“A mating should strengthen each partner. I had to act, the sooner the better, to wake him up before it was too late.” Bessemer hissed between his teeth. “This choice the two of you made will destroy you both. I won’t let it take my wolves with you.”

The snarl curling my lip caused Graeson’s ears to twitch forward, and Imogen to step back. I’d fought for him, bled for him, and he was mine. Instinct roared in my ears, and fur stung my arms as the needlelike hairs pressed through my skin.

That night, belly rounded with Graeson’s cooking and happy to be in his company, I had weighed the value of his choice against pack expectation. Later, with Imogen, I had measured duty to his race against what he might contribute to his pack—full-blooded children—and wondered if I had any right to erase those future babies with hazel eyes and wolfen souls. But then it had been me or her. In a flash of consequence where choice had been ripped asunder, I’d saved us.

My life.

His soul.

I had protected him from waking with dried blood in the corners of his mouth and the burden of knowledge that he had brought me here, to his home, as his guest, and he and his people had killed me with his jaws and their prejudice.

And I had no regrets.

Bessemer and Imogen clammed up, and I had a second to wonder why before I saw the reason dart down the hill and slam into his leg. Naked as the day she was born and covered in mud, the child who had waved at me in the forest climbed onto his hip and planted a smacking kiss on his cheek.

“Look at this.” She dangled a dead squirrel in front of his nose. “Now you don’t have to go hunting tonight. I caught dinner for us.”

“Emily, Emily, all teeth and claws. I’m impressed.” He regarded the little mud ball, pride sparking from every pore. “Take it to Aisha and tell her to clean it. We can have stew for dinner.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

Daddy?

That same cartoon light bulb was back and brighter than ever. I didn’t believe in coincidence, and this one was too good to be true. Finding the girl so near the blind wasn’t concrete evidence she was involved in leaving the gifts on my steps, but her proximity added another layer of suspicion that her parents were somehow involved. Yet another nugget to relay to Isaac.

Done mopping up his praise, Emily turned her attention to the gathering of adults she had interrupted without hesitation. She noticed me standing there for the first time and froze halfway to the ground.

“It’s all right.” He patted her head. “This is Cord’s…mate. She won’t hurt you.” The ice in his glare rivaled lesser icebergs. “Will you, fae?”