Archive of Our Own

The young woman continued to chatter brightly on her cell phone as they walked down the drive to the truck parked outside. “Anything to add, Bran?” she asked, turning her head to look at him. She used her key fob to unlock the car doors, holding the cell phone between her head and shoulder.

Bran shook his head. “I think you have it covered.” Ariana. Abandoned house. Fae artefact. Harmless. Tick.

This response bought him a broad, pretty smile. “Okay then. I’ll see you in a few hours, Charles. Kiss Naomi for me.” At the other end of the phone, the man responded affectionately. She hung up.

She glanced over at the woman who completed their trio and a flicker of concern crossed her face. “Leah? Are you sure you’re all right?” She chewed her bottom lip. “It got intense in there. You look pretty done in.”

This made Leah frown. “Do I? I feel perfectly healthy.”

There seemed to be no response to this admittedly truthful statement. Nodding, the woman climbed into the driver’s seat of the truck, resting the bag she’d carried with her in the footwell of the passenger side. Given the nature of the contents, Bran and Leah erred on the side of caution and climbed into the back.

The journey was a quiet one, with the radio as a backdrop. Bran suspected it was too quiet, for the woman kept glancing into her rear view mirror to meet his eye and smiling encouragingly. “Still on for Sunday lunch this weekend?” she asked, eventually.

“Absolutely,” he said promptly. “Looking forward to seeing Naomi.”

On his right, Leah remained silent, staring out of the window. She had been so dedicated in this study for most of the journey that Bran had been able to get a good look at her. Tall, slender, with straight, dark-blonde hair tied back in a braid. Unlike the woman in the front, she wore no ring on her wedding finger. Her dark blue sweater was tight, pulled taut across the inviting curve of her breasts. He quickly looked away.

They turned off the highway and Bran took note of the signs. Aspen Creek. They were heading into some mountain town, though he could see little evidence of a ‘town’ as such beyond a church and a garage. The roads were carefully ploughed of snow, grit crunching under tires, but he could see great swathes of pristine white lingering, in between the trees.

The woman made several more turns, each road getting smaller and smaller, each turn tighter and tighter. They were very isolated now.

She finally turned into a gap between two dense walls of firs that only those in the know would notice. She curved to the left, around a huge laurel bush which revealed a large, rustic two-story timber and grey-stoned property with multiple gable roofs.

She pulled up in front of the double doors, yanked on the handbrake and reached into the foot-well for the bag. “I’m guessing you’ll want this.”

Bran accepted the bag, carefully. “Thank you. What a delight.”

The woman laughed. “I’ll see you both on Sunday, then.”

At this, Leah moved suddenly, nodding her agreement. She reached for the handle of her door and climbed out. “Yes. See you Sunday.” She slammed the door behind her but instead of heading for the front doors, crunched over gravel to look at the view, her hands on her hips. He saw puffs of mist as she breathed out into the cold air.

The woman noted this pose. “Bran – is she really okay?” she asked in lowered tones, concern etched on her heart-shaped face.

Bran had formed a suspicion. “I’ll find out.”

He climbed out of the truck and waited for the woman to circle the drive, lifting his hand to wish her farewell. She turned left out of the drive, heading back the way they had come.

The quiet of winter settled around them. He heard an owl hoot in the distance.

The woman – Leah – turned to look at him. “Do you remember anything?” she asked, her voice boldly loud, face pale with worry.

It was as he suspected. “Not a whit,” he replied grimly.

She exhaled in relief and looked up at the sky. “Oh thank God I’m not alone.”

*

The doors of what Bran was certain was a very expensive property were unlocked. They gave each other a look of deep surprise as they prized them open. Inside, they were met by a flagstone-floored hallway lined with oak closets on either side and a wooden bench running down the middle. It smelled of some kind of musky vanilla scent.

Leah opened one and then another cupboard door on her side. “Coats and then boots.” She tried the next doors. “Fur coats and boots.”

He opened a door himself, participating in this game of discovery. “Shelves of—sweat pants and sweatshirts.” He picked up a set, sniffed it. It smelled of soap powder and pine sap. The brand name was emblazoned on the front. “From the Gap.”

“I’m a werewolf,” she announced, then, once again using the same bolshie tone from earlier as if he might possibly find something disagreeable about the statement and she would be inclined to fight him over it.

He smiled, to be reassuring. “Me too.”

Her antagonistic look melted from her face as Leah smiled brilliantly in response. She was particularly beautiful when she smiled, lifting her attractive features into something luminous. “Oh good.” The smile dimmed. “Strange that we know that but don’t know anything else.”

Bran could only agree with that. The whole situation had been strange from the moment he had found himself standing in the basement of a house with two women he didn’t recognize from Eve, having not a clue how he had got there and who the hell even he was.

Since it seemed de rigueur, they both took off their boots and stored them in the appropriate closet, where spaces in the neat racks of shelves suggested they had come from. In socks, they padded from the hallway and up a short flight of wooden steps into a large, open plan common area. A beamed ceiling and wooden floorboards gave the space a rustic feel but the modular furniture and the floor to ceiling windows on the right hand side brought the room into the Twenty-First century. Bran went to investigate the bar, Leah the articles on the coffee table in the center of a U-shaped couch. She pushed magazines around, lifted up a flute with raised eyebrows and then turned on the TV. The news popped up. After thirty seconds of doom and gloom, she switched it immediately off.

“This is a four-hundred dollar bottle of Scotch,” he said, lifting up the bottle of Macallan.

“Again, how do you know that? I didn’t know my name until that girl said it.” Leah approached the bar warily, her hands in her back pockets.

“Leah,” he repeated. He replaced the bottle on the shelf and held his hand out to her. “Bran.”

Her shoulders relaxed a little as she smiled. They shook hands. “Nice to meet you.”

“You, too.” Formal introductions done, Bran rested an elbow on the bar, looking around the room. “So, what do we know?”

“We were investigating a house with the girl. Looking for some kind of fae object, sent there by another woman called Ariana.”

“One presumes our condition is a result of that object.” Which he had left, in its bag, in the hallway. He hurried to fetch it. When he returned, he found Leah had taken the cap off the Scotch and was sniffing it. From the face she pulled, she wasn’t terribly impressed. She didn’t seem inclined to follow it up with a sip.

On the bar, Bran unzipped the bag. Inside was a chalice. It was silver and it stank of fae magic which was a thing he knew like he knew he was a werewolf. “What am I supposed to be doing with this?” he wondered.

“Lock it away? I imagine this kind of a place would have a safe. Though where that would be…” She drifted off as she gestured around.

Bran re-zipped up the bag. “Let’s investigate then.”

The first floor continued to impress. Fire places in every room. Cozy corners and books everywhere. An enormous cherry and steel kitchen with double ovens and a vast stove. A laundry with two sets of washers and dryers. A library, a games room, a music room. Finally, he pushed open a door and Leah exhaled. “This your study, then, surely,” she said.

It certainly looked like a room Bran would personally enjoy. A Chesterfield couch sat adjacent to a stone fireplace. A desk, with a mug of cold coffee and a plate with crumbs set to the side of a laptop. He ignored all this in preference for admiring the wall-to-wall books. His fingers itched to pick them up, to start reading.

More practical than he, Leah lifted the lid of the laptop on the desk, tapped the keys. “Password protected.” She opened drawers and waved something at him. “Cell phone. Also password protected.”

Bran opened the cover of a book on musical theory and found a handwritten inscription, dated December 2009. Happy Christmas, had been written in neat, feminine handwriting. It was signed Leah. He slanted a look in her direction. He wondered what they were to each other. The wolf felt— well, his wolf spirit certainly felt warmly towards her in that ravenous way he associated with werewolf emotions. Different from the young woman who had driven them to this impressive house. Certainly, Bran personally found this woman, this Leah, who gave him books on topics he found interesting, significantly more physically appealing.

“I do hope you’re not my sister,” he announced abruptly.

She snorted. “Oh, I’m definitely not your sister.”

“You sound confident.” He replaced the book, wondering how many on these shelves had been gifts from her.

Her eyebrows rose and her cheeks pinked charmingly. “I smell like you. If you know what I mean.”

Bran did. “That’s a relief.” He could merrily continue finding her attractive, then. “Do you think we’re married?”

Like he had done earlier, Leah looked down at her bare hand. “No wedding ring.” Her hand travelled to her neck, also bare of jewelry. “But perhaps I don’t wear jewelry.”

Bran gave this, and her, further study. It felt unlikely that he would live with this woman and not wish to be bound by marriage. “Lucky me,” he decided.

He was rewarded once more with that smile and then a small, embarrassed shake of her head. Her eyes dipped to her hands again. “You’re a charmer. Perhaps it’s I that is lucky.”

*

They mounted a flight of stairs to find guest suites, currently unoccupied, and a secondary common area that appeared to be mostly used for movie nights. Leah tutted quietly as she tidied up stacks of DVDs, arranged remote controls and fluffed cushions. Bran opened the drapes and paused to take in the view of the snow-capped mountains. Spectacular.

They returned to the first floor and found another staircase. Up this flight of stairs there were three suites. One was his, one was definitely hers – and they were connected by an internal door and by a balcony outside.

As he investigated his room, he could hear her making admiring noises as she investigated her own. He pulled back the comforter on his bed and knew immediately that they had shared it recently. He tucked the bedding back and picked up the book on the bedside table. A book on the House of Plantagenet with a bookmark from the Yellowstone National Park souvenir shop featuring a timber wolf. Once again, he noted the inscription. Another gift from Leah. This time from Christmas 2021.

He lifted the book to his nose and sniffed. A recent purchase.

Leah came to stand in the doorway between their rooms. “It’s like my dream bedroom,” she announced, bracing her hands on the trim. Her eyes gleamed with happiness.

Bran was pleased to hear it. “I have a walk-in closet almost entirely made up of sneakers and hooded sweatshirts.”

Her laughing eyes travelled down his body. “You clearly have a particular sense of style. I wonder if I have a walk-in closet, too.” She turned around and began opening doors. “Ah-hah! Holy—”

He took her awed sound as an invitation and padded across a luxuriously thick cream rug to peer into her walk-in closet. “Bigger than mine,” he surmised. Twice the size, in fact.

Leah held up a pair of sky high heels. “How do I walk in these?” She didn’t seem to require an answer, as she began to eagerly peel off her socks to experiment herself.

Bran ran his hand over a row of dresses, very much at the opposite spectrum in terms of sartorial choices to his own wardrobe. She liked clothes that showed off her long legs. He imagined he liked clothes that showed off her long legs, too.

Heels on, Leah stood upright a good few inches taller than before and now a couple of inches taller than him. She bounced, experimentally. “Guess I can walk in them. Who’d have thought?” She did a quick pace and turn and repeated the action.

Bran, with a vague sense of shame, found himself staring at her butt.

This didn’t feel gentlemanly – despite the evidence suggesting they were intimate, they were for the time being complete strangers to each other – so he left the confines of the walk-in. Her bedroom was more overtly feminine than his, though they were almost a mirror in proportions and layout. Her bed had about a dozen layers, with quilts and blankets laid over it decoratively and more cushions than were truly essential. She clearly spent more time here – she had two comfortable chairs in front of the fireplace, with a table covered in magazines and newspapers, books with bookmarks and an iPad.

However, like his room, he could smell both of their scents equally. Despite having separate bedrooms, they were clearly in and out of each other’s spaces frequently. They slept together, in all senses of the word.

Ignoring the absolutely unnecessarily sense of male pride he felt regarding the situation, Bran picked up the iPad on the coffee table and swiped the screen. He was surprised to be able to access the home screen immediately. “Hey, this isn’t password protected.”

Leah took it from him and began to scroll around hopefully. He sat on one of the chairs. It gave enticingly and he wriggled back until he was comfortable. There was a remote on the side table with three buttons. He picked it up and pressed ‘ON’. The fire bloomed to life. “Nice,” he murmured. He loved a fire.

Slowly, Leah lowered herself into the other seat. “Hmm. It’s not connected to anything but email. Which… I mostly use for shopping, I see.” Her tone was dry. “But I think my name is Leah Cornick.”

“Cornick.” Bran tried it out. It didn’t sound familiar.

She tapped around. “Mrs. Leah Cornick.” Their eyes met, briefly. “I don’t even have contacts on here. Nothing pops up when I type in your name.”

“Photos?”

She tapped some more and shook her head. “Nothing except pictures from this window.” She laid the iPad down on her lap and sighed, troubled. “It’s Thursday, by the way.”

“Good to know.” He rested his head on his propped up hand and stared into the fire. Bran Cornick. Bran and Leah Cornick. Werewolves. Thursday.

They sat for a few minutes, each lost in their own no doubt similar thoughts.

“Well. I know nothing about my past but in my future, I’ll be preparing Sunday lunch for Charles and the girl. Presumably his wife.” Her brow furrowed. “Unless you’re the cook?”

“I can cook,” Bran said slowly, thinking it through. It was frustrating that such basics were easy to bring to the front of his mind and yet there were vast chunks missing. Easier still to get lost in the magnitude of this, the sheer void of forgetting.

“Maybe we both do.” She rose and left the iPad on the chair. “I’m hungry. You?”

“I could eat.”

In the enormous kitchen that clearly frequently catered for the masses, they went through the double refrigerator, pulling out whatever they fancied. He ate directly from a Tuppaware of pasta salad and, after a moment’s thought, said, “I think you’re the cook. And you’re a very good one.”

She was slathering mayo on bread. “You’re basing this on the pasta salad?”

“I am. It’s delicious.” He plunged his fork into some penne and held it out to her. “Try. It’s got some slightly spicy, garlicky, savory vinaigrette on it. I have no idea how to make this.”

Leah duly ate from his fork. She chewed. “That is good. I’ll take the compliment, if you like.”

“I do like.” Bran hopped up on a bar stool and continued to eat. Great house, plenty of books, hot wife who could cook. He was really hitting it out of the ballpark, here.

“Do you think everyone around here lives like this?” Leah wondered, cracking fresh pepper over slices of ham. “Or are you a millionaire?”

“Maybe you came from money. I could be your trophy husband.”

She gurgled out a laugh and then looked surprised at herself. Schooling her face into something more somber, Leah said, “How equal opportunities of you.” She fetched herself a plate after some trial and error and sat down next to him at the kitchen island. “This is a nice kitchen.”

He shook his head, somewhat astonished at the circumstances. “The whole place is out of this world.”

Leah seemed to agree. She began to eat her sandwich in small, neat bites. She had a very ladylike air to her. “I suppose you’re the Alpha. You’re certainly more dominant than I.”

Bran acknowledged this was likely, though he hadn’t dwelled too much on it. “My wolf does feel fairly formidable.” There was something else too. He could feel her wolf, much as he had felt the young woman’s, which had been his first inkling that he might be connected to these women. Leah’s wolf was brighter, somehow. More intriguing. Like a piece of music he very much wanted to listen to.

He leaned towards her, noting even closing that small distance eased the wolf within. He smiled. “I think we’re mated.”

She finished her half of a sandwich. “I would expect so.” It was said primly but her cheeks grew pink with pleasure. She picked up the other half and began to tuck in.

Content with this interaction, Bran finished his pasta in silence.

*

They met at 4pm in the living room, this time with all the evidence they had gathered from various corners of the house.

Bran presented Leah with a photograph that he had found in a drawer of a very chubby-cheeked baby. “Naomi?” he suggested. Then he held up a sheet of paper. “These are all the names and phone numbers in my speed-dial.” He also found an address book, where most of the names and addresses had been crossed out. He decided the speed dial might be a more reliable source of relevant information.

Leah gave the baby a cursory look and then the sheet of paper. “Charles. Sam. Asil. Tag. Anna. Adam. Mercy. Angus. Juste. George.”

“Charles is presumably my second.”

“Presumably. Married to the woman we met today. Maybe this Sam? Short for Samantha? She was funny feeling, to my wolf.”

He inclined his head. “An Omega.”

“Is that what that is?” Leah pulled an interested face. “Curious. Well, none of these other names ring a bell, of course.” She sighed.

From her own pile, she presented him with a dispatch note that had their address. Apparently they were in Montana. She, too, had a photograph – this time of a group of people. From its coloring, it had been taken a couple of decades previously. He was able to pick Leah out, of course, and himself, both sitting front and center. But the others were a mystery.

Everyone was smiling, at least. That was something.

“And finally we have my cell phone.”

From her tone, this she considered to be more significant. “I unlocked it with my face,” Leah explained.

Bran made a ‘gimme’ gesture with his hands. He went first to her messages and then hesitated. “Do you mind if I…?”

“Feel free. They are all utterly meaningless to me.” She slumped back in the couch, pulling a velvet cushion onto her lap and cuddling it.

Her messages were fairly innocuous. She exchanged most with a woman called ‘Kara’ – who seemed to send a daily update on her activities and requests for lifts to various shopping malls or the movies. As he read he adjusted her age to something more like a teenager. Not a daughter, he decided. But something like.

There were a few between her and Tag, who was a name on his speed dial. They were short and to the point – her giving him instructions to deal with various blockages in roads in such a manner it was clear there needed only to be an obedient response. He frequently replied with ‘Yes ma’am!’. There were a handful of more conciliatory ones in November where she appeared to be acting as some kind of food delivery service. Tag had been seriously hurt, in some fashion.

He found one exchange between her and the Charles on the speed dial list that puzzled him. Call your da and put him out of his misery, read one, sent early October. There had been no reply.

Otherwise, the rest were generic texts from courier services, from fuel suppliers, from banks, even some spam that she hadn’t deleted.

Bran was really none the wiser, which was disappointing. He scrolled back up and paused, realizing that one of the conversations he’d assumed was a courier by dint of it just being a cell phone number, not saved as a contact, was not. He pressed it and there unfolded a series of plaintive one-sided messages from Leah to this person. Please call me. Call me. Can you call me, please? Will you call later? Where are you? Please respond.

He had an awful feeling.

“One moment,” Bran said, standing. He fetched the cell phone she had found in his study and brought it back. He dialed the unnamed number from her messages and waited.

The phone in his hand lit up. Like her, apparently Bran had not put her name to her contact details.

Leah was looking up at him, curious. “What is it?”

He handed her cell phone back to her. “This one. This one is me.”

“Oh. I did wonder. Why do you think you don’t respond?”

“Hopefully,” Bran said, though he didn’t truly believe what he was about to say, “because I immediately called you when you sent the message.”

Leah appeared to think this unlikely too. “I’m sort of hurt,” she said honestly. “If that’s not too strange a thing to say.”

“I’m sort of sorry. In fact,” he amended, “I’m definitely sorry.”

“In lieu of any other context, I suppose I forgive you.” She tapped away from the messages. “Let me see the speed dial list again. I have quite a lot of names saved in my contacts.”

They went through the list and, lo, not only did she have all the names saved, she also had birthdays, addresses and, in some cases, a photograph matched to the name. They were able to put a face to Tag and a face to Kara. Of the two of them, only Tag was in the print out photograph she’d found.

Side by side, they then began to scroll through the photos in her photo app. The woman they had met that day was a feature, as was Kara. There were lots of photos of women, in general – at meals, getting coffee, in nail salons. “Why are there absolutely no pictures of you,” Leah murmured, flicking past photos of scenery. She paused, her wish suddenly answered.

Leah turned her cell phone to landscape so they could see the photograph more fully. It was clearly a family-style photograph, taken at Christmas in this very room. A tree in the background, in the foreground were he and Leah, side by side but barely touching. On Leah’s left was the girl, Kara, wearing antlers and a festive sweater. On Bran’s right was the woman from that day, holding a baby. Behind her, leaning over the back of the couch and looking down at the baby, was a dark haired man, Native American in ethnicity.

“It’s a nice photo.” Leah zoomed in on their faces, moving around. “Charles, I guess? He’s in the other photo, so he must be a long-term member of your pack. And this mystery woman. Sam, maybe. Or Anna. Who was the other on your speed dial? Mercy.”

“I think so. She wasn’t in the other photo, though. So she must be new.”

“I like the tree.” Leah hovered over it, zooming in on the decorations. “We have great taste.”

He grinned. “Glad you’re seeing the positive side.”

“There isn’t much good to take out of this.” She rested her phone on her lap and leaned her head back against the cushions, sounding defeated. “I keep hoping something will trigger a free-fall of memories. I can’t believe that it’s possible to just forgot your life like this. What do you think happened? Was the fae artefact somehow designed to do that? Or perhaps we set off some kind of booby trap?”

“Could be either of those.” Moved to be comforting, Bran put his arm about her, gave her a half-hug that he hoped wasn’t intrusive. She didn’t flinch or move away, if anything she leaned into him. “I’m sure it’s temporary.”

“Do you have any basis to make that statement?”

“Let’s call it gut instinct.”

Leah rested her head on his shoulder and exhaled. “I suppose it’s better than nothing.”

*

They had another companionable meal, interrupted briefly by the landline phone ringing in his study. They both listened, forks held in midair.

“Should you get that?”

Bran thought about it. “If they call again, I will. At the moment, I’m not sure how much value I can offer.”

Leah nodded and stabbed at her fries. “I suppose if they need help urgently, the next point of call will be your second.”

Whoever it was, they didn’t call back, nor did they leave a message. He checked the number against his speed dial list and Leah’s contacts but it wasn’t one either of them recognized.

After they’d watched the increasingly horrifying 10pm news they decided to head on up to bed.

Obviously, sleeping together wasn’t an option. He didn’t need Leah’s increasingly shifty behavior as the hour grew later to tell him that but equally he didn’t want to be too far from her. He found her presence very soothing. “Do you mind if we keep the connecting door open? You’re the only person I know,” he said to her as they made their way upstairs.

She physically relaxed. “That’s a good idea.”

With so much unknown whirling around his brain, Bran expected it to be difficult to sleep. He listened to Leah prepare for bed – a lengthier process than his – and then her sigh as she slid in between the sheets. Their headboards were separated only by a dividing wall so he could clearly hear her turning to get comfortable. He wondered, fleetingly, why they had separate rooms. Did they both sleep poorly? Perhaps they argued. He wondered how long they had been together. Tomorrow, he decided, he would go through the books on his shelves – see if he could find any Christmas gifts that reached further back than a little over a decade ago.

“Goodnight,” she whispered, when all had been quiet for a few minutes.

“Goodnight.”

And then Bran drifted off to sleep with no bother whatsoever.

*

In the morning, Bran woke from a slumber so deep there was a small circle of drool on the mattress sheet beneath him. He lifted his head, tongue smacking the roof of his mouth, momentarily confused by the shock of waking.

Much as yesterday, he remained confused – disappointingly still free of his memories – but this time he had a renewed sense of purpose. He clambered out of bed and leaned through the connecting door of their bedrooms, eager to greet the one person in his life whose name he did know.

Leah lifted her head. “Morning,” she said groggily.

She was charmingly mussed. After rubbing one eye, she rolled onto her back and stretched.

Bran watched this with a degree of sincere appreciation for the female body, particularly hers, and the little camisole she was currently barely wearing. “I’m going to shower,” he announced quickly, disappearing from view.

He rinsed in cold water, ignoring his inevitable erection and the sense that he was being something of a fool. Afterwards, rubbing his hair with a plush towel, he stood in his capacious closet and selected a fresh pair of jeans and a brightly colored T-shirt.

Feeling more appropriate for respectful conversation, he then rejoined Leah in her bedroom. She was sitting at her dressing table, brushing the tangles from her long hair.

“Sleep well?” he asked, attempting once again not to stare like a teenage boy with his first crush. He dropped into one of her chairs and switched on the fire; a good distraction.

“Like a veritable log. You?”

“The same. All things considered I feel… fantastic.” He narrowed his eyes at his bare toes. “I wonder if not having any memories helps with that.”

“No doubt.” Leah picked up a lipstick from a little gold tray, uncapped it and twirled out the color. Shrugging, she smoothed this over her lips carefully – it was a bright coral-pink – and then rubbed them together before pouting at her reflection.

Whatever she saw, Leah didn’t like. She pulled a tissue from the box and began to remove the make-up. “What shall we do today, then?”

Even though it sounded vaguely sentimental, Bran outlined his book plan. He saw her smile in her reflection. “I can help with that.”

After coffee and bowls of oatmeal topped with brown sugar and banana, they tackled his shelves, working from either end of his study. Whilst Leah wasn’t the only person to buy him books – both Charles and Sam appeared to as well – she was by far the most prolific.

Bran ran his fingers over the inscription from more than fifty years ago on the cover of a book about honeybees. To fuel your fascination, she’d written. “Well we’ve been together half a century, at least.”

“I’ll raise you to eighty-four years,” she announced, waving a book in the air.

Eighty-four years together. That was a lifetime. “What charming little note did you write in that one, then?”

Leah cleared her throat and read. “Something more fantastical than we,” she said. “It’s The Hobbit.” She flicked through the pages. “Looks like you read it a few times.” 

“I do love reading.”

The corners of her eyes crinkled with her smile. “I never would have guessed.”

Eighty-four years, he thought once again, returning to his shelves. Eighty-four years.

By lunch, this figure had increased to just under a century, as they found a copy of the Great Gatsby in which Leah had written, If this is what New York is really like, then it might as well be a different country. They both decided that they felt they had been to New York City since, albeit it a few years previously, though neither could remember any clear details.

This time, Bran made lunch for the both of them – grilled ham and cheese and tomato soup. They took their meal into the living room to watch the news once more, an information download that at least they didn’t have to work to get.

They both froze when they heard the front door open and the sound of boots being dragged against the rush mat. “Just me,” called a voice, “I need a bag of grit. The garage is out.”

A light footstep climbed the steps and then a figure emerged into their view. A woman, with dark curly hair. Bran knew immediately that she was one of his. “Hey,” she said. She sniffed. “Mmm, tomato soup? Is it all right if I—?” She thumbed in the direction of her left.

Bran nodded. “Sure,” he said.

Then they both watched as this woman moved aside a painting on the wall, pressed a code into a panel neither of them knew existed, and a well-hidden door opened. They exchanged a look as the woman disappeared and ran down a set of what sounded like metal stairs.

“Quick,” Leah hissed urgently, jumping up, “did you see the code?”

“No,” Bran replied, following her. “Her hair was in the way.”

They peered down the stairs to what was clearly a basement subfloor. It was very sterile looking, clearly not designed for public view, with strip lights that buzzed. After a moment, the woman returned with two bags of grit, one over each shoulder. She shrugged one shoulder and the corresponding bag, smiling widely. “I’ll put this one in your garage, since I saw you’re running low.”

Leah smiled in return and stepped aside so that she could pass, but keeping her body partially in the doorway. “Thank you. That’s very thoughtful of you.”

The woman blinked twice in succession. Her eyes were a very light green, quite striking. “Oh— that’s. You’re welcome. You guys doing okay? Um. Anna said it went all right with your artefact rescue mission.”

Leah tilted her head to the side. “Anna said that?”

“Ah. Yeah.” The woman began to shift, nervously. Bran got the feeling she found Leah disconcerting. He wondered why. Perhaps a female werewolf dominance thing. “Did it not… go okay?”

“We retrieved the artefact,” Bran said carefully, mostly to see if she would react differently to him.

She did. She looked almost relieved to give him her attention. Her smile returned. “Great. Well, have a good weekend. I’ll see you next Tuesday!”

They stood stock-still, waiting until the front door closed once more. Then, as Leah braced her foot against a door that was now attempting to close itself, Bran grabbed a bar stool to wedge it in the open doorway of the secret doorway. Thus secured, they trotted down the stairs to this newly revealed area of the property.

On their immediate right at the bottom, there were five very basic, cell-like rooms with the doors open to reveal simple bed frames, with thin mattresses and toilet facilities. The doors were solid, reinforced with steel and silver. They all had a strong scent of disinfectant that didn’t quite cover the tang of blood.

They followed the hallway down past a gym, then to a security room, complete with rows of screens – including views of their own driveway, so they were able to see the woman drive off in her truck. Bran saw the church he’d seen yesterday, the garage, a motel, as well as several groups of houses and something that looked like a ski lodge.

Whilst he was absorbing this, Leah walked further down the hall and discovered a series of different store rooms. “What are we, preparing for a siege?” she muttered.

He joined her and couldn’t help but agree with Leah’s assessment. “I guess we’re pretty remote. A good snow storm and we might be stranded for a couple of weeks.”

Leah nudged the sacks of rice and flour with her toe. “Sure. I could bake our way out.”

It wasn’t just dried goods. There were cans of vegetables and fruit, of water. Flashlights, batteries, kindling, candles, matches. Paper, pens, clothes. Tools. Binoculars. Duplicates of first aid kits.

He opened a metal cupboard with a key in the lock and somehow wasn’t surprised to see the armory.

“That is a lot of guns. And assault rifles.” Leah bent down to pull open the drawers, unsurprisingly containing cartridges and bullets. “It’s looking more and more likely that we’re bracing for a siege.”

Bran found himself running the back of his finger over his bottom lip in thought. “Maybe you’re right.” He knew, the kind of knowledge that was felt in the bones, more instinct than fact, that werewolves had to sometimes defend their territories. He imagined they could run here freely, hidden from view. The very remoteness of this territory would be appealing to outsiders.

Somehow, though, Bran didn’t think there were werewolves out there who would attack him. Something, or someone, else perhaps. But not werewolves.

He closed the doors. “Shall we find something for dessert?”

*

Leah did bake. Cookies, with peanut butter chips from the extensive panty. He ate four off the tray, barely cooled, whilst Leah looked through her search history on the iPad.

“Anything interesting?”

“Mostly recipes. And looking up how to spell words.” She put the iPad to one side and tapped her fingers against the counter, restless. “If you’re an Alpha, presumably you can feel your people?”

Bran nodded. He’d given this some consideration in his cold shower that morning. “I can. There’s about—a hundred, hereabouts.”

Her mouth parted. “A hundred!”

“Mmm. Quite a large pack.” He closed his eyes, letting the sugar-butter-peanut combo melt on his tongue and extended out his finger-y pack bonds, brushing over the wolf souls he could feel around them. “But there’s more. Further. Hundreds and hundreds more.” He felt his eyes started to roll into the back of his head, felt himself s-t-r-e-t-c-h—

Leah’s fingers dug into his upper arm, hard, bringing him back to himself. She had sharp nails and, when he opened his eyes, had paled. “You were sort of… fading.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Bran shrugged his shoulders, trying to shake off the discombobulated feeling of somehow being detached from reality.

She poured him a glass of milk. “Hundreds and hundreds of werewolves? That are yours?”

“Yes.” He gulped down the milk thirstily. “Mostly in the States.”

Leah’s eyes narrowed. “Mostly?”

“Few… elsewhere. I get the feeling they’re not supposed to be mine though.” Which didn’t really make sense. But what did?

“Bran that’s— even I know that’s something else. How powerful are you?”

“I don’t exactly have anyone to compare to.” He didn’t like the way she was looking at him. Like he was something to be feared. He teased another cookie from the baking tray with his finger, wrestling with his wolf’s desire to be feared, but not by her. It didn’t sit well with him. Didn’t sit well at all.

Leah’s hand returned to his arm, this time she rubbed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” She edged a little closer, until their sides touched. She rubbed her cheek against his head, whispering, “Sorry,” again.

Bran leaned into her. He liked the way she smelled so much – like pine and vanilla and that deeply ingrained scent of himself, embedded in her skin, that told him she was his. He quite wanted to pull her down onto his lap, play with her hair, pull her T-shirt up and play with… other parts. Instead, he cleared his throat, business-like, “It’s fine."

She detached herself from his side, picked up her iPad again. She tapped at something and grunted. “Tuesday is full moon.”

“Ah. Of course.”

“Tuesday morning more specifically. I suppose that means everyone will turn up late on Monday.” Leah held up a finger. “So, Sunday is Sunday lunch with Charles and Anna.”

“And Naomi,” Bran added.

“Yes. The baby.” A second finger joined her first. “And then we probably have a full pack run on Tuesday, early morning. Do you think I cater for that as well?” She wandered off to the refrigerator, held open the doors. Then she bent down to pull open the doors beneath. Again, Bran dragged his eyes away from her butt, mentally chastising himself. Surely he was a better person than this?

He ate another cookie, even though he was beginning to feel faintly sick.

*

Saturday morning, Bran woke in yet another puddle of his own drool. Yet again, he felt like he’d slept for a hundred years instead of a solid seven. He eased himself up to sitting and stretched out the kinks that told him he’d laid down and not moved once.

With his increasing ability to navigate the bond between them, he could tell Leah was still sleeping and so he decided to deal with his morning problem first rather than wake her.

In the chilly shower, Bran made a plan for the day. They’d discussed yesterday that they would need to venture out to the nearest grocery store to prepare for both the meal with ‘Charles’ and ‘Anna’ and then the pack run on Tuesday. The deep freeze in the capacious pantry had plenty of meat – what looked like their own kill, no less – but man did not live off venison alone.

He dressed, this time in a vintage Batman T-shirt that caught his eye and a grey zip-up hooded sweatshirt. He looked in the mirror. His style appeared to be ‘college freshman’. Freshman at an expensive college, no less. The sweatshirt was Ralph Lauren and the jeans were Rag & Bone.

Leah was up and drying her hair. She was wearing a short silk robe that left very little to the imagination. Not prepared for the physical repercussions of studying that, he swerved away from her door with a hopefully casual-sounding, “I’ll make breakfast.”

Downstairs, there was a man in their kitchen already, an enormous man with red dreadlocks and Celtic-pale skin-tone. He was drinking out of a large coffee mug that read THERE'S A CHANCE THIS IS WHISKEY. His distinctive features made it easy to recall that he had featured both in the photograph Leah had found, which suggested he was a long-term resident of the pack, and in her contacts. This was Tag.  

“Morning,” Bran said. He diverted to the refrigerator. “Breakfast?”

“Wouldn’t say no.”

Tag was one of his, and a powerful one, too. He was reading a local paper. Despite it being below thirty degrees, he was wearing Birkenstocks.

Bran was scrambling eggs and frying bacon when Leah swanned into the kitchen. She had clearly worked out there was someone else in the kitchen because she affected an bland expression. “Morning,” she said, with a small smile. She helped herself to coffee and peered at Bran’s cooking.

“Pass muster?” he teased.

She bit her lip, as if to hold back her smile, cautious in front of their audience. “I’ll make toast.”

Their companion didn’t appear to be particularly chatty, which suited them both since they had no idea what he was doing there. Perhaps Bran was the kind of Alpha who had an open door policy to his people. He thought about this as he served up. Yes, that felt right. He did feel like he was that kind of an Alpha.

Tag knew their kitchen well and laid the breakfast bar as if it was common practice to eat there. He hopped onto his stool and, after Leah had shook hot sauce all over her eggs, did the same himself.

“Big storm coming in next week,” Tag said conversationally.

There had been nothing on the news about it. News they had watched assiduously.

“Kara will be pleased,” Leah commented. Having read the entirety of their text message conversation, they both now knew Kara was a big fan of snow, despite its inconveniences. She thought being snowbound was ‘cozy’, which Bran saw as a reflection of how well organized they were. He suspected this girl, whoever she was, would not enjoy being stranded in usual circumstances.

Tag grunted his agreement of this. “I guess she’ll be home next weekend to enjoy it. She say how her mom is treating her?”

“She hasn’t mentioned it,” Leah said honestly. Bran knew without looking at her that she was wondering where ‘home’ was specifically and if any of those empty rooms were hers.

Breakfast appeared to be all Tag had come for. He finished his plate, tidied it into the dishwasher and then stretched his hands up. The ceilings were high but his fingers nearly brushed them. “Best be getting on, then. Asil back this afternoon?”

Bran dropped his hand to Leah’s thigh, letting her know he would take the conversational gambit this time. “He hasn’t deigned to let me know.”

This seemed to hit the right note. Their breakfast guest grinned wide. “Aye, he does like to be mysterious.” The grin slipped and Tag nodded to each of them respectfully. “See you when I see you.”

They both watched him head out, using the side door from the laundry room that presumably he had used to gain entrance to the house.

Leah’s straight-as-an-arrow posture relaxed. “Oh God. Did we do okay?”

“I think so.” He squeezed her thigh, realized he was touching her in a prolonged way and politely drew his hand away. “So. Asil may be back this afternoon.”

“Whoever he is.”

“And Kara next weekend.”

“I think I can text her. Find out if that’s the case. She hasn’t mentioned it to me and I don’t have any recent outgoing calls to her. It’s conceivable I’ve ‘forgotten’ or just want it confirmed?” This statement appeared to be a question.

“Good idea.”

Leah pushed her plate aside and leaned her elbows on the counter so she could rub at her face. She turned to look at him as he buttered another piece of toast and spread it with homemade apricot preserve. “It’s been two days. What if our memories never come back?”

Bran shrugged and crunched the corner of his toast. After the interaction with their red-headed morning companion, he was feeling more positive. “Fake it ‘til we make it.”

She snorted. “Sure. That’s not risky at all. What if this Charles notices something? What if he’s ambitious? One imagines a memory-less Alpha is something of a security risk.”

His wolf wasn’t pleased with her lack of confidence in him, regardless of her lack of evidence to be confident. “I’m sure I can take him, Leah,” Bran replied sharply with a frown.

Leah’s eyes dropped. “I beg your pardon.”

Mildly chastising as it had been, Bran regretted his tone. “I didn’t mean it like that. You don’t need to—” Hide from me, he thought. He took her hand and lifted it to his lips, the most natural thing in the world.

“I don’t?” she asked, sounding odd.

“No. You don’t.”

Leah leaned towards him then. She smelled of coffee and the sugary-apricot of the preserve. Their eyes held for a long, somehow sticky moment and then she pressed her mouth to the corner of his. She lingered, her eyes open, blue like a glacier lake, and then she drew back.

Bran licked his lips, tasting just the hint of her. He was about to suggest she do that again, and perhaps he could join in, when she slid from her stool, turning her back on him and began to clear up. He’d missed his chance.

*

The garage had half a dozen cars ranging from a beaten up old Land Rover Defender to a clearly new Mercedes E-Class. Both he and Leah lingered admiringly over the Mercedes before settling on a more suitable car for the weather and road conditions.

“Obviously we like cars,” he commented as he started the engine. He approved of this, as if the Bran-with-memories was a different person than he. He patted the dash of the truck.

Cheerfully, Leah put her seatbelt on. “I liked the Lexus. I hope it’s mine.”

This truck had GPS so Bran had plugged in the direction as they’d set off. It had a rather lackadaisical understanding of the small roads of the area, however, so the first few miles were fairly hit and miss. By the time they were on the highway, though, Bran felt comfortable with where they were heading and Leah had found a radio station that she liked and was humming along.

“Funny I know songs.”

“Bizarre,” Bran agreed. He turned up the dial and smiled to himself as she began to sing along. She had a good voice. He liked listening to her sing.

They’d made a list in the notes app on her cell phone which was helpful, even though neither of them knew the layout of the vast grocery store, each aisle being a new discovery.

“Kara is coming back this weekend,” Leah told him in the produce section, leaning on the handles of the cart as he felt up tomatoes for ripeness. “But she mentioned someone called Suzie would be picking her up, so I think she’s staying with her.”

“Suzie,” Bran repeated, adding this name to his mental list.

“And her mom was ‘fine’. Her dad bought her a Nintendo Switch for Christmas.”

“Divorced, do you think?”

“I think so. At least, that’s what her messages before inferred.” Leah leaned over to nudge a melon. “She’s only seventeen. Who do you think she is to me? Some kind of descendant, perhaps?”

It was as good a rationale as any. The messages in Leah’s cell phone had been going on for more than a year. She was too young to be a werewolf. Certainly, too young to be Changed and be capable of visiting presumably human parents on her own over full moon. Unless the parents weren’t human? Hmm.

“Do you think we were together before?”

Bran put the bag of tomatoes into the cart, supposing Leah meant before she, or he, were Changed. He couldn’t put his finger on why but he suspected not. He also suspected he was older than she by some margin. A quality of his wolf rather than what he could understand of hers. “I don’t know. Is that important to you?”

She thought about it, pushing the cart forwards with her forearms. “I don’t think so.”  

Because he was apparently not a patient man, and because the taste of her had lingered from that morning, Bran kissed her over green beans when she leaned close enough to him that it was easy to do so, that indeed it felt natural to do so. Just a small kiss, closed-mouthed, little more than hers had been. But her eyes dilated, her cheeks flushed pink. He wanted to do it again but perhaps the grocery store was not the place for a seduction so he put his hand on the small of her back and moved her on.

It might not have been the place for seduction but it soon became one, or perhaps, more accurately, a game of one-upmanship. As he reached for a quart of milk, she ducked under and kissed his bottom lip, grinned as she did so. In return, he cornered her against canned sweetcorn, pressed his mouth to each corner of hers, tucking her hair behind her ears. In the cleaning aisle, she licked the seam of his lips and he parted them eagerly, only for her to slip away to grab some kitchen towel.

By the time he’d paid, he was exquisitely turned on.

They piled the groceries into the trunk of the car and after he slammed the trunk closed, they exchanged a knowing look, a knowing look that said they both knew that as soon as they were home, as soon as they had responsibly put away the perishables, they were going to head to one of the bedrooms and peel each other’s clothes from their bodies.

Bran adjusted his jeans, wishing he’d chosen a less tight pair. She watched, which helped not at all.

*

The way things were going, maybe Bran shouldn’t have been surprised to be thwarted so swiftly. He pulled into their drive – having driven past it twice – and found four cars parked up that hadn’t been there when they left.

“That one is Anna’s,” he said, attempting to alleviate the frustration he felt with something positive. A name and a person they had met.

She blew out an equally frustrated breath. “So – stick to the plan? Ask no questions, tell no lies?”

“Agreed.”

They each took a couple of bags and used the garage entrance, which helpfully gave them cover to overhear a few snippets of conversation from the living area, enough to establish that there were three men in their house and ‘Anna’.

Leah frowned at the kitchen, which showed evidence of multiple people helping themselves to hot drinks, none too tidily. She put her bag down and began to tidy up whilst Bran returned to fetch the rest of the groceries. When he came back, the kitchen was now full of their guests.

He quickly scanned the latest round of strangers. Anna, he knew already, was selecting an apple from the fruit bowl. There was a stocky man with straw-colored hair and dark eyes, a handsome man with a naturally darker complexion – perhaps Middle-Eastern? – and a slender man with light brown hair and grey eyes. All three were his wolves but none of these people had been in the photograph Leah had found. The Middle Eastern man was violently dominant, the other two less so but all were naturally more dominant than Bran’s mate. And she was uncomfortable.

To apologize, Bran run his knuckle down her arm. “Anna,” he murmured then in greeting to the only one whose name he knew. “Gentlemen.”

“You went grocery shopping together?” Anna asked, biting into her apple. She seemed to be amused by this concept which Bran supposed meant they did not often grocery shop. Perhaps they had someone to do that for them.

“It was certainly a novel experience.” Leah’s eyes slanted to his. She was not talking about the shopping.

Bran grinned, delighted. “I enjoyed myself.” He’d be enjoying himself more if none of them were here, however.

He opened a packet of cookies he’d snuck into the cart when Leah hadn’t been looking. He didn’t know why. Hers were surely better. He ate two and supposed they were acceptable.

“Anna thought we should look in on Wellesley’s property,” the slender man announced. He had a strong French accent. Bran was going to take a leap of logic and guess this was Juste.

“It’s been empty a few months and with the storm coming, seemed prudent,” Anna said, merrily crunching away at her apple. “But I didn’t know if you’ve already been by. As usual, you didn’t answer your phone.”

Bran was encouraged by the use of ‘as usual’. He made a note to regularly forget his cell phone. “It’s in my study.” He looked out of the window, as if this might possibly give him some kind of illumination as to why everyone thought there was a big storm coming. If they were all locals there might be tells that he, currently not a local, might not be able to recognize. “Sounds like a good idea.” Whomever Wellesley was might be grateful for someone to check-in on his property.

“The question is whether he’s left any surprises behind to keep out intruders?” the Middle-Eastern man – possibly Asil? – asked drily.

Bran offered the cookies to Leah, who curled her lip and reached around for the cookie jar instead. “They’re not a patch on yours,” he agreed amicably, eating another. To his audience he said, “Quite possibly. Won’t that be fun?”

From the expressions on everyone’s faces, no one thought that would be fun but at least none of them appeared deeply surprised by the vagueness of his response. Perhaps he was the type of man who was deliberately vague. “Is your presence here just to ask this question or are you wanting my company?”

“I think we can handle it,” Possibly Asil said, also with that same dry tone. “But thank you for the gracious offer.”

Leah began to unpack, a faint smile about her face. “Not sure it was an offer.”

To Bran’s surprise, Possibly Asil responded to this mildly teasing comment with a scathing glance in Leah’s direction that quickly merged into haughty blandness. Bran ate another cookie, trying to work out the dynamics of the situation.

The stocky straw-haired man peered in one of the bags. “I’m just here for the list. Ooh, are you making that sausage casserole for Tuesday? I love that,” he asked, pulling out the bag of apples like a trophy.

“I am now,” Leah replied with a big, pleased smile even if she probably had no idea what the recipe was for said sausage casserole. “That list on the refrigerator?”

He swiveled and held up a finger, plucking this item from the magnetic holder. At the top of the list, it helpfully said ‘FOR GEORGE’. “Ah, yes, that’s the one. Thanks.”

As his mate turned to pull open the pantry door, she gave Bran a slightly flared-eyed look that said she was simultaneously impressed with herself and also deeply relieved. Bran had to hold back a bark of laughter. He shoved another cookie in his mouth and didn’t think he’d fooled anyone.

Anna, who had finished her apple, was looking at them both curiously. “What’s going on with you two?” she asked bluntly. “It’s like you’re colluding.”

“We are,” Bran told her baldly. Because why the heck not. He was almost enjoying himself. “Colluding on some very important plans.”

Leah did laugh then and turned these laughing eyes on him and him alone. She was enjoying herself too.

“I don’t think we’re going to get anything sensible from these two today,” Anna said to Possibly Asil and Maybe Juste. She didn’t sound mad about it. Quite the opposite, practically pleased. “We’ll get out of your hair.”

So saying, she shooed the men from the kitchen and Bran took Leah’s hand and began to pull her towards the stairs.

*

They took a break from colluding at midnight to refuel. Leah finished off the pack of cookies, complaining about each one as she did so, whilst he made a stack of pancakes, which was a recipe that came to him as he took eggs from the refrigerator. They ate, standing at the kitchen counter. Whereas Bran had pulled back on his shorts from where he’d found them in the hallway outside the rooms, Leah had put on the robe. A forkful of pancake poised before him, he tugged at the tie until the robe drifted apart.

Leah looked down at her revealed sternum and the inside curves of her breasts. “Uh-huh,” she said mildly, scooping up a raspberry.

“You are really—” He paused, a disturbance he could only describe as mental distracting him from what was going to be an ode to her physical attributes. “Someone’s coming.”

Leah dropped the fork and quickly did up her robe. “Pretty late for visitors.”

They waited and sure enough heard the side door open and close. Bare feet padded over floorboards.

A naked, bloody figure revealed himself in the doorway of their kitchen. “Grizzly,” he said, wiping a hand over his face. There was a gash above his left eyebrow, pouring blood over his cheek. He thumbed behind him. “M’gonna shower.”

Bran nodded. “You do that.”

They listened to the bare feet pad away, then the sound of the downstairs bathroom door open, the shower turn on. The door closed.

“He’s got blood all over my floorboards,” Leah said unhappily, peering down the hallway.

“Have you seen a first aid kit up here?” There were a few in the store room but they’d had to let the secret door close.

“Yes, in the pantry.”

Bran fetched this, thinking that a little glue might help with the gash on his wolf’s forehead. Leah wandered off. Cupboard doors opened and closed in the distance. He heard her say, “I’ve left some sweats outside the door for you.” When she returned, her eyebrows were up. “He’s in the photograph. I think. Far right.”

The photograph was in his study so he took her word for it. “So old pack, then.”

Bran busied himself by making another batch of pancakes whilst Leah ran a rag from the laundry over the bloodstains.

When their wolf returned, Bran was the one who wiped away the fresh blood on his face and applied the glue. “What do you think? Fancy some vet tape?” He held up the beige wheel.

The wolf shook his head. “Glue’ll do it. Thanks.”

“Here. Eat up.” Leah pushed the plate towards him. Her eyes were concerned. “I try to avoid grizzlies, myself.”

“Surprised me.” The wolf began eating, quickly enough that Bran suspected he had been very hungry. He eyed the slight frame and decided to make some eggs. A quick protein was needed here. “Saw they checked in on Wellesley’s treehouse. Good thing. Storm coming.”

“So everyone keeps saying.” Leah, no doubt on the same wavelength as Bran, poured a glass of milk, leaving the carton on the counter. She pushed this towards the wolf. “Big one.”

“Yeah.” The wolf’s pale blue eyes slanted to Leah and away again, shyly. He rubbed his hands on his thighs. “I like your robe. Cornflower. Like your eyes.” This last comment was delivered in a near-whisper.  

“Thank you. I like it, too.” Leah tapped the glass with the tip of a nail. “Drink your milk.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Something about this interaction bothered Bran. Despite this wolf being less dominant than Leah, he decided he wouldn’t be leaving them alone together any time soon, though he presumed she was capable of taking care of herself. He hadn’t thought to ask. He frowned down at the pan of scrambled eggs. Remiss of him.

Shrugging this off, Bran added eggs to the plate in front of his wounded packmate. “Will you be staying the rest of the night?”

“No. Got to get back.” The blue eyes seemed to zone out for a moment. “Thought I saw Devon tonight.”

There was such a weight of sadness to the voice that Bran knew immediately that ‘Devon’ was no longer. “He’s missed,” he said, assuming it would be true.

The wolf bowed his head. “He is that.”

Once they had seen their bloodied visitor off, walking bare-foot into the dark of the forest, an isolated and grief-stricken figure, they returned to bed. Wanting to cement himself in a memory that he could have a hand in creating, Bran helped Leah out of her robe and kissed her and she wound her arms about his neck, returning his embrace enthusiastically. He eased her back onto the bed, crawling between her legs. They’d made some headway in exploring each other already but he’d had plans to devote some further study to the matter of their joint physical pleasure.

Leah raised herself on her elbows, watching him as he arranged himself below, between her thighs. “Oh, I see,” she said in obvious anticipation.

“You have to let me know what you like.” So saying, Bran lowered his head.

“I’m not sure how—ah— communicative, oh god, I can be.” She flopped back onto her back with a moan.

Bran felt she was very communicative, as it happened.

*

The third morning, Bran woke as he had done all previous mornings, except this time he had a delightful companion who stirred groggily as he lifted his head. He watched her do her morning stretch and sighed a little himself, generally quite content with his view.

She picked up her cell phone to check the time, just as he gave her right breast a little nuzzle. “Jesus, Bran, it’s nearly midday,” she squawked, bolting upright.

“Shoot,” he said. They had no idea what time Anna and the mysterious Charles would be arriving but for sure Sunday lunch would need to be served close to a traditional ‘lunch’ time.

They showered, together, disappointingly just to be efficient, and he ran downstairs to pull the two chickens from the refrigerator to come to room temperature and started to pre-heat the oven. Leah joined him a few minutes later, hair still damp but tied back. She began to toss vegetables onto the counter. Carrots, beans, potatoes, onions, leeks. She hesitated with a stalk of Brussels sprouts, waving at it him. “Do you even like Brussels sprouts?”

Bran pulled a face. She put them back without him needing to say anything. “What if they don’t like something and we make it and it’s obvious?” she asked.

“Who doesn’t like a roast? It’s the most inoffensive thing there is.” Bran pulled out two chopping boards, handed her one, and they got to chopping.

Twenty-five minutes later, potatoes par-boiling, seasoned and buttered chickens in the oven on a bed of onions, garlic, leeks and carrots, pans ready for the rest of the vegetables, they turned their attention to laying the table off the main living area. Bran put some music on, not surprised the house was wired for sound in every room.

They were just discovering the unconscionable number of napkin options in one of the cupboards when they heard a car draw up. He heard Leah’s heartbeat leap with nerves.

“I’m going for the navy blue,” Leah whispered, quickly grabbing the pile of rolled up napkins.

“Are you sure? What about these tartan ones? Or the yellow ones? Or these baby pink ones?” He held up a neon orange set. “What the heck, Leah? Do we have some kind of napkin fetish?”

This made her smile, as it was meant to. “No, I think we just host a lot of seasonal meals.” She shook out one of the orange ones to reveal a pumpkin motif. “Clearly Halloween.”

She had a point. They heard the door open and both stood and attempted to look casually in the direction of the front entrance.

“Hello the house,” called a now-familiar voice. The Omega, Anna.

“They know we’re here,” came a new voice, a rumbling laughter-filled one.

“I don’t know what to tell you. It’s a habit I can’t shake. Let’s get you out of that, darling.”

There followed a distinct baby-like noise. Leah took a step forward and stopped herself, still clutching the napkins. She turned and began to fold them quickly, her brow furrowed. She gave him an unconvincing smile. “Go say ‘hi’,” she whispered. “I need to finish this.”

Bran ran his hand down her back and went to do so.

Charles, taller even in person than he appeared in the photograph, was holding a baby in a comedically padded dark-green snow-suit that Anna was just unzipping her from.

“Your granddaughter is very excited to see you,” Anna announced, giving the baby a big smile. “Aren’t you, darling? We’ve just fed her, so she’ll drop off soon, but probably not before you can get a good cuddle.”

Bran managed – just – not to make a surprised face. Very quickly, he pieced together this information with the text message he’d read, sent from Leah to Charles. He guessed he was ‘Da’. This tall man was his son.

But not Leah’s, unless the genetic lottery had been more than usually random. He studied Charles’s face, looking for a resemblance. He was a strikingly powerful werewolf, that was for certain, but his wolf had a very distinct, unusual feel.

Puzzling over this, Bran held out his arms for the baby when it became immediately apparent that he was going to be given her regardless. He cuddled her automatically. He knew how to handle babies, clearly. “Hello, sweetheart,” he murmured, brushing his fingers over a sweetly flushed cheek. A granddaughter.

He took the small bundle to Leah, to share in this moment. She’d held back, a tentative half smile on her face, as if she wasn’t certain of her welcome.

“Look,” Bran couldn’t help but say to her. Proudly.

“She’s beautiful.” Like he had done, Leah brushed her fingers over the baby’s face. “Hello, Naomi. How you’ve grown.” She meant from the photograph, of course.

“It’s astonishing how fast, isn’t it?” Anna peered at the laid table. “Oh – we’re eating out here? What’s the occasion?”

It was lucky their faces were all but buried in the baby because Anna couldn’t see the expression of ‘whoops’ they gave each other.

“No occasion,” Bran said, rallying. “Just felt like it.”

“I like it. Feels festive. Oh, shoot, Charles, we left the dessert in the car.”

Charles held up a hand, already heading back out. “I’ll get it.”

“Would you like a drink, Anna?” Leah asked, dragging her gaze from the baby. “Ah. Wine? A soft drink?”

“Wine, since we’re being festive.” She tilted her head to the side. “Charles, too.”

“And you?”

“Mmm, expensive Scotch, please,” Bran decided.

Leah’s eyebrows rose. “Festive indeed. I’m going to have a gin and tonic, then.”

Bran manhandled Naomi into a more upright position, facing outwards so she could observe the goings on. He took her to look out of the window and breathed deeply, taking in that particularly sweet baby smell. “How was Wellesley’s treehouse?” he asked, swaying from side to side.

“Oh, fine. No booby traps. I think Asil was disappointed.”

“Disappointed not to send Juste to meet them, you mean,” Charles said as he returned with the dessert. He carried it to the table, resting it at the end that they hadn’t laid. It looked like a cheesecake.

“There is that. Whatever happened between them? I know it’s something to do with that monster, Chastel.” She exhaled. “Or is this another of those things I need to just let go?”

Bran had no idea who Chastel was but judging from the ‘monster’ epithet that was a good thing. “No doubt it is indeed better left to the past.”

Amusingly, both Leah and Anna made the same disgruntled noise. Leah handed Anna her drink and then Charles, both delivered with a smile Bran could tell was a little forced. She carried over a crystal-cut tumbler to Bran but before she gave it to him, took a sip herself. She licked her lips and wiggled her head in consideration. “I guess it’s not so bad.”

He quite wished he could kiss her, see if he could taste the drink on her himself. Later. “The trick is tiny sips. Do you want to hold her?”

Leah shook her head. She tucked her hands behind her, which Bran thought rather meant she did. “I think I’ll get my cell phone so I can get a picture of you doing it. Make up for the total lack of photos I have,” she added in a low voice. She did a quick turn of the living room, eyeing up the surfaces.

“You left it in the kitchen.”

“Ah, yes.” She hurried off.

In a repeat of her questioning the day they had first met – for the second time – Anna asked quietly, “How’s she doing? She seems… more present.”

“Anna,” Charles warned, frowning at his mate. She frowned equally back, tilting her head to the side.

Bran observed this exchange and suspected they were communicating through their mate bond. He left off answering, using the excuse of Leah returning too quickly with her cell phone. She took a couple of photos of him and his granddaughter, which she dutifully shared with Anna. The new mother was suitably dewy-eyed but then those dewy-eyes became sharp.

“Let me take a photo of you guys, now,” Anna suggested, with another near-combative look at her husband. Charles rolled his eyes and took his glass of wine over to the windows to look out at the view.  

Increasingly aware that what they were doing was clearly out of character, Bran nevertheless acquiesced and they stood for a photograph. As he smiled, he wondered what Leah being ‘more present’ meant. And how he could find out. And why everyone seemed to walk around his mate like she was cause for concern.

“Your turn,” he decided, turning to offer Leah the baby. “Go on.”

Carefully, they transitioned Naomi to her new embrace and as he did so, he noted that Leah was not the only one tense. Behind him, Charles might as well have put out the Bat-Signal. Bran’s wolf did not like having his son at his back, he absolutely did not.

But Bran ignored all this, as he suspected he was expected to. Power was often about a good game face, after all.

He trailed his fingers over Naomi’s soft little head and then down Leah’s arm, as she cradled the baby tenderly. Her expression was very nearly mournful, her smile wavering. He hovered, wondering if he’d made a mistake. Something about this was hurting his mate and he wanted to know what.

He very much wished Charles and Anna gone. Rationally, he was sure they were meaningful to him – to discover he was a father and grandfather in a short space of time was too much for him to absorb, so he could only be rational about that – but it was Leah who held his loyalty, first and foremost. Three days, a hundred years, it mattered not.

“All right?” Bran put his hand on her hip, ducking his head to invite her to look at him.

Leah’s smile firmed as she nodded. Her eyes were flat. “Yes. Heavier than you think, aren’t they?” She swallowed. “I should check the food. Surely the potatoes are mush now.”

Anna came to take Naomi, whose eyelids were growing heavy, and as soon as she was free Leah whisked herself into the kitchen so fast there was a breeze. His feet wanted to follow her.

Instead, Bran picked up his drink and took a sip, trying to keep up some semblance of appearances. “So when do you think the snow will hit?” He dropped down onto a couch, facing the kitchen entranceway.

“Friday, Tag says.”

“Hmm. Not ideal. Kara’s due Saturday.”

“She should probably delay, if possible. Or come back earlier,” Charles suggested, lifting his arm to the back of the couch so his mate and child could join him at his side. “Tag’s predictions are usually spot on.” 

“Leah will get in touch with her.” Bran took another gulp of his drink, watching his mate move around the kitchen.

*

The lunch was exhausting, as if the four of them were participating in a play where not everyone knew the lines. If they were a family, it certainly didn’t feel like it. Charles in particular was almost excruciatingly polite towards Leah and she, not knowing any better, responded in kind. The conversation was held together almost entirely by Anna, who had the Omega’s natural ability to put people at ease. Despite this, Bran thought she struggled.

As soon as the door closed behind the little family and their car crunched slowly down the drive, Bran felt his tiredness hit him in the face.

He poured himself another drink and took a big gulp. “You did really well,” he told Leah.

She leaned against the kitchen door jamb, holding a pint of ice-cream in her hand, digging into it with a spoon. “That was harder than I expected.”

He could only agree. “What was it about the baby? You were upset.”

She paused, spoon of ice-cream before her lips. “You mean, apart from my inability to have them?”

He blinked. “Yes. Of course. I’m sorry. That was remarkably obtuse of me.”

“It wasn’t just that. I didn’t realize— he’s your son. You can see it, when he smiles.” Leah shook her head, the corners of her mouth turned down. She sucked her spoon. “It was shocking, at times.”

Bran finished his drink. He hadn’t expected this and now felt inadequate for not being prepared. “He must have been born before I met you. His wolf is curious, though.” He scratched at his chest. “Different.”

Leah exhaled. “And I’m a jealous person. The whole time I was thinking about who his mother was.” She pushed off the door jamb and returned to the kitchen to put away the ice cream. “Do you think they noticed something was off? Why are they so concerned about me?”

“You noticed that too?” He grunted. He supposed they hadn’t exactly been subtle. “I don’t know, is my answer to both questions.”

Perhaps, Bran wondered, thinking about what she had said, the baby was a bone of contention. Presumably the child was adopted. It had made Charles very tense when Leah had been given her to hold. Maybe Leah had wanted a child herself. It was a struggle to imagine a situation in which Bran would deny this woman anything but without any context he supposed that was possible.

They tidied the kitchen, mostly keeping their thoughts to themselves. Then he repeated the conversation about Kara and the snowstorm. Leah nodded. “I’ll send her a message now. Can we find something mindless to watch on television? I’m tired of thinking.”

He agreed to this and flicked through the TV channels until he found something with a laughter track. Despite this, neither of them found the show particularly funny. They watched in stone-faced silence until Leah suddenly piped up with, “Maybe I’m a massive bitch.”

Bran started out of his reverie. “What? No. You’re not a bitch.”

“How can you be sure?”

“If you’re a bitch, then I’m clearly an absolute asshole.”

“Maybe you are,” she said quickly. Then her lips twitched. So did his.

They settled more comfortably against each other. Leah leaned her head on his shoulder, which he liked. “Did you think the baby had weirdly pointed ears?” she asked.

“I didn’t notice,” he lied.

She snorted. “Give me the remote. Let’s find something better than this.”

*

By Monday afternoon, Bran was truly beginning to feel the pull of the moon. It made him grumpy.

“Change,” Leah suggested. Strongly. “Go for a run.”

“Not without you.” They hadn’t been more than few rooms apart since they’d lost their memories. He wasn’t inclined to start now – not after the experience of a bloodied werewolf arriving in their house uninvited and feasting his eyes on her.

There was no need for Leah to verbally decline. She gestured wordlessly to the extensive feast she was preparing for that night’s full moon run. Bran had helped with the prep but it had become clear that he was not a natural in the kitchen and that Leah very much preferred his lack of assistance.

Instead, he returned to his study. In his search for clues, he’d been through all the books and the desk several times. He’d found a safe but he didn’t know the code. They’d hidden the chalice behind some books on 17^th Century farming techniques which he was reasonably certain no one would be interested in reading. Each morning, he’d looked at the laptop password screen blankly. Same went for the cell phone that occasionally rang with numbers not in Leah’s contacts. There was one of those desk planners, left over from the previous year, which it looked like he had mostly used for jotting down numbers or notes to call people, along with some small indecipherable doodles. Drawing was not a skill he had.

Despondently, Bran flicked back through the months of the planner. The only time he’d used it for making calendar entries was for the full moon and the occasional annotation in the form of an acronym. One he’d cracked as being a reference to taxes. Another was for an election. He had been puzzling over an annotation from last February 12^th – HBLC – and perhaps it was the additional stress of his wolf nudging at him but it occurred to him for the first time that he was possibly an absolute idiot.

“Do you think your birthday is February 12^th?” he called down the hall, knowing full well she wouldn’t have a clue.

She surprised him. “Yes. It’s written in the calendar in my bedroom.”

“And you didn’t think to mention this?” he called back, annoyed.

“My birthday is vital information?”

Bran grumbled to himself. “Would be if we still had no memories by then,” he muttered to himself. “Bet she’d be pissed if I forgot that.”

A hopeful thought occurred to him. He lifted the lid of his laptop where the password box winked at him once more. With one finger, he typed in the four digits of Leah’s birthday date and month. He pressed enter, already half dismissing the idea as ridiculous, half wondering if it was a stroke of genius.

The screen cleared and the homepage appeared. Bran crowed with excitement, throwing his hands into the air. “I’m in!”

His mate appeared in the doorway, hands held in such a way that suggested they were soiled. “In what? In the laptop?” Leah’s face lit up. “Oh my goodness, that’s fantastic. How did you do it?”

He beamed at her. “My password is your birthday.”

She was surprised. “It is? Well, isn’t that something.” She leaned over his shoulder as he clicked on the Mail app. They watched a steady stream of emails fill his inbox. “Uh oh.”

“Uh oh, indeed.” Many of them had little red exclamation marks next to them.

Leah stood back up. “Think I’ll leave you to this,” she decided.

“Uh-huh,” he replied vaguely, already clicking on what looked the most terrifying. A paragraph unfolded before him. Marrok, The situation with the seethe in Miami is becoming increasingly concerning—

*

Suffice to say, Bran’s sudden access to email did not improve his full moon fidgets. Instead, it made them significantly worse. He found himself regularly standing up and pacing with his hands on his head, horrified at what he was reading – and his responsibility for it.

He needed his memories to return. He needed them now.

Bran heard people starting to arrive but, caught up as he was in trying to catch up, he shuffled them to the back of his mind, certain that some of these messages were now beyond urgent, that they were life or death. These people, his people, expected responses, they expected decisions and actions. As he scrolled back through the emails he had sent just before his memories had evaporated, he could see that he sent out members of his own pack to deal with issues but he was a man – or a couple – down at the moment. Charles and Anna were taking parental leave. Asil. Juste. Himself. These were who he dispatched to fix issues. To kill.

There was a great deal of killing, it seemed.

Eventually, Bran couldn’t put off joining the increasingly noisy pack that were milling in his living room. He shut the laptop and pulled open the study door. People he didn’t know greeted him readily as he slunk through the hallway and he gave them all half-smiles. He found Leah, standing with her back to him in a group of six. Anna was one of them, as was the tall red-head from breakfast. Tag.

Bran touched his hand to Leah’s hip as he approached and she made a space for him. He decided it was appropriate to leave his arm around her when she relaxed into him. It was immeasurably calming.

“Leah said you had some urgent business. Everything okay?” Anna’s warm eyes were concerned. His daughter-in-law, he reminded himself. An Omega. A true werewolf treasure.

“As ‘okay’ as it always is,” Bran replied, vaguely, because that was apparently his modus operandi and he because he wasn’t about to announce that the world was deeply and irrevocably screwed to an audience. He smiled. “What are we talking about?”

“How old Naomi has to be before we can start teaching her to ride.” Anna’s tone was paper dry, which suggested she had been at the receiving end of a number of ludicrous suggestions.

“Pretty sure I was thrown on a pony as soon as I started walking,” the man on Bran’s left said thoughtfully.

“Surely five or six?” Leah chipped in. She nudged Bran with her hip. “But definitely a pony. Perhaps an appropriate birthday present from her grandparents.”

A nice idea. “That’s if she even wants to ride a horse.” The thought of his tiny granddaughter and a horse was off-putting. Human babies were fragile.

“Out here, she won’t get much independence without one until she can drive,” Tag pointed out practically.

“That’s true.” Anna sighed. “Until she got her little truck, Kara was constantly waiting on the largesse of anyone with a vehicle.” She laughed suddenly and looked to Leah. “The number of times I would call Leah and she’d be sitting in some parking lot waiting for Kara is surely too many to count.”

“My skills as an unpaid chauffeur are unparalleled,” Leah replied, lifting her glass to acknowledge this neat statement of fact without any recollection of it being the case. She turned to look at him. “You should eat before it’s all gone – I would strongly recommend the sausage casserole.”

“I’ll do that.” He kissed her quickly, tasting the wine on her lips. He wanted more. “Actually, may I speak to you for a moment? If you’ll excuse us.” Bran took her hand and drew her away. In the kitchen, where food platters were spread across the counters and werewolves were excitedly picking from them, he was greeted with more friendly, if slightly agitated voices. These wolves needed to run and soon.

Bran helped himself to a plate, grabbed a fork and then pulled his wife back down the hallway to his study. She was laughing at this treatment, being dragged along like a baggage, but she stopped laughing when he dropped her in his chair and instructed her to look at his emails.

He ate quickly, watching Leah’s face drop as she absorbed the contents. She rested her head on her palm, finger tapping the ‘down’ keys, eyes widening in increments. Mindful of the partially open door, she dropped her voice into an urgent whisper, “What— who are you? What’s a Marrok? Is that your name?”

“Sir Marrok was one of the Knights of the Round Table.” He snorted at this literary choice for a title, one he imagined he’d come with himself, and chased the final piece of sausage across his plate into the mashed potato. This sausage casserole was amazing. “The one whose wife turned him into a werewolf.”

Her lip curled. “I do hope that’s not a reference to me.”

Bran put his plate to the side and leaned over her. “My dear, that’s impossible, you are significantly younger than me.”

The smile she gave him was for the bedroom only and momentarily fizzled his brain. She leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking. “Significantly? Guess I am the trophy wife, then.”

He bent to kiss her, teasingly. He drew back until their noses bumped. “Guess you—oh hello.”

Charles was standing in the doorway, and neither of them appeared to have heard him. “Sorry to interrupt, which I was obviously doing.” He looked amused. “But I thought it might be time to start the run?”

*

A little light flirtation with his wife and then an extensive all-pack run was just the right medicine for Bran’s mood. Exhausted, wet, they returned home to the house just as dawn was peeking through the mountains. Of the same mind, neither of them Changed, they just trotted up the stairs, claws clicking on floorboards and curled up together before the fireplace in his room. He felt Leah’s ‘whuff’ of contentment tickle his ear before he dropped off to sleep.

Several hours later, he woke to hear her the crunch and snap of her Changing in her bedroom and he rolled over and stretched before beginning the same. It was never going to be a pleasant experience but for some reason the return to human was always worse after the night of full moon and he grimaced his way through it until he was braced on his hands and knees.

A wave of a nausea overcame him for a moment. He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting it back. Probably he hadn’t quite digested the last few mouthfuls of deer, he thought. He remembered—

Bran’s eyes opened wide. He remembered.

Then he dropped face first to the floorboards in a dead faint.

*

He woke to Leah rolling him onto his back, calling his name. “I’m awake, I’m awake,” he said groggily, though it was far from the truth. He felt like his brain had been wrung out, twisted like a rag. “Give me a moment.”

Bran covered his face and took a few deep breaths, trying to reconcile the last few days with the clarity of reality. An impossible task, taking in the memory of someone else living in his body, going through the motions of Bran’s life. A pod person.

A happy one.

“It was Anna,” he stated, sitting up.

Leah nodded. She wasn’t meeting his eyes, just hunkered down beside him, naked from her own Change. “I guess so. She was trying to calm us down. She must have overexerted herself in a new and unique Anna-like way.”

Ashamed, his memory crystal clear, Bran wiped a hand over his mouth. The last few weeks had been pretty difficult. When Ariana had called to tell him she’d been made aware of an artefact that needed ‘liberating’, he’d been only too grateful to be given a task rather than sitting and dwelling on his past sins and the halo of grief that surrounded his mate.

But then Anna, his tender-hearted daughter-in-law, had suggested they make it a road-trip, that it would be good for Leah to get out of the house.

He’d agreed because for a brief moment he could see the idea made Leah a little more concrete. A little interested, when she had been interested in nothing for months. Worse, even, than when she had been under the call of the Singer. Worse because he had his part in causing it. He knew what he had done. What he had not done.

What none of them had realized, of course, was that Bran, and Bran’s wolf, would not react well to Leah being outside of the safety of Aspen Creek. After all, he’d nearly lost her. In his own, deeply inept way, he had been fighting a battle not to lose her for months.

Leah had not taken well to his sudden – and to her mind, bizarre – desire to keep her from harm’s way. When they’d stopped for gas, he’d unthinkingly snapped at her to stay in the car and when she’d frowned and ignored him, he’d ordered her instead. This overreaction set off a chain reaction. Suddenly her ice-chip blue eyes weren’t vague any longer. They were glaring daggers at him from behind and she was spitting accusations and he was batting them away, batting them back. Things he’d thought long buried in their past were being flung at him from left and right and he had defended himself as best he could, growing more and more irate and defensive.

As they’d drawn to a halt outside their destination, they’d been mid-argument about Mercedes, Anna cringing in the driver’s seat, an unexpected witness to the ugly inside of a marriage that they had both tried to shield everyone from.

To escape him, Leah had thrown herself from the car, released of his order now they were no longer in a gas station. He had chased her down - he vividly remembered his too-tight grip on her upper arm, the twist of pain on her face. They’d had a screaming row on the porch of a thankfully empty home before Anna had intervened, pouring magic at them in desperation and pointed out they were drawing attention to themselves.

Temporarily, it had worked. They’d broken into the house, silently combed it from top to bottom before descending the stairs into a basement filled with stored antiques, all mostly harmless but a few genuinely terrifying pieces had stuck out to Bran immediately.

On edge, he’d turned, seen Leah look like she was reaching to pick up a small candlestick and his third eye had seen nothing but teeth and bloodshed and he’d damn near lost his mind. He remembered screaming at her, not in English, not even in Welsh, but in his mother’s unspeakable tongue.

Anna, already primed from earlier, had spun, screamed, “That is enough!” And poured her heart, and all her Omega strength, at the both of them, drowning them in syrupy warmth. In her utmost desire that they be better.

And they were.

“I suppose it makes sense. She—took out everything that was making us fight. Both of our histories,” Leah murmured. She rested her cheek on her bent knee, her face tilted towards him. She still wasn’t meeting his eyes.

He wanted, desperately, to explain himself, to justify his irrational behavior. For the first time, some semblance of an explanation came to him. “I was so frightened, Leah. When you were gone. It felt like—” His tongue was thick, in his mouth, fighting against the words, the admission of his weakness. “It felt like I had been waiting for you to die. It was like before. When she—when she was pregnant with Charles. Dying. It felt exactly like that. Like it was going to happen again.” The last word came out as a rasp as he ran out of breath, the horror of before haunting him.

Of course, Bran hadn’t known that. He had spent two centuries denying every emotion about her. He had locked himself down tight – and been proud of that. For the best, he had told himself. Told everyone, including her.

Meanwhile, the pressure on his chest had been building, building, building. Waiting for the final straw. He’d lived with that pressure for so long that he’d thought it was part of him, part of the wolf. Until it had broken open the moment he had stood on their decking, calling her name and knowing she was lost to him.

She nodded, just a little. “I understand that.”

Her understanding was a balm to him. “I overreacted, the other day. I apologize.”

“Oh, I don’t care about that, Bran.” Leah sighed and closed her eyes. “You know I don’t care about that.”

He did. Leah’s hurt was nothing to do with the present. He shuffled a little closer to her, needing to be closer. With the tip of his little finger, he touched the ball of her foot. Even that contact eased him somewhat. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“You’re not losing me. I’m just— sad. I’m sad, all the time.” Her voice became suddenly thick with tears and she turned her face away from him, hiding her emotions as best as she could. “I’m sad and I’ve been sad for a long time. I didn’t know it and now it’s overwhelming.” She sniffed wetly, her shoulders twitching with her hitching breaths. She managed, hiccupping, “It was nice. Having a break from that.”

“Maybe Anna could do it again,” he suggested, circling her ankle with his thumb and forefinger.

Leah lifted her head, her face slick with tears. She wiped her eyes. “Maybe she’s right and I should talk to a professional.”

Anna had mentioned this, several times, to both of them. She’d even emailed Bran a list of suggested therapists in the local area. She’d said Leah didn’t need to tell them the whole story to get help. She could share just enough to get the right kind of advice. To find ways of untangling her past and teaching her how to understand and manage her emotional responses to what had happened.

Initially, Leah had been aghast at the idea, so he was surprised to hear her voice the thought. “If that’s what you want, we can do that.”

Damp blue eyes met his for the first time. His wolf wanted to howl at the heavens at what he read on her face. His strong mate, brought low. “Do you think it would help?” she whispered.

Bran hesitated. He was an old man. Talking to a stranger about personal problems felt alien to him. Better to forget the past.

And there was an ugly, bitter fear within him that wondered if Leah talked to someone else, if she unpacked the unsewn wounds of her history, and the part he shared in it, she might come to the conclusion he should no longer be in her future. That he would lose her and that he just might deserve to do so.

However, whilst Bran might be an old man, and set in his ways, he could not help but reflect on the last few days. He had been given a glimpse of what their life could be like, if they were both free of what had come before.

Rationally, he knew it would never be thus. But he knew too that he was not helping her. He did not know how to. “I think it just might,” he said, slowly releasing the hold he had on her ankle, prepared to let her go.

But Leah reached for his hand. She pulled him towards her, fierce, her eyelashes clumped together with her tears. She sniffed again and pressed his hand to her cheek. “I don’t want to lose you, too, you know. You might be a massive asshole, and I might be a bitch after all, but despite all that, we—we care for each other.”

“Love each other,” Bran amended, gently. Love, a tender topic for them both, one they tip-toed around.

She tilted her chin up, stubborn. Despite showing her how he felt for her, she never quite believed it. “Maybe so. And we can be pretty good together, too.”

“More than pretty good, I think.” Relieved, Bran gathered her close, kissed her neck, tasted the salt from her tears on her skin. “I’ve got a list of therapists. We can look at them. Or you can look. Whatever you want to do, I will help however you want me to.”

She squeezed him tight. “I’m pretty sure you’ve got a few crises you need to see to first.”

Oh, God, but he did. But— “No,” he said, resolutely, putting all that he knew aside, “you come first.” He could do that.

For a moment, a long moment, it was perfect. Bran relished the warmth of her, the softness of her skin and the comforting feeling of her slow, deep breathing. She was safe.

And then Leah gasped and pulled back, alarm etched on her face. His heart-rated skyrocketed. “What?” he demanded.

“Kara’s earlier flight got in this morning. I have to go get her.” She stumbled up, unsteady, all long naked limbs like a newborn foal. She hesitated at the door, looked at him penetratingly. “Do you need to come with me?”

“Uh, yes. No disrespect but—” Uncomfortable with admitting it, Bran scratched at his chest, his rumbling wolf, the thought of her driving away from him like acid burning through his brain. “Yes.”

Leah’s head tilted to the side, her eyebrows rising. “Maybe you should talk to someone too,” she murmured and she was being honest.

He winced, imagining the tale he’d need to weave to explain to an innocent human bystander, one that wouldn’t make him sound like a possessive, controlling husband. Which he was. “Let’s start with you and see how that goes.”