Chapter 14: The Elder's Offer

The summons came at seven the next morning, written on cream paper and carried up the ridge by a boy of twelve.

Cade's mother wanted me at her house.

Alone.

Lachlan read the note over my shoulder and crumpled it in his fist.

"You're not going."

"The Eastern Alpha is eating breakfast in your dining room," I said. "You can't leave him."

"I can."

"Then you'll insult the one man who can tell this pack what Cade is worth." I took the paper out of his hand. "I'll be quick."

Pearl walked me down the hill and stopped at the gate of the elder's yard.

"I'll be on that fence post," she said. "If you're not out in half an hour, I'm coming through the window."

The house was neat as a pin, with lace on every table.

Cade's mother sat in the front room with a tea tray on her knee.

She did not rise.

"Sit, June."

I stayed standing.

"You have caused my family a great deal of trouble," she said. "I would like to end it."

She slid an envelope across the low table.

Inside was a cashier's check, and a deed to a house in a town called Pahrump, Nevada.

I stared at the numbers.

"Two hundred thousand dollars," she said. "A house with a garden. A job with a cousin of mine who keeps books for a casino."

"You want me to leave."

"I want you to start again somewhere that has no memory of you."

"What about Lachlan?"

"The Alpha will lose his wolf on the Blood Moon, with or without you," she said calmly. "A man with no wolf will see you were a distraction."

I looked at the check.

It was more money than I had ever seen.

I thought of the three years I had spent grateful for every scrap she let me have.

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