Mom started sobbing, Grace huddled into me in her wolfskin, and I reached for Cade’s hand, needing their strength even as I heard my dads crashing through the forest to reach us. To see what I’d done…

Hours later, as I rolled into bed utterly exhausted after having kept an eye on Cade for the rest of the day, after overhearing my parents argue as they discussed what to do about the totem, I wasn’t surprised when the cellphone I kept beneath my pillow buzzed. If anything, it came as a relief.

Daniel had sent it to me years ago, under the guise of a gift from the twin pack alpha who’d been sucking up to my dads ever since Seth had supposedly died on his watch.

No one knew where Daniel was, me included, but he’d found a way for us to keep in touch. His calls were infrequent, usually only occurring when something happened to one of us. He’d called the night of my first shift, for example. When Grace had broken her arm.

I’d been expecting this. Even though I’d been terrified it wouldn’t happen again. Whenever I tried to phone him, he never answered, so a part of me felt sure that every time he called, it would be the last time I’d ever hear from him. That was fear talking though.

I knew what he was to me, knew it even though it was weird when I knew he was so much older, but his concern was natural. As was the distance he kept between us. I knew, when we were all ready, he’d return.

I’d told him years ago that Mom didn’t believe Seth was really dead, but he was running. Still running. Endlessly so.

“What happened?”

He sounded awful. Like that time I had the flu and it had been like I had a sock or something in my throat. He’d called me then too, now that I thought about it.

“One of Cade’s classmates brought in something with peanuts in it.”

“Shit,” he rasped, and I heard a scraping sound and figured he was rubbing his hand over his face.

“He died,” I admitted.

A shaky breath escaped him. “He’s alive, though? I felt him disappear and then return.”

“Yeah, he’s okay now. Like nothing happened.”

“Thank fuck.”

I probably shouldn’t find it so funny, but his cursing always made me want to chuckle. He didn’t care that I was a kid. That I shouldn’t hear that word. Mom and the dads acted as if I shouldn’t know of its existence, but I did. I knew plenty of other stuff besides that.

“You should answer when I call you. I only phone in an emergency.”

“It’s not always safe.”

My brow puckered at a tireless answer I feared I’d never stop being told. “When will it be?” I said with a weary sigh.

“I don’t know. Maybe never.”

My jaw clenched. “What happens when you claim us?”

“Knight, you’re not even thirteen yet, for Christ’s sake. There’s plenty of time for me to be out—”

When his words died off, I understood what he wasn’t willing to say, understood as well that he was living as a human. No shifter in a pack would curse like they did, not unless they were integrated into their world.

“It’ll kill us if you die. How you felt today, is that what you want us to experience? To have to deal with?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” he rumbled.

His voice was deep. Dark. Manly. He was right—I was a kid, and he was a man, but as awkward as the age gap was, it didn’t take away from the rights I had over him. Not just on my behalf either. Cade and Grace didn’t have a clue what Daniel was to them. They just knew that they missed him. Which, bearing in mind they’d only met Daniel once and for a half-hour, spoke to just how impossible the link was between us all.

They shouldn’t miss him because they didn’t know him.

Their souls did, but they didn’t.

“I’m not putting words in your mouth,” I countered, feeling a lot more mature than the kid he and I were painting me as. But I had to be. I needed to fight for Cade and Grace too. Not just myself. “I’m telling you how it is. Whatever you’re doing you need to consider us—”

“I consider you every goddamn minute of every goddamn day, Knight. So don’t tell me I don’t.” He hissed out a breath. “I have to go. Thank you for watching over him, making sure he got back to health. One day, you can tell me how you did that.”

“I can tell you now,” I countered, but I only heard the dialing tone.

Frustration hit me, ramming me full in the stomach, and I tightened my fist around the cell and almost threw it.

Almost.

But I didn’t.

This was our sole method of communication.

I kept it charged, every day, just to be on the safe side. Just in case today was the day he’d call.

I was the bridge between Daniel and our mates, and it was a duty I’d take as seriously as the one that dictated his life to him.

Shoving the cell into my nightstand drawer, I stared up at the ceiling, trying not to feel exhilarated after that conversation. It was like the time I’d had some Red Bull without Mom and the dads knowing. It had whizzed through my system, making me feel like I could fly with how high I’d soared.

This was similar, but better. So much better.

I couldn’t wait until Cade was eighteen.

That was the day Daniel would return. I knew it. I just knew it.

Five

Grace

Six years later

My gaze flickered between the mirror and the picture on my dressing table.

It was an old one. As were all the photos of my parents.

They’d been so young when they passed over, and I’d been younger still. So much so, I didn’t remember them. I didn’t remember my brother either. Truthfully, I was jealous of him more than I was frightened of him. Even though I knew I was supposed to be scared, I was envious of how he’d known our parents, how he’d gotten to be a part of their lives, and they of his, while I’d been raised by the Highbanks.

That wasn’t to say the Highbanks didn’t treat me like family, because they did. Sabina was the best adoptive mom anyone could ask for and if she ever fell short, which she rarely did unless she was super busy, then Lara was there.

Both of them had picked up the slack as mother figures in more ways than I could ever thank them for, and then there were Ethan, Eli, and Austin. Three fathers. Knight didn’t know how lucky he was.

Todd, Lara, Sabina, Eli, Austin, Ethan, all of them were technically my family anyway. I’d known that since my covenant, that horrendous day when Cade had almost died and Knight had somehow saved him.

I wasn’t just an adopted kid they’d taken pity on. I was their daughter-in-law. All of them.

Three mates.

Even if I wasn’t much of an achiever in school, I was where mates were concerned.

Three… just like Sabina.

I’d seen how much work having three men around was, but with Knight and Cade, it was as easy as breathing being around them. Even though Knight was definitely getting a little too cocky for his own good, I knew why. His wolf was riding him hard, clawing at the constraints that came when you were alpha in a household of alphas. The only respite was here. Together.