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The ice encrusting Eilea’s heart appeared to thaw as she flashed the slightest of smiles. “Find a way for me to see my sons again, and your debt will be paid.”
Hecate splayed a hand across her heart. “I swear, sister, we’ll find another crystal, and you will be reunited with your sons.”
Eilea nodded and then gave her sons one last lingering look. Phoenix blew Tor a kiss, and he caught it, pressing it to his heart.
Amara took Eilea and Tor into the mist and then returned to them. She held up the claw. “I’m sorry, but my mate wants this claw back.”
“Of course,” Hecate answered haughtily. “Now, how do we get back?”
“You may go home now,” Amara said. “I still have need of Phoenix.”
Hecate acted as if she would protest, but then she was sucked into the abyss with a silent scream, disappearing in a cloud of white smoke.
“Don’t fear,” Amara said to her mates when they growled at her. “She’s gone home. You’ll be leaving soon, too.” Amara nodded toward the forest with the twinkling lights. “There’s a few wolves who want to meet you first.”
“Who?” Phoenix’s legs turned to jelly, because instinct told her who they were.
“Who do you think?” Amara asked with a wink.
Damon and Cadmus took her hands, and Drakkon and Helius hovered protectively behind her as Amara led them toward the edge of the forest, the mist tickling their feet. As they drew closer, Phoenix realized those twinkling lights were little lanterns filled with what looked like fireflies hanging on the tree branches.
Four men who looked like older versions of her brothers with brown eyes and long, dark hair that hung over their shoulders were waiting just inside the forest’s shadows. There was another behind them, a woman, though she said nothing as she let out a soft sob and disappeared behind a tree. Phoenix wondered if that woman was Daeva’s mother. Perhaps she’d been hoping to see Daeva. She felt a stab of guilt that they hadn’t brought her sister, but Hecate didn’t want to disturb her.
The men were dressed like cowboys, with button-up western shirts tucked into their jeans, big belt buckles, and leather boots. Cowboy angels? Phoenix had no idea why she’d expected them to be wearing robes while plucking small harps.
The largest of the four stepped forward with a smile. “Hello, Phoenix.”
She took a hesitant step back, pressing against Drakkon.
“Don’t be afraid of us,” one of the smaller men who had a soft belly and kind smile said. “We’re not cursed anymore. We won’t hurt you.” Even though he had to be at least sixty, he still had a smooth face and big eyes that sparkled with warmth. Gamma. Sami, her birth father.
Three of these wolves had slept with Jezebeth twenty years ago in a moment of desperation while grieving for their dead mate and brother. Then they’d taken Phoenix away from her mother, thinking that a demon couldn’t love a child. They were wrong, but she supposed it didn’t matter now. Nothing she could do to change it, and Jezebeth had made them suffer for it. Phoenix was tired of everyone suffering.
“You’re Sami,” she said to the gamma.
“I am.” He smiled.
“I’m Hodr,” the largest one said. He thumbed toward the other brothers, one was a few inches shorter than Hodr with a wiry frame and alert eyes, and the other was just as tall as Hodr and almost as wide. “These are Tyr and Vidar.”
Vidar. He’d wanted to kill her once and he’d tried to kill Annie Wolfstalker, but he’d been cursed with a cruelty spell. He didn’t appear cruel now. Tyr had died of alcohol poisoning several months ago. His ending had been especially tragic, his final years spent at the bottom of a bottle. She hoped he’d found peace now.
She looked into Vidar’s eyes and saw no malice there, only sorrow, and something else—shame. Tyr, too.
Vidar took a hesitant step forward, quickly stepping back beneath the shadow of the trees when a beam of light hit his foot. “Look at how you’ve grown,” he said. “You’re a beautiful young woman now.”
She tensed at the flash of pain in his eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” He plastered on another smile, motioning to the woods around them. “We can’t leave the forest.”
She looked at their boots, all within an inch of the forest’s shade. She thought about crossing over to them, but her feet were rooted to the spot, and she wasn’t sure if she could move forward.
“There’s much we wish we could say to you and your sister,” Tyr said, “but we don’t have much time.”
“I’m listening.” She didn’t mean to lace her words with bitterness. They just came out that way. Then again, maybe she did mean it. Maybe she did resent them. They’d sent her away to an orphanage, and then they’d forgotten about her. How was that better than living with her own mother?
“We’re sorry.” Vidar shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “You deserved a better childhood, better fathers.”
She nodded her agreement. “I did, but instead I was forgotten in an orphanage before being kidnapped by drug lords.”
