Chapter 1

Mom held out a slice of cake to me. She was still wearing the moonstone bracelet around her wrist.

I braced myself against the doorframe and pointed at it. "Turn it off first."

She looked down and finally seemed to remember what she was wearing. She lifted her fingers from the stone.

The tightness in my chest finally eased.

Moonstones were originally used to train pups to send distress signals. The wearer had to infuse the stone with their own energy for it to transmit a signal to their blood relatives.

My senses were unusually sensitive. Whenever I received one of those signals, my heart raced, and my whole body trembled.

Mom knew that, yet she still helped Leah test it again and again.

The moment I stepped inside, Leah turned her phone toward me. On the screen, I was stumbling through the front gate, nearly losing my balance as I rushed up the steps.

I heard my own voice asking, "Where's Mom?"

My younger sister, Leah Holmes, dragged the time bar back and replayed it. "This part is hilarious."

I hissed, "Delete it."

She glanced at me, but her thumb landed on the share button instead. A notification chimed from the family group chat.

Mom caught my hand before I could reach for the phone. "It's just our family looking at it. No one's going to make fun of you."

Leah leaned against her shoulder, still laughing.

Nolan Harding took the timer from Leah, brought over a chair, and gestured for me to sit. "Leah just wanted you to come home sooner. Your mom has been preparing for tonight for a long time."

"I told you I had negotiations tonight," I said.

"I remember." He picked up a napkin and wiped the rainwater from the back of my hand. "I'll drive you back after dinner."

My phone rang at that exact moment. My manager, Ella Reid, told me the client had already left. They had to catch the last flight out and didn't have time to hear another round of explanations.

I asked if we could reschedule the meeting online.

Ella replied, "They made it clear that they were reconsidering the partnership. Get the handover documents ready for me tomorrow."

The call ended.

Leah reached for a strawberry and said indifferently, "So you don't have to go back now, right? You can stay and finish dinner with us."

I stared at her. "Last night, you asked me what time their flight was."

She took a bite of the strawberry without looking up. "You chose to come home. It's not like I hung up on your work call for you."

I shot back, "You told me Mom was dying."

She set the strawberry back on the plate, her eyes turning red. "I'll apologize if that makes you happier. I'm sorry, okay?"

Dad pushed the cake closer to me. "She apologized. If they can't even understand a family emergency, maybe they weren't worth partnering with in the first place."

I looked at Mom, who was sitting beside him as if nothing had happened.

"But Mom isn't sick," I retorted.

"Isn't that a good thing?" Dad brushed it off and picked up his coffee.

Nolan offered to help me contact the other party, to which I responded, "No need."

He glanced at Leah, then lowered his voice as he tried to placate me. "She just wanted everyone to spend the holiday together. If it bothers you, I'll remind her not to do it again."

Nolan had made the same promise after the time my grandmother had supposedly felt her wolf vanishing and was falling into a coma. He'd promised it wouldn't happen again.

But his promises had come and gone so many times that they no longer held any worth. They were like bubbles that popped and dissipated when a gust of wind blew past.

I left the cake untouched, went upstairs, and opened my laptop. I clicked an email that had sat unanswered in my inbox for two weeks.

The West Coast branch was hiring a rescue training coordinator. The position required a three-year transfer, with a report date just three days away.

Mom had previously said that the distance would weaken the blood telepathy. Nolan had said our mate bond ceremony was approaching and that he wanted me to stay.

Regardless, I filled out the confirmation form and hit "Send". Then, I opened my chat with the priest and canceled the ceremony I'd scheduled for next month.

Nolan and I weren't fated mates, and we hadn't undergone marking. Next month, I was supposed to let him bite the back of my neck to mark me.

But now, I turned off the ceremony reminder.