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My wolf riles within me, hackles rising at the feeling of betrayal slamming into me. I won’t sacrifice any more for this pack. If everything I’ve done isn’t enough to deserve my place here, then I no longer understand what Cupid’s Pack stands for.
How can a pack named for love itself ask me to sacrifice that very thing? Because there is no reality where I respect, much less fall in love with, the monster waiting downstairs. Jakob MacKay is not my future.
“Get out,” I tell Mom in a flat voice.
She opens her mouth, and I can see with the slant of her eyebrows that she’s prepared to protest. I don’t give her the opportunity.
“I mean it.” I step away from the door and point angrily toward it. “As far as I’m concerned, this is still my room until you, as Luna, kick me out or banish me from the pack. So get the hell out!” My voice cracks with pain I haven’t felt since Dad’s memorial. I’m losing a parent all over again, and my heart isn’t ready.
Arielle’s face is as white as my sheets as Mom storms out of the room, pulling the door closed with a nearly silent click that somehow feels worse than a slam.
Her acting like the calm one here makes my shouting seem unreasonable. Ridiculous.
“Quinn, what are we going to do?” Arielle stands, wringing her hands together nervously as her eyes dart around the room.
“I don’t know.” The words taste like ash in my mouth. I’m the one who always fixes things, so it’s my job to know. Admitting otherwise feels like a failure that’s hard to swallow.
I’m trying to work out potential scenarios in my mind, but I’m coming up empty for anything that feels like a satisfying resolution for the situation we’ve found ourselves in. It feels like a slap in the face, knowing I’m the fixer and have come up blank twice in the past hour alone. I turn my back to Arielle and go to the closet, heart racing uncomfortably in my chest.
I can feel my sister’s eyes on my back as I stand on tiptoes to reach my duffel bag on the top shelf above my clothes. “What are you doing?” Arielle appears at my side and tries to tug the bag out of my hand. “You can’t leave!”
“I don’t want to leave.” Of course I don’t—this is my home. It feels like my heart is cracking in half in my chest as I say, “But Mom isn’t being rational right now.”
“Then take me with you at least.” Arielle sounds five years younger right now, like she’s begging me to take her to the movies instead of taking her away from the pack.
I take a deep breath, silently begging my tired brain to conjureanysolution at this point. It doesn’t have to be good as long as it works. “Hopefully neither of us has to leave.” Still, I nudge her aside so I can grab clothes from my closet, just in case.
I carry a pile of things to my bed and roll my clothes with shaking hands. My brain spins through the fog of shock, making me unsure of whether I’m packing anything that makes sense, but it’s not like I can put my whole wardrobe in this bag, only pieces. I only have the bag for weekend-length trips that Dad used to take Arielle and I on anyway. I’ve never spent enough real time away from Cupid’s Pack to justify proper luggage.
I think I might be sick. Pausing, I press my hand against my chest, pleading with my wolf to help slow my heart rate down before I pass out. It takes a moment, but she obliges.
The human side of me might be panicked, but deep down, my wolf better understands the impossible choice lying in front of us. She’s already at attention, preparing to take over if—or when—we run.
I open the pocket on the side of the duffel and attach the longer strap across it, knowing I’ll need it if I have to carry the bag and run in wolf form.
“This can’t happen, Quinn. I’ll go down and talk to Mom; she’s not going to actually kick you out. We need you.” I pause my packing and turn to Arielle. Tears fall over her cheeks, and my chest tightens again. I can’t stand the thought that doing what’s right for me will hurt Arielle, but I’m not sure what else I can possibly do.
I throw my arms around her and squeeze her tightly to me, cheek resting against the top of her head. We stand like that for a long time.
There’s a sharp knock at the door before Greta calls to us through the wall. “Quinn? Arielle? The Luna has summoned you for dinner.” Her voice is more stoic than usual, and I know she must also realize today has turned into a very bad day indeed.
“We’ll be right out,” I call back even though Arielle shakes her head.
I release my sister so I can retrieve my heart stone from the desk, shoving the light pink stone into the bottom of my bag. It just covers the palm of my hand, but the actual bulk of the heavy stone has to be protected by clothes—I can’t just shove it in the side of the bag and keep moving. It sparks slightly in my hand, a minute electric shock that someone might miss if they didn’t understand the way a heart stone speaks to the person whose possession it’s in.
I don’t know what the heart stone is saying to me, but it always seems to lead me where it wants eventually. I can only hope it isn’t also trying to lead me to Jakob.
“Let’s go to dinner,” I tell Arielle, knowing we can’t refuse an order from Mom if she’s making the order as the pack Luna. “We’ll figure everything else out afterward, okay?”
She reluctantly follows me toward the bedroom door, but I can hear her mutter, “You have to stay.”
I can’t, my wolf wants to tell her, and my heart finishes cracking all the way in half. My wolf already knows what has to be done.
FOUR
QUINN
The first meeting was bad. Dinner is somehow worse.
