Page 24

Twenty-Four

It had been a decade since Robin set foot in his childhood home. Not much had changed inside since and yet his entire world outside it had been turned upside down.

The family home—a two-story stucco structure built into the side of a hill, halfway up the mountain Mac’s mother’s people referred to as Kanamota—was well cared for.

Freshly painted a soft white, none of the roof’s terracotta tiles missing, the windows sparkling clean.

The home cared well for its inhabitants too, its location naturally protected from elements and enemies, its foundations strong and sturdy, surviving the earth’s shifts for three generations of Whelans.

From the main floor balcony where Robin stood, the grounds around the home seemed similarly in order.

Among the cultivated fields that dotted the forest clearings, half of them were beginning to show the first shoots of winter vegetables, while the other half were at rest until spring when they’d be planted with sunflowers, sage, and more.

And beyond the homestead, the peaks and valleys of the pack’s range were just beginning to recover from the long hot summer. In a couple rainy months’ time, the peaks would be green and the valley floor awash with yellow from the wild mustard that flourished in these parts.

Growing up, March had always been his favorite time to run, when the towering, swaying weeds made the range feel a little less huge.

When the mustard reminded him of his mother.

They’d laid him and his sister on her chest right after their birth, as she’d struggled for breath, the life bleeding out of her, and she’d smelled like the wild mustard did under his paws.

“Never thought I’d see you back here.”

Robin rotated away from the view to the older man standing over the balcony threshold. “Uncle.”

Jasper’s strawberry blond hair was thinner and streaked with more white than the last time Robin had seen him, but those white hairs and the deeper wrinkles around his eyes and mouth were the only signs of age on his mother’s brother, the man who’d raised him and Deborah.

Their father had died within a year of their mother. A broken heart, everyone had said. A self-inflicted gunshot wound, the police report said. Jasper had seen Robin through that and more, until the day of Deborah’s funeral when he’d told Robin that he never wanted to see him again.

Toned arms folded, Jasper’s stature was as imposing as Robin remembered, his golden eyes as sharp and discerning as they’d been whenever Robin had pulled explosion-worthy stunts as a teen. “What brings the prodigal son home?”

“I need Mom’s letters.” There’d been a stack of them waiting for him and Deborah when they’d come of age.

Everything she’d wanted them to know in case she didn’t survive their birth, like she’d somehow known she wouldn’t.

He’d read them countless times over, looking for clues and finding few, the mate bit having stuck with—frightened—him most. Now, given that the mate bit had come true, and given everything else he’d learned the past few months, plus the wealth of knowledge in said mate’s head, he might connect the dots he hadn’t recognized before.

“They’re gone,” Jasper said, as he wandered back into the great room.

Robin followed, momentarily distracted by the additional pack members who’d gathered inside, including Jenn and Abigail. Their wide-eyed expressions indicated they were just as surprised as him by Jenn’s father’s statement.

“Gone where?” Robin asked, trying to squash the tangle of anger and panic rising in his voice.

No way Jasper would destroy those; they were all he had left of his sister.

They were all Robin had left of his mother.

After he’d last read them, the day of Deborah’s funeral, he’d put them into the family safe like he and Deborah had always done.

Jenn, who’d assumed the mantle of pack leader after Deborah’s death, had assured him they’d always be there, as part of the pack’s historical record.

“I burned them.”

Jenn vaulted off the arm of the couch. “Why’d you do that?”

“In case this war you two”—Jasper waggled a finger between them—“are set on fighting goes the other way.”

“You’d fold?” Robin scoffed. “Just like that?”

“I’m protecting our family and this pack.”

Robin glanced around the room, meeting each pack member’s gaze. “Do all of you feel that way?”

“We’re with Jenn,” said Bruce, her younger brother.

“And I’m with her, always,” Jenn replied, her devotion to Nature unwavering, but when she swung her gaze to Robin, it was clear her feelings toward him were more than just an act’s worth. “But where are you, cousin?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You turned Paris over to a giant,” Abigail said, and Robin’s gaze shot to the most level-headed member of their team, the one who understood nuance better than most, abandoned by a pack who had allied themselves with a giant.

“Just like your mate did,” Jenn added.

“I didn’t know he was my mate, then,” he barked back.

It was a risky move, bringing Atlas into this.

Volatile for their pack, and if someone was leaking information to Evan, how would this change the calculus?

Would he believe that Atlas, once he caught Robin, would ever turn his mate over?

Was Jenn even considering that or just acting out of frustration and anger?

Regardless, the cat was out of the bag. “Wait?” Bruce said. “The same warlock who killed Deborah?”

“He didn’t,” Robin corrected. “It was his twin.”

“Because that’s so much better,” another of their cousins, Olivia, said from where she’d been eyeing something out the window.

“You vanish for days on end, Robin,” Jenn said, drawing his attention back to her. “You don’t let anyone in on your plans.” She swallowed hard. “You don’t answer pack calls.”

His gut roiled, familiar guilt creeping up his throat, his voice rough with it as he gritted out his response. “I have answered every one of them the past two months.”

“How much of the past two months,” Jasper said, “could have been avoided if you’d answered the call ten years ago?”

And as fast as the guilt had climbed, it brought him low, taking his stomach to the floor, same as it always did when the worst mistake of his life was thrown back in his face. “So, we’re back to that?”

“Once a traitor, always a traitor.”

Good to know where he stood. While this may have started as an act, the performance had been hijacked by the truth, which made what he came here for all the more important. He’d never get another chance. “Give me Mom’s letters.”

“I told you?—”

“Give them to me,” Robin roared, the voice he would have used to give an order if he’d taken control of the pack after Deborah. By birthright, he’d deserved it; by deed, he’d forfeited it. Instincts were instincts, though, and everyone but Jasper took a step back and lowered their heads.

While he didn’t join them in physically submitting, Jasper tempered his voice, the tone deferential, when he spoke again. “She was my sister.”

“She was my mother,” Robin said, letting every bit of sorrow bleed into his words. “You had a lifetime with her. I had minutes. If you don’t want anything to do with me, fine. But give me that piece of her, of my history, and I’ll never show my face here again.”

Jenn gasped. “Robin?—”

He kept his gaze locked on his uncle. “Do we have a deal?”

The older man stared him down another long minute before seeming to accept the truth of Robin’s words and nodding to Bruce, who disappeared into the house.

“Robin.” Jenn stepped to his side, hand on his forearm, tears glistening in her eyes. “You don’t have to do this.”

He covered her hand, giving it a squeeze, as he forced out words around the lump in his throat. She was a good pack leader; she didn’t need the albatross that was him hanging around her neck. “I do, cuz.”

Bruce returned with the stack of letters, tied together by the green and yellow ribbons of Robin’s memories. He handed them to Jasper, who slapped them into Robin’s outstretched hand. “Willow deserved better. So did Deborah.”

Robin didn’t disagree.