“You did worse to other people’s brothers. Other people’s children.”
Silence again. Then something seems to harden in him. A decision, maybe. Or just the walls going back up.
“There’s nothing left for you here,” he says. “If you come back to this territory, I can’t protect you. The pack knows what you did. They’re calling it treason.”
“It is treason. Against a system that deserved to fall.”
“The Corvus woman did this to you.”
“Willow opened my eyes. What I saw was on us.”
I hear him stand. The creak of the chair. He’s in the study—of course he is. Behind the desk, the way he always is when he’s making decisions that shape other people’s lives.
“This isn’t over,” he says. Quiet now. The cold quiet of an alpha who’s finished talking and started planning. “Not between us. Not with the network. Not with any of it.”
“I know it isn’t.”
“Then we understand each other.”
“We always did, Garrett. That was the problem.”
I end the call before he can respond. The conversation is devolving into something that serves no purpose to me, aside from showing me a new side to myself.
My hands aren’t shaking. My voice didn’t crack. The conversation I’ve been dreading since I drove south happened, and I’m still standing, and the world didn’t end. It just got smaller. A family of four reduced to one man in a borrowed cabin on borrowed land, and the only thing in his life that matters is somewhere on this property right now, walking toward a debrief with her hair still loose and her boots unlaced, doing the work that needs doing because that’s who she is.
I think about what Garrett said.This isn’t over.He’s right. The Syndicate won’t absorb the loss of a facility quietly. And the councils are coming. Garrett’s going to be fighting on two fronts, and he doesn’t yet understand how outmatched he is on either one.
I pocket the phone. Head for the lodge. Willow needs to know about this call. Brenna needs to know.
The valley is beautiful this morning. Quiet. The mist burning off, the ridges showing through, the sound of water somewhere below. A place where things grow.
And somewhere to the south, my brother is sitting in a room full of consequences. I know him. He won’t quit. He won’t bend.
Whether that saves him or breaks him, I can’t say.
Chapter 33
Willow
Conner walks into the kitchen while I’m pouring coffee. Brenna is at the table with Merric. Rook is in the doorway, eating toast.
“Garrett called,” Conner says.
The room changes. Brenna’s cup stops halfway to her mouth. Merric unfolds his arms. Rook sets down the toast.
“When?” Brenna asks.
“Twenty minutes ago. He knows where we are. One of his men tracked the convoy north.”
“Sit down,” Brenna says. “Tell me everything.”
Conner pulls out a chair. He doesn’t sit so much as lower himself into it, the way he does when his shoulder is bad and he’s pretending it isn’t. I take the chair beside him. Under the table, his knee presses against mine. Not for comfort. For grounding. He needs the contact to get through this.
“He’s furious. Not just about the ledger or the facility. About me. About what I am now.”
“Meaning Ravenclaw,” Brenna says. I can’t help the smile that wants to escape. She’s practically declaring him part of the pack.
“Meaning mated to a magic-blood.” He glances at me. “He called it pollution. Said I’d contaminated the Forrester bloodline.”