Helena trudged toward the house. The weight of her choices made her want to find a corner of the forest where she could hide and pretend none of this had ever happened. That she hadn’t met Ash. Slept with him. Started a mate bond. Ruined any chance she had of escaping her pack for another.

A prick on her neck made her whirl around, looking for wasps, but there weren’t any. Her wolf ears would have heard them anyway. Hands on her shoulders…no, not her shoulders…

Ash. Someone was touching him. What were they doing?

Just as suddenly as it had begun, the feeling stopped. Helena sighed and yanked open the heavy wooden back door, walking through the mudroom full of flip-flops, sweatpants, and T -shirts. A variety of sizes were available for shifters without clothes. The tiniest smile tugged at her mouth. A regular family wouldn’t stock their mudroom with extra clothing for people wandering in naked.

Of course, shifter families weren’t regular families. That was the problem, wasn’t it?

The kitchen was half empty of people. A small group sat at the little banquette tucked into the sunny alcove. A larger group—a more familiar group—sat at the long kitchen table. Her grandfather was at the head. They were talking about unbonded wolves, but the conversation cut off as soon as she walked into the room. Her grandfather and cousins headed toward her, but Daniel was notably missing.

“Grandfather,” she said, hoping she’d find him in a better mood today.

“Helena,” he groused out under his breath. “Gretchen said you and Kate went to town last night. Don’t be getting into trouble in VonBrandts’ territory.”

“I—” Helena gulped a breath. “We just went dancing.”

“Mmmph,” he muttered.

“Grandfather, the Overton financing went through. I finalized the invoice, so the sale will be ready to go through as soon as we’re back in El Paso.”

“You finalized the invoice?” Her grandfather’s voice darkened. “Why isn’t Daniel doing that? Where is Daniel?” He looked around, but her cousin was nowhere to be seen. Typical. “I already told you, you don’t work here anymore.”

Helena shook her head, a burst of self-confidence coming from somewhere deep inside. “I did all the invoicing. All the scheduling. All the payroll,” Helena said, her tone sharpening with each sentence. “I was the one who kept our ranch running. Most of your beloved grandsons would prefer to ride broncs and hump buckle bunnies.”

The guys standing around Grandfather squirmed and several even took a step away from their alpha.

“Not anymore,” he growled. “You’ll not be lifting another finger on the ranch. Do you understand me? The men will run the ranch as it’s supposed to be run. I don’t want to see you in the main office again. I expect you to have a wolf mate to present to me by the end of the summit.”

Helena stood frozen as he pushed past her along with her male cousins, who were still more capable in his eyes despite the fact that she’d kept the ranch running for the last four years.

Find a mate by the end of the weekend.

The last thing she wanted her grandfather to know was that she’d already found one, and he was human.

The Quade wolves walked out of the kitchen, their black boots clomping heavily on the slate floors. She waited until the very last of them had made it outside before she took a deep inhale and turned toward the center of the kitchen.

Tonya stood near the stove, her arms crossed over her chest. Her mouth was tight and her eyes narrowed. “Does he always speak to you with such disrespect?”

Helena nodded. Even when things were going well, her grandfather rarely had a kind word for her. And he never willingly acknowledged her accomplishments. “My father married a human. He tried to get the pack to accept her, but they wouldn’t. So he lived in town and on the ranch. He went back and forth my whole life. And my grandfather hates him for it.”

“So he takes it out on you as well?” Tonya waved her toward a sink full of dishes. “Come help me and let’s talk.”

Helena filled the right sink with clean soapy water and began scrubbing. “My parents used to love each other. But my mother never felt comfortable on the ranch—my grandfather made sure of that. Eventually, it got to a point where she wouldn’t even visit. She tried to get my father to leave the pack completely…” She rubbed at a particularly stuck-on spot and dunked the pan into the scalding water again. Her hands burned in the water, but the tinge of pain was a welcome distraction.

“Your grandfather threatened him, I’m sure.”

Helena nodded. “He never spoke about it. Just told her leaving wasn’t an option. They fought more and more about it as I got older. When I graduated high school and my father moved onto the ranch full-time, I went with him and shared a room with one of my cousins. I see my mother at Christmas and Easter. I thought it was better that way. I thought my grandfather had started to accept me, or at least tolerate me, but that was only wishful thinking.” A tear ran down Helena’s cheek and fell onto the dishes she was scrubbing.

Tonya came up beside her and rinsed out the rag she was using to wipe the countertops. “So your father refuses to leave and your mother continues to live in El Paso?”

“They’re bonded. I asked her about it once and she said it was too hard to live farther away.”

“Yes, I can imagine. Even with the bond weakened as much as possible, which can be done with practice. Distance between mates for an extended period of time becomes unbearable.”

“They see each other a few times a year, but nothing ever changes. So I just stay as far away from my mother as I can. It hurts too much to see them so unhappy and they are both so unhappy. I don’t want that.”

“What do you think your grandfather will say when he finds out you’re mating a human?”

Helena sighed through a sob and pulled the rubber plug on the soapy sink water. “It won’t be good.” She turned on the faucet and began rinsing the soapy plates. Tonya took the first one from her and dried it with a brown dish towel. “It’s different here in your pack,” Helena continued. “You’re human and no one treats you like you’re less.”

Tonya took the next plate and dried it. And then the next. She was quiet and just let Helena talk it out.

“I can’t do what my parents did. I can’t mate a human.”

“But you already did,” Tonya said, her voice soft.

Helena turned to face the VonBrandt alpha’s wife. “But I didn’t mean to. Can’t it be fixed? I didn’t say the spell,” she said, keeping her voice at a whisper. “He doesn’t know anything.”

“Oh, but he does, Helena. He feels you. You feel him. You’re already linked intimately. He may not know that you’re a Moonbound wolf, but he knows that whatever happened between you last night ended up being more.”

“It can’t be.” Helena handed Tonya the last dish and wiped tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “He’ll hate me the way my mother hates my father. My grandfather will hate me more than he already does. Your husband said he was going to fix it, but I don’t know what he meant by that.” She sniffed and wiped her cheeks again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to completely fall apart on you.”

Tonya put the last plate on the counter and wrapped her arm around Helena’s shoulders. The embrace broke through the dam Helena had built to keep her emotions separated and stowed in organized and separate boxes. For all her planning and lists and pros and cons, she didn’t have anything in her bag of tricks to protect her from the hug of a mother. Tonya wasn’t her mother, but she still had the same firmness and confidence and caring. She missed her mother so much, and now she’d eventually have to tell her that she’d cursed another human to a terrible existence as the mate of a Quade wolf.

“You can do this, sweetheart. We’re going to be with you, okay? We’re not going to make you handle this by yourself.” Tonya stroked Helena’s hair.

Helena couldn’t stop the flow of tears and she didn’t try. She let the ugly sobs shake her body. She’d finally told someone about her parents. Shared how much her grandfather and others in their pack had hurt them. Shared her fear of being the next wolf on the receiving end of their prejudice.

The last thing she wanted to do was drag Ash into the mess with her family and have him hate her too. She couldn’t bear the thought of his beautiful blue eyes glaring at her in anger when he realized that she’d ruined his life. Forever.