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“What exactly did my mother say?”
“Said she found his horse, but it was gonna get sold, so he had to come right away to claim it and see if she was right.”
None of this made sense. The wards were closed. There was no way to sell a horse right now. Buck knew that. Plus, his mother was never wrong when she matched a human with a horse. She didn’t have to double-check.
“What did Buck say?”
Carter shrugged. “He wondered why everyone was in such a hurry, and the horse was going to be there this afternoon, but she said he had to come right now. So he did.”
Aiden closed his eyes. His mother and Goldie were with the horses, and his mother had insisted Buck come to the barn.
“What have you done?”
“Nothin’!” Carter said, throwing up his hands. “I didn’t want to go to the big fight. I didn’t want to hurt anybody.” Tears beaded in the kid’s eyes.
Aiden laid a hand on his shoulder. “You’re okay.”
He cursed Buck for Carter’s suffering. It was nothing compared to what Goldie had endured, but Buck was answerable for this, too. The twins, Louis, and this boy had a stain on their conscience that would never come clean.
You’re right,he told the wolf,he’s not a boy.
Sometimes boys grew up slow in a hundred weeks of getting up and doing what they had to because they had to over and over again until it stuck.
Sometimes they grew up fast when, say, they realized their wolf could snap its leash and attack, and there was nothing their human half could do to stop it.
Sometimes they grew up fast when they made the biggest mistake of their lives, and all the innocence of childhood dissolved in a harm that could never be undone. It was by far and away the worst way to grow up.
He squeezed Carter’s shoulder. “It ain’t learn and live, son, unfortunately for you. But you’re still breathing, so you get to keep learning.”
A shadow of the happy-go-lucky kid flashed in his smile. “Some prize.”
He took a deep breath. It was a prize. He had no idea how much.
“I have to go,” he said and pivoted.
He ran toward the barn. He didn’t know what his mother and Goldie were scheming, nor why she hadn’t told him her plan, but he knew they were facing a boy who’d done irreparable harm and still hadn’t grown up.
When he reached the yard, he sorted through smells. He could discern Paul and his mother, and, faintly, Goldie and Buck. “Hello?”
He dashed for the stable and saw movement at the desk.
“Paul, what in tarnation is going on?”
Paul flinched away from him, and he backed up, showing he was in control.
His mother stepped out of Blue Roan’s stall. “She made me promise I wouldn’t tell you.”
“You wouldn’t tell me what?” Aiden asked over the roar in his ears.
“She didn’t want to put you in danger. She was worried about your wolf.”
“What did you do?”
“Aiden,” Paul said.
He swung toward his cousin. “I’m not going to eat my own mother. Or you. Or the million-dollar horse she’s using as an equine shield. Where is Goldie?”
“I’m going to tell you,” his mother said, “only because I don’t think she ever should have excluded you.”
