And I wanted them to have that too.

I wanted them to know that the second they wished to speak with me, to commune with me, they could.

Something that Ethan had just done.

Maybe he knew the door opened both ways, or maybe after today, something had changed. I didn’t feel different, in all honesty. But I didn’t have to feel it to know it, did I?

Just like I knew something else. “Please, don’t take Daniel away. He’s mine.”

And he was.

He was family now.

He was ours.

A part of Highbanks pack, sure, but more than that, mine.

Lara twisted back to look at me, and I saw the confusion in her eyes. We’d been raised to be possessive, obsessive. Never to share. To cherish only that which belonged to us.

Cyrilo would never have been able to take on another man’s son, for example. That would have been a weakness in his eyes. It didn’t matter if he was in love with the child’s mother, didn’t matter if they were soulmates. His past would never enable him to do that.

And I’d been raised in the same way.

But I’d broken free of the ties and was here as a result, pleading for the safekeeping of a child that wasn’t mine, that wasn’t my blood, but who belonged to me nonetheless.

I tipped my chin up, and rasped, “He’s a good boy. He doesn’t deserve this.”

“I didn’t deserve to lose my father, either, ma’am,” the other man replied, and his tone was so stalwart that I truly didn’t believe I’d ever manage to sway him. “And because of his death, I lost my mother too.”

“You say that like it’s his fault,” Lara replied in my stead, her voice soft and gentle, and the male, an alpha, surprisingly strong but not as domineering as my men, turned to look at her.

To grace her with all his focus.

That had silvery wisps making an appearance, spinning into being around him where his aura would be.

Every part of me recognized that this man was decent. That he was kind. Gentle. Good people. I wasn’t saying alphas weren’t bred to be good people, but his nature surprised me. It took guts to lead, took a strong will, and someone who was comfortable with affirmative action to be at ease with making decisions that weren’t always pleasant.

I’d never have said this male was like that, but equally, he proved me wrong because he was standing while the rest of his pack were on their bellies in the face of frequent blasts of dominance from Eli who, not unsurprisingly, wasn’t in the best of moods.

“None of them are strong,” Eli whispered into my mind, and I cast him a look, sensing the power in him and finding a comfort in that. He wouldn’t let Daniel be taken from us. I just didn’t want this to devolve. I didn’t want blood to fall.

“Yet he beat Kingsley Rainford. There must be something about him that was capable of besting him in a challenge,” Austin inserted, being rational for once.

“Kingsley was a nasty bastard. Choi had the need for vengeance on his side,” Eli told us all.

Maybe that was the reason why, or maybe Choi had an inner well of strength, something that we couldn’t see, something that maybe Lara could because she hovered close to him, and those little wisps in his aura?

They were moving toward her. Dancing like little spirits, small sprites that writhed in waves toward her.

The sight confused me, until it hit me.

Until it made sense.

“They’re mates,” I rasped inwardly, not wishing to spoil the moment of recognition, not wishing to destroy the inherently beautiful moment that belonged to each couple alone.

My ‘moment’ had been born of fear and death and change, but I would always remember that morning in the woods with fondness. Waking up with Eli, Ethan and Austin barging into the meeting as Eli taught me how to walk.

As the twins nuzzled into me, scenting me, as Eli stroked a hand over my head and played with my ears.

It was a moment that was beyond compare. Beyond heat and lust, beyond all emotions. It was a moment of connection. Of one spirit recognizing another’s, and I was honored to behold it, to witness with my own eyes what happened.

“How do you know?”

I blew out a breath. “This sounds crazy, but I can see it.”

“Nothing you could tell us sounds crazy,” Ethan said ruefully. “The stuff you can do, see, feel is already more than anything we could imagine.”

My nose crinkled at that. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.”

“It’s neither,” was his immediate response. “It’s just a statement of fact.”

Lips twisting, I focused on my sister, wondering if she was responding to Choi’s presence, but before I could wonder overlong, she stepped forward and pressed her hand to his chest.

Knowing Lara rarely touched people, if ever, the move was more momentous than anyone around her could understand. But I did. I knew how sensitive she was. Knew she wouldn’t touch people unless she saw something in them that she could never unsee.

I bit my lip at the sight, feeling silly for the tears pricking my eyes, but her words hit me more than even the leap of faith. “Please. My sister begs for the boy’s safety. You have to see there is no malice in wishing to provide a lost child with a home.”

The other alpha’s jaw tensed, but his eyes were fixed firmly on Lara, his gaze never darting from hers to me. Both their focus was so powerful, so overwhelming in its strength that my heart fluttered with joy for her.

With relief.

She needed this.

She needed a kind man. Someone whose strength was hidden beneath the surface, who didn’t act on impulse, who was capable of besting a powerful alpha, but who didn’t lead through fear himself.

Ethan wasn’t wrong. The rest of his pack, the wolves he’d brought with him for this display, not one of them could even compare to Maggie May, our council leader. She was old, but she was feisty, and she was strong too. A low beta type. Choi’s right- and left-hand man and woman barely scratched that surface, yet they were here. Even though they had to be scared of the repercussions of facing a powerful alpha like Eli.

They came, not out of fear of Choi, but out of the need to back him up.

That merely confirmed how good and honorable Choi was, which made his request all the more peculiar.

I bit my lip as the other alpha rasped, “It is the way of the pack.”

“The way of my family was to beat their womenfolk, to subjugate them—does that make it right? Simply because it is the way things are done?”

He flinched at that, and I saw his hackles rise. His shoulders hunched up, his eyes narrowed, and all around him, those silvery wisps that had been responding to her, turned a kind of blood red. It filtered into the silver, tainting it all pink, but before I could be alarmed at his swift temper, a wash of white and blue made an appearance.

Calm.

Control.

“He lives?”

Lara tipped her head to the side. “Who? My father?” At his nod, she shook her head. “No. He’s dead. He died a long time ago.”

“Not long enough.”

Lara laughed a little. “It depends on your perspective. My mother thought the sun rose and set on him. To her, it’s always night now.”

The statement was spoken with a candor I knew defined Lara, especially when she was with someone she trusted, but the words hit me.