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CONNOR

I waited until Luna had taken her first sip of coffee, then nudged her foot under the table.

“We’ve got a little adventure planned today.”

She raised her eyebrows over the rim of her mug. “Yeah?”

“Showing you around the pack lands.”

She grinned. “Finally.”

“Don’t get too excited,” I said, half-teasing. “It’s not exactly Disneyland.”

She was practically buzzing as we walked past the central cluster of cabins.

I watched her take it all in—the weathered timber, the communal gardens, the smell of woodsmoke in the air.

This place had always been home to me. I tried to see it now through her eyes: a self-contained, strange, close-knit world.

I tried to imagine what she was seeing as a first timer. A strange group of people had made their own town?

Finally, we drew back around to our closest neighbour, a log cabin. There was a trike on the porch, and chalk drawings were on the ground out front.

We knocked on the front door, and a few seconds later, it creaked open.

“Hi, I'm Elena,” she said with a warm smile, extending her hand to Luna.

Her hazelnut skin caught the sun filtering through the porch awning, and her dark brown eyes had a calm intelligence to them.

She wore her curls pinned back loosely and looked every bit the kind of person you could talk to for hours without realizing time had passed.

Luna shook her hand and followed Elena to the couch.

The place was set up similarly to what Luna had been renting, except there were two bedrooms by the bathroom.

There was a kitchenette to the side with a small dining table and chairs, a living space framed by a couch, a mat with toys scattered around, and Luca in wolf form watching.

Luna crouched slowly, settling onto the mat without hesitation.

“Hi Luca,” she said, her voice soft and inviting. “I’m Luna. I’m really pleased to meet you.”

The boy-wolf sniffed the air, head tilted, paws inching forward. He blinked at her like he was trying to figure her out.

She waited patiently, her palm open. When he finally pressed his head into her lap, I felt something twist in my chest.

As we chatted about regular things, how we met Luna, and how Luca was, he got closer and closer to Luna. At last, he curled up in her lap.

Luna looked up at me, and I could see the hearts in her eyes. Elena smiled softly.

“Since his dad passed away last year, he prefers to spend more time in this form. It'll have to change when he goes to nursery school, but I allow it for now.”

Geoff had been one of the two killed in last year's skirmish with a rival pack—the bears, and for reasons we didn't know, they hated us, wanted us extinct. I hoped it didn't scare Luna. We were a brutal lot at times.

“I'd better put him down for his nap,” Elena said, looking at the clock. She gathered him up from Luna’s lap. “You're good with him. Let's do a cuppa one time soon and get to know each other, just us girls.”

“That'd be great,” Luna said. I helped her up. She stretched out her legs.

Back at the house, Luna kicked off her shoes, cheeks still pink from the afternoon.

“He was adorable,” she murmured.

“You were good with him,” I said, and meant it more than she probably realized.

I hesitated, then rubbed the back of my neck. “I’m gonna go for a run.”

Ash nodded, and Luna smiled at me, soft, open.

As I loped into the trees, paws replacing feet, one truth stayed with me:

The more time I spent with Luna, the harder it became to pretend she wasn’t mine, too.