*Zac*
I push the front door open, the weight of the day heavy on my shoulders. "Astrid?" My voice echoes through the entryway, more out of habit than expectation.
Her response doesn't come, but a male voice, chillingly familiar, calls back, "We're in the living room."
A cold dread washes over me. It's a feeling I can't shake as I make my way toward the sound. The voice belongs to a man I never hoped to hear in my own home again. My father.
He's sitting there, too close to Astrid, who looks radiant as ever, with Pjuske on her lap. My heart drops, my wolf instincts on high alert, but I'm numb, frozen in place. "What are you doing here?" The words come out more as a growl than a question.
"This is your new family, which makes it mine too," he says with a smile that never reaches his eye
