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Dad nodded. “You can protect yourself from all the bloodsuckers in your life.”

He wasn’t wrong. “Can you tell me about you?” I asked. “Mom was always so sad, she never wanted to discuss it. I don’t really know anything about you.”

He looked stricken.

“I mean, I know your name and that Marcus was your brother and Alexander your father…You lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains.” I shrugged, out of info.

Mom looked up at Dad. “My fault. It hurt too much.”

He kissed her temple. “Right.” He nodded. “Okay. Let’s see. I grew up on the pack lands in the mountains, but when I got older, I moved to Monterey and worked in construction. My specialty was woodworking, but I could do whatever was needed.”

“Like Declan. Your half-brother,” I told him. “He’s a woodworker too.”

Dad nodded. “I remember Declan. He was a baby, but I remember Dad and his girlfriend having him.” He scratched his jaw, which seemed funny to me. Could ghosts feel itches or was it merely habit?

“Your father,” Mom cut in, “was hired to help remodel my sister Sybil’s new tea shop in Pacific Grove. I was going to manage the first shop when she moved to the second, but for whatever reason—no, wait.” Mom closed her eyes a moment and then smiled. “I remember. She told me Arwyn said I should go to the new shop and Sybil would stay in the first one. I was so confused. Why were we doing what a two-year-old suggested? It was fine, though. I was excited about the new shop.”

She laughed, patting Dad’s muscular arm. “And then this one walked in.”

“It was love at first sight,” he said. “While I was building the counter and display cases, we talked about everything. She could tell I was a wolf and I picked up from her scent that she was a wicche.”

Mom made a face and Dad wrapped an arm around her. “My dad hated wicches,” he said. “I’d listened to his rants my whole life, but when I met your mom, all that flew out the window. I knew my dad would be angry, but I didn’t care.”

Mom patted his chest and said to me, “I don’t think your dad fully comprehended just how furious his father would be about me, though.”

“But why did he hate wicches so much?” I asked.

Dad shook his head. “I’m not entirely clear on the story, to be honest. Piecing together little things he told me over the years, my grandfather apparently mated with a wicche. This would have been—I don’t know—five or six hundred years ago.

“So it goes, my grandfather fell in love with a beautiful woman. If he ever learned she was a wicche, it wasn’t until much later. They had a son together—Raulf. The child took after his mother: pale and slight. My grandmother—Alexander’s mother—died giving birth to him, which was maybe six months to a year before this new woman came to the village.

“Alexander was older than Raulf and destined to take over the pack. The wicche—I don’t know her name. My dad rarely ever spoke about her, but when he did, he just called her the wicche. The wicche wanted her son favored. She thought he’d make an excellent leader.

“The whole time Alexander was growing up, he was stronger, faster, and shifting early. In every measure, Alexander was the stronger wolf, but she kept whispering in my grandfather’s ear that Raulf was the smarter of the two and therefore far better suited to leadership. She’d said Alexander could be a general, but Raulf was clearly the Alpha.

“My father said that Raulf wasn’t a normal child. He was secretive and watchful, always looking for ways to make my dad look stupid or weak and himself to come off well. It was frustrating when they were young, but as they got older, it became clear to my dad that Raulf didn’t just want him humiliated. He wanted him dead.

“He only told me one story, and that was when he was raging about me mating myself to a wicche. Raulf and his mother poisoned my grandfather and Alexander. They wanted Raulf to take over as Alpha. My grandfather, who’d eaten far more of the poisoned stew, died, but Alexander hadn’t. He’d been paralyzed, though. Whatever potion she’d brewed hadn’t killed him, but it had given him the appearance of death. He’d heard it all as they’d dragged the bodies out and dumped them in a shallow grave. Mother and son had plotted to take over the pack and steal my grandfather’s wealth.

“Come nightfall, the paralysis began to wear off and Alexander dug himself out of his grave. He went to the pack and challenged Raulf. A vicious battle ensued, one where Raulf used his magic. He wasn’t as powerful as his mother, but as a wolf-wicche hybrid, he had his own strengths. It didn’t matter, though. Alexander was too powerful. He not only beat Raulf, he exposed him to the pack. He told them all that Raulf and his mother were wicches and that they’d killed the Alpha. There was chaos. The pack chased the two of them off.

“Father didn’t watch the pack rip them both to shreds. He let the others take revenge on their Alpha’s murderers. Alexander, instead, went back to the shallow grave, dug up his father, and gave him the funeral he deserved.

“So, it didn’t matter that I was in love with the kindest, most beautiful woman in the world. Dad hated wicches. He believed them all to be evil, even the ones who worked in tea shops.”

I thought about my aunt. “He wasn’t completely wrong. Abigail was a heinous bitch.”

“Language, Samantha,” Mom admonished.

“She was,” I insisted. I turned back to my dad. “Was she the one who killed you?”

His gaze became unfocused and then he finally shook his head. “No, not her. I’m not entirely clear on who did, but it felt more like a wolf.” His voice trailed off as he got lost in the memories.

“Michael?” Mom rubbed his arm.

He shook his head, like I sometimes do in my fur. “It was the full moon. I was on a run in the woods, and then I was—I don’t know where.” He rubbed his forehead. “It was like being trapped in an invisible prison, one that constricts and crushes you. I heard snarls and smelled wolf, though. The forest had gone dark, like the moon had disappeared, and I just kept running over the same patch of land. I’d get to the tree line, and then I was back in the meadow. Over and over, I ran the same strip of land so many times my heart was pounding out of my chest. I heard a wolf circling me, heard his paws beat the ground, heard his snarls, but I could never see him.”

Brow furrowed, he paused. “I don’t remember what happened after that. I never saw him. I just felt this crushing pressure on my chest and then—” He snapped his fingers.