Page 99 of Big Bad Wolf

“You’re back,” she said simply, assessing Rafe with her gaze.

“I am.”

Her dark eyes flicked to Ruby. “You brought a human.”

“She’s a friend.” If Dina sensed Ruby was anything more than that, she didn’t say it. She nodded once but stayed in the way of the path.

“Did you come to bring trouble, Rafe?”

Shame flashed hot in his gut. This is what his pack thought of him even after all this time. That he’d come to resurrect old battles.

“No, ma’am.” He cleared his throat again, his words sticking. Ruby squeezed his fingers. He took a deep lungful of her scent and reminded himself why he was here. “Just came to talk to my brother.” Dina’s gray brows rose, but Rafe put up a hand in surrender. “Talk, Dina. That’s it. I didn’t come to stir things up.” This was what his relationship with his brothers had become. No one believed he would have any motive other than picking a fight. Why would they? He hadn’t had a civil conversation with Knox in years.

She studied him a moment longer, and Rafe’s skin prickled under her gaze. Wolves weren’t like humans. They didn’t bother with being polite. They stared and sniffed and took you in completely. You couldn’t lie or pretend around a wolf. They knew you too well.

Other wolves had gathered around them as they spoke, several still in wolf form. They sniffed around Ruby, and she pressed closer to his side. He suddenly felt exposed, flayed open in front of everyone. Could they all see it? Did they all know she was his Mate? Theo had sensed it. And Theo didn’t sense most things.

This thing that he’d never believed in was suddenly more real to him than anything else. He felt like the word was stamped across Ruby’s forehead. He should have told her this morning.

He glanced back at Dina to find a begrudging smile on her face. “It’s been a while, Rafe.”

“I thought it was best.”

She shrugged her small shoulders. “You may have thought wrong.”

He didn’t have a chance to untangle that comment before more wolves and people were gathering to see what the commotion was about. It wasn’t easy to do anything around here without the whole pack knowing.

Rafe sifted through the familiar faces, some with hesitant smiles, some with furrowed brows. Faces of the people he grew up with. The people who did nothing to stop his father’s abuse. His brother wasn’t amongst them yet.

“You back for good?” Ryder, a friend from a lifetime ago, patted him hard on the shoulder, daring to approach now that Dina had given her approval.

“No, just a visit.” Rafe’s answer barely made it past his lips. Sights and smells closed in on him from all sides, memories chasing them all. Home. The word, the feeling, struck him hard in the chest. Fur and pine and wood smoke mingled in the air. Faces he hadn’t seen anywhere but in his dreams lined the path in front of him.

“Rafe?” A woman’s voice broke through the din of the growing crowd. Everyone else fell away. She looked the same as the day he left, except this time there were no tears streaming down her cheeks. Her olive skin and light eyes still made her strikingly beautiful, just like her son.

She approached slowly, blinking like she couldn’t trust herself. “It’s you,” she said with a smile and then threw her arms around his neck.

Rafe held her tight, breathing in her familiar scent of lavender and strong tea. “Ma,” he breathed. Her long curls tickled his arms as she hugged him.

Ruby cleared her throat, startling him out of a million memories of this woman caring for him, loving him when no one else did. She had been his soft place to land. The only one in a childhood filled with harsh lessons and even harsher punishments.

He put her feet back on the ground, and she beamed up at him.

“Ruby, this is my … uh … stepmother, I guess you would call her. Ma, this is Ruby.”

The only mother he ever knew, Nell, flicked her shrewd gaze to Ruby. A frown wrinkled her brow.

“Nice to meet you,” Ruby said, and Rafe realized it was the first she’d spoken since they got here. Nell didn’t speak right away, her gaze steady on Ruby.

More words tumbled out of Ruby in a nervous rush. “I met your son. Uh … I mean your other son … I mean Theo. He’s very nice. So charming. He looks just like you.”

Nell’s lips tipped into a smile at the mention of Theo. “He’s a good boy.” She glanced over Rafe’s shoulder. “Is he here?”

“Not this time. Sorry, Ma.”

Her beautiful face fell in disappointment, but she quickly recovered. “Well, I’m happy you’re back, Rafe.”

“Not back.”