Chapter 40. Not Bram

June's POV

I found Ronan in the records room and shut the door behind me.

"Wade," I said.

He looked up from the table. Read my face. Set down his pen.

"Tell me."

I told him. The dust on the shelf beside Edda's tin. The gray-green rim under Wade's fingernails. The flicker on his face when I said Edda would live. And Sorrel, leaning close, breathing in, finding nothing.

When I finished, Ronan sat very still.

"Wade's mother was my nursemaid," he said finally. Quietly. "He's two years younger than me. I taught him to swim in the lake above the pack house." He stared at the table. "He was on the stockade with me the night the omegas came over the woodpile. He took a bite to the arm."

"I know."

"He took a silver blade on the wagon night. Protecting the line."

"I know," I said gently. "I saw."

Ronan close