We left the Light the same morning we found out about the prisoner. Elvie and Reu were full of worry, making Mireille promise to write, to hopefully visit with the babies. I think they have plans for us to spend our first winter as parents at the Light. We’ll see about that. Mireille just embraced them tightly. Declan was kind enough to give us a lift back to civilization in his truck, insisting he had to return to Lyra before she worried any further. I like him. We didn’t talk much, but the devotion to his mate is everything I want to be. The protector. The one to make sure life is as it should be. The way he shaped his blood-stained past into something more was admirable. When I dared to tell him that whilst the others slept, he shrugged it off as if it was easy. No effort at all. He’s steered clear of violence all these years, yet I was plunging my mate straight back into that vile world. It makes my wolf uneasy. Is it really possible to never find trouble again after this? De

It’s easy to drive away in a truck when nobody is begging you to stay. If Cal had shouted one word, made one move to chase after me, I know my resolve would have shattered. It’s amazing that I even made it through the mountains, seeing as most of the way was blinded by tears. I sold some of the guns to a random hut-dwelling villager for supplies. I studied the map. Recognising some of the steeper, stranger passes I had slowly worked through, it appeared I had gone a completely insane way through. The route most people mark with a large cross for “absolutely no fucking way. Shattered limbs ahoy.” Declan had used our brief time together to describe what to look out as he walked me back to the truck. My mind was elsewhere, torn between what I needed and wanted to do. He didn’t say anything about Cal. I didn’t ask either. Just looking at Declan stung, seeing as he shares the same perfectly dark, intoxicating eyes as his son. Instead, I numbly listened to him, trying to keep up to his

My Darling Hope, You’re too clever to think this is anything other than my final words. My confession. Asking me to stand guard whilst you rejected Ryan, you have no idea how much that meant to me. I’d have killed him for you if you had said one word. Zero hesitation. Because that's all I ever was - a rogue, a man unable to escape my past.But because you are so much stronger, braver, wiser than me already, you didn’t do that. You handled it yourself, your way. Proud doesn’t cover how I feel when you enter a room. That pride started from the day you were born. Yet I have been cursed never to speak to you, only watch. So I watched everything. Believe me, Hope. Every step, every achievement I was there, right beside your perfect mother. Her spirit lives in you. The fire that made her such a magnetic presence, you can’t escape it. You’re just born to stand out. Unfortunately, I was too. You don’t have huge red hair and height without being noticed. Believe it or not, I was once good

Time stood still. No matter how many times I read that letter, my brain remained stunningly blank. My father is dead. A thought I'd tried to keep at bay has roared into reality. I guess I'm an orphan now. An adult woman with no idea what I'm really doing. The man I love somewhere just outside, the child I'm caring for upstairs. a child that has irreversibly snuck her way into my heart. My heart is torn in too many directions to function. What hurt the most was that Papa still saw himself right to the very end as not being worthy to sit beside my mother. Died believing that even in death, he still has to earn his place at her side. I'm reeling. Panting with my hand propped against the door. Papas' letter describes me as having my shit together. A wise head capable of making good decisions. Right now, I'm lost. Grief is hitting me in waves so powerful my head hits the door and my legs give way. My father. I left my father and fled across the snow without a second thought for him.

Little Button was very happy playing with a few lavender and blush pink flowerheads, tapping them with her chubby fingers to make petals rain down whilst I pulled myself together. I kept my hopes up that perhaps this was some kind of scheme to get my guard down. Maybe if I was lucky, Cal would just be asleep on the stone floor of the inn, not wanting to intrude on us. I hadn't done anything with the old place. It was untouched from the years my parents helped run it. All cold stone floors, big fire and wooden furniture. Little metal framed sash windows that gradually let in long shafts of light.Perhaps if I was very, very lucky and crossed my fingers, Cal might be undressed and asleep Not that it was hard to conjure up the memory of his body. Every ridge of his torso, the feel of his solid back underneath my fingertips immediately jumped into my mind. I thought of my mother and father, wondering just what they would make of his crazy flower-filled escape. Knowing my parents are b