Shay wouldn’t have forgiven my trespassing the way I had forgiven Callum’s. He would have used it as an excuse to attack me. He would have killed me, and he would have enjoyed it.

“My turn.” Dev crossed to join me. He bumped his shoulder against mine, a gesture of comfort and solidarity as old as our friendship. His presence beside me calmed the thoughts in my head, slowed the beating of my heart, but as I glanced back over the border—at our land, our territory, our home, I felt a sliver of unease take root in my gut.

Leaving my pack behind felt wrong. Taking Devon with me felt worse. If I couldn’t be there to protect them, he should have been. Without the two of us, they were vulnerable, open to attack.

“They’re safe, Bryn,” Callum said, from the other side of the border. Even without any actual psychic connection between the two of us, he could still read me like a book.

“Are you sure?” I couldn’t help the question, because I had to be sure.

A change fell over Callum’s face. His pupils didn’t pulse, but looking at them was suddenly like staring into a bottomless cavern, knowing in the pit of your stomach that something was staring back.

“The day someone takes advantage of a Senate meeting,” Callum said, his voice a perfect match for the power in his eyes, “is the day there’s no Senate.”

This was Callum the alpha speaking. This, my pack-sense told me, was real power—unimaginable, ancient power. Twin instincts battled in my gut—one that wanted nothing more than to offer up my throat and one that wanted me to fight for what was mine, what Callum could have taken from me, from all of us, if he’d been a different man.

Then, as suddenly as the power had started spilling off Callum, it was gone, and he was just Callum again. The hint he’d shown us of his true power receded, and he strolled across the border looking unassuming and unaware.

Try unbelievable, I thought, but there was comfort to being reminded of who and what Callum really was.

Shay could be snide. He could gouge open old wounds and try to intimidate me, he could maneuver and manipulate and try to give me enough rope to hang myself—but I didn’t have to oblige, and at the end of the day, unless Shay wanted to face Callum one-on-one, he’d play by the rules.

If there was one thing in this world that Callum would go to war over, it was me.

“Looks like Shay has moved his pack closer to the border,” Callum commented, as he stepped forward. I followed, and a slight breeze caught my hair. As the three of us went farther and farther into Shay’s territory, my alpha senses were flooded with power.

“We’re not the first ones here,” I said.

Callum confirmed my observation. “Knowing Shay, we’re probably the last.”

Not so long ago, Callum had hinted that the other alphas were forming alliances. I doubted Shay inviting the rest of the Senate into his territory before us boded well. Werewolves weren’t designed for democracy. The instinct to dominate was always there, and the moment the Senate imploded, there would be blood.

“Callum.” Sora announced her presence—a courtesy meant more for my benefit than the others’. My senses were good, but hers were better, and outside of my own territory, my pack-sense didn’t react the same way to foreign wolves.

Here, we were the foreign ones.

That thought distracted me enough that I didn’t have to give Sora my full attention. I didn’t have to remember playing at her house, eating dinner at her table, sleeping doubled up with Devon in a tiny twin bed. I didn’t have to hear the sound of her fist plowing into my face or feel my ribs pop, all over again.

But beside me, Devon couldn’t think of anything else. He hadn’t seen or spoken to his mother since that day, and coming face-to-face with her now cut him deep. Without a word, I took a step sideways, until my shoulder was touching his,

a reminder that right here, right now, I was fine. I was solid, I was whole, and Sora wasn’t a threat to either of us.

In fact, next to Callum, she was probably the closest thing to an ally we had.

“Devon.” Sora met her son’s eyes, and I could practically see her wanting to reach out and touch his face. Luckily for her, she managed to restrain herself. “It’s good to see you, Dev.”

“Likewise,” Devon replied blithely, but I could tell by the way Sora’s nostrils flared that she smelled the lie.

Sora looked at me. “Bryn.”

I didn’t reply, unsure what I could say that wouldn’t just fan the flames. On some level, I knew it wasn’t logical to hold Sora responsible for something Callum had ordered her to do. It made no sense that I could ride in a car with him, but couldn’t stop the rush of emotion I felt just looking at her. Werewolves didn’t have a choice about obeying their alphas—not unless they were strong enough mentally to go alpha themselves. That was how I’d killed Lucas. I’d ordered him to die.

But Sora hadn’t even tried to fight Callum’s order. She hadn’t hesitated, hadn’t shown even a fraction of regret. Fair or not, it was her face I’d seen in my nightmares right after it had happened. No amount of conceptual understanding about the role that moment had played in setting up everything that had followed could change that. My body knew her. It knew what she had done to me, and “logic” didn’t stand a chance at overriding a thing like that.

For a few brief seconds after she said my name, I took Jed’s advice and let myself remember: the smell, the taste, the overwhelming darkness. Then I pushed it back behind lock and key, my jaw set, my mind empty.

“Hello, Sora.” It was easy to say—surprisingly so. I wasn’t that girl anymore, and I wasn’t afraid.

“You’ve seen Shay?” Callum asked. The idea that his second-in-command would have been to see Shay without him was nearly unthinkable, until I recalled the obvious: in addition to being Callum’s second, Sora was also Shay’s mother.

She’d given birth to him. She’d raised him, same as Dev.

“I have,” Sora replied. “And, no, I don’t have any idea what he’s up to, but there’s something. There always is.”

There wasn’t any particular condemnation in Sora’s voice, and it occurred to me that maybe I wasn’t the only reason Devon was no longer on speaking terms with his mother. Parental expectations could be killer, and Devon’s brother had transferred into the Snake Bend Pack and challenged its former alpha when he wasn’t all that much older than Dev was now.

The last time I’d spoken to Sora, she’d talked about Devon’s potential and what he was meant to be—none of which had anything to do with who Devon was. As a purebred werewolf—a rarity in our world, since female Weres were few and far between—Devon was bigger, stronger, and more dominant than most, and Callum had groomed him almost as much as he’d shaped me.

But Devon would never be Shay, and while I thanked God for that fact, I wasn’t entirely certain that Sora wouldn’t have preferred it if he were.

“We should go,” Callum said, stepping between Sora and Devon—between Sora and me. “Shay will have felt our arrival, and I wouldn’t put it past him to send out a welcome party.”

I wouldn’t put anything past Shay.

I’ll take dysfunctional families for five thousand, Alex. Devon’s voice was bright and sardonic in my mind.

I swallowed a laugh. Seriously, Dev, are you okay?

Peachy, Dev replied. You?

Almost of their own volition, my shoulders pushed themselves backward. My chin went out, and as a sense of detached calm flooded my body, I told Devon exactly what he wanted to hear.

I was ready for this. If Shay wanted to dance, I’d dance.

CHAPTER EIGHT

SHAY OBVIOUSLY HADN’T BEEN LIVING AT THIS END of his territory for long. The smell of his pack should have been thick in the air. The trees, the grass, the very earth should have absorbed it like soot or smog, but instead, I could make out only the scents of the wolves present. Devon, whose nose was infinitely better than mine, didn’t seem to be able to smell much more than that, at least according to what I could pick up through the bond.

Consider me an open book. Dev must have caught me looking at him, because he sent the message straight from his mind to mine. Mi casa es su casa. Mi nose es su nose.