Oh, crap. The one question she wasn’t supposed to ask directly. The one question he couldn’t answer without his alpha’s approval. He bit his lip and tried to find a path around the question, but Willow’s scent sharpened with suspicion.
“It’s passed genetically, isn’t it? The bite is a myth, or so I’ve read.”
Ezra nodded, his thoughts scrambling, his bullet points scattering. She was too smart for a deflection. If he refused to answer, he’d be proving himself unsafe.
“Does it skip generations, or is your dad one too?”
Honesty. It was all he had. “I can’t speak for anyone but myself, Willow.”
“That’s a yes,” she said. “Oh, what about your brother?”
Danger. Danger to his pack. No, never danger, not from his mate. The two instincts went to war inside him. He couldn’t tell her everything. He needed to tell her everything.
“Ezra?”
He managed to keep his tone level, his hands unclenched. “A wolf’s identity is his to reveal or not. Willow, please. It’s not right for me to answer for anyone else.”
He thought he had balanced honesty and privacy, but Willow’s eyes widened, and she drew a small breath of wonder.
“The same physical profile,” she said quietly. “It’s not a coincidence, is it?”
“What?” he said.
“Cassius and Aaron. It’s all of you—it’s everyone who lives out there. Oh my gosh, and Nathan. He’s almost as big as you, and—and oh my gosh,the wolf. The glass wolf that wasn’t for sale. And his dad too, right? His dad and yours. I’ve seen the Corrigans in town before, Nathan’s parents. His dad’s a ginger too, and he’s built like y’all.”
“Willow.” Ezra pressed his hands to the top of his head.
She kept going without pause, a rush of triumph rising in her scent. “You’re not a cult at all. You’re a multi-generational wolf pack.”
“Willow.”
At last she stopped, studied him. Slowly the excitement faded from her eyes, from her scent, and she set her hand on his shoulder. He didn’t move. Had he done something wrong, that she’d pieced the puzzle together with such certainty?
“It’s true about wolves,” she said quietly. “You’re more private than we are. More private than vampires.”
He turned his head away from her, fought the urge to spit as his mouth went sour.
“What?”
“Of course they’re not private. They’re not at risk.”
“And wolves are?”
Ezra lowered his hands to rest on his thighs. He drew a deep breath, tried to loosen the vise that gripped his chest. Willow kept her hand on his shoulder, and as they sat quietly, her thumb rubbed a gentle circle above his collarbone. Her touch worked a marvel: his body began to relax. Anxiety couldn’t hold onto him while Willow did.
My mate.
He leaned against the wooden back of the bench. So she had figured it out. So he’d tell Malachi. Fine. It was right for her to know. She’d meet the pack in six days; she’d find out then anyway.
“You’re not taught all the history,” he said. “In the past, in most cultures, wolves were viewed as little more than animals. Viewed as soulless—or, if we had a soul, it was damned by nature.”
“Oh, that’s awful.”
“It’s part of why the custom still exists—privacy, secrecy if you want to call it that. The elder wolves remember a time when it was worse for us, and they don’t trust that things seem better now.”
“And is that why you live in packs? Strength in numbers, in case it gets bad for y’all again?”
“We live in packs because that’s how we’re built. Intense social attachment. Yeah, every person needs contact with others, relationships and all, but…it’s a stronger need for a wolf.” He searched for words, some way to express the deep sense of rightness that filled his body whenever his pack was near him. At last he shook his head. “I guess it’s not something I can explain.”
