I wish everything else in my life were that simple.
Chapter 16
Merric
The bunkhouse is empty for the first time since we arrived. Rook and Briar are running the evening patrol, and Dane is working on some project with Warrick and Hannah, the teens who seem to have become his permanent shadows. Sienna is helping Greta with dinner.
I’m sitting on the edge of my cot, cleaning my boots, because cleaning boots is a thing you do when your hands need a job, and your brain won’t shut up.
Cameron turned to me. Closed his eyes. Trusted me to hold him upright when his own fire was eating him alive. And when I told him to respect his mother, he listened. Not happily, but he listened.
My son listened to me.
Stop.
I don’t know that. It’s not confirmed. Not spoken. But my wolf knows, and my blood knows, and the anchor sense thatshouldn’t connect to a boy outside my pack but does… that knows too. It’s not a question anymore. It’s a fact I’m carrying without her words to confirm it.
The boot brush moves in circles. Dirt falls to the floor. The evening light gives me just enough illumination to work in.
A knock on the doorframe. Light. Hesitant.
I look up. Brenna is standing in the doorway.
She looks like she’s been arguing with herself the whole way here. Her arms are crossed—defensive, not aggressive—and her weight is on her back foot, ready to retreat. Her hair is damp from washing. She’s changed into a clean shirt, dark green, and the flecks in her eyes catch the low light.
“Brenna.”
“Can I—?” She stops. Takes a breath. “I need to talk to you.”
“Come in.”
She steps inside. Doesn’t sit. Stands near the doorway with her arms still folded, scanning the room—the empty cots, the gear stowed under bunks, Rook’s chess set on the table. Making sure we’re alone.
“Your people are all out?” she asks.
“For at least an hour.”
She nods. Doesn’t move further into the room. I set the boot down and wait, because whatever brought her here is balanced on a knife’s edge, and if I push, she’ll bolt.
“Today,” she says. “With Cameron.”
“Yeah.”
“What you did. Calming him. The things you said.” She’s choosing each word with care. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
“You told him to respect me. You defended my decisions to my own son. You could have… Anyone else would have used that moment. Gained leverage.”
“I’m not anyone else.”
“No.” Something flickers in her eyes. “You’re not.”
Silence descends. Outside, the cicadas are starting up. The light is fading. The bunkhouse smells like boot leather and pine soap and the faint, persistent scent of her that’s been driving me slowly out of my mind for days. My wolf circles so impatiently that I want to leash him.
Brenna unfolds her arms and lets them hang at her sides. It’s a small thing—a shift in posture, nothing more—but from a woman who’s been holding herself together since the moment she came down that hillside, it’s seismic.
“You know,” she says. “About Cameron. You’ve known for a while.”
