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The man shrugged. “He isn’t contesting it. He agrees with them.”
“God, what else?”
She’d meant it as a rhetorical question, but he answered. “Buck’s locked up, too. The kid won’t shift.”
“What?”
“All we can get out of his wolf is that he’d seen a terrible sight. Magic almost killed him.”
“What else?” she asked through gritted teeth.
“They’ve banished Kathleen. She’s not allowed on pack lands.”
She sank to sit on the side of the trailer. “They can’t.”
She thought of Kathleen forbidden from returning to the home she’d made for herself. She thought of Buck, scared witless by her magic. He was just a kid, no matter how big his wolf was. Instead of trying to help him, coach him, or just knock some sense into him, she’d scared the hell out of him.
“You want to unload all this?” the man asked.
She looked at a fortune in furniture. “Yes. And then I need to gohome.”
>>
Aiden pried up a board on his front porch. It took a surprising amount of muscle, so he didn’t notice the horse until it was almost up the hill. His wolf alerted him to a truly terrible smell, and he pivoted to see a dark shape on a strange animal. It couldn’t have been one from their stables because he could smell the saddle rot. Paul would have murdered anyone who let a horse get that bad.
The wards around the land were gone; anyone could ride up. He felt strangely naked.
Even as he braced for attack, his wolf relaxed within him.
You don’t want to defend against the terrible invaders?he asked it.
It crouched within him peaceably, and he felt sane for the first time in days. Relief washed over him followed swiftly by horror. “It can’t be.”
Horse and rider drew closer, and his human eyes discerned what the wolf had figured out a minute before. The first thing he could see was a flowing gold ponytail bouncing behind the rider. She’d come back to him. Love and fear warred within him.
Goldie pulled too hard on the reins, and the horse came to a skidding stop. She swung her leg over the horse and got stuck draped over the saddle on her belly before sliding inelegantly to the ground.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, even as he ran to help her.
She peered up at him. “I love you, too. Now let me in.”
He goggled at the words. She couldn’t love him.
“And if you start that hogwash about being bad for me, I’m gonna tar and feather you all over again.”
God, he loved her. “No, ma’am. “
“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, Aiden Scott. You’re home.”
“It’s too dangerous. I’m too dangerous.”
She stepped close to him and laid her hand on his cheek. “You’d chew your arm off before you hurt a hair on my head.”
“You control my wolf, but what can I do for you?”
She looked him up and down speculatively.
“We shouldn’t have ever done that,” he said. “You were under duress.”
