Rebecca’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Is he the grumpy one, or is that you?”
“That depends on the day,” I said truthfully.
For a moment, everything felt easy. The conversation, the laughter, the way the mate bond pulsed quietly between our hands. It was dangerously easy to forget the weight sitting in my chest, the reason I’d come here in the first place.
Then Rachele tilted her head, curiosity glinting in her turquoise eyes.
“So,” she said slowly, “why did you have a meeting with the quads before you found us?”
The question hit me like a fist to the gut.
I inhaled sharply, feeling my wolf shift inside me, uneasy. The scent of pine thickened around us, the silence of the woods suddenly heavier.
“Because I came to beg,” I said finally, the truth rasping up my throat like sandpaper.
