“Probably be good to introduce Daniel to Maggie too. She might settle things for him after he shifts and can take his place in school,” Austin reasoned.

“Yeah, good point.”

“I still don’t get why he can’t go to school—”

“Because he’s technically illegally here,” I interjected dryly.

“It’s not even a legal school,” she countered.

And it wasn’t. The pack school wasn’t like a normal public school. All the kids were registered under human law as homeschooled, when really, we had our own system.

“He needs to be at home when he shifts,” Austin explained.

“When Eli was close to shifting, he didn’t go to school for around eight weeks.”

“Kali Sara, so long? He must have been lonely!”

Trust her to think that.

I’d never looked at it that way, mostly I’d been jealous about him getting to stay home from school, but now that I thought about it, in this great big house with a fucker for a father and a weak bitch for a mother—that wasn’t much fun.

Her hand glided down my arm, and I knew my bitterness had drifted into her awareness.

“Sorry,” I whispered.

“No need to apologize.”

Wasn’t there?

Merinda was still Eli’s mom.

He still respected her. I didn’t want to cause any tension between us with my inability to get over the fact we’d been dumped on Rebekkah like we were stray cats.

“It takes time,” she soothed, and it figured that Austin knew what we were talking about, because we were going through this together.

“I just find it hard to believe that all this time, he was watching over us and he never said anything.”

“You know how controlled he is, how he plays every move cautiously,” she replied. “I’m not surprised at all. It’s exactly the kind of thing he’d do.”

Austin sighed. “She isn’t wrong. Didn’t he put up with the council just because he didn’t want to upset his father’s memory while Merinda was around? Then, the second she was gone, he started stirring shit up.”

I hummed at the thought.

Eli was an odd man.

Sabina snorted. “That’s one way to phrase it. I don’t think he’s odd, more just unique.”

I jerked at how she picked up on that thought.

“He isn’t going to be like his father, but neither is he going to be as soft as taffy. He’s just Eli. He wants to see the best in people, he wants to give them enough rope to hang themselves and if they don’t, then he’s pleased. He’s very watchful, and he watched over you, making sure you had the support you needed, even if it wasn’t from the people who mattered the most.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “He shouldn’t have had that responsibility on his shoulders.”

“No, but he gladly took it.” She hummed as she pressed a kiss to my shoulder, and I felt her breathing even out as she drifted off to sleep.

I felt how calm she was, how happy, and it made me feel better, even though I was still a little tangled up inside.

“It’ll get better,” Austin mumbled, and I heard how sleepy he was too.

“Will it?”

“Yeah. Just don’t focus on the past. We’ve got too much to live for.”

He wasn’t wrong, but sometimes, it wasn’t easy to let go of the bitterness. Rebekkah had been a shitty mother, but in comparison to what Merinda had done, she’d been a peach.

Here I was, with my future in my arms, and I couldn’t be happier that she was the exact opposite of Rebekkah. That she was nothing like Merinda, either.

We’d shared the war stories of what had gone down in that other place. She’d repeatedly shown how she’d protect us, fight for us, defend us. How she’d fight for younglings, and the way she’d brought Daniel into the pack’s bosom? A key piece in the jigsaw puzzle that was our mate.

She was a born nurturer, everything I’d never known I needed, and through her?

I’d find peace.

Even if that peace came with a side of crazy.

Sabina

The gasp hit me right in the chest.

It was strange. So strange. I blew out a breath, closed my eyes, and tried to swirl through all the balls of energy in my mind that were representative of a person in the pack.

When I found them, when I realized their attack was happening in this very house, I shot out of my seat and surged into action, slipping out of the small office I’d claimed for myself and heading out into the hall.

I was coming to learn the energy was like a magnet. It pulled at me and pulled at the other person until we were together.

These things were happening more and more frequently.

Ever since my powers had accepted all members of the pack, the bombardment hadn’t stopped, but I was refusing to stress over it, refusing to be anything other than accepting of it.

If I stressed, then I’d worry, and there was no point.

No point at all.

And, anyway, what I could do helped people. I’d wanted that all my life, and here I was with my desires met.

I rushed into the kitchen and saw Ariel, one of the cooks who worked here, holding her chest. I knew I could have calmed her from afar, but sometimes that wasn’t enough.

I didn’t know how to define ‘sometimes.’ I only knew that she needed me here.

The staff members were all watching on in horror, with a few hovering around her like they wanted to help but had no real idea how.

Me? I knew what to do, but I waded into the mix, unsure if they’d let me through.

Just because my powers had accepted them, didn’t mean they’d accepted me.

They were still wary, and I understood that.

I was unusual.

A freak.

Just like always.

But it didn’t matter because I had my men at my side, and that was all I needed.

True acceptance from these people would come with time, and I was more than willing to give them that, because I wasn’t going anywhere.

When I almost dropped to my knees as I approached Ariel, I ignored the gasps and sniffs as I shoved people out of the way. Instead of focusing on them and their wariness, I focused on her.

She felt it too.

Her body responded as if I’d jolted her with power, and maybe, I thought guiltily, I had.

I wasn’t sure, to be honest. This was the first time I’d done this, and I wasn’t even healing her, more like just calming her down.

The way our energies collided, however, was like nothing either of us anticipated, but she instantly started to relax.

I hummed under my breath, remembering how that had helped Ethan that day with Cyrilo, and as I did so, I felt the wariness in the entire kitchen start to disband.

It was surreal for me too, and I knew this was possible, so only Kali Sara knew what everyone else was feeling.

I carried on humming, even started to sing an old ditty my mother had sung to me before bed, and eventually, the cook I knew as Ariel opened her eyes and stared at me.

She gasped a little, her breath coming out in pained sobs that made me wince with her.

“What happened?” I whispered, wanting to know so that maybe I could ease that pain as well.

“She’s terrified of mice. One flew across the kitchen floor.”