“But,” I murmur.
His gaze darkens. “But I’m pretty sure I heard her say that you went to her. All the way down to Ashland and up into those mountains where anything could happen to you. Without letting anyone know. Without giving anyone, even me, a heads-up that you were doing it. Is that what happened?”
I don’t bother to argue. “It is.”
I expect him to blow up, but he doesn’t. He only studies me for what seems like an inordinate amount of time.
Then he makes me feel as if he let out a heavy sigh, though he doesn’t actually do it. “If any other member of the pack did somethinglike that, how do you think I would respond? How would you advise me to react?”
In my capacity as his mate, he means. The mate he would trust with all his pack business, he means.
Ouch.
“You’re right,” I say. “I should have told you. I don’t know why I didn’t.”
“You don’t? That’s funny, Maddox. Because I do.”
He shakes his head at me, and then he starts walking. If he wanted to get the hell away from me—as he has many times in the past—he would do that. He would shift and take off, and while I might be pretty fast, I’m not a werewolf alpha who won his position with his claws, his strength, and the simple fact that no one can catch him.
I walk with him, falling into his rhythm easily, as if his movement compels mine. As if we match. We don’t walk a lot of places together, not in our human forms, and there’s something about it that gets to me. It amazes me that we can fit so well together as both wolves and humans, but I think better of saying that.
That’s not something he’s going to want to hear. Not in the strange mood he’s in.
We head down the hill, through gnarled trees in the throes of their winter blues. At the bottom, we wander through a haphazard collection of abandoned buildings and old picked-over shops. We keep going until we find ourselves on one of the old roads that winds across the valley floor, crosses what was once the interstate a bit farther south than the center of Medford, and eventually makes its way over to Jacksonville and the hills beyond.
“You know as well as I do that we’re coming to the end here,” he tells me, quietly, as we pick our way across churned-up asphalt and around downed trees that have likely been left as convenient barricades for those who imagine themselves highwaymen. “I don’t have to keep saying it.”
The mist is playing hide-and-seek out in the old pear orchards. The clouds scud along the sky, looking like they’re trying to collide with the mountains, though they never do. I can almost see the trails etched into the hillsides as we walk, reminding me of hikes I took long ago with human schoolchildren who could never see the creatures who lurked just out of sight.
Now it’s the humans who hide.
I take my time answering him, because my heart hurts and I don’t want him to hear that. Not now. “Everything ends, Ty. You and me. The world. You’re going to have to be more specific. The vague threats wore off a long time ago.”
Beside me, he makes a low noise again. Still not really a growl. “I’m not threatening you.”
“Aren’t you?” I keep my voice quiet too. The air is crisp and soft at once, winter infusing every breath although technically, it’s still fall. “You could have put a stop to all of this a long time ago. You could have told every single member of the pack, in no uncertain terms, that you support what I’m doing no matter how long it takes. You—”
“What the fuck do you think I told them?” Ty growls at me.
He stops walking, so I do too. We cover a lot of ground pretty quickly, even on the substandard two feet. We’re already up on Bellinger Lane, with its sweet view over pretty Jacksonville, looking like the dreams I can’t kick of the normal life I’ve never had.
Maybe that’s been my problem all along.
“Are you kidding me?” Ty demands. “All I do is tell everyone who dares think about you wrong that you have my absolute and complete support in all things. Do you really think this would have gone so far if I didn’t?”
“I’m the one they growl at—” I begin.
“If I didn’t support you one hundred goddamn percent,” Ty belts out, “you would have been mated as a little girl with grown-ass babies of your own by now. That’s exactly how it goes down in other packs. Ineveryother pack.”
My heart is pounding against my ribs. “Do you really want me to thank you for not making sure that I was popping out litters as a thirteen-year-old?”
“You’re so full of shit.”
He doesn’t say that like he’s pissed at me. He says it in a kind of exasperation, and again, my heart starts performing acrobatics inside my chest. Like I’m losing something here, right in front of my eyes.
I don’t cry, but just now, I feel like maybe a sob is the only thing that might help.
Ty takes his time looking at me. First he looks to the hills. To the woods where we’ve always been, wolves just like us. Then over toward the town of Jacksonville, a monument to another lost world.
