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Go home.

That’s exactly what I needed to do, but I didn’t. Instead, I shifted back to my wolf and drifted through the shadows, back to Iris’s house in time to see her slip inside and shut the door behind her.

She was safe, locked inside a warded house.

Still, leaving felt wrong.

If I could cut out the part of me that recognized her as my mate, I would. Since that wasn’t an option, I stayed where I was. A light came on upstairs, a silhouette moving behind the sheer curtains, and I knew it was her instantly.

Mine. The beast roared the word inside me.

But I couldn’t have her.

And somehow, I had to convince my wolf of that before I sunk deeper into insanity.

Iris

“Whatcha looking for?” Else said behind me.

I turned from the ladder I’d scaled and sneezed for the hundredth time. “Just doing a bit of research.” I grabbed the massive, dusty, leather-bound tome that had records of births and deaths in the Thornheart line and made my way down carefully.

Else watched me as Nia pressed into my aunt for pats, her gaze moving between the extremely old book and my blank expression. As always, nothing got past her.

“This has something to do with your task, yes?” she said, scratching Nia’s ears.

I plonked the book down with the ancient spells book I’d been reading. “You know I can’t answer that.”

“So that’s a yes. Not asking for you to give me all the deets, pumpkin. But you don’t need to be so cagey. We knew what Wills was up to, we just couldn’t help her. Share with your old auntie, it might make you feel better, or at least make you feel less like you’re swinging your behind in the wind all on your own.”

There was nothing that I would like more. Keeping this all to myself was so hard, having the weight of it on my shoulders was straight-up terrifying, but this was way too close to home. Those bones were on our land. They could be one of our family members, or equally as horrific, put there by one of us—because generations of Thornhearts had lived here.

Else would not be able to stand by and not be tempted to look into it, even if she didn’t mean to. “I can’t do that,” I said, holding her gaze and hoping she’d end it at that.

She went still, her face paling. “That bad, huh?”

Not a question.

I said nothing.

She gave me a nod. “Okay, pumpkin, I’ll leave you to your research. And FYI, if you want a more in-depth peek at the family tree, the council has better records. Sometimes families choose to omit things in their own for various reasons. The council has never given a shit about appearances. All the ugly that people try to hide is documented there.” She leaned more heavily on the cane she used a lot more lately. “I don’t like to think we’ve got that kind of ugly in our past, but you never know.” She shrugged and walked away.

I watched her go, and an unhappy feeling curled and twisted in my belly. I’d planned to tell her about Selene, but seeing that look on her face…if Selene was as awful as Draven said, I didn’t have the heart to burst Else’s bubble.

I prayed to the mother I was wrong, but someone had put those bones just outside the cemetery, burying them deep, and planted a tree over the top, hoping no one would ever unearth them, and I was terrified of what I might find when I looked deeper.

Several hours later, bleary-eyed and exhausted, I headed upstairs, Nia on my heels, to get ready for work. I’d found nothing on the symbols I’d taken pictures of and nothing untoward in our family history records, which meant my best bet was a trip to the council chambers in the morning.

The bar was busy when I got there, the place full of hounds and other shifters, mainly.

The wolves were there, of course, at least a handful of them were there most nights.

I glanced over at their table. Draven wasn’t here tonight. I kind of thought he would be, just so he could yell and snarl at me, since that seemed to be his favorite thing to do. One of them glanced up, catching my eye. A female warrior that I’d seen at Draven’s keep. She gave me a hard stare.

I quickly looked away.

Of course, she hated me as well.

The female could kick my ass all around this bar if she wanted to, and going by the number of bottles on their table, she’d been drinking a whole lot. She’d also been making out with some huge guy most of the night, a bear shifter. I’d never seen one before, but my magic let me know easily now that it was growing stronger.