“Your brother-in-law’s coming tomorrow, right, Sunny?” Clara asks once we’ve calmed down.
Sunny sighs. “Cole’s nervous. He won’t admit it, but I can tell.”
“How long since he’s seen his half-brother?” I ask.
“More than five years. There’s no bad blood, just distance. They were raised differently. They’re both busy. Ugh—it’s so messy.”
I know how messy families can be.
The conversation drifts to local gossip, the Tree Lighting Festival, and Cali’s pregnancy.
“I’ve decided to do the nursery in aVery Hungry Caterpillartheme,” she says. “I was reading it at toddler story time, and the cravings really spoke to me.”
By the time dinner’s over, we’re stuffed and a little tipsy. Sunny’s pack comes to collect her. Cole, her dominant alpha, looks distracted. He's in his late forties, salt-and-pepper hair, neat beard. His frown pulls deep lines around his blue eyes until Sunny rises on her toes to kiss his cheek. His whole expression softens as he pulls her close.
Clara’s pack is there too. Well, most of them. Her ghostly alpha still haunts the lake house. Like, he’s a literal ghost. Cali’s three alphas, the Evergreen Pack, arrive to help her into the car. I can't scent any of them. The drug cuts off all of those omega instincts.
Winnie catches a ride with them after locking her shop. They've been neighbors since Winnie moved into Cali's old cottage after Cali moved in with her pack.
Lights glitter on every shopfront. My friends laugh as they scatter into the snow, arms linked with their alphas. For a moment, I just stand there, wrapped in the quiet warmth of it all—friends, laughter, light—and wish I could stay in this little world forever.
“Rose, you want a ride? We can drop you off,” Clara offers.
I shake my head. “It’s three blocks. I like to walk.”
And I do. Usually. But tonight, the space between us feels safer than the closeness of company. I don’t trust my voice not to crack, or my smile not to tremble. If my brother’s text is right, I might have to leave soon—maybe without warning, maybe without even saying goodbye. For my friends’ safety as much as mine.
The thought threatens to hollow me out. My throat burns as I pull my coat tighter and start down the snow-covered street.
By the time I reach my little blue house, my fingers are stiff and trembling. It takes me three tries to fit the key in the lock. It’s the only one in the neighborhood without lights up or any sign of christmas cheer and that’s how I like it. What I wouldn’t give to live further out of town away from all the bustle like the others.
When the door finally opens, I step into the cold, dark quiet and just breathe. The silence presses in around me—not heavy, exactly, but final. Like the pause before a goodbye I’m not ready to make.
Logan
Lakeside Point is small—two-stoplight small. Quaint, sure, but coming from Detroit, it feels like stepping into a snow globe someone forgot to shake. Everything’s too still. Too quiet.
My brother’s place, even more so. He’s a hotelier by trade. His pack owns and designs a line of boutique hotels across the country, the kind frequented by the rich and bored. So finding him living in a farmhouse at the edge of a bee farm is… disorienting.
Half-brother, I remind myself. Half—a word that’s done a damn good job keeping us apart.
I’m trying to change that now, though the effort already feels brittle. His omega wife greets me on the porch, all warmth and bite. Sweet but spicy, with blonde hair and sharp blue eyes that see far too much. She’s snapped at me twice already, but she smiles when she does it. My brother, Cole, sits in a rocking chair like the old man he insists he’s not.
He looks nothing like me. Ten years older, streaks of gray threading through his dark hair and beard, crow’s feet from sun and laughter. He takes after our mother. I, unfortunately, take after my father with pale skin, slicked-back, blond hair, and blue eyes sharp enough to cut.
I sit in the rocking chair beside him. The old wood creaks under my weight.
“How’re you doing, Logan?” Cole’s voice carries that easy dominance he doesn’t even have to think about. It rolls over the porch, grounding everything in his orbit.
“Fine,” I lie, smooth and practiced.
“Where’s your pack?” he asks, glancing around like he expects them to materialize from the trees.
“At the hotel. I’m meeting them at the site after this.” We’re staying at Cole’s newest property where he offered us a spot for a new restaurant, just beyond the farm, perched on the edge of the lake.
His eyes narrow just slightly. “We heard about the legal issues.”
My grip tightens on the armrest. “We’re handling it,” I grit out, keeping my tone even. I breathe through my teeth, the way I’ve practiced, but it doesn’t stop the heat crawling up my neck.
