Chapter 13: Hers First

Nobody on the beach moved.

The bonfires cracked.

Sixty wolves stood in the shallows with their ears flat, looking from my sister to the black wolf with his head against my stomach.

Under my hands, Wylie's fur stood straight up.

A growl started deep in his chest and didn't stop.

"Easy," I said into his ear. "She can't do anything tonight. Come back to me."

He shuddered.

Then the change took him the other way, slow and hard, fur pulling back into skin.

In a minute he was a man on his knees in the sand, shaking, with his arms around my waist.

Arlene threw her own coat over his shoulders.

He stood up inside it and looked across the fire at Tilly.

His eyes were still amber.

Tilly smiled at him.

Then Dillon walked out from beside his mother.

He didn't go to Tilly.

He went to the biggest fire, where everyone could see him, and stopped.

"Is it true?" he said.

Tilly pulled Dad's coat tighter.

"Dillon, honey, not here."

"Here." His voice cracked and steadied.

"The night of the lanterns, you came to my room crying. Was it him you threw away?"

Tilly's eyes went to Mom.

Mom gave the smallest shake of her head.

"I don't remember," Tilly said.

"You just howled for him in front of four packs."

Somebody on the Ridgeback side laughed, short and ugly.

Dillon's face was red to the hairline, but he didn't look at his shoes.

"You rejected your own fated mate because he was a tracker," he said.

"And the next night you climbed into my bed so you'd have an Alpha's son instead."

"That isn't fair."

"You let me leave Freja for that."

The beach was so quiet I could hear the lake lapping at the sand.

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