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“Do you know if you were up there when you got shot?” Dean asked. “We have a rifle with us, but I would prefer a no-shooting day.”

“I think we all prefer those days,” Liam said, dry as dust.

“Shut up, brother.” Dean rolled his eyes.

Fen’s shoulders tightened, the wound throbbing like Dean’s question opened it again. “I… I don’t know exactly where I was because I’d just been running. Traveling.”

Dean tilted his head. “So…obviously you’re not from anywhere near here.”

Liam’s eyes went wide. “Like, are you on the run? Are you a fugitive? If you are, I mean, we’re cool with it, I’m cool with it, but you need to tell Rory if you are a fugitive. If you are, what are you going to do about it?”

Dean looked at Liam with the long-suffering gaze of someone who had dealt with these questions for many years. “Liam, shut up. Let the man speak.”

“Thank you.” He guessed he should thank them.

“You’re welcome. Now. Are you on the run?”

“No. Well, not exactly.” He sighed.Love, can you listen in?Rory needed to hear this.

I’m right here. Resting. Nothing else to do but hear you.

His heart swelled at Rory seeing him and hearing him. “My family and our extended family were banished. The pack was taking a very anti-human stance. Killing their meat animals. Attacking them if they came on our territory. It made us a target for the human hunters. So my family, and many of our cousins and friends, protested.”

Oh love. I’m so sorry.Rory’s sorrow bled through, mingling with his own.

“So… So you made your own pack? I mean, is that what happened?” Liam had turned to look at him from the front seat.

“I suppose?” He jostled and bounced on the back seat of the truck. “That’s what we wanted to happen. My sister and her mate and my parents came with me, while most of the others headed far north. Because, you know, white Arctic wolves, right?”

Dean nodded once. “Well, that makes sense.”

“I was trying to make it so. They wanted me to be the pack alpha and…” He shook his head.

The fact was, he wasn’t an alpha. Not like that. He wasn’t interested in leading people. He wasn’t interested in leading anything. He wanted a family and a home and a workshop. He didn’t want a pack of his own, and he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be ashamed of that or not.

Was he supposed to just want to constantly climb the ladder, to fight to be in control? Because he didn’t, he liked his rung.

“You don’t have to tell us,” Liam said, but Rory was listening, and he did have to tell his mate.

“My sister’s mate. His family came. I was out hunting, trying to find food because it was the dead of winter. They killed them all. All of them. And I wasn’t even there to protect them. I?—”

He didn’t even have an answer to that, more to say. He was what he was supposed to have been there. He had to find food. He had lost everyone.

Oh, my sweet love. You haven’t lost everyone. I’m here and your child is here and we love you. Please, sweet. This wasn’t your fault. This was their fault. They killed your family. They were the murderers, not you.

“Jesus, that sucks, man.” Dean’s voice was serious as a heart attack. “You don’t have to be ashamed. You were out trying to provide while someone was a murderous asshole—I can’t even imagine. That stinks. Are they still around?”

The words eased him, Dean’s, of course, but Rory’s easy acceptance was a balm. “I don’t know. I—I went a little crazy, I think. I walked out and ran, not out of fear, just out of…”

Liam nodded. “Pain. Pain, that’s enough to make you crazy. I hear you.”

I should have been there. My sister was the sweetest wolf you’d ever meet. Gentle and kind.

What was her name?

Samantha.

Well. I wish I could have met Samantha. I’m sorry that I never got to. You have a home now, and we intend to keep you.