Heart racing, I tore up the hill. Aunt Pat wasn’t there. I scented her easily. She’d gone back toward the big red barn on the northern edge of her property. I knew why. She didn’t like staying in this part of the woods. It’s where we’d buried my father.

I found her in the paddock, running her hands down Chester’s smooth back. He was her newest pony. She bought him for the little ones to ride. Tucker wanted so badly to ride him all by himself. If we weren’t careful, that little hellion would try. Pat said my nephew reminded her more of me than his own father.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Pat said, smiling. My heart lurched. It was just a silly, cliched expression, but I had to wonder if she knew something.

I grabbed the brush she had sitting on the fence and went to Chester’s right flank. He flicked his tail as I brushed his butter-colored coat. The sun had fully risen, shining in Aunt Pat’s face. She lifted her hand to shield her eyes.

She had a chameleon face, my Aunt Pat. At times, I could see the young girl she used to be. She met my father when she was only nineteen. I don’t remember much about that time. I just knew one day I had a mother; her name was Sela. The next day I didn’t. My father had fought a war to keep us safe and we ended up here. He came alive after that and I knew Pat was the reason. He loved her deeply and completely.

New lines of grief framed her eyes as she looked up at me. She was so small, barely five feet tall. At one time, my father could easily span her waist with his hands. She had a bright laugh that reminded me of church bells when he lifted her in his arms. It was a sound she made just for him. I hadn’t heard it since we lost him.

“Did Jarred call?” I asked, knowing full well the answer.

“He’s just worried about you, honey. You can’t blame him.”

“He shouldn’t. You both know I’m fully capable of taking care of myself.” Tears sprang to my eyes. I moved closer to Chester’s head so Aunt Pat couldn’t see.

“I’m not Camilla,” I said quietly, knowing Pat would understand. “I’m nothing like her. I’ve tried.”

The tears fell, born out of anger and frustration more than sadness.

“Oh, she’s something all right,” Aunt Pat said. She’d moved to Chester’s front, cradling his nose between her hands. She pressed her forehead to him and reached into the pocket of her dress to pull out a treat. Chester gobbled it readily, stomping his front hoof in gratitude.

“I don’t know how to be like that. She knows how to calm my brother, how to get what she wants without raising her voice or getting angry. She’s like that with all of them. They worship her. She says the right things. Does the right things. And she’s...comfortable...with…you know...”

Pat’s cheeks turned pink and she dropped her gaze. “Are you judging her for that?”

“God! No!” I came around Chester’s front so Pat could see me. Though she was my brother’s mate, Camilla had been claimed by the entire pack. It had been like that with my mother, Sela, as well. When Alpha male wolves mated with humans, like my father and Pat had, they stayed monogamous. But, true female wolf shifters, rare though we were, usually indulged in a more...er...open arrangement.

“It’s just…” Icy fingers of dread closed around my heart. Jarred’s words drilled into my head. If I mated with one of the other Alphas, they might expect me to take the whole pack. Some very small, ancient part of me flared with heat at the thought. Sure, it was a wild fantasy, but it wasn’t what I really wanted. I wanted… My heart fell, I hadn’t yet been able to answer that for myself.

Pat led Chester back to the barn. I followed. “He’s coming along,” Pat said. “Sarah’s been working with him. I don’t know what I’d do without her help.” Sarah was one of the girls from town. She was another stray Aunt Pat had taken in over the years. She had a knack for training the horses and a few other things.

Once Pat settled Chester in his stall, she finally turned to face me. She didn’t have to be a shifter to know my mood.

“He said three pack Alphas went to Daddy and made a proposal for me. Is that true? Did you know about it?”

My eyes stung with my fresh tears. Pat’s expression stayed warm and kind. She’d aged so much in the last year and a half. Her hair was mostly gray now. She’d only be forty years old on her next birthday.

“Yes,” she said simply. Though it hurt to hear, I respected her honesty. “But, you also have to know your father would never have forced you into anything you didn’t want. Jarred won’t either.”

“It’s a problem though, isn’t it?” I asked. I knew the answer, of course. I felt it every time one of the other pack members got near me. Just like in the bar, I sensed their lust, their raw hunger for me. And it stirred the darkest part of my nature. That was the one thing I couldn’t give voice to. Not even to Pat.

“Jarred won’t say it, but he thinks the packs might be willing to go to war for...me.” My voice burned in my throat.

Pat drew in a sharp breath. She crossed her arms and started a slow stride toward the end of the stall. I followed. We stood side by side, watching the sun rise over the pasture. Finally, Pat looked up at me.

“I think you worry too much,” she said. “And I think you need to go talk to your brother. But, listen this time, Lucia. Really listen. Jarred is trying to hold the peace among the packs together with his bare hands. These are precarious times. It’s always like that when a new Alpha rises. Your father is a tough act to follow.”

She put a hand on the small of my back and leaned her head against my shoulder.

“I miss him,” I said, hating myself a little for it. I didn’t want to make her sad.

“I know.”

“Why did he do it?” I asked. “Why did he go down there alone?” The words spilled out of me. We’d never really talked about what happened. But, my father had been killed near the Ohio border. Factions of a rival pack from Kentucky had cornered Peter Matthews’s brother Calvin and a few members of his pack. Calvin died, but my father managed to free the rest of the Matthews pack. He’d been mortally wounded in the battle and barely made it home. He died here on the farm the next day in Pat’s arms.

Pat didn’t answer me. She had one though. I could see it in her eyes. “Another time, honey. For now, go home. Go see your brother. I’ll tend to things here.”

She held more secrets behind those eyes and my heart flared wondering if some of them were mine. Did she know what I’d done? Had she seen me with Clint? Or was she reading the secrets hiding behind my own eyes?

For now, we would each keep them to ourselves. As I turned my face into the sun, I felt my brother’s call. For once, I decided to heed it.