Page 52

Ferris stares at me, disbelief etched onto his face. “Think about it. Scent-matching only guarantees biological compatibility. Is that all you feel for Raine? If it were, you’d have been able to give her up years ago, but you couldn’t. That’s just how she perceives your connection as a human, but if you have the soul of a wolf, she’s actually your true mate; the person you and your wolf belong to, body and soul.”

Ferris slowly shakes his head, eyes wide. “Gods above.”

“It also explains why your father couldn’t command you to be a beta—your alpha wolf would have never allowed that. Most importantly, it explains why it’s been so harmful to deny your alpha all these years.”

I swallow hard, unsure if I should even mention the rest of what I’m thinking, like how he probably would have shifted if he’d been allowed to grow up with his mother’s people. I wonder if he’s like Ren, and his wolf receded inside of him to protect him from the trauma of his childhood, sacrificing his ability to physically manifest at all.

“So I am broken,” he says, monotone and defeated.

“No. You’re a miracle,” I declare.

“My father is the worst person I’ve ever known, and even he was scared of me,” he growls.

“Ferris,” I say, voice full of steel. “Your father didn’t control you, try to change you, or hurt you because he was afraid you’d become like him. He didn’t give two fucks if you became evil. He probably would have preferred that, yeah? He was scared of you because he was worried that despite everything, you’d turn out good. His greatest fear was that you’d have the strength and dominance to be better.”

Realization flickers in Ferris’s eyes, but I know it will take time for it to truly sink in.

Ferris is quiet the rest of the morning, lost in thought. Actually, we all seem to be more subdued, each working through different things in our heads. Raine is worried about Vale, seeming pretty reluctant to leave without her, but I know down to my bones that Tore will not let anything happen to her.

As for me, I’m trying to piece everything together. The Lunar Mother sends me to the Midlands because she wants contact with the Appalachian shifters for reasons she did not share with me. In the Midlands, I find my true mate, who is mated to an alpha that likely has ancestral ties to those very shifters. Not only that, but he’s a hybrid with the same condition as Ren, who I need to convince to share his Biter research with River, or else our alliance falls through.

The universe is playing some game here, and we’re all her pawns.

After a large lunch, we each take turns using Ferris’s genius shower. From here until the Foothill Territory, we’ll have to bathe in streams where we can find them, so we all take as much time as allowed to enjoy the shower while we have it.

Raine graciously washes our small collection of dirty clothes and leaves them to dry on the farm’s sagging laundry line. Just before the sun goes down, we reorganize and pack our backpacks so that we’re ready to go in the morning.

All three of us climb into the same bed we used the night before. I check Raine’s bite, but it looks nearly healed, so I refrain from tending it, knowing that if I do, one or more of us will end up naked again. Despite my constant gnawing hunger for these two, my wolf agrees that letting them sleep is more important.

We can mount them when we’re home, he reminds me.

Raine falls asleep first, quickly followed by Ferris, who scoots closer to her in his sleep. I watch them twine together like tree roots for what feels like most of the night, and then I gently scoot out of bed and go hunting.

16 Days until the Full Moon

The sun rises over the barren fields, but Tore does not appear. In any other circumstance, I’d wait, give him more time to track us down to this farm, but there’s only a little over two weeks until the full moon, and I need to get Raine into wolf territory before my rut takes over.

Every day my symptoms will be more pronounced, and I need to ease my way into telling Raine about not only my rut, but what it means for her. That because she’s my true mate, my rut may trigger an answering heat. I don’t want to tell her all of this on the road, where she has no privacy and can’t get space to process if she needs it. We’re already going to be pushing it too close for comfort.

Then there’s Ferris. Being a hybrid, I have to work on the assumption that his alpha wolf will send him into rut on the full moon as well; either because of me, or all on his own now that he’s bitten Raine.

I place the final stone around the newly churned dirt at the base of the tree right as the sun rises. I found the fourth body—just a skeleton now—in the upstairs of the farmhouse, laid out on a bed. Following his final wishes, I buried him in the same ground that he was forced to bury his family. Now they can rest the same way they lived: together.

As soon as the sun has risen above the distant trees, I wake Ferris and Raine from their cuddle pile and tell them it’s time to get moving. They quietly get ready, but the weight of Tore and Vale’s absence is palpable in the air.

“I really don’t want to leave without Vale,” Raine says.

“I know, baby. I wish we could wait, but I promise that Tore will protect her. Besides, she’s a badass wolf all on her own.”

Raine isn’t happy, but I think she can sense that I’m telling the truth.

As we finish packing, I remind them, “It’s going to take about a day and a half to trek to the bank of the Great River. From there, we’re going to have to bargain our way across. Vale and Tore may still catch up.”

Raine nods, then asks, “Before we go, can we do something?”

“Of course,” I say, and then she leads us back to the living room to stare at the message above the mantle.

Raine grabs a small metal can from the table and opens the lid, revealing dark-blue paint. She holds up a brush that has seen better days. “I found these in the cellar and thought we should mark that we were here too,” she says. “That way, if Vale and Tore show up, there will be evidence of us.”