“Where are you?” Aunt Dot snapped. “They won’t let us leave. They said that Cord—”

“I’m at home, resting.” I cut her off before she got too worked up. “Graeson is with me.”

“He’s with you?” she shrilled. “They said he was trying to kill you.”

I flinched. “Um, about that…”

“Tell them to let us go,” Isaac boomed in the background. “We can’t just sit here while some crazy wolfman is stalking you.”

Had I expected the captives to be happy? No. Had I expected them to try and break free the second Meemaw turned her back on them? Honestly…yes. But I hoped the fact I had requested they stay put, which proved I was indeed still alive to make such requests, might sway them.

Apparently I hadn’t hoped hard enough.

Exhaustion plagued me. “Put Meemaw on the phone.”

“Camille,” she cackled. “I’d ask how you are, but if you’re giving your family hell, then I imagine you’re just fine. How’s Cord? Did you kill him?”

“No.” My heart thumped once, painfully. “He’s right here. We’re about to eat dinner.”

She clicked her tongue. “Hasn’t anyone ever warned you against feeding wild animals?”

“Dad did once.” I hadn’t meant to answer her rhetorical question, but my brain was mush and the words fell out of my mouth. “He wanted me to stop feeding wild rabbits lettuce from my taco bowls.”

That’s how I’d ended up taming Bunnicula, who Lori named after our favorite hand-me-down book at the time.

“You’ll never get rid of Cord now.” Another staticky burst of laughter. “You’ll tame him right proper.”

“Tame I can work with,” I assured her. “Tame means I can swat his nose with a rolled-up newspaper if he tries to eat me again.”

“If he was going to kill you, he would have by now.” She sounded confident. “Crazed as he was, I thought for sure…but here you are. He must truly love you.”

The word—the weight—of love made my skin simultaneously crawl and tingle. “Or he remembered that he’d stashed bacon in my fridge and needed me alive if he ever wanted it back.” If she knew him at all, then she understood how seriously he took his breakfast meats.

“You’ve both made your choices,” she chided. “There’s no use in playing coy with me.”

“Coy is one thing I’m not.” I glanced at the wolf and found his head cocked in a way that made me question how good warg hearing was exactly. “It’s just that he was much less furry when I decided to fight for him.”

Even now the thought of losing him, through his wolf or the selection, squeezed my heart until it ached.