WINTER FROST

CHAPTER 2: THE WAKE

RAVEN POV

I stood frozen in the doorway, feeling ridiculous, while everyone stared.

Mom was the first to move. She crossed the room with that careful, controlled way she always had like she was holding herself together with sheer will and a few invisible pins. Her hair was grayer than I remembered. New lines had appeared around her eyes. Seven years of lines I hadn’t been there to put there.

“Raven.” She pulled me into a hug that felt stiff and uncertain, like we both had forgotten how to do this. “You came.”

The surprise in her voice made my chest ache.

“Of course I came, Mom.” I hugged her back, breathing in her familiar scent, lavender soap and coffee. Home. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

She pulled back and cupped my face with both hands, studying me the way mothers do like she was taking in every change, every way I’d grown into someone different from the daughter who’d left.

“You look thin.” She said finally. “And tired.”

“Thirty six hours of travel will do that." I muttered, trying to smile. It didn’t reach my eyes. Nothing felt right.

“Come.” She took my hand, when did her hands get so small? and led me further into the house. “Everyone’s been asking about you.”

I doubted that. More likely, everyone had been talking about me. Big difference.

The living room was crowded with pack members. I recognized most of them, even after seven years. Mrs. Chen from the bakery, hands full of food containers. The Morrison twins, who had been kids when I left and were now tall enough to play basketball. Old Gerald, who’d been ancient when I was born and somehow hadn’t aged a day.

And scattered among them, watching me with expressions from sympathy to barely hidden hostility the wolves I’d grown up with. The ones who had seen me reject their Alpha’s son. The ones who had chosen sides. And I hadn’t been on theirs.

“Raven Frost!” Mrs. Chen came at me like a small, determined hurricane. “Look at you! Skin and bones! When did you last eat a real meal?”

“I… yesterday? Maybe?” Time zones had turned my sense of time into a mess.

She shoved a container into my hands. “Beef stew. Your father’s favorite. Eat it.”

The mention of Dad hit like a punch. I took it, unsure what else to do.

“Thank you, Mrs. Chen.”

She patted my cheek, eyes soft and sad. “He talked about you, you know. All the time. Show everyone your photos in those fancy magazines. So proud.”

I had to look away before I started crying. My eyes landed on the mantel, where Mom had set up a photo display.

Dad holding a huge salmon, grinning. Dad and Mom on their bonding day, impossibly young. Dad taught Skye and me to shift for the first time, patient and proud. And one recent photo, Dad standing with Colton, both in formal pack leadership clothes. Passing the torch. Alpha to Alpha.

The photo I should have been in if I hadn’t run away.

“Your father loved you very much.” Mom said quietly. “He understood why you left, even if it hurt him. He always hoped you’d come back.”

“But I didn’t." I said, my voice was rough. “Not until it was too late.”

“You’re here now.” She squeezed my hand. “That’s what he would have said. He always believed in second chances.”

Unlike most of the pack, whose eyes felt heavy on me. The whispers weren’t quiet enough.

“—seven years and suddenly she shows up—”

“—broke Colton’s heart and nearly killed him—”

“—my daughter pulled that, I’d disown her—”

I learned to ignore whispers. Traveling the world alone as a woman made you tough. But these whispers were different. These were from people who had known me since birth. Their opinions still mattered, if I was honest.

“Ignore them." Skye murmured, appearing at my elbow with two glasses of amber liquid whiskey, probably, Dad’s favorite. “They’ll get over it once they see you’re here just for the funeral.”

“I’m not staying after—”

“I know.” Skye shoved a glass into my hand. “But they don’t need to know that yet. Just… try to look like you’re not planning your escape route, okay?”

Was I that obvious?

“To Dad." Skye said, raising her glass.

“To Dad." I echoed, and we drank. The whiskey burned going down, sharp and real a physical sensation that kept me in this moment instead of running to a thousand other places in my head.

The Morrison twins came over to pay their respects. Then the Chens. Then a steady stream of pack members, all offering condolences, all carefully avoiding the elephant or wolf that had walked out the back door the second I arrived.

I smiled. Nodded. Said “thank you” about a hundred times. Accepted food I wouldn’t eat and promises of prayers I wasn’t sure I believed in anymore.

And all the while, I felt him missing like a tooth pulled too soon, a wound that hadn’t healed. Colton hadn’t come back inside.

“He’s on the back porch." Skye said, reading my mind again. “Been out there for twenty minutes.”

“I don’t care where he is.”

“Raven—”

“I don’t.” I set my empty glass down harder than I should have. “We have nothing to say to each other.”

“You really believe that?”

I looked at my baby sister, who’d somehow grown wise while I wasn’t paying attention, and I didn’t know how to answer.

Seven years ago, Colton and I had everything to say. Hours of talking about everything and not our future, our dreams, the pack we’d lead together. He wanted to show me the world, take me to every place I’d ever dreamed of photographing. We had plans.

Then the mate bond snapped on my nineteenth birthday, and suddenly all those plans felt like chains. Every dream tied me here to the pack, to being the Alpha’s mate, to a life I hadn’t chosen.

I made my choice instead. I looked at the boy I loved and had loved so fiercely it scared me and said the words that would set me free.

I reject this bond. I reject you.

I watched his face crumble. Watched him stagger as if I’d struck him. Watched the pack elders rush forward while he collapsed, the rejection hitting him like poison.

Three days later, I was on a plane to Costa Rica. First assignment. First step toward the life I wanted. I got exactly what I asked for.

So why did it feel like I’d lost everything that mattered?