Hold her here in Pine Falls.
I shake my head to clear away the fantasy.
She must take the movement as another denial of intention to stay because her grin only grows more taunting.
“Watch me Jameson. Watch me lay claim to this town. Tomyhome.” Juliet leans in close, tormenting me with her proximity. “I’m not scared of you, wolf.”
A gust of wind passes between us then, tugging strands of her crimson hair. One lock twirls in front of her pert nose, and before I realize what my hand is doing, I’m reaching out to tuck the piece behind her ear.
Juliet’s eyes widen. My throat thickens.
And in a move that would shame all other alphas, I turn and run away.
19
RODERICK
Thoughts of Julietthreaten to fill every hour of my foreseeable future—until family drama eclipses everything in my life.
I’m not sure exactly when I became the responsible adult and my mother turned into the immature one in need of discipline. But whenever the shift occurred, tonight—only three days after our full-moon run—I’m facing it.
Mom fucked up. Bad.
Tearing-a-rift-in-our-family bad.
I knew something important was happening when I got a call from Warner, saying that he needed to talk in person. We met in Sawdust and Supplies, the rest of our family deciding to tag along for the conversation. With my mom, Uncle Mason, Tanya, Isaac, and me as an audience, Warner informed us that he planned to move to Denver to be with the human he’d fallen in love with. Zoey Gunner.
Then everything went to shit.
Zoey herself showed up, still sporting injuries from a recent fall she’d taken from a tree house. Come to find out my motherhad been the one to make the tree house collapse, which was just one item in a list of offenses she was secretly racking up against the woman—all attempts to drive Zoey out of town.
Turns out, Zoey’s mother and mine have bad blood from decades ago, and Rebecca Jameson thought it was her right to take retribution on Selena Gunner’s daughter. Especially when it became clear how infatuated Warner was with the human woman.
Mom claimed her actions were all to keep her son safe from heartbreak, but anyone with eyes only needed a glance at my brother clutching Zoey against his chest to know his true misery would be losing her.
Wolves hold grudges, and my mother’s anger has festered for decades.
The underhanded attacks can’t go unpunished. As the pack leader, I’m the judge and jury in this town when it comes to wolf-related matters. I try to be fair, but it’s hard to remain detached when the culprit pacing the length of my office is the woman who raised me.
“Do you hate the Gunners this much?” The question comes out on a rough exhale as I try to keep the hurt and frustration from my voice.
I can’t be her son in this moment. Only her pack leader.
“They deserve to be hated, Roderick. But how can you think this is only about them?” My mother’s agitated footsteps sound in an erratic rhythm on the scarred wood floor. “More than anyone in this family, you know how easily outsiders hurt our kind!”
She’s not wrong. I’ve been dealt multiple blows in the past that should make me an ally in her righteous anger.
But lately, I’ve been wondering if I’m holding on to that trauma too tightly.
Am I becoming as irrational as my mother?
“I do know how outsiderscanbe. But Zoey isn’t here to hunt wolves or coax Warner into a dangerous situation. And this is nothing like what happened with Monica.” I keep my voice level despite my aggravation. Used to be that thoughts of my ex—the woman I once wanted to mate—gutted me. Now there’s only a twinge of discomfort at the faded memory, paired with irritation that she’s been brought up in this context.
“Of course it is!” she snarls. “She left you brokenhearted because she couldn’t accept what we were.”
I nod once. “Yes. She couldn’t handle it. After finding out, barely took her a day to decide.” I hold Mother’s wild eyes. “But Zoey has known about Warner for weeks. Maybe longer. And she’s still here.”
“For now.” Rebecca Jameson has never sounded more like a surly teenager.
