My mind was still spinning from this entire Greywolf-Lena-Wren thing, so I decided to just put it all from my mind.
I showered quickly and changed, and then met them out in the kitchen. Now that it was light I could see that the cabin was more spacious than I thought, with vaulted ceilings and open windows looking at the woods beyond.
I’d noticed when I’d walked down the hall and peered into all the open bedrooms that they all had twin beds or bunkbeds in them.
“Is this a pack house?” I asked, assuming that was a thing.
Brayden sneered at me but then thought better of it. “This is one of my pack houses. My full land is over a hundred acres with multiple homes, but Silas is the owner of that right now. I was allowed to keep this one.”
Ouch, I’d hit another sore spot, so instead of answering I just nodded and switched gears.
“So you have surgery today?”
Brayden glanced at Maddy, who gave him a curt nod.
“What?” I growled, annoyed that they’d clearly been plotting something behind my back.
Brayden plopped a plate of food in front of me. “I need you to quit the bar and school.”
“Hah!” I barked out and crossed my arms over my chest. “I needyouto stop telling me what to do.”
Maddy grinned, watching us with fascination.
Brayden stepped closer, towering over me. “Listen to me, Averly. You are a Greywolf with great power. Eventually the Fae Lords will track you down. I need to be there when that happens so that I can protect you.”
His words splashed ice water over my anger. The Fae Lords would track me down?
Maddy stepped forward wearing a compassionate look. “You’re either Wren who escaped the Ether and the Fae Lords want to hunt you down and imprison you again, or you’re Lena—”
“She’s not Lena,” Brayden growled. “She doesn’t remember me.” There was more hurt than anger in his voice and my heart pinched at that.
Maddy reached out and placed a hand on her brother’s shoulder. “She could be Lena, with restored powers, in which case—”
“Restored powers how? I was there when the Fae Lords severed her connection to her power, I held her as she convulsed. They tookeverythingfrom her!” he bellowed, and I lowered my head in an effort to give them privacy.
“I know,” Maddy said, looking up at her brother with compassion. “But what if there was a way to fix Lena’s powers?”
Brayden shook his head. “The last witch I paid to try died in the process.”
That very sobering fact gave me chills.
“You don’t think I want Averly to be her?” Brayden’s voice cracked. “You don’t think I dream about it?”
Heat flushed through my entire body at that and I felt my wolf come to the surface.
Maddy nodded. “Bray, I love you, but you’re pigheaded sometimes. The fact is we don’t knowwhoshe is. She could be any of Lena’s sisters, but shecouldalso be Lena. Either way, none of this changes how we protect her.”
They both looked at me then, Brayden with hope in his gaze that made my stomach do flips and Maddy with a fierce loyalty that I wasn’t sure I was worthy of.
“If I drop out of school, my mother will murder me,” I exclaimed. “I am going to be the first in my family to graduate college and I’mnotgiving that up over a guy.”
“Then don’t tell your mother. We can make a fake diploma when the time comes,” Maddy offered.
Brayden inclined his head in agreement. “I will train you myself. You will be doing procedures in a month’s time and surgery next year.”
I snorted. “Unlicensed! I need a degree to take the state licensing exam.”
“Wow she’s really a rule follower. Very much like Wren,” Maddy commented.
