My brow furrowed. “You did the worst thing imaginable. You abandoned your sons!”

“And I regretted it. Every day. But I had no choice. I loved the twin’s father, but he wasn’t a good man.” She gulped. “If he had been, Paul would have been able to accept him. But he was a convict. A criminal.”

“Did Paul kill Lucas, their dad? What happened to him?”

“He always said it was an accident,” she whispered, but her head twisted to the side, like she didn’t want to see me doubt her word. Which, of course, put doubt in my mind. “Lucas had tried to steal something from Paul’s office, and instead of dealing with it in-house, Paul wanted to get rid of him. He decided that involving the human cops would work best, so he drove him to town and they got into an accident.

“He almost died, but Lucas was—” She broke off, and when her eyes reached mine, they were loaded with devastation. “He did die. Nastily. Afterward, I was so distressed, I couldn’t cope. I just knew that Paul had done something to force the accident, which essentially ended all our lives.

“Paul knew that our time left was short. Without Lucas, I should have passed on soon after, and with that, he should have as well. He pulled away from Eli, arranged for Maggie May to look after him so that he’d acclimate to her when the time came, and made the decision to give the twins to another woman. I was grief-stricken and, now, looking back, I’d say I had post-natal depression which was exacerbated by the devastation I felt at losing Lucas.”

“But you didn’t die,” I said simply, even though her words affected me more than she could know. “Why didn’t you bring the twins home?”

“Every day, we wondered if it would be my last, but for years after, it never was. I just kept things as they were, because it could have ended there and then. Some days, I wished it would. But the truth is, what kind of safe space would it have been for the twins around Paul? And I couldn’t leave him. I just couldn’t. I was lost without Lucas. Adrift. He was an anchor, even if it was in a port that was continuously stormy. It made me a bad mother and a bad omega. I have many regrets, Sabina. So many. Living my life again is giving me the opportunity to rectify the many mistakes I made.”

I wasn’t about to argue with that, not when she’d been a terrible mother and omega, and had done so many things she should regret, but neither was I about to pour salt in her many wounds. “Do you know why you never passed on?”

“The Mother said it was because Eli needed me.”

“For what?”

“Support, I suppose. Even if I wasn’t very good at that either. When she offered me a second chance, a chance to be with Paul and Lucas again, I took it with both hands, especially when she told me that Eli would discover his mate soon after.” A whine escaped her. “But even that didn’t last long. Paul attacked you, and Austin did what needed to be done.”

She meant back in Nevaehai. “Why did he attack us?”

“Jealousy. I miss him.”

The simple words were, yet again, confirmation that love didn’t have to make sense. As I thought about that, thought about how my mates and I were destined to have parents with little to no control over their hearts and their brains, I thanked the Mother for what we had.

Our love was true, and pure, and strong.

Perfect.

Kali Sara, we were more than fortunate.

A thought occurred to me. “You really can’t shift back?”

“I shifted once, but only in the totem circle, and I’m not allowed in there again.”

I tilted my head to the side. “Why did She let you in that time?”

“Because I wished to talk to Her about my grandson. I wanted to make sure he was safe.”

My heart leaped into my throat at that. “She promised me he wouldn’t be taken from me.”

“She said as much to me too. Sabina, I will always protect you. Always. It is my pleasure, my one joy to be around you all, to be so close and to serve a purpose in keeping you safe. I only ran to the woods because I felt your hatred for me. The boys, I don’t blame them for being wary around me. I was a terrible mother, I—”

Knight pulled his hand back from her fur at that, and even though she shuffled forward, ramming into the invisible barrier between us with an audible crack, and I tried to encourage him to touch her again, he wouldn’t, and when I pushed him through the totem circle, he started bawling his eyes out like I was hurting him.

Quickly bringing him to my chest, I hugged him, holding him close, rocking him and soothing him as I tried to make amends for my attempt at forcing that connection.

When Berry yipped at me, and said, “Totem,” I wasn’t sure what to think. I’d expected her to say she loved Knight or something, not that. So, twisting around, I looked up at the totem, and what I saw made me lightheaded.

The obelisk, so tall, so stalwart, so timeless…had a massive crack down the center. Exactly as if an axe had cleaved it in two, like it was a log for the fire.

Then it hit me.

Knight’s intervention… this was the result. Which meant when he’d healed the pack, there’d likely been damage, we’d just never noticed it.

Well, there was no failing to notice this.

His healing, it became clear, came with a price.

As I jerked onto my feet, I stared up at the damage, and a sensation of foreboding hit me. One so deep and so strong, that I feared for the future.

Not mine, not my mate’s. But Knight’s. And the babies in my belly.

Hugging him close to me, protecting him while I could for as long as I was able, I stared up at the harbinger, well aware, deep in my heart, in my very soul, that nothing would ever be the same again.

Daniel

Six years later

I stared out of the window, onto the city buildings, a vista that some might find beautiful, with the ocean glinting in the background, just barely visible in between the skyscrapers, but for me, it was a prison.

A concrete jungle that I longed to be free of.

I missed the trees, the fresh air, and the open spaces. I missed the ability to run, the freedom to go outside, and be at one with nature. I missed all that as much as I missed my family.

Mother, it had been too long since I’d seen them. Over three years because the last time Seth had gone home, he’d attacked Grace and had been banished from the pack. Which meant, though it wasn’t as binding for me, that I’d been banished too.

My home was lost to me for as long as Seth lived, but it was my sacred duty to guard him, to protect him.

The day was coming, that was all I knew. A day that would see sides being chosen.

Irony of ironies, Seth thought I’d have his back. Why wouldn’t he?

When didn’t I protect him?

He was strong, but he was only a beta-type at most. With his past, and with the way he treated people, if he didn’t have me at his back to defend him, he’d have had the shit kicked out of him long ago.

I was his guardian. The barrier between him and the repercussions of the choices he made on a daily basis.

But I was waiting.

Just waiting for that day when I could take up my stance and join the rightful side.

Grace’s.