“A pup?” Hale asked, not bothering to sound surprised. “How old is it?”

Hale had known from the first that Cain would be trying to saddle him with one of their strays. Why else would they ask for Taylor? She really wasn’t good for much of anything, aside from nursing. The real giveaway had been the vagueness of the letter. He’d actually felt insulted as he’d read it. Did they honestly think he would refuse to take in a pup?

Of course, he hadn’t known why they were asking him to take the pup in. His first assumption had been that Sarah had given birth to twins again and could not manage to take a third pup to the breast. He hadn’t expected to find out that Sarah was now barren.

“Barren” wasn’t the right word. Cain had used another word, one that implied that she’d simply come to the end of her childbearing years. That was the strangest thing he’d heard yet. Last he’d seen Sarah, she’d looked as young as she had twelve years ago when Cain had first brought her home, already carrying their first pup. There had been scarcely a wrinkle on her face, and Hale even remembered springing an erection when she’d given him one of her annoyingly provocative hugs.

“It was born about two weeks ago,” Cain said, his stern face fixed with a grimace. “Sarah had been in communication with the mother throughout her pregnancy. She was young, but she seemed eager enough to care for her pup. He hadn’t been born two days when she changed her mind.”

They were hiking on a rocky slope, tracking a small flock of deer that one of Cain’s scouts had spotted earlier in the evening. The first snow had melted and frozen beneath the later snow drifts, making the terrain dangerous to navigate. In their wolf forms, they could have used their claws to grip the earth more securely, but the true purpose of their trek was not to hunt, but to talk. Hale wore a pair of his brother’s sturdy boots and carried a walking stick to help keep his balance.

Cain said, “It was one of the more difficult ones to watch. The mother was resigned, but very emotional.”

It was Hale’s turn to grimace. He had seen Cain take in many pups during his time in Shaderunner but had scarcely interacted with the mothers. That had been Sarah’s domain. The few times he had taken Sarah to collect a pup, he’d been unable to hide his contempt for the females, and so they had started having Alder bring her instead.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Hale remarked. “Or why you do it.”

Hale and Alder had been the first pups Cain had taken in. He had brought them with him when he’d left the pack of their birth, not long after their mother had died. Hale did not remember how old he’d been, but he’d been young enough that his memories of his first pack were hazy. Though Cain had never said as much, taking he and Alder had been a massive burden for him, as it had been years before they’d been able to make a meaningful contribution to Shaderunner.

“For whatever reason, their fathers were not capable of raising them,” Cain said. “I am, therefore they are my responsibility.”

Hale lifted a skeptical brow. “If it were as simple as being able to provide for them, you wouldn’t be the only one taking these pups in.”

“It isn’t that simple. It is more than being able to provide shelter, or keep food in their bellies.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” Hale conceded.

When Taylor had been pregnant with the twins, Hale had mostly imagined teaching them to hunt. Occasionally, he’d contemplated what they’d be like when they were older, and in his mind, they were usually clones of himself, ready to help him defend his territory and do his bidding without complaint.

Then, they’d been born, coming into the world small and helpless, and with a whole host of needs that Hale had not been entirely prepared for. Cain was right. It was not enough to provide them with food and shelter. They needed an adult to guide them through just about everything, to care for them when they were sick, to soothe them when they cried, and to discipline them when they tried doing something that could kill them—which was constantly. And even after expending all of that effort, he still didn’t get what he thought he would in return.

Fawn was nothing like him, at all. She was gentle, sweet, and gregarious. Shadow had Hale’s stubborn streak, and he shared his fondness for Taylor’s breasts, but outside of that, he reminded Hale more of Alder, with his reserved nature. By rights, it should have annoyed him that they were so different, that he couldn’t fit either of them into the mold he’d constructed while they were in the womb. Instead, he relished in every aspect of their personalities and marveled at how the little beings, despite being of him and raised by him, could be so very different.

“Are you expecting Alder and I to take the pup in?” Hale asked.

“He needs a female that can feed him.”

‘And my mate cannot.’

The unspoken words seem to echo around them.

“I’m sorry,” Hale heard himself say. The phrase sounded foreign on his tongue.

Cain gave a single shake of his head. “Don’t be. We’ve raised many pups, and we will continue to take in the ones that have already been weaned.” He hesitated, and then added, “To be honest, I am somewhat relieved. Sarah… She always had an easy time with births. They lasted only a few hours and passed without incident. But this last time, she labored for two days. I thought the pup would never come. I thought…that I’d be burying her.”

Hale swallowed, pushing down his own memory of the birth of his pups. He wondered why childbirth had to be so grueling for humans, and if it had been the same for their females, back when they’d been able to carry pups.

“I am being selfish,” Cain said suddenly. “Talking so much of myself. How are you, and your brother?”

It was clear that Cain still had a lot on his mind, and Alder would have had the finesse to hone in on whatever was troubling Cain, but Hale did not. Instead, he allowed Cain to change the topic, and dove into a long discussion, mostly about pack politics. Halcyon had been at peace for nearly two years, though lately there had been some skirmishes with a pack to their west, nothing that would constitute war, but enough to give him plenty of conversational fodder.

They were discussing the best way to assert territory boundaries when the terrain leveled out. The rocky slope ended in a thickly forested valley, where the snow came up higher, to the middle of his calf. There was still no sign of the deer or their tracks, but Hale didn’t care. He found that he enjoyed talking to his older brother. When he’d been younger, conversations with Cain had always seemed tedious. Everything out of his mouth had been a long-winded lecture, usually directed at Hale. For some reason, the years had made Cain much more agreeable.

“And your mate?” Cain asked, not long after the conversation had drifted to the pups. “Is she well? I’ve been waiting for word that you’re expecting another pup.”

The tip of Hale’s foot caught on a log that was hidden beneath the snow. He nearly lost his footing but was able to use his walking stick to right himself at the last moment.

He wanted to pretend as though he hadn’t heard Cain’s question. Oddly, he also wanted to tell Cain everything. About the months he’d spent waiting for Taylor to give him another pup, how she'd seemed eager in the past, and then her sudden and irrational declaration that she would never carry another child for him. But for reasons he could not understand, Taylor’s refusal to have more pups made Hale feel ashamed, and he could not bring himself to admit this to his brother.

“She’s been begging me for another pup since spring,” Hale said, rolling his eyes. “I told her I might give her one if she weans Shadow, but she’s being so damn stubborn about it.”

He found himself watching Cain closely, waiting for his brother to see through the lie. To his relief, Cain sighed and nodded.

“Sarah was still nursing our first pup when the second was born. I warned her that it would take a toll on her body.” Cain’s brow furrowed. “What about Alder? Does he want more pups? How does that even work, if one of you wants pups and the other doesn’t?”

“You know Alder. He doesn’t usually make decisions; he just tries to mediate.”

“True. I still have a hard time picturing him as a father.”

Hale was taken aback. “What? Alder?”

Between him and his twin, Hale would have thought that anyone would have pegged Alder as having a more paternal nature.

“Mm. He’s always been so uptight. Has he loosened up at all?”

Hale snorted. “Hell no. If anything, having pups has made him more uptight. If it were up to him, the pups wouldn’t have left his sight until they were juveniles.”

They came to a stop at the same time and exchanged looks. The air carried the scent of an unfamiliar wolf, coupled with the faintest hint of decay. They moved swiftly, but silently, Cain leading the way as they headed in the direction of the scent.

They found the gray wolf partially submerged in a wide stream, the top half of his body clinging to the snowy shore as if he’d used the last of his strength trying to pull himself from the water. The large gouge in his throat told a different story. It was not the sort of puncture that a wolf survived, not even briefly. Someone had killed him farther upstream and dumped his corpse into the water.

“Is he one of yours?” Hale asked, already sure he knew the answer. Most wolves from the same pack shared a similar scent, and this one smelled nothing like Cain.

Cain was crouched near the wolf’s head. “He’s from a pack not far from here. Half a day’s walk. His alpha is a male named Yewen. He is, for lack of a better word, a complete ass. He’s constantly poaching my boars and demands tribute whenever we have to pass through his territory, which is often. It’s the only direct route to the town Sarah frequents.”

“Why do you stand for it?” Hale asked. “Just tell him to fuck off, and if that doesn’t work, kill him.”

Cain gave him a withering look. “I am not thirty and I do not have a twin that can take my place if I lose my head. I have a mate and pups that rely on me to keep the peace, no matter the minor grievances.”

Cain pulled a tuft of dark brown fur from the wolf’s mouth. He brought it to his nose, sniffed and then grimaced.

“I don’t recognize the attacker’s scent,” he said.

“Good,” Hale said. “Leave him here for Yewen to clean up. Not your problem.”

“It is absolutely my problem,” Cain said, standing. “This wolf’s body is in my territory. I will have to answer for this.”

Hale still didn’t understand. “But you didn’t do anything.”

“It doesn’t matter. If we don’t handle this carefully, Yewen will find a way to hold me responsible.”

“Fuck that. I’ll deal with the asshole myself if you want.”

Ignoring the offer, Cain said, “This is not the first dead wolf to turn up. There was another yesterday, in a neighbor's territory. I’ve spoken with other wolves in the area. There are rumors of a large, roaming pack, with an alpha as tall as an oak tree.”

Had the setting been any less somber, Hale might have laughed. “An oak tree? Don’t tell me you believe that sort of superstitious, backwater nonsense.”

Cain’s eyes narrowed. “I never said I believed it. However, in my experience, most rumors start from a grain of truth. Now, you take the wet end and I’ll get his head. We’ll bring him back to the den tonight. You can rest for a few hours, and then we’ll take him to his alpha.”

Hale begrudgingly complied. As he heaved the rigid body from the water, his eyes drifted back to the wound. Something the width of his upper arm had punctured the wolf’s neck clean through. In spite of his own considerable experience, he could only wonder what could have done such a thing.

* * *

The room was mostly empty, save for a fur pallet and a wooden infant cot. Like the hallway, the walls held candles in carved depressions, but these were different. They weren’t the standard, mildly unpleasant candles that most shifters made from animal fat. They were unscented, beeswax candles, the sort that the average human could pick up in bulk at the dollar store.

She envied the location of Sarah’s den, which was a hop, skip, and a jump from a small town. Sarah and Cain made regular trips to town, where Sarah had a friend that helped them convert things like furs and handmade trinkets into a modest amount of cash via the internet, all without raising the suspicion of the locals. Because of this, Sarah’s little den had many conveniences that Taylor’s lacked, such as the candles, tools, medicine, and books on just about every subject under the sun.

Taylor knew that even if her den was close to a town, she wouldn’t have been able to go. She had fled her human life after committing murder. While she no longer lost sleep over it and the media buzz had died down, all it would take was one person to recognize her, and she could end up in jail. Even if she managed to get exonerated—which would be a tall order, considering that the victim had been a US senator—it would be a lengthy legal process and years before she could see her mates and her pups again. The risk was simply too great.

Sarah went to the cot which appeared empty at a glance. She moved around some covers and lifted a small bundle into her arms.

“I only just got him to sleep before you arrived,” she said. “I won’t lie. He cries constantly. I think it’s just because he’s hungry, though. Like I said, formula isn’t ideal for pups. It’s just not made to work with their bodies. It’s weird, but some of them will take goat’s milk formula. Others just can’t keep anything down except for breast milk.”

As Sarah stood and approached her, Taylor felt a sudden burst of nervous energy. The bundle was so tiny. She hadn’t held anything that little since the twins were babies, and even then it had felt wrong; like she’d been an overgrown child playing at mommy while waiting for the real adults—usually her mates—to show up and take proper care of the teeny, tiny, fragile little beings. That feeling had eventually gone away as the twins had become more capable, but now it was back in full force and she had to resist the urge to put her hands up and back away.

She didn’t, of course. That would have been ridiculous. Instead, she held out her hands and hoped Sarah didn’t notice them trembling.

The older woman bypassed Taylor’s hands and deposited the bundle into the crook of Taylor’s arm. Taylor quickly adjusted her hold on the baby, instinctively bringing her free hand up to pull him close to her chest.

He was unexpectedly gorgeous.

Unexpected because Taylor had never really found babies to be cute. In fact, she thought most babies looked precisely like what they were—unfinished grownups. Her babies had been breathtakingly beautiful, but that was because they were her babies. Everyone thought their own babies were magnificent wonders.

All the features on the pup’s face were symmetrical and in perfect proportion, from the round slope of his forehead, down the gentle curve of his nose, to his perfectly pointed chin. He had a full head of hair that looked too pale to be blonde though Taylor couldn’t make out its precise coloring in the candlelight. Of all his features, she thought his pink lips were the best. They were curved in the shape of Cupid’s bow, and she couldn’t resist running the tip of her finger across them.

“He’s so small,” Taylor breathed. “How old is he?”

The nervousness that had fled Taylor seemed to have infected Sarah. She moved back and forth between her feet in an anxious rocking motion while wringing her hands.

“Two weeks, one day.”

“Two weeks?” Taylor repeated with disbelief. “Someone left their two-week-old baby with you?”

“No, someone left their one-day-old pup with me,” Sarah corrected. “I’ve had him for two weeks, remember?”

It shouldn’t have surprised Taylor. She, herself, had been adopted the day she was born and had later spent the bulk of her childhood in foster care. She had seen so many babies shuffled about in the system that it had become banal. But now that she was a mother, had given birth to children of her own, it was difficult for her to wrap her head around.

Either recognizing the foreign scent or from having his face touched, the pup began to stir. It squirmed a little, and then slowly opened tired, golden eyes.

Taylor whispered, “Hello, handsome.”

The pup considered her for all of two seconds and then began to wail.

Sarah had warned her that he was a crier, but Taylor had never heard the likes of his particular brand of crying, which was really more of a plaintive screech. Strangely, Sarah seemed more startled than Taylor by it and began making urgent hand gestures.

“Breast, breast,” Sarah said, waving her hands at Taylor’s chest.

“Oh, right,” Taylor replied awkwardly.

Had it not been for the screaming, Taylor might have felt odd pulling her breast out for a baby that was not her own. The awful crying dispelled any modesty or reservations that Taylor may have had, and she was eager to do anything to silence the pup.

The first few minutes were frustrating. The pup had little experience with nursing and although he seemed able to smell the milk, he didn’t understand how to get it. Working as a team, Taylor and Sarah managed to hand express milk directly into his mouth. Gradually, they coaxed him onto the nipple, and Taylor continued expressing milk into his mouth until he got the gist of suckling with minimal assistance.

As soon as he’d begun suckling in earnest, Sarah burst into tears. Taylor hadn’t remembered Sarah being so emotional and assumed it must have been the strain of her premature menopause colliding with sleepless days caring for a newborn. She brought Sarah in for a loose hug, rubbing Sarah’s back with one hand and cradling the pup with the other.

“Please…” Sarah said between sniffles. “Come, sit down. I’m sorry, I should have had you get comfortable before I gave him to you. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“It’s fine,” Taylor said, allowing Sarah to lead her over to the furs.

Sarah propped several pillows against the wall and Taylor leaned back against them so that the pup rested on her chest. It wasn’t until she laid down that she realized how tired she was, and how much her back ached. She really wished she’d just had sex with Hale the day before and then stolen a few hours of sleep before having a shouting match with him.

“How’s his latch?” Sarah asked. She was back to wringing her hands.

“Seems okay,” Taylor said, mostly to set Sarah at ease. In truth, they’d have to work on it a bit, or else her nipples were going to be in a world of hurt. For now, she helped him along, occasionally running her thumb across her breast to coax milk into his mouth.

Taylor said, “Maybe I should unwrap him. It might help if he can squeeze me himself.”

“Oh, no. Don’t do that. It’s so cold in here.” Sarah quickly added, “He’s really taken to you already.”

Taylor gave her a wry grin. “I think it’s just the boobs.”

“But you’ll keep him, right? At least until he’s weaned?” There was a nervous urgency to her words.

“You mean him back to Halcyon?” Taylor asked. She supposed that was the only logical thing to do, but until then she hadn’t considered that she’d essentially be fostering the pup herself. “Well, I guess there isn’t any other option. You said no one else could take him, right?”

“Right,” Sarah said. “You’re the only one who’s responded. If you don’t take him, he’ll probably… He’ll…”

Taylor put a hand on Sarah’s shoulder. “Relax. It’s okay. I’m going to take him. How could I possibly say no? I was adopted. Well, sort of. The people who adopted me actually tried giving me back when I was a baby, on account of my catastrophic heart defect. I ended up going into foster care until my bio-mom eventually got her act together and came to find me.”

“I didn’t know that,” Sarah said. “How awful of that family, to abandon you just because of a defect.”

Taylor shrugged. “I can’t fault them. They didn’t sign up for a baby on the transplant list.”

“No,” Sarah said, her eyes taking on a fierce glow. “When they adopted you, they made a commitment to be your parents. They shouldn’t have been able to just skip town when things got tough. Well, good riddance. They didn’t deserve you.”

Taylor couldn’t help it. She started to laugh.

“I think you’ve been angrier at that family in the last thirty seconds than I have in my entire lifetime.”

Sarah deflated, giving Taylor a weak smile. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve taken in so many pups over the years, and there’s no such thing as ideal. Every one of them comes with their own set of challenges. At first, some may seem bigger than others, or even impossible to overcome, but there’s no obstacle so big that it can’t be tempered with enough love.”

Taylor returned her smile, appreciating the sweet sentiment, but also sort of hoping that Sarah would leave and let her get some rest.

“I think I have it from here,” Taylor said. “Are there linens in case he needs to be changed?”

Sarah chewed her lip and had resumed wringing her hands.

“It’s really okay,” Taylor said. “If I need help, I’m sure I can find someone. You look more tired than I feel. Please, go get some rest.”

“He’s only got one arm,” Sarah blurted, the words flying from her mouth so quickly that Taylor barely made them out.

Taylor heard herself laugh. “What?”

There was not a hint of humor in Sarah’s expression. With deliberate slowness, she said, “The pup. The one you’re holding right now. He only has one arm.”

There was only one way the words could be taken, but Taylor still felt like she must not have understood correctly. She looked between Sarah’s anxious face and the tiny baby that was nursing on her breast. Her fingers went to the swaddling blanket. She unwrapped him, careful not to disturb his latch as she did so.

It was his right arm, or, where his right arm should have been. In its place was a small nub where his upper arm would have connected with his shoulder. The left arm appeared unaffected.

“Oh,” Taylor said, her hand flying to her mouth. “Oh, Sarah. What…”

Sarah took a seat beside the bed and let out a heavy sigh. “It’s called amelia. Sounds like a pretty name, doesn't it? Nothing happened to him, he was just born that way. Aside from being a bit malnourished, there’s nothing medically wrong with him. He’s just…a little different.”

Taylor continued to unwrap him, making sure that the rest of his limbs were there and then taking a moment to count his fingers and toes.

All present.

She pulled her shirt open farther, enough to tuck him into it, so that his skin rested against her own. The pup squirmed a little, but quickly adjusted, snuggling closer to her and using his little hand to clutch at Taylor’s breast.

“Is this why the mother gave him up?” Taylor asked.

“Goodness, no,” Sarah said. “At least, I don’t think so. His mother’s name is Carly. She didn’t know his father’s name. She met him at a bar on her twenty-second birthday.”

“A bar?”

“Don’t look so surprised. Not all shifters live in the mountains. A lot of them, the less wolfish ones, live in fringe towns. Anyway, Carly wasn’t even sure that the dad was a shifter, but she had her suspicions. Apparently, the sex was…unusual. I didn’t ask for details.

“I met her when she was already six months along. She knew about the arm, but still wanted to keep the baby. I was helping her to prepare, getting her connected with trustworthy women in her community and managing her expectations. She really wanted to keep him, Taylor, but look at him.”

Taylor’s brows furrowed. “He’s beautiful.”

“His hair is white, and his eyes would never pass for hazel. He looks like what he is, and because of that, he couldn’t possibly stay among humans. It takes more than a dedicated mother for a pup to grow up in a human town. He also needs to be able to blend in.”

Using her pinky, Taylor gently pried the pup off of her nipple. He started to cry again although it wasn’t nearly as earsplitting as before. He was quickly silenced as she placed him on her other breast. This time, he was able to find the nipple on his own, and she already felt his latch improving.

“Clover said that some women will come with their pups. That you can find them an alpha willing to take them in. Why didn’t she do that?”

“I don’t know, Taylor. This life, it’s not for everyone. And she was just a kid.”

“She was the same age as I was when I had the twins.”

Sarah smiled sadly. “Yes, but you weren’t a kid. Age can be a very fickle measurement.”

“I guess you’re right about that.” Taylor stroked the pup’s hair and ran her finger along the shell of his ear. “No one else will take him? Because of the arm?”

Sarah laughed. “Are you kidding me? I didn’t tell anyone about the arm. I wanted to at least get someone here to hold him before I dropped that bomb.”

“Thanks,” Taylor said flatly. “It’s strange that no one else came to see him. My pack mates would go nuts for a new pup. In fact, it’s all they ever talk about.”

“Halcyon has a lot of members and ample hunting grounds. Most packs, particularly in this region, are quite small, usually just a family unit. A lot of them can barely support their own pups, let along take on another. I can’t fault them.”

Taylor had never considered that her own experience as Alder and Hale’s mate had differed from that of the average mated pair. Though she had recognized the advantage of having two alphas, it hadn’t occurred to her that most packs weren’t a hundred members strong, or that other alphas might struggle to feed their packs.

They sat in quiet contemplation as the pup nursed. Her breasts had enough milk to accommodate a much larger pup, and he began to nod off long before he’d emptied her second breast. Taylor removed him from her nipple but left him to doze against her chest. She was no longer tired, at least not mentally. Her mind was abuzz and somehow already flooded with new-baby hormones.

“I get attached easily,” Taylor said, breaking the silence. “If I took him, even just for a few weeks, I might not be able to give him back.”

Sarah squeezed her arm. “I wouldn’t expect you to. I just want him to have a good home. With a large pack like yours, he could have the support he needs to live a full, happy life.”

“It’s not just my decision to make,” Taylor said. “And to be honest, Hale and I are having a bit of a fight right now. He might put up a stink about taking in a pup.”

“You let me deal with Hale. Believe it or not, I’m a pro.”

“Ugh. Please, teach me your ways,” Taylor said, rubbing her temple. “In all seriousness though, I’ll talk to Hale myself. I’ll let you know if I need someone to run defense.”

Sarah gave her a knowing look. “You got it.” She started to rise. “Well, if it’s all right with you, I’m going to take you up on your offer and go get some sleep. We can talk more about the logistics of all this later once I’m rested and not an emotional train wreck.”

“Of course. Oh, before you go, does he have a name?”

Sarah made a face. “Sort of. The kids have a lot of not-so-nice nicknames for him. You can ignore them. His mom wanted to name him after his grandfather. You really don’t have to keep the name, but if you want to, it’s Henry.”