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“Hey,” I finally say, stopping Hetty with an absent glance at Stella and Rill. “How are you holding up?”
Her eyes are owlish, looking up at me. “Me? How am I holding up?”
“Yes, after that alpha…”
She breathes out a laugh. “I’ve been worried about you this whole time. You seem so anxious about going to see Jason.”
“Oh, yeah…” Although it’s the reason we’re walking, I’ve been strangely calm about seeing my brother. “I’m more worried about you.”
“I’m fine.” She smiles again, wrapping her arms around my waist and lying her head against my chest. As the seconds pass, my anxiety evaporates, and my heartbeat slows down.
This is better. Perfect, in fact.
We’re still standing here, breathing each other in, when Rill’s voice interrupts us.
“Hey!” he calls out from a rocky bend up ahead. “We’re here.”
After reluctantly pulling away and exchanging a glance, Hetty and I wordlessly follow him. He leads us up a steep, rocky path to a long, flat boulder that oversees the lake and an outcropping of smaller boulders.
I pause to help Hetty over a particularly rocky portion, and when I turn around, Rill and Stella are standing next to the wide mouth of an enormous cave. Rill’s smirking, of course, but Stella’s not nearly as cheerful, frowning at the ground, her arms crossed over her chest, emitting a sour, shameful scent.
I drop Hetty’s arm and step toward them. Only Rill will meet my eyes.
“Jason’s here?”
Rill nods toward the cave. “In there.”
“He’s in a cave?” This just gets more and more bizarre.
“Yeah, I offered to give him a house at our camp, but this is what he wanted,” Rill says with a nod. “And Wyatt should be with him unless he’s already left.”
“He already left,” a hoarse voice echoes from inside the cave. “His mate is having a baby, and he wanted to be with her.”
That’s when he appears, walking slowly from the mouth of the cave—almost like he’s in pain. Hetty sucks in a surprised breath beside me, but I can only stare at my baby brother in shock.
He used to be small for an alpha. Baby-faced and sloppy. Our father never thought much of him, dismissing his sensitivity as a weakness. His heart, a liability.
But because of Beebalm, by the time he fled Goldenrod, he was a blown up, outrageous version of himself. His muscles extended grotesquely, his spine stretched six inches over his normal height, and his face transformed into a constantly sneering mask.
But it was nothing compared to the way he looks now. All the changes Beebalm made are still there, but there’s more now. So much more.
The first thing I notice is that he doesn’t have any hair. It’s not even that it’s shaved—his hair, his eyebrows, even his eyelashes, they’re all gone.
And he’s covered in … marks. Cuts. Scrapes. Burns. They’re everywhere. Pink and recently healed over, they cover his arms up to the white T-shirt he’s wearing, as well as his neck, face, and bald head. I can’t see his legs under his dirty linen pants, but I’m sure they look similar.
“Jason,” I breathe out, stepping toward him. “What happened to you?”
Holding perfectly still, he stares at me. His nose is so swollen and bulbous that he’s breathing through his slightly open mouth. The way he looks at me… It’s almost as if he doesn’t know who I am.
But then, an omega with strawberry blonde curls and weary blue eyes comes up behind him, resting her hands on his shoulders. His mate, I’m guessing? I only saw her once briefly from afar but never met her during her brief time in Goldenrod.
“Who’s this?” I ask, nodding toward her. She’s pretty, and although she’s probably a little too thin, she’s in much better shape than Jason.
“Why don’t you get our guests something to drink, Rosie?” Jason asks, not acknowledging my question or looking back at her.
Narrowing her eyes on me, she wordlessly turns into the cave.
“Why’d you bring him here?” he asks, glancing back at Rill and Stella before strolling over and sitting on a boulder.
