“Tali,” he said, surprised, as he opened the door. A moment later, Koda bounded out from behind his legs and jumped up on her. She was too out of it to brace herself and started stumbling backward on the icy front step. Hudson’s hand darted out and grabbed her shoulder to steady her. With the other, he seized Koda roughly by the collar and pulled him off, muttering, “Get down, you stupid idiot.”

“Sorry,” he said, once he got all four of Koda’s feet planted on the ground. “What’s… Are you okay?”

Wordlessly, she shook her head, her lip starting to quiver. Hudson’s eyes widened as he took in her expression, and he quickly ushered her inside.

They went to the kitchen, where she stumbled out her story of how Cole had gone running off to investigate the scent of blood without giving her a chance to stop him. She said it all in a rush, tears stinging her eyes but not quite falling. When she finished, Hudson looked alarmed and did a poor job of covering it up.

“Well, look, Tali, his senses are strong. I’m sure he’ll figure out what the scent means quickly and make his way right back to save you from worry—”

“Oh, please don’t give me that bullshit,” Tali said, shaking her head, her stomach churning with fear. “You said they’d slaughter him, Hudson! Less than twelve hours ago. Those were your words!”

She had him there. He looked at his feet for a moment, but then looked back up, determined to try again. “Yeah, okay. So I thought there was some danger in him heading into their territory. There…there is. But he’s a sharp kid. He’s healthy and strong. He’s got something important to come back to. I’m sure he’ll be okay.”

“I can’t just sit here,” she moaned. “Hudson, can you…Would you take me up there? We have to go look for him. Force him to come back if you have to. I saw you—when you changed—that night after we...well...your bear is bigger than his. I-I give you full permission to kick his ass if you have to. Whatever it takes to bring him back.”

“Absolutely not,” Hudson said, looking at her like she was crazy. “Honestly, it was a mistake for the two of you to go up there together at all. If one of them was watching, they’d have seen that you mean something to him. That could put you in danger, Tali.”

“Right now, he’s in danger, Hudson. I have to go to him, but I have no idea where he’s headed. I can’t see in this light or track him, but you can and—”

“Tali,” Hudson sighed. “Sit down. Please. Even if I was inclined to take you up on this insane demand, think about Cole. If he’s worried enough about them being a threat that he’s running off into the woods to investigate it, do you really think he’d want you up there and vulnerable? I’m clearly among his least favorite people on the planet. If I let something happen to you, I am positive I’d skyrocket right to the number one spot.”

“I can’t take this,” she said, scratching her nails into his tablecloth.

“I know,” he sighed. “It’s hard. I-I wish there was something I could say to help right now, Tali, but we’ve just got to sit tight. You’ve got your phone, right? Just try to keep it together. I’m sure you’ll hear from him soon, and he’ll be fine. I’m going to make some tea. Chamomile. That’s supposed to be calming right?”

She nodded numbly and sat in silence until he brought over a steaming mug and sat at the kitchen table beside her.

He cleared his throat. “So, the kid really believes Caid’s behind this?” He sounded earnest, like he both wanted and feared her answer.

Instead of giving it, she wrinkled her nose at him. “You keep calling him the kid. He’s twenty-six years old…”

“I guess I do,” Hudson muttered. “He was only twelve or thirteen when I left. Haven’t spent any significant time with him since. Guess part of me still sees him that way.”

Tali shook her head. “It’s all so strange. You used to look after him. He used to look up to you. You had this whole life where you knew each other and...presumably liked each other and neither of you will tell me anything about it. Please, Hudson. We’re just sitting here. I’m literally sitting here wondering if at this moment my boyfriend is being ripped to shreds by sadistic werebears. You have to talk to me. Distract me.” She paused and gave him a long, searching look. “Please. Tell me why you left. I’m not here to judge you. You know that I’ll try everything in my power to understand, right? Does anyone else even know what you are? Did Matty…”

Hudson looked at her sharply, then shook his head. “No. No, I never told him. I just...I wanted it behind me. There wasn’t any point in dredging up my past when I’d turned my back on that part of myself.”

“So then you’ve had this hidden inside you for—what—thirteen years? You’ve never told anyone? Hudson, come on. That sounds super unhealthy. Don’t you…don’t you trust me?”

He gave her a pained look. “Of course I trust you. But Tali, the kid—Cole—was right. I am a coward. I know you’d try, and you’d probably make a damn good attempt at it, but if I told you the truth you’d just think of me the same way he does. Can’t we just skip that whole painful journey and cut to the end? I did turn my back, for selfish reasons. And it sounds like the clan has suffered for it. I can’t undo that choice and there’s not much point in rehashing why I made it. It’s done.”

“Hudson,” she said quietly, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand. “Enough. Enough with the vague self-deprecation. I’m your friend. You said last night in the bar that we’d been on our way to becoming friends, but that’s not true. We are friends. We’ve been friends for months now. And it may have started off complicated and it may have stayed complicated the whole way through for a...a whole mess of reasons, but I am your friend. I care about you.”

He bit his lip, but she could tell she was getting through to him, so she continued:

“I heard Matty talk about how great you were for years, and I’ve spent the last six months witnessing it firsthand. Watching you fawn over Ella and help me out of all kinds of jams, and do things for the people in this town to make their lives better. Whatever you might have to say, you’re a good man, Hudson. Probably one of the best I’ve ever known. Telling me your story, whatever it is, isn’t just going to erase that.”

He stared at her, his stormy green eyes pooling with conflict. She could tell her words had moved him, but he seemed scared. Terrified even. She gave his hand another squeeze. “I just want to understand,” she said quietly.

He sighed heavily. “It’s hard. I’ve put a lot of effort into trying never to even think about that part of my life at all. The idea of talking about it is….”

“Take your time,” she murmured. “I’ve pretty much got nothing but time right now. Whatever you have to say, it can’t be worse than what I see happening to Cole in my head whenever one of us stops talking. Please, Hudson. Just start at the beginning. Wherever that might be.”

“All right,” he said, averting his eyes. “I’m not sure how much the kid has told you…”

“Hardly anything,” she said. “At least when it comes to where you fit into all of it.”

“Right,” Hudson nodded. “Well, I guess the thing to know is it was never supposed to come down to me to lead. My father Bannon was the Alpha, but I had two older brothers. Brigham was the oldest, ten years older than me. He was strong, dedicated. Stern. He spent all his time with my father learning how to lead. He was a good brother, though he never had much time for me. Then there was Mason, just a few years older than me. We were much closer,” Hudson said, and she detected the slight cracking in his voice.

She remembered what Cole had told her. Both of Bannon’s sons died. She thought, with a pang, of Matty and gave his hand yet another squeeze. She said nothing, but reminded him that she was there. He swallowed, eyes shining, and went on:

“I spent my childhood pretty blissfully unaware of most of the politics. My mother passed before I was old enough to remember her, but our clan was fairly large, and cubs were raised by anyone and everyone. I was happy, running around after the elders, learning about hunting, trapping, medicine, making fires, making rope, learning to read, learning to track game. Exploring the woods with the other kids.

“I only went to a conclave once in all that time. My father and Brigham went every year, of course, and Mason had been going for a couple by then too. He talked Father into bringing me along. He seemed reluctant. I’d never shown much interest in learning to lead. I was twelve, but still very much a child, my head in the clouds. He relented but warned me not to distract Mason from learning our ways. I swore not to. I spent most of my time off in the woods, staying out of his way, but I was curious.

“The political side of things was awfully dull. A slew of Alphas and elders, sitting around talking about matching up this daughter with that son to strengthen the bonds and the blood, disputing territories, discussing changing this law or that. I tried to listen. Both my brothers were able to sit there and take it all in, to talk with my father about what had happened over dinner. I couldn’t bring myself to care, or remember who was who.

“By the second day, I gave up and took to staying out of the meeting areas. Instead I ran around the camp and talked to everyone else. Learned new ways to make rope and traps. Listened to the elders of the other clans tell their legends and tall tales. Bartered for some books—I’d read all the ones our clan had already. Got roaring drunk for the first time in my life thanks to a couple of crazy Betas from Calgary. I couldn’t wait to get back and tell the other kids about it.

“The last day, things took a turn. Brigham took a liking to a sow he shouldn’t have. She was already mated to the Alpha of another clan. He’d always been a rule follower. Ready to step up when the time came. He could have had any of the women in our clan. He’d already sired cubs. But something about this one set him off. He challenged her mate and lost. That should have been the end of it. He should have been killed for the insult, but my father was well respected enough that his pleas were heard. In the end, it didn’t matter. His wounds were too grave and they became badly infected. He died before we made it home.”

Hudson shook his head slowly, a faraway look in his eyes. Tali felt the pain coming off him, and wondered if she was being cruel making him relive this after all these years. But surely it wasn’t good to keep the past locked away, buried under so many layers and hidden behind such steep walls.

How was it that he’d never even told Matty? Was it that awful? Was he really so ashamed? Whatever came next, Matty would have understood. And so would she.

“My father was distraught. I’m told he loved my mother very much, and that losing her changed him. Losing Brigham certainly did. He was angry, closed-off. I barely saw him for months. But Mason stepped up. He was determined to do right by the clan. He persisted, demanding my father teach him all that he’d taught Brigham to help him get ready to lead. It helped. He may have never quite reached the same level of esteem in my father’s eyes that Brigham had, but he earned his respect, and gave him a sense of purpose again, brought him out of his mourning. The clan loved him, always had. It seemed like everything would be all right.

“But then—” Hudson shut his eyes tight, turning away. “Then he died too. Father had been aging rapidly ever since Brigham died. He sent Mason to go learn with another clan who lived farther inland. He never came back. For weeks, we heard nothing. Along with several others, I went looking for him. The entire clan had been taken out by Hunters. We found him there, lying over two cubs he’d been trying to protect. If there were any survivors, we never heard from them.”

“Oh, Hudson,” she murmured. “I’m so sorry. That’s...beyond awful. I’m just so sorry. That probably seems like not enough, but I can’t…I can’t even think of what else to say.” There were tears in her eyes as she took in his broken expression.

He shook his head. “It’s all right,” he muttered. “I felt the same way when you first arrived after Matty. There’s never anything you can say.”

“I...maybe it’s too late at this point, but Hudson, if it’s too much...you don’t have to go on. Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed…”

“No,” he said. “I’ve…I’ve started. Might as well see it through. Anyhow, we brought Mason home for a proper funeral. I-I didn’t know what to do. I tried to be like Mason. To step up and promise my father I’d learn how to do whatever was needed, but...he shut me out. I’d never been worthy of more than passing notice in his eyes. He knew I didn’t have it in me to lead, and he wouldn’t entertain it. Any time I tried, he’d just mutter at me to leave him alone and turn his back. He spent the last year of his life in his hut. I think some of the elders tried to push him to teach me what he could in the time he had. His health was deteriorating. He wouldn’t eat. And he wouldn’t hear them. One day he just didn’t wake up.”

Hudson shook his head, sighing. She could see there was hurt there, bitterness, confusion. More than a little bit of hatred directed inward. That made her want to jump to his defense, to say whatever she had to to dissuade him of whatever awful things he might be thinking of himself, even if that meant speaking out against his father, a dead man she’d never met.

“Hudson—” she started, but he started speaking again and she shut her mouth.

“There’s…there’s another element to all this that I’d better fill you in on before we get to the end. A girl. Sheena. She was born just a couple of weeks after I was. We grew up together. There were lots of kids around, but she was the best of them. We’d all play together, get under the elders’ feet or mess around in the river, but at least half the time it was just us. She was fearless. She always wanted to venture out farther than any of the other kids, cross into places we weren’t supposed to, climb trees that were too tall. I guess I was in love with her before I was even old enough to understand it, because I’d follow her along on any scheme no matter how crazy. She had me wrapped around her finger, and she knew it.”

Though Tali realized there was no way this story could end well, for a moment she saw a flicker of light and fondness in his eyes before his expression turned somber again.

“When Brigham died, we were just about old enough to start to understand what we felt for each other. Sheena helped me through it. We started spending most of our nights together in an old abandoned hut. We were too young really, but her mother was fond of me and understood that I was on my own. My father was too wrapped up in his grief over Brigham and teaching Mason how to lead to pay us any mind.

“She grew up beautiful, fierce and strong. Mason would have been well within his rights to set eyes on her as the future Alpha, but he wouldn’t have dreamed of it. We were a pair, had been since before we could walk. I thought I had our future all mapped out. Eventually, my father would pass and Mason would be Alpha. I would help him in whatever way he needed, I’d support our clan, protect and provide for them, but the politics of it all would be up to him. All I wanted was her, to build us a place, raise up some cubs. Something simple and good and mine. But then Mason died, and it all went to hell,” Hudson said, shaking his head.

“It got tough after that. I was nineteen when Mason died. Twenty when my father did. She tried to push me toward acting as Alpha, and I resisted. I reminded her that my father had had no interest in showing me how to rule. She’d scoff over that, tell me he’d get over it, and I’d get on her about being insensitive. She couldn’t stand him. I knew it was on my behalf, and I was grateful for that, but it still pissed me off. He’d outlived a wife and two sons. He was a broken man.

“After he passed, she tried to push me to it even harder. I was only twenty. Our clan does not formally recognize Alphas until they’re twenty-one. I did whatever I had to to help them out of course, but I shied away from giving orders or acting like a leader. It frustrated her. She claimed I was letting his twisted view of me warp my reality, that I was using my age as an excuse. It was hard. The word coward was thrown around more than once. I told her maybe I was, that maybe all I wanted was to run off with her and build a cabin in some no-man’s land somewhere and forget the whole thing. I was never supposed to be their leader. I didn’t think I could do it,” Hudson said, full of self-loathing.

“That’s when Ronin came along. I guess you know about him from Blackburn. I’ll admit, I saw his arrival as a way out. He was old enough. Strong enough. He seemed fair-minded, decent. He showed up with a couple of Betas, his sons, a few elder females. The rest of their clan had been wiped out by an illness, but they were immune. The laws of hospitality demanded we let them stay, and we did. It seemed clear enough he had an interest in leading. Not everyone loved the idea.

“The elders began talking about how they might adjust our laws to allow me to take on the role of Alpha sooner, but I resisted. I spent time with Ronin. I thought he...he seemed intelligent enough. His bear form was the largest I’d ever seen, even at the conclave when the toughest bears among us would compete in staged fights. I saw it as an out. He could take over, and I could slip into the background with Sheena and forget about how much my father hadn’t wanted me in that role.

“But she didn’t want that. She’d tell me: ‘He’s got his eye on Alpha. It’s why he came. You need to stop cozying up to him, letting him manipulate you into thinking he’s a better man for the job. You need to get your damn father’s voice out of your head and listen to the people who are still here who want you to lead.’ Every night we’d argue in circles. It always ended with one of us storming out as a bear and going off to sleep in the woods. More than once we turned so quick we brought the roof down on our heads. Every other week I was fixing the damn hut.

“Anyway. I guess she got tired of my weakness. Tired of trying to make me fit the mold of a proper Alpha. I guess maybe she realized it wasn’t meant to be, and somewhere along the way she realized an Alpha’s mate was what she wanted to be. She certainly had the strength for it. She, uh…” Hudson swallowed hard. “She took up with Ronin. She gave herself to him.”

Tali’s mouth fell open, and she clapped a hand over it to stop herself from gasping. She could see the torment in his eyes, the utter heartbreak. She’d seen it twice before, once on the day she’d arrived in Newcomb for Matty’s funeral, and once when she’d told him in the bar, after that heart-stopping kiss, that she loved someone else.

“That was it for me. I’d convinced myself he was the better choice for the clan but I-I never thought he’d be the better choice for her. Every reason I had to stay dissolved the moment I saw them together. Something inside me broke. I left. I left them and I left my clan.”

Tali’s heart hurt at the expression on his face. “Hudson, that’s…I can’t believe she—”

“Yeah,” he grunted. “I couldn’t either. At first. But she’d made it clear what she wanted, and I made it clear I couldn’t be that for her. Guess I wish she’d have seen fit to tell it to me straight, but...it was probably inevitable that I’d drive her to him. Anyway, I made it to Newcomb after a while. Took up a job on a fishing boat, just ‘cause it was something to do other than wallow in self-pity day in and day out. I still did a fair amount of wallowing by night, of course. Until Matty showed up,” he said, with a bittersweet smile.

“This kid from Chicago who couldn’t handle it up and quit on us, and Matty took his place. He was one of a kind. That was clear from the start. It was impossible to stay glum with him bouncing all over the place, losing his shit every time he saw a damn puffin. Ella was just a bun in the oven at that point, and he was shoving ultrasounds in our faces every chance he got, over the moon about it. Guess he saw me for an easy mark because I never could quite tell him to shut up about it like the rest of them could,” he said, chuckling.

“He drew me out, just by being him. Then Ella’s mom took off when she was just a couple of months old and left him high and dry. He was so lost, and so determined to do his best for her. I helped as best I could. Wasn’t an expert by any means, but in the clan, cubs are precious. We all look after them at one point or another, and I had a better idea about what to do than he did. What I didn’t, we figured out together.” He smiled again, more warmth in it now than sadness.

“Anyway. That was that. Got to be that I barely felt like a bear anymore, and I thought about them less and less. What good would it do thinking of her lying in his arms day after day? She’d made her choice, and she was always one to live in the moment. I doubted she wasted many thoughts on me. So I let it go. Or tried to. Cole’s right,” he muttered. “When he did show up, I shut him out completely. I didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to picture it, think about it. I knew the kid was bursting with something to say, something important, but I wouldn’t hear a word. I was happy, and I wanted to stay that way.”

He frowned. “I didn’t think it could be as bad as he claims it is,” he said quietly. “Not saying I don’t...believe him. I can’t see why he’d lie, or go charging around there at risk to himself if there wasn’t something to be worried about. I thought Ronin was all right. Never paid much attention to his sons. They were only kids when I left. But he really thinks they could do something like this? Hunt people? Hurt...hurt one of our own?”

“He does,” Tali nodded, aching. “He didn’t tell me the details, but they did kill her. His little cousin. He believes that with all of his heart. It’s why he was banished. He tried to kill them over it. I guess...the women of the clan convinced Ronin not to kill him. They sent him away instead. That’s…that’s why he killed that one who came down here...Sterling. He was one of the sons. Cole was just trying to protect the people in this town. Just like he is now,” she choked out. “God. Hudson, I’m so scared. I know it’s dark now, but you have to take me up there when it’s light out. I can’t just stay here wondering. If he’s dead, I need to know.”

She was crying again, and this time he was the one to place his hand over hers and squeeze it. “All right,” he said. “If he’s not back before morning, that’s what we’ll do. But Tali, I’m sure he will be.”

“Can I…can I stay here until I hear from him? I’m sorry, I know I’ve taken up so much of your night, and made you talk about all of that awful stuff that happened to you, and I’m so sorry but—” She stopped her hysterical, sobbing rambling as Hudson leaned forward and gave her a quick, tight hug. She felt him kiss the top of her head and give a simple “Tali” that somehow had an instant calming effect.

He was so solid and warm. She wanted to stay like that, in his arms with his earthy, masculine scent engulfing her, but before any time at all he was pulling away. “Of course you can stay. I’ll put on some more tea.”