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CHAPTER1
Amelia
As always,I worried my husband suspected thatour boywasn’this son.
Today there was something off about Nathan’s behavior when he swaggered into our kitchen. He rested his hand on the back of Dylan’s chair but didn’t touch him.
“Morning, blue eyes,” he told me when he leaned in for a kiss. He was a big man, someone who filled up the room, the house—hell, he filled up the whole pack.But then, he was the alpha.
“Good morning.” I made myself kiss him, even though I felt stiff as a wooden puppet.
Blue eyessounded affectionate, but it was cruel. My soulmate, Brennan, used to call meblue eyes.Nathan stole that nickname, the same way he stole my life, my son, myself.
Even as I kissed him, my gaze darted toward Dylan, who sat up on his knees on the chair to reach his bowl more easily. Dylan was quiet, his big blue eyes shadowed by his russet-colored bangs. He spooned his oatmeal into his mouth and didn’t look our way, but I knew he was watching Nathan out of the corner of his eye. He always was.
Nathan frowned as he straightened, looming over me, as if that kiss hadn’t been convincing. He always loomed. Maybe he couldn’t help it; he was six-foot-three, broad-shouldered, and carried a layer of what my brother had dismissively calledprison fatonce, when Nathan was in an entirely different county.
I looked up at him and tried to lie with my eyes, my body, my smile that felt too much like a grimace. “What are you doing today?”
“I’ve got a meeting with the Hessey pack. I should take Dylan.” He rested his hand on my shoulder, a weight that felt too heavy. “Give you a break for the day.”
Quiet panic scratched at my chest. “Oh, I wouldn’t want him to distract you.”
“He’s four. He can sit in a meeting quietly. Can’t you, Dyl?”
Dylan looked up at Nathan and didn’t answer.
Nathan hated when he ignored him.
Snorting at the lack of response, he said to me, “Time for him to start learning the family business. My son will be alpha someday.”
“Of course,” I replied.
“As long as he’s strong enough.”
“I’m sure he is.”
His resulting silence was the kind of silence that prickled on my skin like a rash. I got up from the table and poured his coffee, taking it to him as he settled into the chair next to me, opposite of Dylan.
“You can play until it’s time to go,” I told Dylan, picking up his cereal bowl. He nodded and slipped from the table, then ran back to his room.
As I rinsed the bowl, Nathan asked, “Shouldn’t he be talking more by now?”
“You know how it is. Kids all blossom in their own time.”
“He’s not a flower. He’s a wolf.”
“It’s just a metaphor.”
“I know it’s a metaphor, Amelia. That’s not the problem.”
The problem was that Dylan seemed too much like me.
Or maybe, really, the problem was that Dylan seemed too much likeBrennan.The man Nathan had murdered.
I snapped on the gas burner at the stove to fix Nathan’s eggs. I watched the stainless-steel pan heat and listened to the soft sounds of Nathan shifting behind me, sipping his coffee, shuffling his phone. The screen door banged shut, and small feet flew across the back porch. Dylan had gone out to play.
I’d assumed the conversation was over, was silently breathing a sigh of relief, when Nathan spoke abruptly. “You baby him.”
