The sun is higher now. The yard is busy. Wolves moving between buildings, the thud of sparring from the east field, the smell of bacon from Greta’s open kitchen window. I cross toward my cabin, head down, collar up. Four more doors and I’m inside.
Willow falls into step beside me at the second door.
I don’t hear her coming. She moves that way when she wants to — light on the ground, wolf-quiet in human form. She doesn’t say anything at first. Just walks.
Her eyes go to my collar. The same assessment Merric made. Then her expression does something I’ve seen her do before — turns inward for a second, softens, the way a person’s face changes when they’re listening to a sound only they can hear.
She’s reading my threads.
Fuck.
Willow’s bond threads are supposed to be limited to her pack, but since Merric and Brenna mated, that circle seems to have expanded.
I keep walking.
“You saw Garrett.”
“It’s handled.”
“That’s what you told Merric.”
“That’s what I’m telling everyone. I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
We pass the third door. The fourth. My door is visible at the end of the path. Willow’s hand settles lightly on my forearm. I stop because I don’t know how to shake it off without making a scene.
“Conner called him,” she says. “Yesterday. Garrett picked up.” She watches my face. “He knows his brother is alive. That’s not what’s worrying him now.”
“Then what is?”
“He doesn’t know. That’s the problem.” Her eyes move to my collar, back to my face. “But something shifted. Something we can’t account for.”
“Nothing shifted,” I say.
Willow looks at me for a long moment. She’s not reading my face. She’s reading something underneath it.
“There’s a new thread on you,” she says. Quiet. “It wasn’t there before you left.”
My hand goes to my collar before I can stop it.
I catch the movement. Drop my hand. But the reflex is enough, and Willow’s eyes track my fingers, track the collar, track the stiffness in my neck. She knows.
Maybe she doesn’t.
“It goes toward Forrester territory,” she says.
The morning moves around us. A horse whinnies. Children call to each other. Someone shouts something from the training field. Willow’s fingers stay on my sleeve.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.
She looks at me for a long moment. Her face is doing something complicated; part concern, part recognition. She knows what a mate bond looks like. She carries one herself, to the brother of the man mine connects to. The symmetry of it is something I am not equipped to handle right now.
“Okay,” she says.
Notokaymeaning she believes me.Okaymeaning she’s not going to push.
Her hand lifts from my arm.
“If you need to talk to someone who understands—”