“We’ll meet at the southeast road before sundown,” he says, addressing the whole table even though he’s really only speaking to me. “I’ll have to budget in extra time to my schedule to allow for certain… travel difficulties.”
Raising my chin, I tell him, “Don’t worry, I won’t fall behind. I can keep up with you.”
For the first time since I walked into the room, he meets my eyes. A jolt of energy goes through me, so sharp and sudden that I hiss in surprise. His eyes widen briefly, his jaw clenching, and for a moment I think that it affects him too—that he feels this thing between us, a fissure he caused, a connection hedenied—only for the moment to pass so quickly that it’s as if I hallucinated it.
Disappointment rises in my throat, hot and bitter, and I reprimand myself for even thinking that he cared.
I know he never did.
It’s time that I accept that, once and for all.
“It’ll only take a few weeks, I’m sure,” I tell Dana, who is less than thrilled to have learned that Alpha Cade and the elders are basically forcing me to travel across the country with Kieran, against my objections. “We don’t have much land to cover, and there isn’t much to look into anyway. If this is the fae, they’re just as secretive as ever, and it’s not as if we can just pop over totheirrealms and ask them what they’re up to and why.”
The fae realms are difficult, if not impossible, to traverse—and those who do go rarely find themselves able to return. I know more about the fae than most, having listened to every single bit of information Gran had to tell me, and even I know very little about their realms other than the fact that they exist.
“I can’t believe that they’re sending you off with that bastard,” Dana spits, pacing back and forth in my bedroom as I pack my bags. “They can’t expect you to just…gowith him and pretend like nothing happened. He’s an asshole! A piece of shit!”
“As much as I appreciate your BFF levels of loyalty, and trust me, I do, this is about more than just me and Kieran.” I decide that I’ll probably want at least one pair of waterproof boots, and throw those in with what I’m packing. “This is about my family. My pack. Myorigin story.If I figure this out…”
My throat closes up, and suddenly I can’t finish. A quiet, palpable silence descends. Dana breaks it by softly saying, “Ihope you find what you’re looking for. Fuck knows you deserve it.”
“Thank you,” I tell her. “And I know you just want to protect me. It’s what you’re good at, after all.”
Her lips quirk up. “Damn straight.” Flopping down on my bed, she sighs and says, “I can’t believe they’ve been blaming you for the madness all this time when it was the fucking fae. What a joke. I mean, we always knew it wasn’t you?—”
“Did we?” She cuts her eyes at me. “I don’t know, I guess some part of me was always worried maybe I did have something to do with it, and that’s why I can’t shift.”
“Never,” Dana says fiercely, reaching out to squeeze my hand. “It wasn’t you, Rory, not now and not ever. We always knew that, or I did at least, and now they know it too. Theyhaveto know it.”
I twine my fingers with hers, not speaking any of my hopes aloud. It’s too late for most of the things I want, anyway: to be able to shift, to know where I came from and who I am, to be accepted by my pack and have a family.
I refuse to let myself think about Kieran and the mate bond. That’s a road I don’t walk down, even in my mind. Hoping for him to accept me is something I moved past a long time ago. If anything,heshould be the one hoping that I forgive him—and I never, ever will.
“After all this time, they finally have some use for me. I thought it would feel good,” I admit to Dana, “but it just feels hollow. It’s like I’m a pawn in a game I don’t understand, and I’m still trying to play anyway.”
“You’re going to show them what they’re missing out on. I just wish I was there to see it.”
We stay like this for a moment, her hand in mine, until I have to get back to packing. Trading jokes and memories—that shirt I stole from her, the dress she gave me for my twentieth birthday,and a pair of shoes I never wear but swear I willone day—we don’t talk about what all this could mean. What could change, and what could stay the same.
I don’t speak my deepest fear out loud for her to hear it: that I’ll get all the way there only to find out I’m never going to shift at all.
As the day stretches out, I finish packing, and we throw my stuff into the back of her truck, then load my motorcycle with the ramp. Strapping it down, we head out together, making a pit stop on the way to pick up Gran.
The three of us listen to oldies and belt the lyrics out the windows as Dana drives to the edges of pack lands, then stops near where I’m meant to meet Kieran. A silence descends as we all consider what’s going to happen next—and as I realize that I’m going to leave Pack Jade lands for the first time since I was found as a baby and brought to the orphanage.
“You’ll have to text us whenever you can,” Gran says, “just make sure to use a big enough font. You know I can’t read the words when you send it in those tiny letters.”
I glance at Dana, who promises, “I’ll adjust the settings on her new phone…again.”
Laughing, I hug her, then hug Gran. Then hug them both again another time, wishing I could stay by them forever, or that they could come with me.
I know it’s almost time to go when that old familiar pain flares in my chest, announcing that he’s near.
“Stay safe,” Carrie says, holding my hands and wiping tears from her eyes. “I guess I always knew that you were meant for bigger things, I just… I just didn’t know it would be this much bigger.”
I smile at her. “I love you, Gran.” Then I grab Dana in a headlock. “And you, Dana-bear.”
“You upstart.” She wrestles me off, then smiles at me, her eyes only a little wet. “Give ’em hell, Rory.”
