“You don’t know Paul killed him,” Sabina said, trying to soothe, and I saw how the tables had turned now.

“I don’t know for certain, but I think it’s likely.” He soothed himself by rubbing his chin over her hair. “The clearing, after the wolf attack, scented of father. I know it sounds crazy, but I think that’s why Austin had the chance to take him down, because the Mother thought it was only right to test him, see if he’d changed, and when he hadn’t, when he still went for one of the twins, Austin had the right to seek vengeance.”

“You’re putting words in the Mother’s mouth,” she argued, then snapped, “And Austin, don’t you dare make a joke about that right now. This is serious. While I know you make jokes to cover up serious moments, this isn’t the time to do it.”

Because I agreed, for once, I didn’t rebuke her, just stroked her hip, telling her I was in agreement.

“Sabina’s right,” Ethan agreed woodenly. “We don’t know what happened.”

“We know Merinda lived,” Eli rasped. “If your father is dead, then she should have perished soon after, that has to mean that the claiming never happened. Not at the totem. It wasn’t sanctioned by the Mother.”

“And yet, we were born,” I tacked on, uneasily.

“There’s no pregnancy between mates without a claiming?” Sabina queried.

I shook my head. “Not usually, anyway.”

Ethan blew out a breath. “None of this matters.”

“Yes, it does!” Eli stormed. “I don’t know what the hell is going on here. I thought my mother stayed with him because he’d just sent your father off. Shipped him away. If he killed him, what was she thinking? Was she so fucking weak?”

“We know the answer to that already,” Sabina rasped. “For her to just dump the boys on their adopted mother says it all.”

“None of this feels right,” Eli growled. “It’s always been messed up, but it’s never mattered more than now, when she’s back here and we might be able to ask her questions.”

And with that, he grabbed Sabina’s hand and started tugging her back to the house.

“If anyone can give us the answers we need, it isn’t the Mother, Sabina. I could try and commune with Her now, but She isn’t the one who can explain this to us. It’s Berry. We need to wait her out so you can ask her all this shit.”

“What if she doesn’t come back?” she asked warily, which had him pausing in place.

“What makes you say that?”

“Didn’t that feel like a farewell to you?” she rumbled, her shoulders hitching. “When they were all standing there, a family, before they ran off into the forest?”

Eli’s nostrils flared. “No. I can’t handle that. I need to know what the fuck she was doing, what she was thinking—”

Ethan strode forward, grabbed Eli’s shoulder and shook him slightly. “That’s in the past. We’re in the present now. Maybe we are who we are for a reason. What happened to us went down so that we’d be the men standing here today. Getting answers to questions that are decades old won’t help us in the long run.”

Eli shook his head. “I supported her. I tried to do as she wanted, I led by my father’s example, a father who might have killed her mate, who tore mother and children apart—”

“No!” Sabina’s voice was stony, colder than the Antarctic. “No, that wasn’t on your father. He might have demanded it, but she didn’t have to go along with him. I can tell you now, categorically and without a shadow of doubt in my mind, if you asked me to give up Knight? You wouldn’t see me again. You wouldn’t see me for goddamn dust.

“Merinda made that decision. She chose to give up the twins. That’s on her. Your father was a prick for asking it of her, but she could have stood up to him.” She jerked her chin up. “She was a mediocre omega, whose only strength was forged in the sons she bore her men. That was her purpose. You three.

“Ethan’s right. What happened before doesn’t matter.” Her jaw clenched before she ground out, “I was mad for all of you, but now I see we need to focus on us. On the here and now. What your parents decided to do is of no concern to us.” She squeezed Eli’s hand. “We’ll return to the packhouse and make my sister comfortable. She, unlike Berry, matters.”

I didn’t think I was the only one who heard a mournful howl whisper through the breeze, between the trees, but Sabina’s shoulders stiffened, so I knew she heard it too.

I guessed we had our answer.

Berry hadn’t gone anywhere, but she might have now.

Seven

Ethan

Returning to the house didn’t exactly sow more calm our way.

We waded out from the middle of a battlefield, a personal one, and into outright mayhem.

It was only Austin’s instincts and quick reactions that had him darting from the doorway where we walked into chaos, rushing up the stairs, just in time to catch Maribel, who was hovering on the edge of the top step, her arms waving back and forth as she struggled to catch her balance.

For a second, I could do nothing more than shake my head as I tried to figure out what happened. But when I saw Seth standing there, a gleam in his cobalt blue eyes that was anything but concerned, I waited until Austin had gathered Maribel in his arms, to head up the stairs myself.

He picked her up and carried her down to the hall, while I grabbed Seth by the ear and tugged him down too.

Sabina had started shaking, and Eli’s arm was around her as she watched Austin and Maribel, who’d started weeping.

It was quite clear to me what had happened.

Seth had tried to push his mother down the stairs. And while it was only good fortune that Austin was one of the fastest shifters in the pack, and could only be deemed good timing that we’d walked through the door right at that moment, it didn’t take away from what the little bastard had done.

It was a shame we never turned any pup away, because if there was a child who needed turning out, it was Seth.

His thin arms flailed as I dragged him by his ear, catching half a handful of shaggy blond hair that frothed around his head in a tumble of feminine curls. I knew my grip was painful, but we weren’t like humans. We could take pain, and sometimes, it was the only way to gain respect among pups who were stronger than they ought to be for their age.

And strong in no way described this twisted little bastard.

He was powerful, just not powerful enough to shift yet. His strength came from a different source, one that made me wonder if he truly was possessed.

My brow furrowed at the thought as his legs kicked at me in an attempt to escape my hold, and when I was down on the first floor, I rumbled, “Watch yourself, Seth.” The growl in my voice had him tensing, and he stopped trying to kick at me.

I looked up, hearing footsteps on the landing above, and saw Daniel and Lara rushing to peer over the carved bannister.

Daniel scowled at Seth—there was no love lost there, not when Daniel did everything he could to behave, to be a good boy so he couldn’t be accused by the pack of being anything like his father—and Lara was frowning, even as she rushed down the stairs to comfort Maribel.