“Mitch is handling it. But Billy... it’s not good. Craig and his crew are calling for your head. Say you dishonored the clan, betrayed your blood.”
My bear growls at the mention of Craig. I grip the windowsill hard enough to leave marks.
“Let them talk.”
“It’s more than talk. Mitch had to break up two fights already. Some of the younger bears think supporting you means we’re traitors.”
I can hear the exhaustion in his voice, the weight of watching our clan fracture.
“He’s holding it together, but barely. Half the clan wants revenge for what happened to Dad.”
“And the other half?”
“Keeping their heads down, waiting to see which way the wind blows. You know how it is.”
I do. The Lennox clan has always been held together by fear and force. Without Leon’s iron fist, they’re fracturing. Breaking apart like ice in spring.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and meaning it. “I didn’t mean to make things harder for Mitch.”
“You saved an innocent woman’s life. Don’t apologize for that.” Marcus’s voice softens. “How is she?”
My chest tightens. I turn away from the window.
“I don’t know. She made it clear she needs space.”
“Billy…” Marcus is mated, but it wasn’t easy. They were apart for a long time. I can hear the sympathy in his voice.
“It’s fine.” The lie tastes bitter. “She’s been through hell. She needs time to heal.”
“And you? What do you need?”
To see her. Make sure she’s safe. Hold her until the nightmares stop. Feel her breathing against my chest. Taste her mouth again.
But I can’t tell Marcus that. Can’t admit that leaving her feels like dying slowly.
“I need to work,” I say instead. “Keep busy. Let things settle.”
The next evening, my first shift at Taaffe’s is an education in small-town dynamics. The bar is warm, all dark wood and amberlight, but the wolves eye me with varying degrees of suspicion and curiosity.
I wipe down glasses, feeling their stares like physical weight.
Unlike Marcus, who left Black River years ago to become a sheriff, I’m fresh from Leon’s compound. Fresh from betraying my clan.
“You’re the Lennox who helped Carla,” a grizzled wolf says from his corner stool. Not quite making it a question.
“That’s right.”
He studies me over his beer, weathered face giving nothing away. Then he grunts, neither approval nor condemnation, and returns to his drink.
Sean watches from the end of the bar, polishing a glass that’s already clean.
“Thought I was hiring someone who’d make my life easier,” he mutters after the third awkward interaction. A younger wolf had stared at me for five solid minutes before ordering. “Didn’t know you’d be as surly as your brother.”
“Sorry.” I force my expression to smooth out. “Just adjusting.”
“Adjust faster. Shitty attitudes are bad for business.”
I nod and focus on the work. Pour drinks. Wipe tables. Ignore the whispers that stop when I pass. But every wolf that walks in carries trace scents of the pack, and sometimes, faintly, I catch hints of her. Pine and vanilla, and that unique sweetness that made our two nights in the motel so intense.
