Page 30

"We have to switch locations again," I tell her as we enter onto an old gravel road, rugged and overgrown from years of isolation. "The lunar phase peaks in a couple of nights, altering the tracking dynamics completely."

"I'll be a walking beacon for every tracker within fifty miles. Tell me where we're going."

A heavy silence settles in my chest. "Somewhere the coven expects us least."

The cabin appears through the trees like a monument from another life—weathered wood and stone, standing peaceful and still. I park beside the covered porch and cut the engine, holding my place at the wheel. A loaded quiet fills the vehicle, alive with memories I've spent years carefully preserving.

"This was yours." Serenity's voice pierces the quiet, hard and undeniable as a proven fact.

"My pack's." Speaking it aloud scratches against my throat, dragging up the past. "We used it for territory meetings, full moon runs. It’s neutral ground."

She studies my face in the fading light. "When was the last time you were here?"

"Seven years ago. Exactly a month after the massacre." I force myself out of the vehicle before the conversation goes into more detail. "Come on. We need to check the wards."

The front door key sits under the loose stone where my father always kept it. A wave of adrenaline keeps me hyper-focused as I turn the lock, carefully choreographing my movements for Serenity. Everything else vanishes as I take in the interior. Dust-covered furniture remains arranged exactly as we left it alongside bottles sitting on the kitchen counter, while a chess game sits half-finished on the coffee table.

Serenity steps inside behind me, her presence somehow both intrusive and comforting. She remains respectfully silent as she studies the photos covering the mantelpiece—pack members laughing around a bonfire, younger versions of myself arm-in-arm with people who belong to another time.

"The wards here are old but solid," I manage while checking the windows for any signs of breach. "Pack magic reinforced with blood bonds. They'll hold against most tracking spells."

"Most?" She runs her fingers along the dusty mantel, carefully avoiding the framed photographs.

"Nothing's foolproof. But this place has been forgotten by the supernatural community. Off the grid, no official records linking it to my current operations." I move to the fireplace, muscle memory guiding me through the motions of building a fire. "We should be safe for a few days."

Serenity nestles onto the couch, watching me work. "You loved them." The statement catches me off guard. I pause, kindling halfway to the grate.

"Your pack. You move through this place so carefully—like you're afraid of disturbing their ghosts."

"They're dead." An unexpectedly sharp truth rips through the space. "Loving them was never enough to keep them alive."

"No, but it kept them human." She picks up one of the photographs—Maeve and Edgar during their mating ceremony, both of them grinning like idiots. "Even as shifters, they stayed connected to something bigger than survival."

I strike the match harder than necessary, the flame flaring bright in the growing darkness. "Connection gets people killed."

"So does isolation."

The fire catches and casts dancing shadows across walls that once echoed with laughter and the comfortable chaos of pack life. Serenity replaces the photograph carefully, her expression thoughtful rather than pitying. She picks up another one I'd forgotten was there.

"Who's this?" She turns the frame toward me. Two boys, maybe twelve and fourteen, wrestle in the dirt while a massive gray wolf watches from the porch with what can only be described as parental exhaustion.

"Me and Kellan." The answer comes easier than expected. "And that's our mother in wolf form. She'd shifted to break up our third fight that afternoon and just... gave up. Let us sort it out ourselves."

Serenity's mouth curves. "You were the bigger one."

"Always. Kellan made up for it by being faster and meaner." I take the frame from her, studying two boys who had no idea what was coming. "He used to hide frogs in my bedroll during full-moon camps. I'd shift in the middle of the night and crush them. Woke up covered in⁠—"

"Please don't finish that sentence." She's laughing with real, unguarded amusement.

"It's actually why I started calling him 'Ro,'" I add, a wry smile forming at my mouth. "When he was fourteen, he tried to impress a visiting pack alpha's daughter by quoting Romeo and Juliet from a tree branch near her balcony. He slipped and fell two stories into a prized rosebush before having to be dragged out by his ankles, covered in thorns. I called him 'Romeo of the Rosebush' for a month until it got shortened to 'Ro'. He's hated it for twenty years, which is exactly why I continue to use it."

Her laughter fills this room in a way it hasn't been filled in seven years.

I set the photo back on the mantel and angle it exactly as my mother always insisted. "She would have liked you."

The words surprise us both. Serenity's laughter fades into something softer, warmer. "Yeah?"

"She had a weakness for stubborn women who refused to listen to reason." I turn back to the fire while my features remain perfectly masked. "Said they were the only ones worth knowing."