My aunt shook her head. “You’re being young and impulsive. You think it will be easier without an alpha telling you what to do. Or perhaps you think it will be easier to join another pack, one led by a man who’s clearly so besotted with you that he lets his wolf make idiotic snap decisions. I made a similar snap decision once, stepping into my sister’s shoes when your mother went missing.”
“If this is a cautionary tale, I don’t understand its purpose,” I rebutted. After all, Vega had become alpha of her pack as a result of that snap decision. Under her leadership, the clan had survived months of incarceration then bounced back from the joint trauma. Her choice, from the outside, appeared entirely sound.
Vega shook her head. “Of course you don’t. You’ve only seen your uncle acting as my second, in which role he does an admirable job.”
There was no sweetness to Vega’s words, but there seldom was sweetness to her words. I’d only seen her acting as something other than an alpha a few times, most recently when she and I stole a Saturday morning to attend a local farmer’s market together. Outside the confines of pack central, Vega had relaxed, tasting cheeses and not correcting vendors who suggested recipes she could cook with the “daughter” by her side.
Vega must have sensed the memory via our shared pack bond, because her subsequent words referenced that day also. “When we came back from the farmer’s market, do you recall how your uncle greeted me?”
“Sure. There were problems the two of you needed to deal with, things that required the alpha’s immediate attention.” It was why we hadn’t ended up preparing any of the suggested dishes, had instead dumped our purchases in the communal kitchen to be taken by anyone who craved fresh ingredients.
Beside us, Orion shook his head and upper body, the action very lupine but the subsequent words far more like his usual self. “There’s no love lost between your aunt and her mate.”
Vega’s mouth tightened, but she didn’t rebut his assertion. Instead, she continued speaking to me only. “I mated in haste and now I regret at my leisure. Don’t make the same mistake I did.”
Abruptly, the lack of sweetness surrounding Vega came into sharp focus. What must it have been like to spend decades mated to her sister’s hand-me-down fiancé, a man who didn’t particularly care for her company? To share the center of their pack with a mate-in-name while sharing nothing else?
Frustrating. Exhausting. Lonely. The emotions flowed down the pack bond from my aunt to me, the first time she’d ever opened up in such a manner. And, simultaneously, I saw myself through her eyes, a gem of unexpected brightness gleaming within a long-accepted life of duty. Vega hadn’t corrected that vendor at the farmer’s market because, for just a little while, she’d wanted to pretend his words were true.
That I actually was her daughter. That she had family not just a pack.
Which made what I was about to do worse. So I was glad when Orion broke the silence between us, delaying the inevitable.
“Whatever Elspeth decides, I propose an alliance, an exchange of clan mates. Ari for Hailey. He could use a chance to grow into his skin and she could learn from seeing more than your pack. Nothing permanent,” he hastened to add when Vega’s head started shaking. “Their pack bonds will remain intact. But it will keep open the line of communication we’ve enjoyed over the last month. Consider it an apology for my recent behavior and a show of future goodwill.”
That wasn’t all it would do. Orion knew that Hailey and I had become close during the time I’d spent as her housemate. He was ensuring I had a friend beside me in the upcoming emptiness, that I wasn’t being forced to hastily rebuild a pack bond or accept the matebrand due to a wolf’s fear of disconnect.
And Vega understood that also. She could have made what was to come worse for me, hoping I’d crawl back with my tail between my legs. Instead, she nodded at Orion. “Acceptable.” Then, to me: “Be certain this is what you want, Elspeth.”
Once you step off the path, it can be hard finding your way back onto it.
The words bubbled up out of my memory in Gabi’s voice, but they were no less true due to their source. I’d rejected the Council last month, burning that bridge behind me. Now I was about to burn another bridge, this time knowing full well the repercussions, this time understanding that what I had with Vega was unconditionally good.
But I’d grown as much as I could beneath her thumb. And I had duties I couldn’t fulfill while begging permission for every activity.
Decision made, the wolf inside me did the honors. She took the thread of pack bond between her teeth and gnawed until it snapped.
And when I felt around for any remnant of connection between myself and my aunt after that, the link that used to bind us was completely gone.
Chapter 13
Half an hour later, I clutched the potted cactus that was one of my few possessions, swaying inside a van full of two additional people and a lot more gear than had been present before the roadblock. Because Vega hadn’t sent us away empty-handed. Instead, the guys who’d been my housemates drove up not long after I lost the ability to feel them down the pack bond, my possessions and Hailey’s ready to be traded for Ari’s person. And even though our friends had packed in haste, they hadn’t skimped. We barely fit inside the van along with everything they’d brought.
Despite that congestion, I was emptier than I’d ever felt before. Empty, and also stifled as if we’d used up all available oxygen. I pressed my face against the cool window and wished I was alone in the desert that expanded out on the other side of the glass.
“…could have asked me,” Hailey was saying. Her shoulder pressed up against mine in what seemed like an effort to stay away from the shifter crouched beside her in the aisle. Or perhaps it was a request for moral support.
I should have cared. Should have at least looked over to check on her. But I just closed my eyes and let the movement of the van shake me until my skull rattled against the unforgiving windowpane.
“I was on the alpha track,” my friend continued. “And now I’m what? An ambassador?”
“It’s hard being away from your pack at a time like this,” a female voice murmured. Maya. That was Maya crouching in the aisle doing the job that should have been mine.
Or at least I thought it was Maya. The emptiness inside me kept trying to reach out, to latch onto the living, breathing people inside the van. The people who were wolves like me. Who could be part of a pack I was also part of…
But even though I’d done exactly what my aunt hadn’t wanted me to do, I clung to her admonition as if it was a compulsion. I couldn’t afford to form a pack bond just because I felt empty. A commitment like that had to be thought through rationally.
I certainly wasn’t thinking rationally now.
Neither was Hailey. “A time like what?” she demanded. “If you’re referring to the fact I killed someone today, it wasn’t my first kill.”
“Killing someone with a human face is very different from killing a rabbit,” Maya answered, voice just as calm as it had been previously. In response, I felt Hailey’s tense muscles soften just the tiniest fraction where her arm was pushed up against mine.
Maya had said the right thing, for which I was deeply grateful. She was a healer who knew how to fix even invisible wounds.
Again, the tendril of need inside me reached out. I needed healing. Needed to be included the way Hailey was being included.
No. I bit down on both the tendril and on my own tongue, tasting blood and focusing on that pain and salt to prevent instinct from taking over.
I used to smell salt on my own skin even right after a shower. It was Vega’s pack aroma, the one that let me relax in the knowledge an alpha was looking out for me. That I was part of something larger than myself…
“Where does Julius think you are right now, Celeste?” Orion’s voice rose from the seat behind me. He of the star-speckled eyes and the rope-strong forearms.
This time, the emptiness surged in a different direction. I didn’t need to join a pack. Instead, I could choose a mate.
And what better mate than Orion? Someone who’d proven himself over and over to be exactly who he presented himself as. Who was strong enough to hold me up. Who accepted me not despite but because of my contradictions.
“At a conference,” Celeste answered as I bit harder into my tongue, reminding myself that I wasn’t a damsel in distress who needed to leap into the arms of the first man who showed up to rescue her. “He won’t expect me home for days,” she continued, “so Finnegan and I can help save the kids.”
