Mitch was there. Phone in his jacket. Face blank in the way that meant he was entirely in the room.
Bekah, at the edge of the group, had her arms crossed and her chin up in the way she had when something was happening that she approved of and was making sure nobody missed her approval.
I looked at all of them.
I thought about a cold road. A motorcycle engine. *You're bleeding. Get on.*
I thought about what it meant that forward was the direction I'd chosen, and where forward had brought me, and the specific collection of people standing in this yard as evidence of every small choice I'd made since the moment I'd stopped being the person who waited to be noticed.
Ryke's hand was in mine.
His wolf was very quiet.
Mine was quieter still — the settled kind of quiet, the kind that wasn't
