“Wynter made it,” I tell him. “It’s my favorite of all her work.”
He nods, still staring at the woven scene as if entranced.
His eyes occupied, my own gaze inadvertently slips over him, first tentatively then freely, surreptitiously drinking him in. His long, lean body. His exquisite profile. The long lines of his neck. His hair a tousled mess, grazing his neck in uneven spikes, curling around the back of his ear. I imagine it would be soft to the touch. Soft, where the rest of him is hard.
Except for his lips.
I wonder, suddenly, what it would be like to kiss him...to feel his full lips against mine.
Yvan’s head snaps up, color lighting his cheeks, his mouth open in surprise.
I look quickly away, heart thudding, flushed and mortified, scared that he can see clear into my mind and view these wildly improper thoughts.
He can’t read your mind, I insist to myself. Of course he can’t. But...how else to explain his reaction?
I glance back up at him, deeply embarrassed.
The color on his cheeks has deepened, and he’s now staring at me with an ardent intensity that sets me reeling even more.
He swallows audibly, his eyes riveted on mine. “I should...be going.”
I nod disjointedly, his green eyes playing havoc with my heartbeat.
He hands me the sack, his warm fingers brushing mine, and steps back, constrained and formal once again.
I grip the sack tight. “Good night, Yvan,” I force out, heat burning at my neck and cheeks. “Thank you for the food.”
We’re silent for a few tension-fraught heartbeats.
“Good night, Elloren.” His voice is low and warm as dark honey.
His eyes flit down my form in one languid line. Then his face grows uneasy and his head gives a small jerk up, his eyes gone a fraction wider like he’s startled himself. His gaze turns deeply conflicted.
He shoots me his familiar intense, fiery look and strides out.
*
My heartbeat is still erratic when I slip into my lodging, wildly flustered.
The fire is fully stoked, the room cast in a warm, comforting glow that instantly begins to soothe my troubled emotions.
Diana is lying on my bed, her arm around the sleeping Selkie. Ariel is lying on her own disastrous bed, her angry eyes hard on the Selkie as if she’s trying to mentally drive her away, and Wynter is kneeling in front of Ariel’s bed, talking to her in a low voice, her thin hand gentle on Ariel’s scarred arm.
Diana’s eyes, very much awake and alert, follow me as I take off my woolen cloak, hang it on a hook Jarod placed for us and sit down on the floor by my bed, resting my shoulder against the mattress. I realize we’re going to have to get more beds, with so many people now living here.
“How is she?” I notice how pained the Selkie’s expression is, even in sleep.
“She seems very tired, but not as scared,” Diana replies. “I think she’s beginning to realize that she is safe, and that I am dangerous and on her side.” Diana grins at me, her intimidating I am the daughter of an alpha grin that never fails to raise the hairs on the back of my neck.
“Yvan Guriel brought her some food.” I lift the bag. “Dried fish.”
Diana wrinkles her nose. “I knew that before you set foot in the room,” she says, affronted by my continual underestimation of her superior Lupine senses. “I smelled him out there,” she tells me, cocking her head and watching me closely. “Waiting for you.”
Her words hang in the air between us, my flush heating again.
Lupine senses. I realize she heard my entire conversation with Yvan and can sense our pointless attraction. Diana stares levelly back at me, remaining uncharacteristically and blessedly silent on the matter.
I’m quiet for a moment, Wynter’s murmuring to Ariel and the crackling of the fire the only sounds in the tranquil room.
I’m grateful that Diana refrains from commenting about me and Yvan, but I’m not able to remain silent when it comes to my brother.
“Diana,” I say hesitantly. “I...I saw you kissing my brother earlier, you know.”
Diana blinks at me, expressionless. “I wish to mate with him,” she finally says.
My worry spikes. “But you told me you wouldn’t because he’s not Lupine, so I’m a little confused on that point...”
“I would not mate with him at present,” she clarifies with a wave of her hand as if this should be obvious. “Only after he becomes Lupine.”
“My brother’s a Gardnerian, Diana,” I point out, growing even more worried.
“What is your point, exactly?”
“Gardnerians don’t become Lupine.”
“Oh, he will,” she says with complete confidence, “to mate with me.”
“Become Lupine?” My brother, a shapeshifter?
“Yes.”
I sigh in surrender and rest my head on the bed, facing Diana and the sleeping Selkie, a fierce melancholy overtaking me. Here she is—Rafe’s choice. What little family I have is beginning to fracture and fall away. Rafe will become a Lupine and leave us. And Trystan... Ancient One knows what will happen to him.
And me—I don’t fit in anywhere. Least of all with Yvan. A bitter pang of hurt and regret courses through me.
“How does someone become Lupine?” I ask, my voice low and sad, curious about how exactly Rafe will be taken away.
She hesitates before answering. “A bite to the base of the throat that draws blood, on the night of the full moon.”
“What will your father do?” I ask, worriedly. “When he finds out about Rafe?”
“My father will like Rafe a great deal,” she assures me. “I am sure of it.”
The two of us are silent for a moment as I fight back stinging tears.
“You know, Elloren Gardner,” Diana finally says, her voice kind, “when I take your brother to mate, we will become sisters.”
I turn my head to look at her, surprised.
“You will be part of my family, then,” she goes on, “whether you become Lupine or not.”
The loneliness, the fear, not being able to go home and be with my uncle, the loss of my quilt, the risks we’re taking, the intense conflict in Yvan’s eyes—all of a sudden, these things wash over me, and I close my eyes tightly, embarrassed to be openly crying into the blanket beneath me. I feel Diana’s hand on my head, which makes me cry even harder.
“It’s not natural, how you people live,” she says as she strokes my hair. “Cut off from each other, so alone. My family will like you very much, Elloren Gardner.”
“They won’t,” I counter, my nose stuffing up. “They’ll see who I look like, and they’ll hate me. Just like everyone else who’s not Gardnerian.”
“No, they will trust my opinion of you, and I like you, Elloren Gardner, even though you are so strange to me. What you did...freeing this Selkie girl, weak as you are. It was very brave.”
Her compliment catches me off guard. I inwardly straighten up at her praise, my embarrassment fading. Diana always seems to be merely suffering through the company of all us non-Lupines, so her good opinion seems all the more valuable and well earned.
“I don’t fit in anywhere,” I tell her.
“You will find a place with my pack,” Diana insists. “I am quite sure of it. I think you should spend next summer with us.”
My tears subside at the improbable thought of spending the summer with Diana.
What if she’s right? What if her people do accept me? Would I truly be gaining family when Diana and Rafe become a mated pair?
Diana and Jarod have mentioned their little sister, Kendra, on more than one occasion. Would she become part of my family, too? And Diana’s mother? Maybe she would become my friend.
A little bit of hope takes hold inside me.
Her hand on my head is so comforting, so kind. It’s so good to be touched, and I feel myself letting go of some of the stress roiling inside me.
“You didn’t hesitate to help me,” I tell her. “You didn’t hesitate to help the Selkie. Thank you.”
Diana nods slightly in acknowledgment.
“I’d be very happy,” I tell her, “to have you as a sister someday.”