Page 66 of Brazen

I wanted to shift and run–I could hear my wolf howling mournfully. But all the energy had drained out of my body. I was anchored to the floor of the ocean, suffocating.

I dropped down in the field. Sat down on my ass with my elbows on my knees.

I told myself it was to think, but the truth was, all thoughts had disappeared from my head. I was an empty fucking shell without Clio and JT.

Mine, my wolf snarled.

No, I told him. No, she’s not.

I flopped down on my back to stare at the setting sun.

Clio wasn’t mine. And I didn’t know if she ever would be.

27

CLIO

* * *

I shook all over for most of the ride home, but I held it together pretty well through JT’s bath and bedtime story. Once he was asleep, I could let down and cry.

“Mommy, I don’t want to move again.” Tears filled JT’s eyes as I kissed him goodnight. He was tucked under his blanket in his favorite dinosaur PJs.

All the emotion I’d been swallowing down slammed to my throat, choking me. I blinked back the tears. Oh God, my poor son.

“Who said anything about moving?” I tried and failed to keep the wobble from my voice.

I didn’t want to move again, either. I hadn’t even contemplated that we might need to. My brain had been too focused on the look in Sam’s eyes when I took his keys.

He’d looked…devastated.

As devastated as I now felt.

But was this situation bad enough that we had to move?

“I only showed Remy how fast I can run because Sam said I could with other wolves. Everyone smelled like a wolf.” His face crumpled.

“Oh, sweetheart.” I wrapped him up in a fierce hug. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It was safe to show Remy and the other wolves how fast you are.”

He frowned. “But you said we’re not going to be a part of their pack.”

I shivered, the nausea returned full force because their alpha had been asking about JT. I had totally freaked over what Sam had said–Rob is JT’s alpha now. He belongs to our pack.

I wanted no part of alphas who thought they had the authority and right to rule their pack members’ lives. Ted had to bow to his alpha’s demands to break up with me and find a she-wolf instead. His life hadn’t been his own, and it had ruined mine. His alpha had even ordered my memory that he was a shifter to be wiped.

Thank God Ted had disobeyed him on that.

Now I had another alpha thinking he had a say in my son’s life.

Hell no.

And the fact that a little kid like JT might start a war between two packs?

Not happening.

That was easy to solve. We weren’t joining any wolf pack. My son may be part wolf, but that didn’t mean anyone owned him. He was innocent, and I didn’t want him involved in anything.

“I don’t want to be part of any pack,” I told JT.