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“That’s it,” Mosa agreed. “I realized someone in the video had set her off. She got panicky and my mother never panics. She epitomizes grace under pressure.”
“The way you keep dancing around Henric and his name, I’m guessing she saw your real father.”
She nodded, so I handed her the phone.
Mosa started playing the video, gaze riveted to the screen as she waited for the face to appear. I already had a feeling who it was. There weren’t many wolves in Night Falls of the right age to have fathered the young woman sitting so close to me that parts of us were melding together in a way that was comforting and exhilarating at the same time.
“My mom could be wrong—I mean, I’m figuring she knows who my father is, but it’s been decades and the video’s quality is very lo-res. Shadowy as hell, too. It’s a moot point—Henric got the reaction he was looking for.”
Her heart rate had sped up. Mine raced in sympathy.
“Justine noticed I wasn’t doing my work,” Mosa explained. “She demanded to know what was so riveting, then froze when she saw this, but only for a few seconds. Then she pulled the backpack and cash from a hidden panel in her desk. We didn’t…we didn’t make it out of the building before we had half a dozen alpha guards on us.”
Her lips rolled together and she bit down hard on the bottom one. I could only guess at what was provoking the response.
“You see her die?”
It was a rough question to ask, but I needed details. The Night Falls pack would want to know everything.
Mosa shook her head. “No. The parking area behind the building is ringed by a bunch of office buildings filled with humans. Justine gave a roar certain to attract the curiosity of anyone who heard it.”
A tear slid down her silken cheek. I gently wiped it away.
“She wanted you safe from a danger you were born into through no fault of your own.”
“Yeah, but I fed it, too,” she whispered. “I was nine the first time I ran away.”
Before I could ask her about the other attempts, Mosa found the part of the video she was looking for.
“It’s just his reflection as far as I can tell, or he was deep in the shadows.” She enlarged it until I could make out the face.
“My mother might not even be correct.” Pausing, she shook her head. “Well, what happened to make me fall out of the tree showed Justine was certainly correct about Henric not being my father and my father being a wolf, but, after more than two decades and low vid quality…”
“Nope,” I interrupted with a laugh. “That’s a hard mug not to recognize.”
Standing up, I held my hand out to her. “Ready to meet the wolf who may be your father?”
CHAPTER11
MOSA
We heldhands as we walked to Doone’s place. I didn't think it was intentional, just weirdly automatic. He had held out his hand to help me onto my feet. I accepted it, and neither of us had let go when we started walking.
Did he want to let go?
Was I making it weird?
No, I decided. He had practically invited me to taste him in answer to my cookie question. The way the words had issued so effortlessly, it had to be a line he used a lot. But there had been a faint blush to his cheeks, like maybe he hadn’t meant to use the line on me.
Which meant he didn’t want to keep holding my hand and I really was making it weird.
“No one could ever accuse you of being a chatterbox,” he teased, stopping in front of a fallen tree that cut across the path leading to wherever he was taking me.
“I’m alone most of the time, or around my mother and Henric.”
“They the silent types?”
“Yeah,” I said, letting him guide me across the tree even though it wasn’t much of an obstacle.
