*Arealla*We walked away from the house. As soon as we left, we were hit with the scent of the Red Timber wolves again, but it didn't bother us so much this time. We were already on our way out, and there was only so much that we could do.They hadn't officially claimed this territory, so they couldn't really fight us.Soon, we reached the car, and then we were driving back to the pack lands. It wasn't far, and with my mind busy thinking of everything Lucille told me, we reached the place where the cars were kept without me noticing the time. It made so much more sense to me now.It was hard to hear everything over the roar of the engines, over the tires on the asphalt. It was just so much better once the cars were kept at a distance from the pack homes. I hadn't even realized it until we had gotten back to the pack lands.But the city had been noisy. And it interfered with more than just the sense of smell.We parked the car and got out. And I felt an almost immediate sen

*Arealla*"Whether it's trustworthy, I can't answer to that," she said, shaking her head. "I have no idea as to the truthfulness of the source. But how I know, that question I can answer. I know that you're from the Diamante Pack, because the Alpha and Luna are at our door, claiming that you're their long lost daughter."I stared at Liana. How could that be true? But before I could ask her anything further, she turned to Marcus."They've requested passage as the rules denote," she told him. "Shall I see that everything is arranged?"Marcus looked at her for a moment, and then nodded tersely.I had no idea what that meant. I had no idea what the rules of passage were, but now was not the time for me to object to anything. And now was definitely not the time for me to demand answers.I needed to speak to these wolves that were claiming to be my parents.Both of them wolves. And an Alpha and Luna pair, too. There was no way that I would ever have imagined that. But then agai

*Arealla*"And if it is not honored," Tessa growled. "Then I will take my daughter back. I will drag her back to the pack by her fur if I have to."I wanted to snarl at the man and woman that had just given us that ultimatum. But my thoughts surprised me a little. Us. I thought of myself as part of this pack now. In the moment, it felt like it had just come out.But the more that I thought about it, the truer it felt. I was part of this pack. Like Liana was. Like Ben was. Like Marcus was.It was the wolves of this pack that had protected me, that had brought me back here. Back home. It was wolves of this pack that were helping me to discover where I came from. But there was no doubt that now, I was part of them.And I didn't take too kindly to being told that I was going to be removed from them.And there was no way that I was going to accept that I could be bought."How dare you," I stared at the man and woman.I expected Marcus to stop me. But I wouldn't have let him.

*Arealla*I remained in place as Marcus ordered his guards to have Gregor and Tessa brought back in. I wondered what they thought was going to happen.We waited the full three hours out. We didn't want them to think that we had given in so quickly. And we also didn't want them to think that we had reached some kind of easy resolution.It had just been better to make sure that we just stayed the entire wait time out, and then we called them back.It also gave Ben a good amount of time to make headway with his plan. They also probably wouldn't notice that he was gone. After a three hour debate, the rational thing to conclude would be that someone needed to see something being done around the pack.But we weren't going to give them that long to notice his absence in any case.The truth was that we needed to keep them talking for as long as we could. And to get as much information out of them as we could. That was going to be a little difficult. They had already tried to cut to

*Arealla*I hated that he had reduced me to this. I hated that this was what I had become. But here I was, crying on my bed. Brought to tears because of a boy.Well, a man. A wolf. I wasn't entirely sure. And that was what stung the most of all of this.He was supposed to be my mate. It had been one thing when the weakness from the mate bond came because of me. It was one thing when I was the reason that we weren't connected. But I had an excuse.I had been raised human, completely unaware of the wolf world. I had thought that was what I was. I had never had any reason to think otherwise. And then, when my wolf had come to me, every part of being a wolf had come slowly. It had been hard and difficult to draw each part of the wolf out of me.I had never once thought that I would be able to get to the point where I could communicate through the mate bond, like every other mated wolf could. I had never even thought that I would be able to consolidate the bond.And then, I had