“No.”
He cocked his head and angled a look down at her—all the way down to where she stood at five-foot-two in her shoes. For a moment her presence seemed to baffle him. Then he shook his head. “This door will be locked until nine. Make yourself at home on my porch as long as that precludes trying to break in. I’m my own security system; I’ll hear you and smell you, wherever you explore. Nice to meet you, see you in four hours.”
“Aaron?”
The mid-range voice, groggy and nervous, came from behind him, inside the house. Ember knew that voice at its every stage. She knew the toddler squealing“Swing me again, Aunt Em! Again! Again!”She knew the kindergartner’s high lisp proudly readingThe Very Hungry Caterpillaraloud. She knew every year following as he learned to love reading the way she did, as his vocabulary broadened and his critical thinking skills grew along with his Quinn-like determination to achieve expert status in whatever he cared about.
“Quinn,” she called out.
“Aunt Em?”
He shuffled to the door in sleep shorts and no shirt, his skinny boy’s frame filled out to a degree that wasn’t natural, not for a normal teenager anyway. But Quinn wasn’t normal and never would be again. Ember stood frozen. Hug him? Let him go back to bed? Haul him bodily from this cabin and get him to her car and escape? Why wasn’t she already acting on the third option?
“You came for me,” he said, but he seemed more confused than relieved.
“Of course I did. I’d never—I’d never abandon you or leave you unsafe.”
“What? What’re you talking about?”
“We can talk all the way home. Come on, let’s go. I don’t care what Poppy signed, you do not have to stay here.”
Quinn tipped his head to study Aaron. “What’s going on?”
Aaron’s lips pressed together a long moment, and then he shook his head as though his options sucked and he’d just given up on all of them. He motioned to a polished-wood swing in one corner of the house-spanning porch. The burgundy cushions looked thick and comfortable.
“Why don’t you two have a seat, and we can talk this out.”
Quinn moved to the swing and sat, his knob-knuckled hands resting on equally knobby knees. Aaron waited for Ember, but she stood her ground. After a moment the massive shoulders gave another slight shrug, and he sat beside Quinn.
“Okay,” Aaron said. “Quinn, your aunt was made to believe she wouldn’t see you again after you came here.”
Quinn’s mouth fell open. “Ever again? In our lives?”
“Yep.”
“That’s not true, Aunt Em. I’ll probably live in this town the rest of my life, with my pack. But I can come see you any time except the full moon.”
She did have to sit after all, but she locked her knees instead. She couldn’t stop staring at Quinn. Couldn’t stop replaying in her mind what he’d just said, comparing it with her sister’s words:“I need you to accept it, and I need you to stop talking about it.”
“I did not misunderstand her,” she said quietly. “She was very clear.”
Which meant only one thing. Ember turned to Aaron and tried to keep her voice low and reasonable. “Who exactly told my sister she had to forfeit her son forever if he came here?”
“None of us would’ve said that.”
“Well, one of you did. I want to know who— Quinn, who did you travel here with? Who came to your house and signed papers or whatever with Poppy?”
Quinn’s eyes widened. Darted to Aaron.
“Ms. Grant, that information won’t be shared with you. Please let it go.”
Well, screw him. “Quinn, something’s not right here. Now look at me and tell me who it was.”
Quinn’s gaze never left Aaron. The man’s hand engulfed Quinn’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “It’s fine, pup. Go on.”
Quinn lurched to his feet. He met Ember’s eyes for a moment of apology, then hurried back into the house and shut the door.
Sleepless nights and kicks to the furniture, plans made and remade. Hours of Internet searches for some sort of lupine directory that might now include the name Quinn if they hadn’t made him change it, which was surely a more productive search term than John or James. All of it boiled over in Ember, and she planted her feet apart and prepared her words because she couldn’t threaten any other way.
