Chapter 3

Kade

Liam’s empty chair irritated me more than it should have. I didn’t begrudge him the day off—Abby turned eighteen only once, and Liam guarded their birthday traditions almost as fiercely as he guarded her—but the office felt wrong without my Beta sitting across from me.

“The western patrol counted six rogues,” said Ryan, our head of patrol. “They crossed near the river, then pulled back before reinforcements arrived.”

I studied the map spread across my desk. Six wasn’t enough for an attack, and it was too many for a coincidence.

“How many injured?”

“Three. Nothing life-threatening.”

“Anyone missing?”

“No, Alpha.”

That should have reassured me, and it didn’t.

A few months ago, Alpha Rowan had told me about a rogue breach in his territory. The attack itself had been minor, but by morning one of his young she-wolves was gone, and they had never found her. It had always struck me as strange.

Rogues usually attacked because they wanted something—food, territory, revenge. These didn’t seem interested in any of that. Lately they crossed our borders, tested patrol routes, and disappeared before we could corner them.

They were looking for something.

“Double the river patrol until morning,” I said, looking up from the map. “Keep the northern rotation unchanged. I don’t want them knowing we’ve shifted resources.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

Everyone filed out except Sloane.

She sat in the leather armchair across from me with tomorrow’s patrol schedules spread over one knee and a pen tucked between her fingers. “You’re going to burn a hole through that map.”

When I looked up, she gave me that familiar, easy smile.

Sloane had spent most of the evening beside me, rearranging rotations and handling things that were never officially her responsibility. She always did. After the attack took my father, she had been there through the worst of it. She knew Moonhaven nearly as well as I did. People already treated her like a future Luna, and I had never discouraged them. An Alpha could survive without a Luna. A pack wasn’t meant to.

She closed the folder, stood, and came around the desk. “You’re insufferable when Liam isn’t here to annoy you.”

“He usually annoys me more.”

“True, but at least I get to enjoy it.”

She leaned against the edge of my desk, close enough that her knee brushed mine. Her dark honey-blonde hair fell over one shoulder, and her sweater had slipped at the collar, baring the smooth line of her neck.

There had never been a dramatic moment when Sloane and I became more than friends. We kissed, eventually slept together, stopped for a while, then started again. Somewhere along the way, everyone decided where it was heading.

She touched the back of my neck. “You’re thinking too loudly.” Her thumb brushed beneath my ear. “When was the last time you went an entire evening without discussing rogues?”

“Can’t recall.”

“Tragic.” Her smile widened. “Deeply unromantic.”

I caught her wrist. “You seem devastated.”

“I’ll recover.”

She leaned down and kissed me, and I met her halfway, slipping into the practiced ease between us. There was nothing awkward about it. There never was with Sloane. I knew the way she tilted her head, the hand she would slide into my hair, the soft sound she made when I pulled her closer.

I cared about her. I trusted her. I wanted her. For months I had been telling myself that was enough.

She pulled back just far enough to look at me. “My place?”

I almost said yes.

Then heat tore through my chest. Knox surged forward so violently that my whole body locked and my grip tightened around Sloane’s wrist.

She frowned. “Kade? What is it?”

Then I smelled it, faint beneath the cold air drifting through the cracked window: warm honey and vanilla.

Knox went wild. MATE. FIND HER.

I dropped Sloane’s arm and shoved back from the desk so hard my heavy wooden chair crashed into the paneling behind me. Eight years. I had been waiting eight years for this.

I grabbed my coat.

Sloane was on her feet instantly, her hand gripping my forearm. “Kade, talk to me. What just happened?”

“I have to go.”

“Go where? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know yet.”

She searched my face, and realization flickered across hers. “You found her.”

“I’m not sure.”

But Knox was. Mate.

Sloane’s hand slipped from my arm. For a second, hurt showed plainly on her face. Then she put it away.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No.” It came out too fast and too sharp. “I need to understand what’s happening first,” I added more quietly. We had known each other too long for either of us to pretend this meant nothing.

She gave a single, rigid nod. “Be careful.”

The scent grew stronger the moment I stepped outside. Knox dragged me through Moonhaven, past the packhouse grounds and toward the residential streets, and the deeper into town I went, the more familiar the scent became. Beneath the new, intoxicating pull was someone I already knew.

Then it hit me.

Abby.

She had turned eighteen at midnight. She had shifted tonight.

No.

Knox slammed against me. She’s ours.

“That’s impossible,” I muttered into the empty dark.

He snarled in answer.

Abby. The child I had carried out of a house filled with blood and smoke. The girl in an oversized sweater, rolling her eyes at Liam and blushing whenever Sloane teased her about finding her mate.

She is no child, Knox warned.

I knew that. But knowing Abby had grown up and seeing her as my mate were two very different things.

I reached the bottom of Liam’s porch steps. The front windows threw pale yellow light across the lawn.

I had always imagined my mate as someone older. Someone already comfortable with her wolf, ready to stand beside an Alpha and handle everything that came with the title. Someone like—

I stopped that thought before I finished it. Knox didn’t.

Sloane is not ours.

I opened the door.

Liam turned from the stairs. “Kade? What’s wrong? Did the border—”

The scent of honey and vanilla hit me at full strength. “Where is she?”

Liam frowned. “Who?”

“Abby.”

“Kade?”

Her voice drifted down from halfway up the stairs.

I looked up, and everything in my chest went dead quiet as the bond slammed into place. Knox roared in triumph.

Mate.

Abby stared at me, and I watched her face transform: wonder first, then happiness. She smiled at me as though the Moon Goddess had handed her exactly what she had always wanted.

That terrified me more than anything else, because my body wanted to answer. I wanted to cross the room, pull her against me, and breathe in that impossible scent until Knox finally stopped tearing at me from the inside.

I had always known Abby was pretty. I had just never looked at her this way before, and I hated that my body had understood the difference before my mind did.

Her smile faltered. She had seen my face.

Liam looked between us. “What the hell is going on?”

I forced the words out. “She’s my mate.”

Abby took a hesitant step down toward me, and I took half a step back.

Pain flashed across her face.

Knox turned on me. Go to her.

I couldn’t.

“Abby,” Liam said quietly. “Give us a minute.”

Her eyes came back to me, and I knew the question in them: Why aren’t you happy? I had no answer that wouldn’t hurt her.

“Please,” Liam said.

She turned and went back up the stairs. The farther she moved from me, the harder Knox pushed to follow.

Liam jerked his head toward the kitchen, and the moment we were out of the hallway, he rounded on me. “Talk.”

I dragged both hands over my face. “I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do.”

Some of the tension went out of his shoulders. “What do you mean? It’s Abby. You’ve known her almost her whole life.”

I said nothing.

Liam studied me, and I watched him work it out. “You don’t want her.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Then what is the problem?”

“She just turned eighteen. She met her wolf tonight. She’s never had to carry responsibility like that.”

“Neither had you when your father died.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“And Abby does?”

I didn’t answer that.

“You’re already deciding for her,” he said. “You haven’t even given her the chance to decide whether she wants this.”

“This isn’t only about what she wants.”

“Of course not. It’s about the pack.”

“It has to be.” I paced away from him. “Moonhaven needs someone who can step into the Luna role now. Someone who’s already prepared for that responsibility.”

“Sloane.” Liam gave a short, humorless laugh. “Right. Of course it has to be her.”

Knox snarled, and so did I. “Choose your next words carefully.”

“She’s my sister. I’ll say whatever the hell I want.” He didn’t back down an inch. “Or do you expect me to stand here while you talk bullshit about her and keep my mouth shut?”

Neither of us moved.

Then Liam’s voice dropped. “You’ve been waiting eight years to find your mate, Kade. Eight years. And now she’s standing upstairs.”

I looked up at the ceiling. Abby. My mate. Knox pressed forward inside me.

“You don’t have to make her Luna tomorrow,” Liam said, more gently. “Give her a chance. Give her time.”

Time was the one thing I didn’t have.

I looked back at him.

“She can’t be my Luna.”