“I can’t be the cause of that,” she said. “Please, it wouldn’t be right.”
Aaron’s growl intensified. “You are my choice.”
He would be left with nothing and no one…except her. That was the cause of the scent Quinn described. Such a choice was too much to take in. She ducked her head. She should say something. Do something. She didn’t know what or how. Oh, Aaron. Her chest filled with a depth of sadness she could hardly contain, as though his losses were flooding into her, filling her up. It hurt too much, knowing how deeply he would hurt.
But Quinn was smiling. “I knew it. We’ll be okay then, because we’ll have each other.”
Aaron turned on the couch, his knees angling toward Quinn’s. “No, pup.”
“No what?”
“You’re a ward of the pack. Someone else will take you in, and when—”
“No way.” Quinn was on his feet, fists balled. “I’m staying with you and Aunt Em.”
“You can’t. You’ve already attached here.”
Ember would lose him. She wanted to wail. Not to see Quinn grow up, maybe never to see him again. And to break his sweet young wolf heart with the loss of Aaron…but Quinn only shrugged as though the devastations piling onto Ember were negotiable.
“Whatever. Thirteen’s old enough to choose for myself.”
“No, it’s not.”
“This is crap, Aaron! I’ll—I’ll run off and hide until the pack’s gone, and then I’ll find you and Aunt Em, and you’ll have to keep me.”
“You know you’d be tracked.”
Quinn’s eyes filled, and he began to tremble. “You called mesonthis morning, when we talked about the fence. Please, I just want to be your son.”
Aaron got to his feet and pulled Quinn into a hug. “I’m so sorry, Quinn. I wanted that too.”
Quinn clung to Aaron and began to weep, the stormy tears of adolescence when the world is ending. Ember went to the kitchen, apparently unnoticed except that Aaron always knew precisely where she was within the house. She fetched the bottle of peppermint oil down from the cupboard. She found the clean cloth strips in a Ziploc bag in a bathroom drawer. She prepared one of the cloths and brought it and a box of Kleenex to the living room.
Aaron’s eyes were shadowed, but when she offered him the oiled cloth, a light seeped in. He took it and mouthed,Thank you.
“Hey,” he said quietly. “Hey, pup. This’ll help.”
Quinn pulled back from him to see what he held, and Ember offered him a Kleenex. Still fighting sobs, he blew his nose and wiped his tears, and then he took the cloth to spread the peppermint under his nose.
“Any headache?” Aaron said.
Quinn shook his head. His tears still fell freely, but his sobs faded. “Thanks, Aunt Em.”
She rubbed his back. She couldn’t find any words to say to him, to Aaron. She couldn’t find anything inside her but a mirror of the despair she saw in these two men she loved so much, at least one of whom she would soon lose.
It was an awful afternoon.
After his emotional storm, Quinn went to his room and slept. Aaron stretched out on the couch, arm propped under his head. He didn’t talk, and he didn’t sleep. When she suggested he let himself rest, he said, “Can’t. The pup might run off and get himself hurt.”
“So you’ll stay awake…indefinitely.”
He closed his eyes, and his sigh was filled with the despair that cloaked the house. “I can try.”
She sat on the edge of the couch and took his hand. “How can you know I’m worth all this?”
“You’re Ember.” He grasped her hand in return, desperation in the strength of his grip, as though she were a rescuer pulling him from floodwaters. “That’s how I know.”
“How will it happen, if—if…?”
