Pack. Pack. Pack.
I took some relief in their presence, and I opened up my senses, reminding myself that I was doing this for them. That Callum was an ally, not my keeper. That I was an alpha, not his girl.
Sipping on my root beer, I swung my feet back and forth and found amusement in the way that Lake zeroed in on a target—human, most likely—to hustle at pool. A low hum in my pack-bond brought my eyes to look for Maddy, who had fallen into a quiet spell, the kind she still had every hour or two, and I reached out to her with my mind, reminding her that I was here. That we all were. And that she was herself.
Maddy, not Madison.
Ours, not Wilson’s.
Healing, not broken.
She hadn’t been able to go back to her family. Not after being dead for ten years, not when she couldn’t go more than a mile away from the rest of our pack without her wolf driving her back—to pack, to safety, to home.
“Bryn.”
I turned toward Callum’s voice, and something inside of me began to dissolve. Seeing him would always make me feel like a kid, and it would always remind me of the things that had brought me here. The things he’d done and the things he hadn’t. Some days, I thought everything went back to Callum—
He’d saved me from the Rabid when I was four.
He’d Marked me.
He’d raised me.
He’d given me Ali, who loved me enough to take me away.
He’d trained me.
He’d pushed me.
He’d lied to me.
And ultimately, he’d let me discover the truth, because based on everything I’d learned about Callum’s knack, he had to have known that I would.
“Let’s walk,” I said.
For a long time, Callum and I walked and said nothing. And then, finally, he spoke. “How are your grades?”
Somehow, I hadn’t pictured that as being his opening.
I rolled my eyes. “It’s summer. No school, ergo no grades. Ali’s been homeschooling the youngest of the new Weres, though. They aren’t quite elementary school–ready yet, so she’s got her hands full.” I paused. “Lake, Maddy, and I will be driving in to the closest high school starting in September. Chase and Devon, too.” I was babbling, but I couldn’t seem to help it. “How is Ali?” Callum asked me.
I nodded. “She’s good. She misses Casey, but I don’t think she’ll ever go back to him.”
Casey had dropped by, with my permission, a few weeks after we’d gotten back from Alpine Creek. He’d come to see the twins and to talk to Ali. It killed me that I’d been the one to tear the two of them apart, but the simple truth was that Ali might eventually forgive him for the part he’d played in hurting me, but she’d never let him in again. Not when she knew that if push came to shove, pack loyalty would always run deeper than anything he felt toward her.
“He visits the twins sometimes,” I said. “We’re thinking of taking them to Ark Valley for Christmas. If the alpha of that region gives us permission.”
Katie and Alex were nine months now, but they looked more like two-year-olds. They were gaining on Lily every day, much to her indignant dismay. Ali said the twins’ growth would slow down by their first birthday, but that they’d always be a little ahead of the curve.
“Is this what you came here to talk about?” I asked. “Ali and the twins? My grades?”
“Education is important,” Callum argued reflexively.
This wasn’t what I’d expected for my first interaction with one of the other alphas as their equal. Callum had walked out that door the day my pack had killed Wilson, the same as the others alphas had, and he’d signed off on giving me part of his territory from afar. Somehow, I’d imagined our first face-to-face meeting being more ominous.
I’d imagined it hurting more.
“We miss you,” Callum said. “And Devon.”
Sora and Lance couldn’t have been happy about the fact that Devon had left Ark Valley, but at the same time, I doubted they were surprised. Their oldest son had left his pack and fought his way to the top of another when he wasn’t that much older than Devon was now.
With or without me, Dev would have left Ark Valley eventually. He was too strong and too independent to stay.
“I miss you, too,” I told Callum. A month earlier, I wouldn’t have been able to say the words. I wouldn’t have even been able to think them, and I certainly wouldn’t have meant them. I wondered if he knew that I wasn’t talking about the pack. For most of my life, he’d been one of the most important people in it. He’d lied to me and he’d beaten me and he’d helped me and then left me alone to deal with the fallout, but he was still Callum. I still had his Mark carved into my body.