“So then as far as shifters go, you got lucky.”
“Mmm. Depends on how you look at it. Some wolf packs go crazy. The McCalls have to be put down one by one.”
“Who does that?”
Dalton jerked his head toward Jenner, who was barely visible so far behind them. “The Silver brothers are the enforcers around here. If a shifter steps out of line, Jenner and his brothers fix the problem.”
“What? Why them? That doesn’t seem fair. I mean, they have enough shit going on without policing everyone.”
“Not everyone. Just the ones who threaten to expose us or who hurt humans. And just in Alaska. The Silvers can handle it, and most of the time, just their presence here keeps the rest of us in line.”
“Oh.” She relaxed into the gentle rocking gait of her horse. There was so much more to Jenner than she’d known. She couldn’t have ever guessed how complicated his life was, and now his story about his mom made more sense. He didn’t want her weighed down with his shifter shit for the rest of her life. Still, she wasn’t his mother and she deserved to make an educated decision for her own life, not be booted out of his without her consent. “So the McCalls all go crazy?”
“Every one of them. Those boys have poison in their blood. They have a long history as man-eaters. Not like the Dawson pack. Your mate helps keep humans safe from the McCalls.”
“My mate,” she murmured. Too bad that word didn’t mean more to Jenner.
“I can’t have daughters,” Dalton admitted low. “I mean I can, but they die when they’re born. Bears just don’t have female offspring. All of their babies live. My woman lost a daughter, and we never recovered. I’ll never try again. Hurting a mate, for a shifter, it’s the worst feeling in the world. I can see you’re pissed at Jenner, but he has his reasons for doing what he’s doing. He’s feeling this, too, even if he doesn’t act like it.”
“Oh no, Dalton. I’m so sorry about your daughter.”
He twitched his head. “Bears are unlucky with their hibernation, wolves are unlucky with breeding. We get the animals and the power that comes along with them, but we sacrifice other things. We don’t settle down easily, you understand? It’s not because we don’t want to. It’s because we don’t want to hurt the women we fall for.”
“But shouldn’t it be up to your mates to decide whether they can handle this life?”
Dalton shrugged one shoulder up to his ear. “I don’t know. Before I bonded to my woman, I would’ve said yes, but looking back now, I should’ve stopped what was happening between us from the start.”
Lena’s heart sank at how jaded Dalton’s experiences had made him. And she didn’t blame him. Losing a child and then separating from a mate were life experiences so unimaginably painful, how could they not change a person’s outlook on life?
“I lost my first mate,” she said with a sympathetic look. “I totally understand how it changes you.”
Dalton looked up at the moon. “We make one hell of a pack out here,” he murmured. “All broken.”
But he was wrong. They weren’t broken. Broken was what happened when they went through something hard and stopped living. Broken was what happened when a person started running and never looked back. She’d done that. She’d been broken, and she saw nothing but strong men here. Their experiences made them tougher, and they were each still trying, even if they’d given up on mates.
This was the first moment in years that she didn’t feel broken.
And as soon as she got to the lodge, she was going to upload her pictures, send them off to Bucks and Backwoods before her deadline, then ask for Tobias to be her bush pilot out of here because it was unacceptable to break all over again.
She’d finally begun to find herself and Jenner had been pivotal in starting the changes in her. She understood his desire for her to live a better life than he thought he could provide, and she loved him even more for it. That was his sacrifice, but now it was her turn.
Lena wasn’t ready to give up on this, even if he was.
The beginnings of a plan were forming in her mind, but she needed a Silver brother to help carry it out. Tobias didn’t know it yet, but he was about to pay Jenner back for shredding him up all those years ago.
Tobias was about to save them both.
****
Jenner leaned against the kitchen island and stared suspiciously at Lena, who was sitting at the dining table, typing away on her laptop. Was she smiling? This was not how he’d imagined their last morning together. He’d prepared himself for more death-glares and tears, but from the looks of it, Lena was just going to ignore him completely until she left this place in an hour.