35. Genevieve

We couldn’t leave Shadowlands without talking to Cillain. I knew he would be distraught about Jackson, but he was already outside on the porch with a steely gaze in his blue eyes. Leant over, elbows perched on the porch railing his entire body was tensed.

He had been soft, wounded, openly weeping at finding our parents. He had cradled me to him as I dropped to the floor in hysteria. Yet now he was brutally cold, merely nodding at me. Noting the bag Nikolai carried he muttered. “You are heading back to White Forest?”

“I am but I wanted to check on you first. Poor Jackson…why would they hurt him?”

I attempted to place my hand on his but he was immovable. No embrace, no warmth came from him and for the first time I recognised his Alpha steeliness. My brother was a changed man.

“They killed him to destabilise the pack. To try and take my legs out from under me,” he snapped back, taking his gaze from me. He stared into nowhere, his mind not engaged with me in the slightest. I could feel Ni