But Bern is on the property, and the timing is wrong. Merric and I agreed we’d do this together. But I’m not ready, and every excuse I’ve been making lines up inside me.
“What if I’m not?” Cameron says. “What if he knows where my dad is?”
I take in a quiet breath, feeling my nerves stretch taut. “You should come eat something,” I say, changing the subject abruptly. “You missed lunch.”
Something moves behind Cameron’s eyes. Not surprise. Not hurt, exactly. Disappointment.
“Sure,” he says. “In a bit.”
He looks away. Back toward the window. Dismissing me.
I stand in the doorway for a moment, aware that something just happened and unable to name it. My son’s profile against the window light. The careful blankness of his eyes. The way his hands rest in his lap. Rigid, deliberate, a teenager holding himself together. Probably processing what happened with the Syndicate. I haven’t discussed that with him yet, and it’s something that needs to be dealt with.
“Cameron—”
“I said in a bit, Ma.”
“Okay.” I nod. “I love you, Cam.” It feels like an afterthought.
“Sure.” He doesn’t say more.
I leave. Close the door behind me. Walk down the stairs with a feeling I can’t place sitting heavy between my shoulders.
I shake it off because there’s too much to think about right now to try to decipher my son’s silent messages.
I’m in the kitchen at six o’clock, helping Greta with dinner, when Willow comes in from the yard.
“Have you seen Cam?”
“He was upstairs a couple hours ago,” I say, looking up.
“He’s not upstairs now. He’s not in the yard. He’s not at the barn.”
I set down the knife I’m holding. “He’s probably walking the fence line. He does that.”
“I checked. Briar did too. He’s not on the property, Brenna.”
Greta’s hands stop moving over the cutting board. Willow is standing in the doorway, trying to be calm and failing.
“His things are in his room,” Willow says. “His shoes are gone. No note.”
No note. No signs of struggle. Shoes gone.
He ran.
The realization hits me in stages. First, the practical assessment: when did he leave, which direction, how much daylight is left? Then the maternal terror that swallows everything else. My son is out there. In hills that are being watched. With magic he can’t fully control and a signature that draws danger.
I’m moving before I’ve finished thinking. Through the kitchen, across the yard, shouting for Briar. Merric’s already coming out of the barn, reading my face from fifty yards.
“Cameron’s gone,” I say when he reaches me. “Not taken. His shoes are missing. He left on foot.”
Merric’s expression doesn’t change. He doesn’t ask questions. He doesn’t waste time on shock or worry or any of the emotions I can sense in him.
“Briar,” he says as she emerges from nowhere. “Track from his window. Rook, get Dane. Sienna, stay with the settlement. Nobody moves until we have a direction.”
He’s commanding. On my territory. In front of my wolves.
And I let him, because my hands are shaking and my son is missing, and the man standing in front of me is the only person in this valley who feels exactly what I feel right now.
