“That’s what She does. Ours is not to reason why,” Eli said softly, reaching for her and pressing his hands down her arms, rubbing them carefully, soothingly.

She didn’t want to be gentled though, I could see that plain as day, but she allowed him to touch her, to stroke her because, all things considered, Sabina wasn’t actually a very moody woman. Nor did she have much of a temper.

I wouldn’t say she was passive, just that she preferred to have things remain calm than to sweat over the small stuff. And in our world, there were plenty of small things that existed to put us in a bad mood.

After a shitty day, she would plunk herself beside me on my recliner and we’d watch TV together in silence. Or she’d read a book with Ethan, or lie on Eli’s sofa in front of his desk and play on her phone or draw while he worked.

Silence was her means of coping with agitation and annoyance. Not action. In her own way, she was a wallflower. Very content to stay with her back to the wall. That she was storming off to the totem, a place that gave her a lot of comfort, told me how upset she was on our behalf, and I had to admit, my heart soared at her care.

At her love.

I’d never known a love like it before, and while that might have seemed plausible considering she was my one and only mate, a mother’s love was just as powerful. Just as capable of moving mountains.

Only my mother, my two mothers, hadn’t loved me like that.

To be cherished was a different matter entirely than to being loved by a partner, but Sabina somehow managed to do both.

It was no skin off her nose if Merinda was in she-wolf form or not, yet here she was, riled up for us.

Because of us.

And her temper honored us.

With each clench of her fist, with each tick of her jaw, and each gentle throb of the nerve in her temple, she showed us her love.

There was no alternative for me other than to stride forward and to shove Eli out of the way so I could hold her. Eli, not surprisingly, growled at me, but I didn’t care. I just had to hold her, and in her ear, I whispered, “Thank you.”

I was an alpha born and bred. I didn’t need softness to exist. But to live? Which was completely, utterly different than existing?

Yes.

I needed that.

I kissed her cheek, sucking in a breath that was loaded in her scent, and I repeated, “Thank you.”

She bristled a little, clearly not expecting my thanks in the middle of her temper tantrum, then muttered, “What are you thanking me for?”

“For being hurt for us.”

Her anger died down at that. “Berry could have told me,” she muttered eventually. “She didn’t have to let us find out that way.”

“You said she doesn’t talk in full sentences when she communicates with you,” Ethan pointed out quietly. “Maybe she didn’t have the words.”

Tension throbbed inside her a little, and I knew she thought he was right, but she wasn’t willing to let go of her mad just yet.

So I stroked my hand up and down her back, then murmured, “Whether she could or not, whether she would or not, doesn’t matter. We know now, and that’s that.”

“Is she spying on us?” Sabina rumbled, her temper pricking in a way that had Knight shuffling between us.

The two of them were close, and I was a little taken aback that he hadn’t burst into tears in the face of her agitation. Still, I was glad. The last thing any of us needed was for him to be squalling in the middle of the forest.

“I don’t think she is,” I told her, and I meant it. I wasn’t bullshitting her just to make her feel better—there was no point in that. I’d learned that the hard way too. She knew when I was lying, so what was the point in being in the doghouse over a falsehood when she much preferred the truth?

“How do you know?”

“I think she’s here to help us,” Eli tacked on, agreeing with me for once.

I twisted my head slightly and nodded at him. Not in thanks, just to see if he meant what he said.

“Why?”

At her question, we fell silent, leaving that one for Ethan to answer. He’d probably know more than we would anyway.

“There’s a reason your line is powerful, Sabina. There’s a reason you’re capable of what you can do, and there’s a reason that Lara is the way she is too. You were transformed for a reason, perhaps that reason isn’t what we expected.”

I pulled back from her when I felt her twisting slightly in my hold so she could meet Ethan’s gaze.

“Explain,” she demanded, and it said a lot about her strength that none of us bristled.

A weaker wolf making demands on us, even if that weaker wolf was our mate, would still prickle our beasts’ temper.

But our animals were all in total accord—she was as strong as any of us. Just in a different way.

“I think we thought there was an exchange. Merinda gave her life so that the Mother would help Eli find his mate—”

“That’s what she told me,” my elder brother argued. “That’s what I read in the book she showed me.”

“I’m sure she did. Maybe that’s what she thought would happen. Or maybe she thought that was what you would accept as the truth. Let’s face it, she was talking about killing herself. Nothing about that is acceptable. It was only because of your father that you probably didn’t lock her in her room for her own safety.

“We all knew she was on borrowed time the second Paul died. To many, that she lived as long as she had said a lot about her willingness to provide you with emotional support for the pack.”

Eli dipped his chin. “I concur.”

“Thank you,” Ethan said wryly, stating loud and clear that he didn’t care whether Eli agreed or not. “Regardless, what if the ‘deal’ wasn’t as we believed? An exchange. What if it was something else?”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Do you still have the book, Eli?” Ethan requested. “Rather than guesswork, I could read the book and see what was expected for myself.”

“No.” His jaw hardened. “I only saw it once.”

“We could search her bedroom,” Sabina pointed out.

“It’s empty,” he reminded her. “Remember? She cleared out everything in the run up to the rite. She said her things were better off in the hands of pack brothers and sisters who might need them.”

“With no book, I have no real idea what the end game might have been. That would be between the Mother and Merinda, wouldn’t it? We’ll never be privy to those things. Maybe what we believed was cause—Merinda’s sacrifice—and effect—Sabina’s transformation—wasn’t how it actually went down.” His lips pursed, and I saw his eyes narrow in contemplation. “As Eli said, nothing has to make sense to us. Just to the Mother. And arguing with Her, storming off to demand answers from Her will do no good, my mate. You forget, She won’t talk to us anyway.”

“She’ll talk to you,” Sabina whispered, turning to Eli. “As Alpha, you can talk to her, can’t you?”

He shook his head. “She isn’t very communicative right now.”

Because that was the first time I’d heard of this, I frowned. “What do you mean?”