the wolf. “You back the fuck off or I’ll tear out his throat.” It was stupid to threaten the mate of a witch, but I was out of options and in a full-blown panic.

“I think,” the witch gasped, “he’s kind of got a point. I’d rather keep my throat as is, if it’s all the same to both of you.”

The brown wolf wasn’t having it. Before I could sink my claws into the witch’s neck, the brown wolf slammed into me with its head, knocking me off my feet. The witch fell to the ground as I rolled into the side of the bridge. I was up on my feet immediately, ready to lash out at the Omega.

But he didn’t come for me.

He stood protectively over the witch, eyes bright in the looming darkness.

“Well,” the witch said, flat on his back in the road. “This is going better than I expected. I’m still alive, so that’s a plus. Mark, would you please get your fucking dog junk out of my face?”

The brown wolf sat on him, looking rather pleased with himself before he caught me watching. He snapped his jaws at me but didn’t move.

The witch wheezed. “You… fucking… dick.”

A sound from behind me.

I looked back over my shoulder.

Alpha Wells—Shannon—was gone. But in her place stood two wolves.

One pure white.

One pure black.

The white wolf had red eyes.

The black wolf did too. But there was violet swirling within them, like he was… like he could be—

My shift melted away beyond my control.

They took a step toward me in unison, shoulders brushing. The white wolf was smaller than the black but emanated such power that I could barely breathe. It felt almost regal, like this wolf was royalty.

But it was the black wolf that held my attention the most. Its eyes never left mine as it walked toward me, claws clicking on the pavement.

This wolf was different.

This wolf was more.

My eyes stung, and I didn’t know why. My hands shook.

I heard a whisper in my head, faint but undeniable.

It said packpackpack.

“Who are you?” I said in a broken voice. “What do you want with me?”

The Alphas stopped a good twenty feet away. As I watched, they began to shift. The white wolf became a blond man, younger than I expected. He was strong and slender, the red fading from his eyes until they were blue, blue, blue.

But the other wolf.

Oh god, the other wolf….

His skin was tan. His eyes and hair were dark. He was big, so big that I thought he would fill up the entire world. He popped his neck side to side as the black hair receded, as the fangs slid back up into his gums.

A single tear slid down his cheek. He didn’t wipe it away. It hung on the curve of his jaw for a moment before it splashed onto the road.

“Hello, Robbie,” the man said. His voice was deep, the words slow and filled with so much blue that I could barely breathe. But there was green in them too, green relief that was like the forest around us was in full bloom. “I know you’re scared. I know you have questions. And I will do my best to answer all of them. But we have to go while there’s still time. I need you to trust me.”

I was in a daze. The wolves from my dreams were here in front of me. I didn’t know if I was awake. “Who the hell are you people?”

The man nodded. The other Alpha at his side gripped his hand, mouth a thin line. The big man was an all-encompassing presence, but the other one…

The other one was dangerous.

And he said, “My name is Joe. Joe Bennett.”

My shift returned, sudden and savage.

My fangs dropped as I roared at them. At him.

The witch shouted at the brown wolf, telling him to get the fuck off him even as the wolf growled. The Alphas stood there, barely affected.

Bennett. They were coming for Ezra. They were coming for the Alpha of all. I knew this because Michelle had told me. They were traitors, they were monsters, they were the enemy, and I would do what I had to in order to protect what was mine.

They stood their ground as I ran toward them.

The muscles in the bigger man’s legs flexed as he began to crouch, eyes flashing impossibly in shades of red and violet.

The other one, the dangerous one, popped his claws and—

“Robbie!”

Everything stopped.

My breath hitched as a fourth man stepped out from behind the Alphas.

A wolf.

He looked like the dangerous Alpha, all blond and blue-eyed. They had to be brothers.

He took measured steps, barely looking as if he touched the ground with his bare feet. His jeans were rolled up above his ankles, and he wore what looked like a work shirt, gray with thin red stripes, the hem hanging around his waist.

There was a name embroidered in a patch on his chest.

ROBBIE.

The world tilted.

He took another step toward me. The darker Alpha reached out to stop him, but the other Alpha shook his head once.

I barely noticed.

I couldn’t look away from the man in front of me.

His smile was a trembling thing. I thought for a moment he was scared, but the scent that assaulted me wasn’t fear.

It was sorrow.

Oh god, there was an ocean of blue pouring from him. There was hope, yes, green along the surface, but it was overwhelmed by the sea that engulfed him.

He said, “Hey.”

He said, “Hi.”

He said, “Hello.”

He said, “I see you, you know?” and “I see you” and “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry we let you go, I’m so sorry I let you go, but I swear to you, I swear it’ll never happen again. You’re safe. You’re safe now. Finally, after all this time.”

I was surrounded.

I could do nothing about it.

I was trapped.

He took another step toward me, hands coming up because he knew what a cornered animal would do. He knew that I was on the edge, and the moon was so bright, so strong, so fucking close.

He said, “Listen.”

He said, “I need you to listen, okay?”

I jerked my head as the wolf and witch behind me began to move.

“Robbie,” the wolf in front of me snapped. “Look at me.”

I did. I was helpless not to.

He nodded. “Good. That’s good. It’s me, Robbie.” He took a deep breath. “It’s me. It’s Kelly.”

And I said, “Who?”

His face crumpled immediately, and I was submerged in the blue, drowning in an ocean that rose around me. He hurt. He hurt so fucking bad that I didn’t know how he could stand it.

“Kelly,” he whispered. “I’m Kelly.”

The witch said, “Can we do this later? We need to leave. Now.”

The Alphas took a step toward us.

The man in front of me—Kelly—shook his head furiously. “Wait. Just—”

Gordo said, “We don’t have time to wait,” as the brown wolf growled low in its throat. “They’ll be right behind him. And if it’s really my father, then we need to—”

They shouted after me as I ran toward the side of the bridge. Kelly screamed my name as I vaulted over the edge. My clothing tore as I fell, wind whipping around me. Muscle and bone groaned and broke as I listened to the moon.

I landed on the ground as a wolf, dust billowing around me.

I

need to

run

run

escape

find a tree

hide

quiet as a mouse

i am wolf

i

barely made it from under the shadow of the bridge before my shift was ripped from me in a terrible burst of magic, causing me to fall to my knees, and I was surrounded by wolves.

One was large and gray with flecks of black and white on its hind legs. It had violet eyes.

The second and third wolves were smaller. They were white and brown with black hair across their backs. Their eyes were orange, but they stood side by side with the Omega like it didn’t matter, like they weren’t scared.

I punched the ground in fury, my muscles rippling under my skin as I fought against the magic that held the wolf at bay.

The wolves stepped closer.

From above, the witch appeared, looking down at us. “Chris,” he snapped, “Tanner. Carter. Pulling him out of his shift won’t last. Don’t hurt him. You hear me, whatever you do, don’t—”

They were distracted.

I lunged for the Omega wolf, as it was closest. The other two wolves yelped and stumbled back, tripping over each other and falling to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

I feinted left as they started to recover. The gray wolf fell for it, and I went right.

I took off, running as fast as I could, crossing under the bridge.

I didn’t make it far before the Alphas crashed down in front of me, muscles coiling.

I skidded in the ground, rocks tearing at the soles of my feet.

They took a step toward me.

I took an answering step back, only to hear a low growl behind me. I looked over my shoulder. The other wolves had recovered and were coming toward me, slowly and deliberately, like they were hunting.

“Fucking werewolves,” the witch said as he and the brown wolf slid down the hill next to the bridge. “And we just had to do this so near a full moon. Because of course we did. Hey, let’s just make things as difficult as poss—Mark, if you don’t stop pushing me, I will end you.”

The brown wolf huffed in annoyance as they came to stand next to the Alphas.

“Robbie.”

I whirled around.

The man from the bridge pushed his way between the wolves.

Kelly.

The gray Omega tried to stop him, but he pushed its head away, gaze never leaving me, as if he thought I would disappear right in front of him.

I was surrounded.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Kelly said. “I swear it.”

“You’re Bennetts,” I bit out, trying to force my shift. My skin rippled, but I couldn’t burst through. “You’re the enemy. You want to kill my Alpha.”

He looked stricken. “No. That’s not—”

But oh. He lied. His heart tripped the smallest amount, the barest of stutters.

His eyes widened. “Not like—Robbie. It’s not like that. You have to believe me. You’ve been lied to. They did something to you. Something to your memory. You know me. You know me.” And he stretched the collar of his shirt away from his neck. The shirt with my name on it.

There, at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, was a scar.

The perfect formation of a bite.

And he said, “You’re my mate.”

It was like a punch to the stomach. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t focus. “No. No. No. You’re not. You’re not.” I bit through my lip, blood filling my mouth. “I don’t have a mate. I would know if I—”

“Would you hear me, dear?”

The ocean parted.

Calm washed over me.

All would be well.

Ezra stood on the bridge above us, looking down.

He smiled. “Bennetts, Robbie. All of the creatures before you are Bennetts. And they want to take you away from me. All they do is take.” He shook his head. “I can’t let that happen, I’m afraid. It’s time for this to end, one way or another.”

The wolves around me howled a ferocious song.

It sounded like war.

Ezra nodded. “Ah. I suppose it was inevitable. Some things never change. All this fighting. All this bloodshed. Aren’t you tired? You have suffered. I have suffered. And yet you persist.”

The struts above us began to shake and groan.

Rust sprinkled down on us.

Ezra gripped the railing, his tattoos beginning to shine.

“Move!” Gordo shouted.

The bridge broke apart. The wolves around me darted out of the way when large sections of stone and metal crashed down around us. Kelly grabbed me by the arm and yanked, almost pulling me off my feet. I swiped at him, going for his face, but he ducked before my claws could tear into his skin.

“What are you doing!” he shouted at me “I’m trying to help—look out!”

He shoved me out of the way as a beam hurtled toward us, slamming into the ground where I’d once been standing. From above came the grating screech of metal as what remained of the bridge folded in on itself, slumping down toward the ground.

It looked like…

Stairs.

Ezra had made a staircase.

The metal reformed with every step he took toward us.

I watched as he stood upright, his hunch gone.

The liver spots on his hands and head faded.

White hair sprouted along the top of his head, thin and wispy.

His tattoos were as bright as I’d ever seen them, brighter than I thought possible, like they were new, like they’d just been carved into his skin.

The deep lines on his face filled, though not completely.

He looked years younger. Decades.

“There,” he said, sounding breathless. “Do you know how hard it is to maintain that level of magic at all times? Such a waste.”

He grunted as the brown wolf charged him. Gordo shouted furiously as the wolf was knocked away with a wave of Ezra’s hand, slamming into one of the steel beams with a devastating crunch. The wolf cried out in pain, a long and mournful sound.

“You,” Ezra said to the witch. “How you look like your mother.”

He barely blinked as Gordo raised his arms, magic building.

The black wolf stood at his side, eyes red and violet.

“What do you think you could do to me?” Ezra asked. “Don’t you see how easy this was for me? No matter where you go, no matter what you do, I will find you, Gordo. And I will take everything until you return what belongs to me.”

“We never took anything from you,” Gordo snapped. “And even if we had, do you really think we’d just let this go? After everything you’ve done?”

Ezra looked saddened, shaking his head slowly. “A demonstration, perhaps. Would you hear me, dear? Robbie, would you hear me?”

“Yes,” I whispered. Always.

Gordo’s eyes widened. “Trigger. It’s a goddamn trigger—”

“Kill them,” Ezra said. “Kill them all.”

I would do what he asked.

They were the enemy. The witch would be the first to die.

Except I didn’t reach him.

I leapt for the witch, claws extended.

A gray and black wolf came between us.

It whimpered as my claws sunk into its hair. Into its skin.

Blood spilled over my hands.

“No!” Gordo cried.

The gray and black wolf fell to the ground, my claws still inside it.

It looked up at me with orange eyes.

I stared down at it.

A tatter of clothing hung on its chest.

I watched as wolf blood spilled over the patch with my name on it.

I slowly pulled my claws out.

The wolf whimpered.

I stood as blood dripped from my fingers.

The black Alpha tilted his head back and howled. It rolled through the destruction around us, echoing into the forest.

For a moment nothing happened.

“Yes,” Ezra said mockingly, “because your wolfsong will do you any good so far from home—”

There came an answering howl.

And then another.

And another.

And another, until the forest was alive with wolves. Flashes of violet lights began to fill the forest. Wolves stood on the remains of the bridge overhead, peering down at us, their eyes glowing.

Violet.

We were surrounded by Omegas.

“Curious,” Ezra said, sounding unafraid as he turned his gaze upward. “I’ve often wondered how you did it, Alpha Matheson. Taking what I created and making it something else entirely. Is it just you? Your pack? The territory? No matter. It’s—”

The gray and black wolf was moving, even as it bled.

It jumped for Ezra.

Ezra caught it by the throat. His tattoos grew brighter until I could barely look at him. “A lesson, I think. You will learn what happens when you try to take from me.” He shook the wolf like it weighed nothing. The wolf tried to snap at his arm, his face, but it couldn’t reach. “Yes, you will learn very well. Let’s see what happens when your wolf is stripped from you.”

The wolf lost its shift. One moment it was scrabbling, jerking side to side, and the next he was fully human, nude, with blood coating his side. Kelly.

It was Kelly.

What happened next was over in a matter of seconds.

He cried out as the tattoos on Ezra’s arm crawled over his wrist and hand. Ancient symbols appeared on Kelly’s face. Kelly’s head rocked back, teeth grinding together.

The symbols twisted as if alive, rising up and attaching themselves to his lips, little tentacles that pulled on his mouth, forcing it open.

And then they poured down his throat.

Kelly made no sound as his body shook. His hands flexed and closed. Flexed and closed.

His skin lit up, pulsing once, then twice.

His eyes flickered orange.

And then the orange disappeared.

Ezra tossed him to the ground.

He lay on his back, blinking up at the dark sky. The wolves surrounded him, hackles raised, growling loudly.

Ezra sighed. “It didn’t have to be this way. All I want is what belongs to me. Surely you have to see that. All this fighting. All this death. What has it brought you in the end? I may have underestimated the bond between you all, and that’s my mistake. But it’s one I won’t make again. Robbie, if you please. Come with me. I have much to tell you. Would you hear me, dear?”

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

“He’s lying,” Gordo snarled, cradling the brown wolf’s head in his hands. “My father is lying to you—”

“Father,” I whispered.

Ezra said, “I am Robert Livingstone. It’s lovely to meet you again, Robbie. Now come. We have work to—”

A small figure landed on his back, half-shifted, claws sinking in.

It was a boy.

And his eyes were violet too.

“Brodie, no!” a woman screamed from above us.

Ezra grunted as he was knocked forward toward the wolves. The Omega was fierce behind him, hands moving up and down quickly as he scraped into the witch’s back.

Ezra reached up behind him and grabbed the boy by the arms, lifted him up and over his head, and threw him at the Alphas.

And for the first time since I had known him, I saw fear on his face.

And I smelled it.

He looked around wildly, taking us all in.

He held his hand out for me.

I stepped forward to take it.

A hand wrapped around my ankle.

I looked down.

Kelly panted up at me. “Don’t. Please don’t go. Please. Stay with me.”

The moon and the stars shone down on the scar on his neck.

“Robbie?”

I turned to look at Ezra again.

He held his hand out for me, his fingers trembling.

I hesitated.

He nodded slowly as he dropped his hand. “I see,” he whispered. “You too. Just like everyone else. How you betray me.”

The Alphas snarled as they took a step toward him.

“You think you’ve won?” Ezra said as Omegas filled the coming night with their fury. “This is just the beginning. And I won’t stop until I have what belongs to me. I will tear the world apart.” His tattoos flared to life once again.

“Get down!” Gordo screamed.

And without thinking, I collapsed on top of Kelly, covering his body with mine.

He whispered, “I found you.”

And then the world filled with a bright flash of light, and everything exploded.