Chapter 4: Saturday Pancakes

Saturday morning, Ronan drove me back to the house I had lived in for six years.

I had not slept much.

Every time I closed my eyes I felt his hand around my wrist, warm and rough, and Sable stretching toward it.

"You don't have to go in alone," he said at the gate.

"I do," I said. "If you walk in with me, Ansel gets to say I brought an Alpha onto his land."

"I'll be right here."

"I know."

He sat there in the truck with the window down, and he did not leave.

The guard at the gate looked at me, then at his phone, then waved me through without a word.

Ansel wanted me inside those walls, and I knew it.

I walked up the drive in yesterday's green dress, because I had nothing else.

The front door flew open before I touched it.

"Mama!"

Joey hit me at the knees, and June hit me a second later.

I knelt on the porch and held them both, and their hair smelled of syrup and shampoo.

"You came back," June said into my neck.

"I'll always come back," I said.

"Lorna said you went on a trip," Joey said. His front teeth were still gone, and he whistled on the s. "A long one."

"Lorna said you didn't want to live with us anymore," June said.

Something hot rose in my chest.

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