Chapter 123

“Wh…what are you trying to tell me, Evelyn?” I asked. I’d known her for so long. I’d seen her happy, angry, smug, self-righteous, and livid with rage. But I had never seen her look…burdened. Or tired. Or uncertain. She looked all of those things now. She was always so confident; it felt wrong to see this worn look on her face.

Instead of answering directly, she rubbed the crescent-shaped birthmark on her arm. The one that had let me know she was the same girl who got kidnapped with me when we were children.

“Did you see the picture I sent you? Of Aurora and—”

“I saw it,” I said. My hands curled into fists. My nails turned to claws and pressed into my palms with a sharp, piercing pain. I only curled them harder.

“You didn’t fly into a rage and throw her out of the pack house, though,” Evelyn said.

I turned on her, and only digging down to the iron core of my control kept me from turning into my lycan form and taking her by the throat. “Is that why you sent it?”

Chapter 123

Most people would look intimidated if I turned on them like that. Evelyn just regarded me with cool blue eyes. “I think so.”

But she wasn’t completely unaffected. If she wasn’t at least a little afraid, she wouldn’t have pressed one of her hands over the swell of her belly.

I took a breath, forcing the man to take over, forcing the wolf to back down. “Maybe I did rage. Then I took a step back and realized you might be motivated to make her look bad. I should have realized it a long time ago.”

“You really are on her side now, then?” Evelyn asked. She didn’t sound angry, just distant and numb.

“I’m on the side of the Blue Ridge Pack,” I said. “I’m on whatever side keeps us alive through all the shit we’ve stirred up.”

“But you love Aurora,” Evelyn said, stating it flatly in an emotionless voice. “It took eight years, but she finally got what she wanted.”

I didn’t respond because I didn’t know what to say. Whatever I felt, it had nothing to do with Evelyn either way. “That’s between Aurora and me.”

The real answer was that we were on a fucking rollercoaster, and I wanted off the ride. I wanted to know she was mine, or I wanted to shut down everything we had, finish this thing we were doing with High Alpine, and never see her again.

Chapter 123

Except that now, the thought of never seeing her again felt like a knife stabbed into my gut and twisted over and over and over again.

“What’s the point of this, Evelyn?” I growled.

She shrugged. Then she stood up from the wall. She was still the easy, graceful woman who’d attracted me all those years ago. Over time she’d shown she was selfish, image-obsessed, and vain. I knew her childhood hadn’t been easy, even if I didn’t know all the details. But neither had Aurora’s, and she was still loyal, kind, and caring.

Now, though, when I looked at Evelyn, someone new looked out of her eyes. Someone who was changing. Not the elegant woman I’d fallen for, but not a shallow shell of a person, either.

“Why did you send that picture, Evelyn?” I asked again.

Her smile held no humor. “I think it’s time the women in your life stopped keeping secrets from you.”

She put a hand on her belly again and turned to walk away. She hadn’t gone three steps when she paused, looked over her shoulder, and said, “Dane, do you remember when you were kidnapped by the Reeds as a child?”

Slowly, I nodded. Images flashed through my brain. Dark shadows I still had to fight to keep at bay, even as a grown man twenty years later. “Yes.”

Evelyn gave me a meaningful look, one I wasn’t sure how to read. Then she said, “I don’t.”

I stared at her. My brain turned over her words.

“Once you figure out what I mean,” she said, “and once you follow those thoughts to their natural conclusion, I only ask you to give me the same consideration you’re giving Aurora over that picture. If not because you love me anymore, then because we’ve spent so many years of our lives together. Don’t rage. Don’t kill me. If you want to talk, I’ll talk.”

Then she turned and started to leave again.

Only then did I fully realize what she meant.

Do you remember when you were kidnapped by the Reeds as a child?

Yes.

I don’t.

And then, I think it’s time the women in your life stopped keeping secrets from you.

I felt the entire story of my life for the last eight years—every moment with her, every touch, every time she’d made eyes and run her fingers over that damned crescent birthmark—rewrite itself in my mind.

Chapter 123

Evelyn had lied. It was all a fucking lie. And then…I remembered.