Staying away from Everly for an entire weekend wasn’t easy, and by the time Jack arrived at her house Monday morning, all he wanted to do was see her. He didn’t really care anymore about what she’d done or how angry it had made him, he just wanted to see her.As they went about setting the posts for the fence, all he could think about was how fruitless his search through the German books from the libraries had been. His German was pretty good. He’d been studying it since he was little. His father had told him that he would be a better Alpha if he could speak the old language, and Jack had always wanted to do whatever he could to be the best Alpha possible.So he’d learned German. He’d learn to speak it. He’d learn to understand it when it was spoken. He’d learn to read it, and he’d learn to write it. None of it was easy. But he was confident in his ability to search through those books and find any clues that were hidde

The book in Jack’s hand felt like it weighed a hundred pounds as he rushed out to the trucks and the shifters who were begging him to hurry the hell up like they hadn’t eaten in a hundred years.He rushed out and jumped into the driver’s side, carefully placing the book on the console between himself and Chase.“Is that what I think it is?” Chase asked as Jack buckled his seatbelt and turned the truck on.“Yeah,” Jack said, turning the truck around to head back toward their village.“But… those aren’t supposed to leave the village, his best friend reminded him.“I know,” Jack said. “It was stolen.”“It was stolen? By Everly? On your watch?” Chase’s eyebrows rose higher with every question.“Yeah,” Jack said again, his mind on other things. If someone found out that the book had been taken out of the library, he would deal with that lat

“I have to marry you?”Everly repeated what Jack had said, trying to make sure she understood.He nodded. “Yeah. Well… I guess not me. But someone. And since you’re basically out of time, and I’m the only guy around that fits the criteria, it’s probably going to be me. Unless you want to go to another pack and see if there’s another Alpha’s son or Alpha that wants to marry you. Which maybe you could find. But… that would take some time.”Everly stared at him for a moment, not daring to say the obvious alternative. She would never even consider marrying Slate anyway.“All right,” Everly said, shaking her head slightly because she still couldn’t quite wrap her head around what Jack was telling her. “Is that what this marking ceremony is that the book was talking about? Is that a wolf shifter wedding?”Jack shook his head. “No, that’s… something

After Jack and the others left, Everly had a little while to think about everything that had happened before her father got home from work. Jack had volunteered to stay with her, but she had told him that it was okay. She needed to fix dinner, and she really needed some time to process everything.The fence was done, and it looked great. She’d gone outside to take a tour of it before everyone had left. Not there was a lot to see, but Jack wanted to show her how to open the gate. The handle had to be lifted and then swung open. That way, Toby couldn’t just push it open. It looked like it would hold him in. As long as he didn’t dig his way out. She didn’t think she’d be taking his eyes off of him when he was outside anyway.Since the fence was done, Jack didn’t really have any reason to come back the next day, but he said he’d come back anyway. She was glad—she wanted to see him.At the same time, Everly was nervous. She d

“Everything is gone.” Everly looked around the attic. All of the boxes of her mother’s stuff, as well as everything else, was gone. “Where in the world would my dad have taken it?”Jack stood behind her, quiet, for a few moments before he said, “Probably that shed he mentioned the other day, the one on the edge of the forest.”Everly turned to look at him. “Do you think he’d take her camera out there? What if something happened to it?”Jack shrugged. “He didn’t want you looking at that stuff, right? Where else would he put it? If it’s not up here, there’s not a lot of other places to put it. I mean, we could check in his closet, but if it’s not in there, it has to be in the shed.”Everly let out a long sigh. There was no way in the world she was going out to that shed, not by herself. “I don’t even know where the key is.”“I do,” he s