“You didn’t.” Actually, I was quite touched.

I’d never been ‘the embodiment of everything that means anything’ to someone before.

It was kinda nice.

“I’m glad. It wasn’t my intention.” He cleared his throat. “How did you do it?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I have all the time in the world for you.”

Kali Sara, did he know what it meant to me, what it did to me, when he said stuff like that?

I gulped, because he sounded so earnest. So genuine. It messed with my mind.

“There’s a mother and a son living with Sabina and her mates.”

“Related to you?”

“No. I don’t know who they are, just know they’re a part of their pack. But the boy, he’s different. Unusual.”

“In a bad way?” he surmised from my tone.

“Yes. She’s pregnant, and he tried to push her down the stairs.”

“What?” The wheel jerked under his touch, and I yelped as we drifted off the road and almost squealed into the embankment before he righted us, then parked up on the side so he could stare into the distance. “Are you telling me she’s pregnant? With another child?”

I blinked at him, surprised by the urgency in his tone.

“Yes, but that’s not that weird, is it?”

A flurry of what I assumed was Korean whispered from his lips, and his hands tightened around the steering wheel to the point where his skin bled white and it creaked under his hold. I wanted to help him, but could see he was processing whatever it was that was weird about a mom having two kids.

I mean, hell, my mama had four living kids, and she’d had a few miscarriages along the way.

It wasn’t that strange, was it?

Of course, his surprise made it clear that it was.

He was freaked out. His skin paler than usual, his eyes wide as he stared at nothing.

“I wonder if that’s what people feel like when they figure out I can sense their emotions,” I muttered softly.

My voice had him twisting around to look at me, and this time, he cocked his leg so that he could twist better in his seat and face me totally.

“Why’s the boy strange?” His voice was guttural, and the urgency in him, an urgency that I’d never felt before, when I’d always sensed how calm he was, made my heart pick up in pace.

I bit my lip. “Remember I said when I look at you, I can see a fox?”

He nodded. “How could I forget?”

“Well, all my life, I’ve been able to see inside people. For a long time, I thought I was going insane, but now I know about shifters, it makes sense.” I shrugged. “In him, I see shadows. I know that sounds strange, but I do. He’s tainted, and he’s powerful. I caught him controlling Ethan today. Putting thoughts in his mind.”

“Dear Mother,” he rasped. “It’s actually happening.”

“What is?” I sputtered, tired of being kept in the dark. “Tell me!”

“Carry on first. How did you turn into a wolf?” he asked, his voice insistent.

Though I scowled at him, I muttered, “When Seth tried to hurt his mother, I looked into him and saw a spirit, but I couldn’t make sense of what it was. That isn’t so surprising. I mean, I don’t understand a lot of what I see. But Sabina, she can read auras and things, so she, I mean, well… I don’t really know what we did. She touched me, and it was like we synced up.” I shrugged. “It was like a burden was taken off my shoulders, and she looked at Seth through my eyes. I guess I registered how she did it, and when Daniel needed us, it felt only natural to do the reverse. To call on her like she called on me.”

“And that’s how you shifted?”

I nodded. “Pretty much.”

His nostrils flared, and he inhaled deeply, looking at me all the while, which was kind of weird as he muttered, “And she, of two creeds, will reign through instinct and knowledge.”

“Huh?”

“You have to understand something, Lara, what you see in me, it’s true. I’m not a wolf shifter.”

“I know,” I told him uneasily. Was this the kind of stuff someone could get killed over? I mean, I’d watched enough crime dramas on Netflix to know that motives didn’t always have to make sense.

“I can project myself as a wolf though. Eli, Ethan, and Austin, did you notice how wary they are around me?”

I frowned. “Not really.”

“Well, it’s because they can’t get a read on me. I project as a wolf, and they know something is strange, but they can’t tell what because it’s outside of the scope of their understanding.”

“Makes sense.” Sort of.

He nodded. “It’s what everyone thinks. But in the Rainford pack, people are just grateful that I present as an alpha without the nasty side effects that come as part and parcel of the role.”

“I can understand that, especially if they’re used to horrible men leading them.”

“Yes. They are.” He reached for my hand and twisted his fingers about mine. When I didn’t protest, he squeezed them and said, “I’m kumiho.”

My brows arched. “Really?”

He sighed. “Yes. It’s like a Korean kitsune.”

“Dude, I’ve watched Nae Yeojachinguneun Gumiho,” I retorted. “I know what a kumiho is.”

A laugh escaped him. “Not a bad accent there, Lara.”

I shrugged. “K-Dramas are my thing. When you live in a forest by yourself, you get real friendly with Netflix.” Then, my nose crinkled. “I thought they were bad. Like evil spirits and stuff.”

He shook his head. “No. We’re a fountain of wisdom. We offer guidance in times of trouble. But we’re powerful. There are only two alive at any given time.”

A nasty thought filtered through me. “Your grandfather is still alive, isn’t he?”

“Yes.” His smile was sad. “I only ascended to the position when my father died.”

“That’s how you killed the other alpha, isn’t it?”

He nodded, then reached for my other hand, squeezing on my fingers some more like he was imploring me to listen, to hear him. “I only shifted for the first time that night my father passed over. Until then, my family had to hide that I couldn’t shift.”

“Why didn’t he defend himself?” I rasped, hurting for him. “Surely he could have stopped the Rainford alpha?”

“He could, but he chose not to. We’re pacifists. It’s not good what I did, but I couldn’t stop it from happening. Not after the way Kingsley Rainford treated my family.”

“I understand,” I told him softly. “Vengeance is the only thing that can give you closure sometimes.”

“It didn’t work,” he muttered, lowering his head. “I spent all my life learning from my grandfather and father, listening to their stories, and in every single one, change starts when a female wolf shifter mothers two children—a boy and a girl child.”

My nose crinkled. “That makes no sense. There have to be plenty of moms who have two kids.”

“No. You don’t understand. Since the birth of time, two wolf shifters have only been able to beget one child. On rare occasions, there’ll be a twin birth, and those twins are reviled.”