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I shuffled along the street, keeping my head down as I weaved back and forth through the crowd. My hands were filled with packages, and I was slightly off-balanced as I attempted to navigate the throng.

Finally, I managed to make it to town hall. I juggled the boxes, shifting them to my hip as I struggled to pull the door open. I squeezed inside and nearly lost the top two boxes before I managed to balance them again.

The woman behind the welcome desk glanced up, not bothering to move or help me as I staggered forward. Not that I had expected her to.

“You get everything?” she asked in a clipped, indifferent tone.

“Yes.” I dropped them on the desk. “Can you help me get these to the right offices?”

“I’m busy,” she said, examining her nails as she leaned back in her seat.

“Right,” I muttered. I hefted the boxes in my arms and moved down the hall.

I shuffled from office to office, the load in my arms getting steadily lighter with each stop. No one thanked me or so much as looked up when I dropped off their mail. It wasn’t a surprise, and I’d given up on expecting anything other than casual indifference from most of the pack.

Finally, there were only a couple of letters remaining, along with a small parcel, all for Reacher. I took a deep breath as I looked down at the name, then down the hall where his office was. Apprehension and unease prickled along my skin. I tried to avoid our alpha as much as possible. Unfortunately, thanks to being an aide at town hall, that wasn’t as easy as I would have preferred. And since my dad refused to let me quit my job, I was forced to come across Reacher at least a few times a week.

You would think that I would have gotten used to it by now. That I would be desensitized. Unfortunately, it had been ten years now, and seeing him still sent that same bone-deep dread running through me.

As I approached the closed door, I heard voices emanate from the other side. I couldn’t make out the words, but I recognized Reacher’s voice along with my father’s, his second-in-command.

My mouth went dry as a spasm of unease rippled through me. I’d gotten in trouble before for knocking while they were in a meeting. Reacher had called it “interrupting.” But he had also chewed me out for an entire hour, calling me useless and a good-for-nothing idiot, among other things, when I hadn’t delivered the mail and other packages in what he deemed a timely manner. So I could either get in trouble for bothering him, or get in trouble for “not doing my job.”

I paused, debating whether or not it was worth knocking and potentially getting berated for interrupting, or if I was better off waiting and getting berated for dawdling later. Bothering him typically resulted in less of an explosion. Taking a deep breath and bracing myself for the inevitable backlash, I raised my hand to knock.

“How many weapons do we have right now?” Reacher’s voice rang out, now crystal clear.

My knuckles paused centimeters from the door, the words registering just before my fist made contact. Weapons? Had I misheard him? If he was interested in weapons shipments…

Please let me have misheard him , I willed.

“A good amount. But only about half of what we need,” Dad answered.

“That’s a problem,” Reacher said angrily. “I want to get moving on this before anyone who shouldn’t gets wind of what we’re doing.”

“There are more on the way. Promise.”

A light, rhythmic tapping sound followed the statement, as if Reacher was drumming his fingers on his desk. “What about men?”

“I’ve roped in everyone we can trust,” Dad said. “And the guys in the other packs are ready to move when you give the word.”

“What about the ones we can coerce?”

“Working on it.”

My breath caught in my throat as a creeping dread ran up my spine, feeling like hundreds of spiders scuttling along my back. I stayed rooted to the spot, hand still held up like a statue.

I knew I should go. Should turn around and leave. If they found out I was eavesdropping, I would get in serious trouble. But a morbid curiosity took hold of me at the same time, along with a gnawing unease. Things had been off lately. I had sensed it in the way Dad would sometimes act cagey, and in the dirty looks I would get when I wandered into an area they didn’t want me in.

I took a step back, preparing to turn and leave.

“I think—” A long pause followed as Reacher cut himself off. A low growl emanated from inside the room, and my stomach clenched with dread. “Wait.”

I heard the footsteps coming to the door a second too late. I stumbled backward, but not fast enough. I hadn’t taken two steps away when the door swung open.

A hulking shifter with salt-and-pepper hair emerged, glancing around until his gaze landed on me. Reacher looked down at me with disgust and rage, fury burning in his eyes as his lips curled into a sneer.

“Get in here, you little brat,” he hissed. His hand clamped around my wrist and jerked me into the room. I stumbled forward, nearly tripping over my feet with how fast he was dragging me. The instant I cleared the doorway, he slammed the door shut behind me.

“Want to explain what you were doing lurking outside my office?” he snarled.

My jaw opened and closed, my mouth refusing to cooperate with my brain as panic gripped me. My wrist began to throb as his grip tightened.

“Are you mute now?” he sneered.

“N-no,” I stammered. “I wasn’t lurking. I had only just gotten there. I was about to knock. I have your mail.”

I raised the bundle of mail in my hand. I knew he could hear my heart thundering. His eyes caught it, and his lips curled into a sneer. He snatched the mail from my hand with such force that one letter fluttered to the ground.

“Don’t knock when I’m in a meeting, you know that,” he growled. “This shit can wait until after.”

You say that every time, and every time I listen to you, you berate me for not giving it to you sooner, I thought. But there was no way in hell I was going to say it. Instead, I just gave a timid nod of my head.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I would promise that it wouldn’t happen again, but it was part of the inevitable cycle that seemed impossible to break. No matter what I did, it was wrong, and I would get in trouble for it. The only thing that came close to saving me was apologizing and shuffling away as quickly as possible.

Reacher looked down at me coolly, his face expressionless as his eyes stared into me with contempt and disdain. I stood frozen in fear like caught prey, trapped by that gaze, waiting for the retribution.

“I’ve got to go,” Reacher said, not taking his eyes off me. “I’ll leave you to take care of this and our other problem, Saul.”

“Of course,” Dad responded immediately.

Reacher brushed past me without another word.

“Come on,” Dad snarled, leading me down the hall and opening the door to his own office. The instant it was ajar, he grabbed my arm and jerked me into the room.

“What the hell are you doing?” Dad hissed. I gasped as his nails dug into my flesh, his grip tight enough that I knew it was going to leave bruises. “I knew you were a tramp and a runaway, but I didn’t think you were dumb enough to be a spy.”

“I’m not,” I protested, my throat dry. I tried to pull my arm away, but he only gripped me tighter. “I swear, I wasn’t—”

“What did you hear?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” I said, my voice strained.

He looked me up and down, eyes squinting at me in suspicion. I realized with a horrible, sickening dread that he knew I was lying.

“You little liar.” His grip on me tightened, and I gave a sharp intake of breath as he jostled me. Anger filled his eyes, but something that might have been a twinge of fright lurked behind it. “How much do you know?”

Truthfully? More than they thought I did. Over the last year, ever since I had noticed the atmosphere at town hall had shifted, I had picked up snippets here and there of whispered plans. Plans I was definitely not supposed to know. It’s easy enough to be a fly on the wall when most people pretend you’re not there in the first place. I had heard enough to know that what they were planning was bad, and a lot of people would get hurt because of it.

But there was no way in hell I was going to tell my father that because I also understood enough about their plans to know that there was nothing I could do to stop them. All I could do was get myself and the only person I cared about in trouble. The best course of action for me was to play as dumb as possible.

“Nothing,” I said.

He sneered. “I’m not an idiot. Stop lying.” He raised his eyebrow. “You wouldn’t want me to get Claire involved in this, do you?”

This time, I couldn’t help it. I winced. His sneer turned triumphant as he realized he’d won. As usual.

“Anything I may or may not know, I have no way of proving,” I said. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell anyone. So for all intents and purposes, I know nothing.”

I could tell that was the answer he had wanted. Still, he leaned forward, his eyes flashing wolf as he got close. I wanted to stand still, to show him he didn’t scare me by not shying away. But when his face was inches from mine, I couldn’t help it. I flinched, my head shrinking away.

“You sure about that?” His hot, rotten-smelling breath brushed against my face. It took all my effort not to grimace or try and take a step backward. My insides squirmed with unease, and I looked away.

“I’m positive,” I said.

“Good.” He released my arm. I took a step back, forcing myself not to rub the area he’d been gripping. “Be sure to keep it that way. Do you understand?”

I understood perfectly. I gave a short jerk of the head.

“Good.” He turned and walked away, leaving me alone and with a dozen new, unsettling questions that I would never risk asking.

***

Later, I sat at the kitchen table, drumming my fingers as I contemplated the cramped space, still trying to calm my nerves from the brief encounter with Dad and Reacher. For what had to be the thousandth time, I imagined leaving the pack, running away again like I used to. But I knew that was an idle fantasy, one that would never come true for one specific reason. And that reason was likely getting home from school right about now.

Like clockwork, the door opened. A moment later, Claire hurried into the kitchen, slinging off her backpack.

“Hi, Mom!” she chirped.

“Hi, sweetie,” I said, smiling. “How was your day?”

She tilted her head back and forth, her light brown hair bouncing with the motion. “It was okay,” she said. Based on the way she said it, though, I doubted she was being entirely honest.

I glanced down at her jeans and tried to bite back a sigh of frustration. They cut off an inch above the ankle. She was in the middle of yet another growth spurt, and unless Dad helped, I didn’t have the money to get her new clothes. If it were anyone but my father, I wouldn’t have hesitated to bring it up. But knowing Dad, he would just say no out of spite. Not because of Claire but because of me. Any way he could find to make my life a little more difficult, he would take it, even at the expense of his own granddaughter. I sometimes suspected that he didn’t see her as much more than a pawn.

“Why don’t you go get started on homework?” I prodded. “I’ll start fixing dinner once your grandfather gets home.”

Claire nodded, then dipped out of the room and headed upstairs.

I let out a sigh as I slumped back in my chair, glancing up at the ceiling as if I could see my daughter through it. Out of everything that had happened in my life, Claire had always been the shining beacon, the main reason I kept trying to move forward, no matter how difficult. After running away from Jackson’s house that night, I was broken, ashamed, humiliated. I knew I couldn’t stay in his pack. It was too painful to even consider it. So I shoved all my possessions into a suitcase and left in the middle of the night, not three hours after Jackson and I had sex.

For the next couple of weeks, I was aimless. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. All I wanted was to forget about the whole thing and start over.

About three weeks after I left, however, I realized that would be impossible. I started to get sick nearly every morning. My confusion slowly turned to horror as I did the math and realized my period was late. I could still remember being in the stall of the public restroom, staring at the pregnancy test clutched in my hand as the lump in my throat swelled, threatening to choke me. I remembered the bizarre mix of happiness and dread as the plus sign began to form on the stick in front of me. Happiness because I had always wanted to be a mother, to have a kid I could treat better than my parents had treated me. Dread because I was in no condition to take care of a child properly. I was a runaway without a pack, without a solid job or place to live. Hell, I had been living out of my car as I traveled around, trying to figure out what I was going to do next.

I tried frantically to get a job, to do anything I could that would put a roof over my head before my cub came. I did everything in my power to try and make ends meet. But the economy sucked, and I realized that doing this on my own was going to be impossible. I needed help.

I thought about going back to Mira’s pack. I knew that she would help me. But I just couldn’t go back there, especially not when I knew Jackson was the father. He would figure it out instantly, and I didn’t know how he would react. For all I knew, he would reject his kid altogether, leaving me in an even worse position. Regardless, I couldn’t face him. I couldn’t stand admitting to him what had happened.

Which meant I did the one thing I had sworn I would never do.

I went home.

I remembered with perfect clarity walking back into the Blood Moon pack and knocking on my parents’ door. My father was the one to open the door. His nostrils flared, and his gaze lowered to my belly. He sneered, said something demeaning (I’d forgotten what; at some point, all the insults blended together that I wasn’t able to separate them), then took me to Reacher.

At first, they had been reluctant to let me back in. It wasn’t until my mother stepped in that they changed their tune. For what it was worth, I was fairly certain Mom only interceded because she was worried about appearances. She was more accepting than Dad and Reacher, but that was like saying a copperhead was safer than a water moccasin. Her main reasoning was, now that I had shown up again clearly pregnant, people would talk if they sent me away.

Eventually, they allowed me to stay, with two caveats: The first was that I had to live with my parents. I wasn’t allowed to live on my own since I was now deemed a flight risk. The second was that I couldn’t leave the pack again. Reacher threatened Claire’s life, saying he would kill her if I so much as thought about running away. Even if I took her with me, he would track me until he had hunted us down. So I was stuck in a pack with no real support system, where the alpha and my father hated me, and there was no way for me to run.

Mom had at least been somewhat helpful. She helped me raise Claire for the first couple of years until she died suddenly. The instant she died, Dad’s passive-aggressive cruelty turned more aggressive.

I had dreamed of getting away ever since I had rejoined the pack, more so once Mom had died. But I was afraid of what would happen to Claire if I tried. Even if I brought her with me, I knew that Dad and Reacher would hunt us down, and they’d punish Claire for my decision. I couldn’t risk it, so I never tried. Besides, where would I go?

My mind flickered unbidden to Jackson, the way it sometimes did when I wasn’t paying attention. I wondered what he was doing, if he had actually joined the military, and whether he was happy. I also wondered what would have happened if I had decided to go back after all. If it would have been as bad as eighteen-year-old me thought it would be.

I shoved that thought away the instant it cropped up. Jackson had rejected me. He’d made his intentions perfectly clear. Even if I had tried, he would have rejected his kid the same way he did me. I had done the one thing I had to in order to protect my daughter and make sure she would at least get her basic necessities taken care of. It had cost me my own freedom and forced me to live in a place I hated, but I couldn’t regret it.

Still, there was no getting out of the agreement I had made with Dad and Reacher. Unless a miracle happened, I was stuck here for good.