Forty Two

The image of a small version of Tasha feeling so lost and empty that she used her friend as a substitute sister almost broke his heart. “I’ll bet Tala was happy to be part of that game.”

Tasha's smile widened. “Yeah, she was. She never had any siblings, so we both got a lot of fun out of that little fantasy.” Her smile faded as she continued. “But maybe I would have coped a lot better if it hadn’t been for what happened when I was four.”

It was a struggle for Onyx to keep his voice even when anger was riding him at the idea of anything hurting her. “What happened, Tasha?”

“For the first four years of my life, my parents and I didn’t live on pack territory. The Alpha—Tala’s dad, Jakob—didn’t approve of my mom mating a human, even though my dad was her true mate. So they lived in a house close by. But my parents…See, my dad was a Navy SEAL, so he went away a lot. My mom wasn’t very good at handling it—not