With Rowan gone to the border and Cole occupied with the pack’s response to the Ashcroft wolves, I had the room and the quiet and the uninterrupted space to think for the first time since the ceremony.
I made a list in my head the way my father had taught me, apparently, though I knew nothing about him except that he had existed and then stopped existing when I was nine. Some things you carry without knowing where you got them. The habit of making lists under pressure was one of mine.
What I had: myself. The baby ten weeks, still invisible, alive. The silver thing in my skin that I did not understand but that had not hurt me yet. Sera, somewhere in Ashcroft, who had said I’m with you and had meant it. A debt to an Alpha I had known for less than twelve hours, which sat uneasily because d
