A thousand times worse.

I dealt with the distance out of necessity, as well as expediency. I was a grown ass man who was waiting on pups to grow into maturity. It was sick what the Mother had done, make me aware of who I was to those kids. Putting a thousand miles between us was the least I could do to ensure that they grew up as kids should—free and unencumbered. I didn’t want them to know what I was like without them.

I wanted my mates. Needed them. My wolf was miserable without them.

But both wolf and man knew how fucking weird it was when those mates were kids.

I wasn’t a pervert. I wasn’t. I didn’t want them that way, I just wanted their presence in my life. I was lonely without them.

Pack-less, mate-less, if not friendless.

The bonds between us existed but were impossible to cement in place.

I thought the misery of knowing I’d killed someone would haunt me forever, but it was the loss of them, that did that. It was their absence that hovered around me like a shadow.

“It might be time to return to them,” Claudette said softly.

It always amazed me how she could sneak up on me the way she did without triggering any of my inbuilt alarms—of which there were many.

She was blind, had been ever since the Secte Rouge had splashed acid in her face, leaving behind gouges of scars all over her beautiful features.

Angels were supposed to be white, blond, slender.

Claudette was none of those things, and even with the scars, she was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen.

Only Grace would ever be able to surpass her in my estimations.

Her skin, the color of fresh chestnuts, gleamed in the light, darkening by night. Her body was round, lush, ripe. Her features were healthy and hearty, strong, with a wide, ruby red mouth, strong brows, and cheeks that were a little too gaunt since the attack.

She was beautiful.

She was also approaching seventy, but beauty didn’t die or fade. It just changed.

I’d known her before the attack and her senses were so preternatural that it amazed me she wasn’t a shifter.

Of course, there was more to this world than shifters.

I knew, from my time in two packs, that we tended to believe we were it where the supernatural community was concerned, but we were wrong.

We were the Mother’s children, to be sure, but there was a flurry of otherworldly creatures that had been spawned since our early days.

Claudette and her people were one such creature.

They were fully human, born with the belief that the Father reigned over everything, like the Catholic Church’s God, while the Mother was Lucifer. Cast out for her sins. Evil.

The Secte Rouge was the Father’s ‘church.’ They worked hard to fulfill his will, to do what he asked, as if he’d deign to talk to them. Like any organized religion, it was loaded with bullshit, fallacy, and charismatic leaders.

But the Blanc-Blanc were different.

They cast aside their beliefs that were pounded into them as children reared in Secte Rouge and went to the Mother’s side.

I guessed, in human speak, the Blanc-Blanc were a version of satanism. Which was ironic enough to make my lips twitch, despite the gnawing ache in my bones as I dealt with the strange absence of my mates. If anyone was a Satanist it was the Secte Rouge.

They were dark.

Depraved.

Worked with human sacrifices and blood to gain what they wished. As a result, they were incredibly powerful. Human blood was potent. Only shifter blood was more revered by their kind, but to take a shifter was to incur the Mother’s wrath so it happened rarely.

And only with a priestess who was an idiot.

The Blanc-Blanc, on the other hand, dealt with animal sacrifices, and their power was not as potent as a result. But they had the Mother on their side. They had her spirits and her totems.

There was balance between both sides, but that balance was ever fickle. Just waiting to sink into the quagmire of fate.

“She needs you.”

The words had me looking down at my phone where I had a picture of my mates. It was recent, and as I stared at them, it just felt so weird to have all these powerful feelings inside me for what were a bunch of teenagers.

I didn’t lust after them. I just wanted to be around them.

But it felt gross to me. Skeevy.

As it should.

“The Mother plays music to her own rhythm, you should know this by now, Daniel.”

Her chiding tone was followed by a gush of scent that had my nostrils flaring in response. It was a pleasant scent, don’t get me wrong, just pungent. It was like violets and vanilla came together in a freshly baked cake.

I didn’t even want to know what she’d been doing to waft that kind of perfume around.

Whatever it was, she hadn’t baked a cake.

If she had, she’d have brought me a slice.

Even though I was a part of their retinue, I wasn’t a member of the Blanc-Blanc. I was just a guardian.

I’d thought they were pitying me, taking in a pack-less, orphan shifter. Either that, or they were going to exploit me when they’d picked me up like flotsam floating on the surface of a river. Until, when I was seventeen, the acid attack had happened, and I’d realized just what we were up against.

Pure evil.

That wasn’t to say the Blanc-Blanc were pure, because they weren’t. They were imperfect, just as humans were supposed to be, but in comparison to the Secte Rouge, they were angels.

Claudette was their version of an Archangel, and she’d taken me under her wing where Sabina had left off.

My lips pursed as I murmured, “They’re not ready for what it means when I come home.”

She snorted out a laugh that should have been braying but was, instead, infinitely delicate. Like the tinkle of glass beads dropping against a marble floor.

“Shug, if you think there’s ever a perfect time in the life then you ain’t been with us long enough.”

I winced at that. “You know what I mean.”

“Oh, I think you think you know what you mean, but trust someone who’s been around a hell of a lot longer than you… there’s no perfect time. There’s a reason carpe diem has been a saying since forever. Because that’s what you have to do—especially when all your ducks are in a neat row—seize the goddamn day, shug.”

That qualification had me narrowing my eyes at her. “Isn’t that the opposite of seizing the day?”

Her smile was blinding. “No, it’s wisdom over youth.”

I tutted under my breath, aware that was her way of telling me not to question.

“Makes no sense,” I grumbled.

“Sure it does. When you killed Seth, you were a kid, you were scared and vulnerable, and wanted to do the right thing.

“As much as you wanted to go home, you were scared about bringing trouble to their door.

“Then, if you had managed to make it back to your pack, your mates would have been little kids. You ain’t got that sickness in you, shug.”

I glared at her. “Of course I fucking don’t!”

She snorted. “No need to be so tetchy.”

“No need?” I practically squeaked.

“You’d be surprised how many have that sickness.” She shivered. “Those bastards are the folk I wish the Secte Rouge on.”

Now that I could agree with.

“But you want your mates to be full grown, just like you. That’s when you ducks are in a row.”