Kael's POV
It was turning dark when we finally walked back into the packhouse.
Ayla's cheeks were pink from the cold and the laughter—a color that had nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with the fact that she'd spent two hours on a hill and hadn't wanted to stop. She'd loved every second of it. Watching her had settled something in my chest that I was still figuring out how to carry.
"We should do more things like that with her," Fenrir said, almost wistful. "She missed so much."
He wasn't wrong. The list of things Ayla had been denied—through circumstance and through us—was long enough to make my jaw tight if I let myself think about it directly. But we had time now. That was the point.
"Son."
My father's voice cut through my mind-link and my thoughts in the same
