Sydney
Cosette screams into the foyer, her apron knotted so tightly in her hands that her slim fingers are white. Her light brown hair is flaked with silver, and her dark brown eyes glow like embers in the chandelier light as they narrow into a glare.
I shut the front door to my manor firmly behind me, ignoring the incessant screech of the wind howling outside, and eye my housekeeper–my life manager, honestly–as she huffs a breath and glowers at me.
“Am I past curfew?”
“Alpha Sydney, I thought you were dead!”
“It’s just a blizzard.” I shrug out of my coat as Dalia–the only other person I employ at my house–comes up behind me to take it, gathering my coat, gloves, and hat in her tiny hands. I give the mousy, red-haired maid a gracious, silent smile before turning back to Cosette with a frown.
“Don’t look at me like that, Your Grace.” She plants her hands on her hips and looks up at me as I approach her. “It’s below zero out there and blowing like hell has frozen over.”
“You’re just upset I’m late for dinner.”
“Late for dinner again,” she huffs, following me with her eyes as I step past her and start hiking up the stairs.
“Put it in the fridge for me, Cosette. I have plans tonight.” Plans to work. Plans to sit in my office going over dead-end leads, again, into the mysterious circumstances surrounding Sasha of Eastonia.
“You’re going to work yourself to death!”
Her mumbled reply falls on deaf ears as I deftly unbutton the starched white dress shirt I’ve been stuck in all day. I walk down the main hall on the second floor of the manor–a stately home where, a long time ago now, my father was almost born.
My grandparents came here to seek refuge after returning from Maatua to rival Alphas trying to take over our castle and my father’s throne.
Over forty years later, it’s my home now. It’s been renovated to my tastes with modern, sleek finishes and dark hardwood floors, and the surrounding ten or so miles all falls within my territory.
I open the door to my bedroom and close it with my foot, stripping out of my shirt and pants. The second I toss my phone across the room, where it lands with a soft thud on my bed, it starts to vibrate.
Ryan’s name lights up across the screen with a rather unflattering picture of him posing drunk against one of the marble statues in my mom’s rose garden during one of her parties last spring.
I close my eyes, sigh, and try to gather myself before answering.
“What?”
“Oh, fuck off. I guarantee I had a worse day than you, prick,” he jests, then groans as if stretching out. “What are you doing?”
“Just getting home–”
“What were you up to in the NZ tonight? You were so close to my territory and didn’t even stop to say hi to your own twin.”
I pull a sweatshirt from my dresser. “Are you still tracking my location?”
“You keep your location services turned on on your phone,” he chuckles. “Sometimes I like watching you bop around town.”
“Is there a reason you’re calling?”
“I don’t know what things are looking like in your neck of the woods, but the bar is still open in Silverhide if you want to come out for a drink. You can crash here, if you want.”
It’s a tempting offer. I put my phone on speaker as I pull my sweatshirt over my head and fish for a pair of jeans. “I can be there in half an hour.”
“You didn’t answer my question–” I hang up the phone, button my jeans, and run my fingers through my hair, ruffling it free of its usual swept back style. My reflection in the mirror over my dresser catches me off guard. The dark circles under my eyes. The pinched expression. The ruddy cheeks nearly blistered from the cold.
No one should be out in this storm tonight, but there I was, walking through the Neutral Zone, heading right toward that flower shop I can’t get out of my head.
I think about her all the time–Sarah. I don’t know her last name. The last time I saw her was two months ago.
I don’t know what drove me to go there tonight. I’ve been trying to come up with reasons to go talk to her again. But I’m not like Ryan. I can’t walk into a room and schmooze my way into any crowd. I need a reason to talk to her. I need this feeling to make sense.
I tried to ignore it, and thankfully, it was a busy enough winter that the last two months flew by in a blur of running my engineering company and investigating any leads on Sasha, Gabriel’s cousin.
The most wanted woman in the Allied Kingdoms.
I lay down on my bed for a moment and stare up at the ceiling while the wind whips snow against the second story windows to my right.
In my defense, I did knock on Sarah’s door. I wasn’t surprised to see her shop wasn’t open tonight. Everyone is hunkered down, riding out the blizzard.
Not me. I was out like a fucking idiot unable to stop myself from just… laying eyes on her again.
Something about her nags at me like nothing else I’ve ever experienced before.
Huffing out a breath, I roll off the bed, grab my phone, and go downstairs.
“Seriously?” Cosette follows me down the hallway leading to the garage. “Alpha Sydney, I insist–”
“Take the night off, Cosette.” I halt with my hand on the doorknob and lean down to give her a kiss on the cheek.
Her face burns red as I slip into the garage. She murmurs some prayer to the Goddess ripe with curse words before stomping off, her heels clacking on the floorboards.
I grab the keys to my truck and give myself another second to back out.
Ryan’s going to want to know why I went to the NZ.
Maybe it’ll be good for me to talk to someone about that why, even if I don’t want to think about the conflicting feelings roiling in my gut.
I remind myself of the promise I made to myself all those months ago in Eastonia, when Evander nearly died in Kenna’s arms, as I climb into my truck.
* * *
“I don’t think this winter could get any longer,” Ryan says over the rim of his beer as he scans the rustic bar around us. Everything is dark wood and country style music; a sharp contrast to the more modern, sleek bars and clubs in the city center.
Ryan’s pack is incredibly old school. Blue collar, homestyle, and more in tune with their wolfish abilities.
He takes another drag from his pint and leans back.
I tap my glass. I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes, and we’ve barely said a word to each other.
“It’s a shame we weren’t able to vacation in Maatua this Solstice,” he says absently, his eyes meeting mine. They’re identical to mine, but other than our height, that’s about all we have in common.
“Mom said Misty is still mad at them for sending her away,” I reply.
“She likes her school out there, though. She gets to lay out on a beach and watch surfers all day.”
I roll my eyes to the ceiling. While I agree that Maatua is the best place for our baby sister right now, given the circumstances, Misty has always balked when it comes to listening to anyone other than the little devil on her shoulder. Our mom has commented on how Misty takes after our grandma in looks, but her personality?
Misty and Kenna might have been mixed up somewhere in the heavens and given to the wrong parents because Misty is the reincarnation of Aunt Ella in personality.
Maybe worse than Ella, honestly.
“I didn’t bring you here to talk about Misty.” Ryan shifts his weight on the barstool. It creaks under his weight. “You’ve been weirder than usual.”
I give him a look. “Uh, thanks?”
He waves a hand in dismissal. “Look, I’m worried about you, all right? I get that things fucking sucked in Eastonia last summer. Shit, I saw the aftermath myself when I brought some of my own warriors over to help with rebuilding villages of those packs the rebels took out in the Roguelands. But it’s been over six months. You’ve been gallivanting around Crescent Falls since you came home looking for that Sasha girl with no end in sight.”
“I haven’t been gallivanting,” I say through gritted teeth. “It’s a mission–”
“Yet you have no backup, no team in place to run leads. You’re doing this all yourself while our dad, uncle, and aunt go back to business as usual. What gives?”
“I’m not sure what you want me to say–”
“Then consider this an intervention.” He knits his fingers together on the table between us in a way that immediately reminds me of our father. “You gotta stop looking for her, man. She’s long gone. This is a waste of time. When was the last time you went out and had any fun? Hell, when did you last shift?”
“Order up!” A sing-song female voice drifts through the air in our direction.
Ryan straightens and plasters a soft smile on his face as a young woman with a mop of curly brown hair skips up to our table and places two fresh pints of cheap beer between us. The yellow ribbon holding her hair away from her face trembles as her eyes slide to Ryan’s, and her “customer-service” smile turns into something so bright it could light up the room.
“Thanks, Hadley.” Ryan reaches into his pocket and pulls out a twenty-dollar bill. He slips it into her hand… and maybe I’m imagining it, but his touch lingers for a second too long.
Hadley’s cheeks go a rosy pink before she bites her lip, grins, and hops away.
“That can’t be James’s little sister.” I breath, arching my brow at Ryan.
“She’s not so little anymore,” he replies steadily, but his eyes are downcast on his beer.
Hadley has to be twenty by now, at least.
“She started classes at Crescent Falls University this fall for teaching,” Ryan says without prompting, turning his frosted glass in a circle. “I offered to pay for it, you know, as Alphas should do for members of their packs, but my Beta forbade it.” He clicks his tongue and eyes me.
James, his Beta, is an asshole. I get why they’re friends, sure. Ryan and James go way back to when we were all in warrior training together as teenagers. Both love to fight, workout, and watch sports, but Ryan doesn’t have the mean streak James possesses.
I’ll never understand why Ryan chose Asher to be his Beta.
I technically don’t have a Beta, at least not for another year, when Asher turns twenty-one and can step into his Goddess-destined role. He’s the son of my father’s Beta, Cassian, and his mate Hannah. Right now, he's in training to take over the role, and I keep him busy enough tending to minor pack issues.
“That shouldn’t have been James’s decision,” I argue, but Ryan shakes his head.
“I’ve learned not to get between those siblings. They’re all they have, you know. No parents. Immigrants, the like.”
I chew the inside of my lower lip. James and Hadley were born in Eastonia and came here as children with their family. I don’t know the details of how they ended up orphans.
I’ve never asked, but I don’t get the opportunity to pry, because Ryan says, “Do you still look for that woman you had a one-night-stand with last summer?”
“No.” The word slips out so rapidly I wonder if I’ve said anything at all.
“Maybe you should,” he says, shrugging. “You haven’t been with anyone since then.”
“That’s my business, Ryan.”
“I am worried about you, Syd.” His gaze is honed on mine and serious, not a single glimmer of jest in those stormy blue eyes. “After what happened–”
My phone rings at the perfect moment. Sighing with relief, I pull it out of my pocket.
“It’s Mom. I should get going, anyway. Thanks for the beer.” I rise and leave my untouched pint behind, answering the phone on my way out the door.
“Hey, Mom–”
“Oh, Sydney. I need your help. Can you come over first thing in the morning?”
She sounds stressed. “Is everything okay?”