Page 21

The journey from Ensign back to Ferris was surprisingly uneventful. According to Ethan, who was paranoid, this was deeply suspect.

Xander had seen us off that morning with much pretend crying, an impassioned bro-hug for Ethan, and a real hug for me, which Ethan very bravely didn’t growl about; I had bid goodbye to Eve with genuine gratitude and very little warmth; then it was just me and Ethan and a fourteen-hour run back to Ferris.

On the upside, being in our wolf forms meant that we didn’t have to talk about what had happened the previous evening after Ethan had wordlessly carried me upstairs and left me in the bathroom to clean up with nothing more than a kiss to my forehead.

On the downside, our wolves were nothing but excited by the development (not that it was a real development, because it still didn’t mean anything), and we both failed miserably to rein in their enthusiasm as we bounded through the forest together.

My wolf’s joy was irrepressible, and I found myself nipping playfully at Ethan’s heels as we ran.

Far from snapping a reprimand at me, he only yipped and sprinted faster: an invitation to chase.

Argent passed in a blur as we intermittently sprinted and rolled through the grassland.

I’d never seen Ethan or his wolf act like this, but my wolf was delighted by it, running and jumping on him, letting him playfully nip at my haunches whenever I overtook him, rubbing her head against his neck whenever we stopped for more than a few seconds together.

It was the opposite of what we should be doing.

We should be keeping our distance and being careful, and not letting ourselves get caught up in the moment.

Then again, I could hardly talk. I’d been so weak when he kissed me gently in the evening light; it would have been hypocritical to deny my wolf the simple pleasure of play.

It was early evening by the time we reached Ferris, and one of Ethan’s Betas was waiting for us at the bridge with a small pile of clothing and a grim expression.

Ethan wasted no time on pleasantries as he pulled on the sweatpants his Beta offered him.

“Status update?” he demanded. The Beta looked back at him, vaguely shell-shocked, as if Ethan had grown a second head since he’d last been on Ferris.

His eyes darted between Ethan and me, and I realized with a sharp jolt of mortification that we must smell of each other.

I pulled on the vest top I’d been given, trying not to look guilty.

“The uh—the leak in the washing cabin was dealt with, but Joe wandered into the forest again,” he said eventually.

“For fuck’s sake,” barked Ethan, “who let him out?”

The Beta shrugged.

“He just wandered off while Sadie’s back was turned. You know what he’s like.”

Ethan sighed as though he knew exactly what Joe was like, pinching the bridge of his nose. I personally wasn’t sure what the problem was with a shifter going into the forest. It was kind of our whole thing.

“Do you have a track on him?” Ethan asked, and the Beta nodded.

“He didn’t go far, just up to the lake.”

Ethan nodded, running a hand through his hair. I was absolutely not admiring the way it made the muscles of his arms and torso flex. That would have been tasteless. He was in distress.

“Sorry, I have to go deal with this,” he told me. “You go back to town with Harris, get settled in the house. One of our elders, his mind’s going. He keeps wandering off and refusing to come back. Says he’s waiting for his mate, but she died last year.”

It was a familiar enough scenario. Shifters were less susceptible to degeneration and disease than humans, but it became more common among the elders when their mates had passed on.

“I’ll come with you,” I said. I might not know Joe, but I had always been good at calming Patricia Elms when she started talking in circles and forgetting her son’s face.

“You don’t need to—” Ethan started, but I held up a hand to silence him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Harris’s jaw drop.

“Elders are my whole job back home,” I reminded him. “Let me help.”

“Fine. It’s not far from the lake.”

As we walked, Ethan filled me in: Joe was coming up on ninety, his mate Minnie having passed in her sleep the previous winter.

Minnie had, according to Ethan, been something of a community pillar, warm and funny and absolutely not to be messed with.

The two of them had a daughter, Sadie, with whom Joe now lived, but he was prone to wandering off in search of his mate, and this wasn’t the first time Ethan had been called in to help get him back.

“The Alpha command is usually the only thing that can get him to move,” Ethan confessed. “I don’t like doing it, though. He’s a respected Elder. He deserves better than that.”

“Well, you’ve got me now,” I told him. I wished I were as confident as I pretended, but it was clear that Ethan was uncomfortable with the task; if nothing else, I could lend him a little support.

It wasn’t long before the forest began to thin out, and we found ourselves on the shore of a small lake, rimmed by redwoods. Not far from us, an elderly man sat at the base of a tree, waving as he saw us approach.

“Hey, Joe,” said Ethan, and the old man gave him a little salute.

“Matthew,” said Joe. “Nice day we’re having, huh?”

Matthew had been Ethan’s father, which was about what I expected. Ethan looked uncomfortable, but I could tell he was trying his best not to show it.

“It sure is,” he agreed, “but it’ll be dark soon. Wanna come back to town?”

Joe shook his head.

“Naw, I’m meeting my Minnie here for a date.” His attention turned to me, his watery blue eyes sparkling with curiosity. “Who’s your lady friend?”

“I’m Julia,” I said, crouching down and giving a little wave of my own. “It’s nice to meet you, Joe. I’ve heard a lot about your Minnie.”

His whole face lit up, splitting into a wide, gap-toothed smile.

“Yeah, she’s a swell girl, just swell. Sometimes I can’t believe fate gave her to me, but I sure am grateful.”

“What’s your favorite thing about her?” I asked. As sad as it sometimes made me, I loved to hear the Elders talk about their mates. That kind of enduring love was something that I’d dreamed of as a girl: to have someone who loved me so entirely, for everything I was.

“Oh, her sense of humor for sure,” Joe answered quickly. “She’s whip-smart, always got something to say.”

“You must be really proud of her,” I said, “and your daughter, too.”

I’d hoped that mention of his daughter might bring Joe back to the present, but I had no such luck. He only shook his head, looking confused.

“We don’t have a daughter, not yet anyway. Boy, would that be a blessing.”

To my surprise, Ethan appeared at my side, crouching beside me. Adopting the same calm, pleasant tone I’d been careful to use, he said,

“Her name’s Sadie, Joe. Your daughter Sadie, with red hair just like her mom?”

Joe’s frown deepened.

“Red hair like Minnie?” he asked. It looked like he was on the cusp of something, but couldn’t quite grasp it. It was a delicate moment: we couldn’t push him too far, but the right nudge might get him moving.

“Just like Minnie,” I assured him. “You wanna come see her?”

“Where?”

“At home, back in town,” said Ethan. “Here, take my arm.”

For a faltering, uncertain moment, Joe only stared at Ethan’s outstretched arm, then he blinked. He nodded.

“Thank you, I feel turned around all of a sudden.”

“It’s a warm day,” said Ethan as he helped the old man up. “Have you been drinking enough water?”

I let Ethan take the lead as we headed back through the forest, walking slowly to make sure Joe didn’t trip.

As we walked, Joe asked me several questions about Lapine, telling me more than once that he’d been to Lapine for the Solstice a few years previously.

He was a sweet old guy, and I enjoyed answering his questions, even when they repeated themselves, just to see the excitement on his face with every “new” piece of information he learned.

The sun had almost set by the time we arrived back in town, and Ethan led us to a homey-looking cottage, where a woman in her fifties, red hair salted with white, waited anxiously in the doorway.

“There you are, Dad,” she said with a relieved exhale, dashing forward to take her father’s free arm. Together, she and Ethan helped him up the ramp to the cottage door, ushering him inside and into a comfy chair in the living area. I lingered in the doorway, not wanting to intrude.

“Thank you, Alpha,” said Sadie. “He just took off while I was making lunch.”

“Don’t sweat it, Sadie. These things happen,” Ethan assured her. “Besides, Julia here did most of the work.”

“Hi.” I gave Sadie a little wave and received a tired smile in return.

“Thank you,” she said.

“My pleasure. He’s a great old guy.”

“He is,” she agreed. Her eyes flicked between me and Ethan, as if expecting an explanation for my presence. Ethan didn’t offer it.

“Is there anything else you need before I go?” he asked. The exhaustion was plain in his voice, and Sadie must have heard it too, because she shook her head.

“Absolutely not. Go home and take care of yourself. Good to have you back.”

Ethan gave her a weak smile, and the pair of us waved at Joe as Ethan guided me through the door by my elbow. Behind me, I heard Sadie give a little gasp, but Ethan didn’t seem to notice.

“Careful,” he said gently. “There’s a plant pot right there.”

I let him guide me around the pot on my blind side, uncertain of why I didn’t feel prickly and defensive.

His hand remained on my elbow as we moved through town, heedless of the looks it garnered us, and my wolf purred with satisfaction.

It wasn’t a mark, not a full claim, but she knew what the touch signified just as well as I did.

Along the way, we passed males coming home, kids playing in the street, and females bringing in laundry; every one of them received a tired but genuine smile from the most unsmiling man I knew.

Once, he caught a stray ball and rolled it back to a group of kids who seemed entirely unafraid of him.

It was so far removed from the Ethan I thought I’d known that by the time we reached his home, I felt dazed and unmoored.

Between that and our shared exhaustion, we were quiet as Ethan shuffled around the house. Food had been left out for us, but we were too tired to do more than pick at the cold cuts and bread and cheese.

“You want a tea?” were the first words Ethan spoke after we got inside.

“I was gonna head to bed soon, but thanks.”

“It’s chamomile,” he clarified. “For sleep.”

“You drink chamomile?” I teased, unable to stop myself. Most shifter males wouldn’t be seen dead drinking herbal tea, considering it too “girly”.

“Yeah. It’s soothing,” he replied, without a hint of embarrassment. He filled his kettle and set it on the stove, bringing two cups down from the shelf.

I had nothing to say to that, so I sat and watched him make the tea. It was clearly a ritual for him, and there was something precious in being allowed into this very private routine.

“Thank you for today,” he said as he removed the strainer from one cup, sliding it across the table toward me.

“It was nothing, really,” I said as I inhaled the floral steam. “Glad I could help.”

“We uh—we make a pretty good team when we’re not biting each other’s heads off,” he offered, and my stomach fluttered with pleasant butterflies.

“Yeah, I guess we do.”

The moment was gentle, tender, and in the silence that ensued, I wondered if maybe I was safe.

If I told him now about the little life growing inside me, maybe he wouldn’t push me away.

Maybe he would take my hand and tell me we’d make it work, that he’d been wrong about not being my mate, that he was ready now.

Knock, knock, knock.

We both jumped. Ethan gave me an apologetic grimace as he moved to answer the front door, and I followed him to the threshold of the kitchen, leaning against the doorframe to look down the hall.

On the porch, there was a woman about Ethan’s age, petite and curvy, with tanned skin and deep brown hair curling around her shoulders.

“Lacey, everything okay?” Ethan asked.

“Everything’s fine,” she said. “I just wanted to swing by and welcome you home. It’s been weird not having you around.”

“You guys can’t look after yourselves for two weeks?” His tone was light, pretending at a joke, but his posture was tense.

“We need our Alpha here with us,” the woman, Lacey, replied.

Her voice was high and breathy, pleading in a way that—oh.

Oh. She was flirting with him. She was flirting in a way that felt familiar, sure of itself.

I knew Ethan slept around, and I had to assume that included females from his own Pack.

My wolf growled within me, and I had to grip the doorframe so I didn’t rush forward to stake my claim.

“Well, you’ve got me back now,” said Ethan. He sounded almost bored, without the warmth that lingered in his tone when he’d spoken to the other members of his Pack. “Thanks for checking in.”

“You’re not—you don’t want some company?” she tried once more, but Ethan clearly wasn’t interested.

“Not tonight, Lacey. Have a good one.”

The door clicked closed, and I stood watching Ethan’s back as he took several measured breaths.

I should have felt elated at the ease with which he dismissed her—my wolf was certainly curling up, contented, in my chest—but I only felt a sense of trepidation.

These last couple of weeks had been intense, but they were nearly over now.

Was that how Ethan would treat me when all was said and done?

I was, after all, the only one in a long line of females who had ignored our better judgment and fallen into his bed.

In my case, there hadn’t even been a bed.

When he finally turned back and saw me lingering at the kitchen door, he tensed. It was stupid, so stupid, but I couldn’t help asking,

“Who was that?”