Bright kid. Doesn’t say much, but the gears are always turning. Another thing he got from her.
I grip the ring under my shirt without thinking. Thin gold band on a leather cord, warm from my skin. Brenna's ring. The one she threw at me in that field, and I never stopped wearing.
She’s dead now. And her boy is sitting in my truck with her eyes and her silence and a question I can’t bring myself to ask.
Is he mine?
Seventeen years old. I left eighteen years ago. I’m no kind of genius, but I don’t need to be.
But knowing and confirming are different animals. And this isn’t the time, the place, or my right. Not without certainty. Not without—
She’s dead. She doesn’t get a say anymore.
And that’s the part that grinds worst of all.
The radio crackles. Rook’s voice: “Rest stop in four miles. Fueling up?”
I key the mic. “Yeah. Quick stop. Twenty minutes max.”
I turn my attention back to the road and away from ghosts.
Pretty soon, I’m easing off the gas and pulling off the road. The truck stop is little more than a gas pump and a diner with a parking lot that’s seen better decades. Rook pulls in behind me and kills the engine. Sienna and Briar bring up the rear.
Cameron stays in the truck while I fill the tank. Doesn’t volunteer to get out. I don’t push it.
Briar’s out first, like always. Slim and silent, moving around the building. She checks the sight lines, the exit routes, the dumpsters that could hide a threat. Sixty seconds, and she’s back with a nod. Clear.
“Diner’s got coffee,” she says. “Smells terrible. Want some?”
“Bring two.”
She goes. Briar doesn’t waste words or motion. Everything about her is economy. She says what she needs to, does what she needs to, and gets the job done. Good teammate. I’ve watched her track a scent trail across forty miles of rain-washed ground and never lose the thread. She’s the reason I sleep at night. Well. One of the reasons.
Dane unfolds himself from Rook’s truck, and the whole parking lot seems to shrink. Six-six and built like something you’d use to knock down walls. He stretches, rolls his neck, surveys the area the way he surveys everything, with the confidence of a man who knows he’s the most dangerous thing in any given room and doesn’t need to prove it.
He catches me looking and lifts his chin. There’s a question in the gesture.
I shake my head. Nothing’s wrong.
Or everything’s wrong.
Same thing these days.
Dane walks to the edge of the lot where the pavement crumbles into dirt and dead grass. He stands there with his back to us, face turned south, and just breathes. I know what he’s doing. Scenting home. We’re hours out, but wolves can pick up territory markers from impossible distances if the wind is kind.
Sienna approaches the truck, going to the passenger side where Cameron is sitting behind the glass. I watch her lean against the door and say something through the cracked window. Easy. Unhurried. The tone you’d use on a skittish horse, except Sienna makes it sound natural instead of contrived.
Cameron opens the door. Gets out. She hands him something—a protein bar from her jacket pocket. He takes it. She says something else, and the corner of his mouth moves. Not a smile. But close.
That’s Sienna. She collects strays the way other people collect grudges.
Rook materializes at my elbow. He’s good at that. For a man built like a barrel, he moves quieter than he has any right to.
“Kid doing okay?”
“Holding together.”
Rook watches Sienna walk Cameron toward the diner. Then he looks at me, and I know he’s assessing my responses. We’ve been pack brothers since we were fourteen. He’s my second because he’s the smartest wolf I know, not because he’s the toughest, though he’s that too.
