It had been a long day. Shaun had kept both Liora and me occupied with pack union business. All I wanted to do was go home, crawl into bed, and cuddle with Liora. We walked side by side, hand in hand, up to Maggie’s cottage. I knew I had to stop thinking of it as hers. It was mine now. Liora and I had slowly been working on changing things, but it was slow going. The rest of the pack came first.
“Thorne,” Liora whispered, and I glanced at her in sudden alarm. The tone of her voice suggested something was wrong.
“What? What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Look,” she said, and I looked around to see what she was referring to. That is when I saw it. Shaun and Daisy stood in front of the cottage, but it wasn’t them who was a surprise. But I smelled it first. Fresh-cut pine, lime mortar, and beeswax. Th
