her, into the small apartment, and stood in the middle of it like he'd

o, the formality of the interview gone somewhere in

e dragged a hand through

ully, like it might dissolve, and turned it over

g in his voice cracked open around the

hat means." It w

arm of her secondhand couch, still holding the photo like

e file. HR said it wasn'

ess. "Of course it is. Someone in this building

r what? I don't even k

a pack. A family. Fourteen years ago, they were slaughtered, every one of them we thought, in a single night. Farmhouse burned to the foundation. I was fifteen. My father took our

a repeated. "

curity, to do any of the things a sane person would do. "I'm not speaking i

. Instead she found herself thinking about headaches on full moons, about nights she couldn't sleep and mornings she woke up with dirt on her feet and no memory of leaving

refully. "Say all of that is true.

he girl's raised wrist caught the li

wrist over, and the crescent-in-a-circle sat there on her skin like it always had, the

looked back up at her his eyes weren't quite brown anymore. They'd gone gold at the edges,

you," she

, Sienna Cole, or whatever your name actually was before someone hid you in the foster system, are the last surviving daughter of the Ashgrove Pack. Whic

, hard, on the edge of her own coffee table, staring at th

" she said, wit

need you to listen to me very carefully, because I'm only going to get to say this once before someone else in this building finds a way to make sure you never hear it. There are people who hav

n years and then just - kn

t again, like the gesture cost him something. "Because when I shook your hand this afternoon,

what

st his will, like some part of him had been fighting to keep them d

re my

ar away, a phone was ringing, someone's TV murmuring through the wall, the ordinary nois

e treaty with mine for six years, a treaty that ends the second I don't marry her like we agreed. I was engaged to her this morning. I have been for fo

ng it. "I took a physiotherapy job. I didn't sign up to be anyone's ma

ng he hadn't lost yet. "I know, and I wish to every god I don't believe i

n y

long enough that she felt it in

't. And that's the pa

and Killian's head snapped toward the sound like a wire had been cut inside him. He was on his feet before she'd finished

n. What

already reaching for her arm. "Now, Sienna. Some