I scrub the back of my head, catching up to her. “You have my permission to gather as you need. As long as you stay on Silver Mountain. And take a guard with you.” My wolf rumbles. I clear my throat. “Liam will make himself available. If I’m not.”
Her gaze cuts to me, then darts forward. “No.” She halts. “I’ll take Taryn with me. Only when I feel like I need an extra hand.”
The rumbling increases. “Fine.”
I’ll be tracking her whenever she goes out. My wolf shuts up.
16CADEN
We continue up the trail, my mind wandering. All these years, her family’s betrayal has eaten at me, hardening my ability to trust outside of those that prove themselves to me. Loyalty means everything to shifters.
So how can walking beside the girl I swore never to trust again settle the restlessness that’s always plagued me once I learned I was named Alpha heir?
For the first time in a long time, I look beneath the blow to my pride at a fear that I keep locked deep within me.
Callie and I were young when our mother disappeared, and because her mating was arranged as a chosen mate, our father didn’t suffer the blow the way Clark Morgan did when his True Mate went missing. Losing her was my first taste of having those important to me that I care about ripped away from me, only to go through the hurt again when my father died before his time. It destroyed me to face my father’s beta—a second father to me—and his daughter’s betrayal because they weren’t just pack, they were ingrained in our lives.
I’ve lived and breathed for the pack and only the pack since that is my duty as Alpha. But maybe it’s important for me to look past what it needs for once, because before everything happened…Avery was my happiness.
Around her, I always felt just like myself. Not my title or my duty.
I’ve felt empty for years without her to fill the void torn from me when I lost her friendship.
“You don’t need to follow me all the way back. We’re within the perimeter now,” she points out once we cross into pack territory.
True. And yet, until I see her home, I have trouble pulling myself away again. The compulsion takes hold, refusing to be swayed by any logical reasoning I reach for.
“You have my shirt. And this is my territory. I’m simply walking it in the same direction as you.”
She laughs, a too-short puff of air I want her to make again so I can capture it and breathe it in with the taste of her lips.
“Sure. If that’s what you want to tell yourself, Alpha Blackburn.”
I massage my forehead and temple, remaining her silent shadow the rest of the way to her cottage. In daylight, it leaves much to be desired for a proper home. At night, it’s so much darker than the cabins populated by the rest of the pack.
When my father made sure everyone in the pack got electricity, he stopped the power lines at the furthest occupied buildings because this place wasn’t inhabited. I haven’t thought about taking them further or expanding it to the edges of Silver Falls Pack territory. Tomorrow I’ll put an extension project on the assignment schedule.
At her door, she blocks the way with a wary expression that rankles me. I sidestep her and she growls in warning.
“Aren’t you leaving?”
I stare her down. “No. Let me in, then I’ll go.”
She mutters a curse, motioning to the side of the cabin. “Be useful, then. Put another log on the fire.”
I get two of the best looking pieces of wood from her chop pile. There isn’t enough in it and half the stockpile is little more than kindling. If I don’t go on my usual morning run, I’ll have time to chop good fresh wood.
Inside, I pull up short. There’s a bed shoved into the corner and a rocking chair that’s seen better days by the fireplace with Lena bundled in threadbare blankets. Beatrix sits at a table crammed in the corner that seems to double as a counter next to a wood burning stove.
A rough-hewn workbench by the latticed windows takes up the other half of the small room. It’s clearly Avery’s space, covered in pots and jars of ground powders and pastes. Plants and dried clippings hang from rafters that will need replacing soon to fix the dry rot.
Avery’s planted herself in front of her sisters, flashing her teeth at me. Her protectiveness over them against me knocks the wind from me. Her sisters are her own little pack the same way Callie and Liam are mine.
“Caden!” At Avery’s throat clearing, Beatrix bends her neck. “I mean Alpha Blackburn. Sir.”
“Hello, Beatrix. I brought in some more wood for the fire. Soon you won’t have to worry about it,” I say.
Avery tenses, her sweet scent sharpening with anxious worry and defiance. “What do you mean?”
I hold my hands out to set her at ease. “I’ll be bringing electricity up here.”
Her eyes widen. “You will?”
At my nod, she slides her lips together and watches me as she goes to lay out the primrose on her bench. She returns my shirt by tossing it at my head without warning. I catch it before it falls to the floor, then shrug it back on.
Struck by the paleness of Lena’s cheeks, I kneel beside her chair, debating how Avery would take it if I scooted her closer to the fire. Lena smiles warmly, welcoming me despite everything I’ve put her family through.
“I remember you.”
Fucking Fates, she was only seven when my father forced them from the Morgan cabin. A child. They all were, even Avery.
The pit of my stomach burns. “You do? You’ve grown up since I last saw you. It’s good to meet you again, Lena.”
She pokes a frail hand out from her blankets, fingers cold to the touch. Avery stops plucking leaves, holding a small knife in a white-knuckle grip, the blade pointed at me when I seek her out.
Unlike when we met at the edge of the territory last week, shame washes over me instead of the anger I’ve clung to for so long.
Lena’s smile falters with a hacking cough, and she’s unable to catch her breath. I stiffen, unsure how to help. I rub her back until Avery comes over with a fresh leaf and shoos me out of the way.
“Chew on this,” she instructs.
The worry lining her face doesn’t ease until Lena’s breathing evens. She kisses the top of her head, tucking a lock of blonde hair behind her ear.
“She’s sick.”
Avery serves me a hard look. “I told you.”
“How?” I demand under my breath, following her to the workbench.
She blinks when her eyes turn shiny and keeps her voice low. “She’s always been prone to illness.”
“I remember when she was born. The healer said she was a healthy—”
“She got pneumonia,” she whispers harshly. “It happened during our first winter here. I—I almost lost her. I didn’t know what I was doing. I had to learn how to make my own medicine.”
My stomach clenches and I ball my fists as a distant memory hits me square in the chest. This is my fault.
Not simply because I’m the alpha and it’s up to me to make sure my pack is cared for, but because I remember when Avery was poking around for extra handouts. It was under my order that the pack ignored her or turned her away.
Fuck.
My wolf agrees with an angry swish of his tail. His judgment tastes like bile in the back of my throat.
You don’t deserve our perfect mate, he rumbles before giving me his back.
I don’t. Not after pinning her and her father’s betrayal to my family all on her after his death because I was seventeen and blinded by anger.
I’m beginning to question if I was right to make her pay such a heavy price for the last seven years.