As long as I can avoid seeing her more than necessary, I should be able to get away without causing too much pain.
To us both.
Silas lets Lily go, taking a seat at the edge of her bed.
“Hey,” she smirks.
Silas snorts. “Hey, kid. You look better than the last time I saw you.”
Tears brim in her eyes. It takes effort to get Kendrick’s attention, but eventually, he nods and follows me out of the room, down the hallway, while we leave Silas and Lily to catch up.
“How is she?” he asks as soon as we’re alone. Grayson’s been feeding him updates since I called from the parking lot, but his attention is torn between his mate and his daughter. I met Mona as a baby, and Kendrick knows that. Her scent is the same, even if it means something different to me now.
“She’s fine. Back at the cabin.”
Kendrick nods. Then waits. That’s what he does. He strips you bare with his silence. Speaking only when necessary, and never more than that, he demands loyalty, not through words or even actions, but through the crushing weight of his alpha presence.
I became The Ghost—his silent hunter—because Kendrick has always returned my loyalty. When my mother’s coven butchered my father, and with the potential of my unique powerand heritage, my mother knew the witches would never stop hunting me. I was too young to fight back, and we had nowhere to run until Kendrick took us in. A grieving half-shifter boy and a broken witch. He offered sanctuary among his collection of strays and misfits.
Though raised among his wolves, I never accepted his clan as my own. The missions he sent me on became my escape—easier than feeling the pull toward a home that didn’t feel like mine.
My mother, meanwhile, remains hidden in his territory, deep in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. The other packs check in on her from time to time, bringing her food when she forgets to eat.
She still hides in her closet whenever someone knocks on the door. Someday, when we find peace with the witches—or we obliterate their forces, whichever comes first—I can go home and tell my mother that it’s safe to come out now.
Kendrick sits with her sometimes, drinking tea, sharing silence. She’s not happy, exactly, but she’s safe with Kendrick’s clan—it’s the only thing that lets me sleep at night while I’m halfway across the world.
Kendrick cocks his head to the side. A strand of brown hair falls across his face, his expression open and calm. Waiting. Calculating.
No one knows Mona is my mate except for her and Silas. I don’t know how he’ll react when he finds out. If he’ll force me to stay, or if he’ll understand—perhaps better than anyone—why I can’t.
“There’s no geas on Mona, and as long as Deidre stays away from her, she won’t be able to forge one. But she can still track her.” I tell him about how Mona’s previous doctor collected her blood, and the likelihood that Deidre now has access to it. “We need to find out where she is. Silas and I discussed it, and we don’t think she’s coming here. Not now that she’s lostboth Silas and Mona. And with the new delta development—” I point toward Lily’s room in explanation. “It’s possible she’ll use Mona’s blood and the blood of the delta-turned-omegas for whatever her original goal was.”
I’ve spent decades tracking targets across continents, learning to set aside emotion for strategy. I know what happens when you allow evil to grow. I’ve seen entire villages decimated, children orphaned, bloodlines extinguished because someone didn’t act in time. Some nights I still wake to the echo of my father’s screams as the witches’ magic flayed him alive while my mother and I hid helplessly. Whatever the witch has planned, I’ll stop at nothing until we see it through. Which is why I hedge my next words.
“So, what would you like to do?” I ask Máni. “Hiding her here only gives Deidre time to strengthen her position…”
“Are you implying we should use Mona as bait?” he asks carefully.
But before I can answer, Silas joins us in the hall, catching our conversation. “Lily’s sleeping,” he tells Kendrick. Then his tone turns deadly as he adds, “And if you think for one fucking second I’ll let you use Mona as bait, to let Deidre get her grimy hands on my mate—”
“I’m not saying weletDeidre—”
"Well, what the fuckareyou saying!"
Kendrick slams his fist against the wall, the drywall cracking under the impact. “Enough,” he barks. Every muscle in my body locks up with the instinct to bare my neck.
He is my Máni, my leader, the father figure I needed when I lost my own. The idea of putting his daughter—my mate—in harm’s way makes my skin crawl.
But this is bigger than Mona. It’s about Lily, too. What was done to her, what could be done to others. And Kendrick isthe leader of all shifters in this part of the world. He has a responsibility to all of them.
“She saw the next victim,” I tell Kendrick. Silas explains Mona’s dream, as she told it to us. He describes the girl who smelled of strawberries.
Kendrick’s eyes narrow. “Anything else identifying? Location, other shifters?”
“Not sure yet. I need to spend some time thinking about Mona’s visions. We might be able to get more out of them,” I say.
Silas clenches his fist as he works through our plan. “Deidre won’t risk coming here. Not with Silent Peak’s numbers. She’ll regroup first. That gives us time to strategize. We don’t need to use Mona, we can focus on the strawberry girl. You didn’t know for certain the witches were behind the attacks before, but you do now. That gives us an advantage.”
