Episode 4

Chapter 4: Departure

[ RONAN ]

Gwen had opinions about breakfast, and she wasn't shy about them.

"You're not leaving this house on an empty stomach," she said, setting a plate in front of Ronan that could've fed three people. Eggs, toast, bacon, sliced fruit arranged in a pattern that suggested she'd thought about it. A glass of orange juice that she'd clearly squeezed herself, because Gwen didn't trust cartons.

Ronan looked at the plate. Then at Gwen.

Gwen looked back.

She was sixty-two, built like a sparrow, and completely immune to Alpha authority. She'd been the Ironhowl packhouse housekeeper since before Ronan's parents died — since before Ronan was born, actually. She'd changed his diapers. She'd bandaged his knees. She'd held him the night they buried his mother, when he was seventeen and shaking and refusing to cry.

Ronan had cried anyway. Gwen hadn't told a soul. That was Gwen — she saw everything and kept it all, and Ronan trusted her more than he'd ever admit out loud.

He picked up the fork.

"Good," she said, and started wiping down the counter she'd already wiped twice.

Brennan appeared in the kitchen doorway, duffel bag over one shoulder. Harper was behind him, coffee in hand.

"Car's ready," Brennan said.

"He hasn't finished eating," Gwen said.

"Gwen —"

"He hasn't finished eating."

Brennan leaned against the doorframe and waited. He knew better.

Ronan ate. Not because he was hungry — he was never hungry in the mornings — but because fighting Gwen was a war of attrition he'd never won, and he was twenty-seven years old and had stopped trying.

"Oh," Gwen said, in the tone she used when she was about to say something she'd been holding onto. "That girl called again."

Ronan's fork paused. "What girl."

"The Ironjaw one. Portia."

Harper's eyes flicked to Ronan over the rim of her coffee cup.

"She's been calling the house line," Gwen said. "Three times this week. Says she's coming to visit. Arriving in three days, apparently. She's been telling people she's going to be your Luna."

The kitchen went quiet. Brennan didn't move from the doorframe. Harper didn't move from behind him.

Ronan set the fork down.

He barely remembered her face. Brown hair, maybe. Or dark blonde. She'd been attractive — they were all attractive, the daughters of allied Alphas who found excuses to visit and made themselves available with varying degrees of subtlety. Portia had been less subtle than most. She'd shown up to a Pack dinner in a dress that was technically clothing, cornered him in the hallway afterward, and he'd let it happen because his body wanted something his mind didn't care about.

One night. She'd left before dawn. He hadn't thought about her since.

And now she was telling people she'd be his Luna.

"I'll handle it," he said.

"You say that about everything," Gwen said.

"Because I handle everything."

She gave him a look that communicated, very efficiently, that she did not agree. But she let it go, because even Gwen had limits.

Ronan stood, carried his plate to the sink — Gwen hated when he did that, she wanted to clear it herself — and walked toward the door.

Gwen caught his arm. Her hand was small and warm and had flour under the nails.

"I know you don't want to go," she said quietly. Not the breakfast voice. Not the housekeeper voice. The other one — the one she only used when they were alone, the one that sounded like someone who'd watched a boy grow up too fast and carry too much and never once ask for help. "I know you think the Elders are fools, and maybe they are. But Ronan —" She paused. "You've been alone a long time, sweetheart. Brennan and Harper love you, but they have each other. You come home to an empty room every night, and you think I don't notice, but I do."

Ronan looked at her. He didn't say anything.

"I'm not saying this girl is the one. I'm just saying — keep your eyes open. For once."

He squeezed her shoulder once. "I always do."

"You keep them open for threats, Ronan. I'm asking you to keep them open for something else."

"Don't scowl the whole time."

"Everyone keeps saying that."

"Because you keep doing it."

He left.

The car was a black SUV with tinted windows. Brennan drove. Harper took the passenger seat. Ronan sat in the back, which he preferred because it meant no one could watch his face.

They pulled out of the packhouse driveway and onto the long road that cut through Ironhowl territory. Pine trees, open fields, the occasional patrol guard who nodded as they passed. The territory was two hundred square miles of forest and mountain and everything Ronan had bled to keep.

He leaned his head against the window and watched the trees slide by.

His wolf was quiet. Had been quiet since that night in the study, which was unusual. Normally, the wolf had commentary. Today it sat in the back of his mind like something waiting.

Ronan closed his eyes.

His mother's kitchen was on the third floor of the old packhouse — the one before the renovation, the one that still had the wood-burning stove. She used to cook with the windows open, even in winter. The whole floor would smell like rosemary and bread and cold air. His father would come in from training, snow melting in his hair, and wrap his arms around her from behind. She'd swat him with a wooden spoon. He'd laugh.

Beautiful. Warm. The kind of memory that made people believe in the mate bond, in the great love story, in the happily-ever-after.

She poisoned him.

Or at least, that's what Ronan believed. Had always believed. The kind of knowledge that sat in your chest like a swallowed stone.

And then the bond killed her anyway. Eleven days after his father's heart stopped, hers did too. The mate bond — the great, sacred, unbreakable bond — made sure the person who destroyed his father couldn't survive it either.

Funny, right? The bond didn't protect his father. It just ensured they both ended up in the ground.

Ronan opened his eyes before the memory could go further.

Trees. Road. Brennan's hands on the steering wheel, steady. Harper scrolling through her phone, feet up on the dashboard.

"How long to Bloodthorn?" Ronan said.

"Six hours," Brennan said. "Give or take."

"Six hours of Ronan pretending he's asleep and us pretending we believe him," Harper said without looking up from her phone.

"I don't pretend."

"You literally just closed your eyes and clenched your jaw for twenty minutes. That's not sleeping. That's brooding with your eyes shut."

Brennan glanced in the rearview mirror. "She's not wrong."

"I didn't ask."

Harper twisted around in her seat to face him. "Here's what I'm thinking. We get to Bloodthorn, you do your stone-face thing, the girl is either boring or desperate, you find something wrong with her in under forty-eight hours, and we're home by Thursday. Sound about right?"

"That's the plan."

"Great. Then stop brooding, because you're making the car depressing." She turned back and poked Brennan's arm. "Tell him about the Hargrave daughter's Instagram."

"She doesn't have Instagram."

"Exactly. Who doesn't have Instagram? That's suspicious. I'm going to find out what she's hiding."

"She's probably hiding the fact that she's boring," Brennan said.

"Nobody is boring, babe. Some people are just better at packaging it."

Ronan leaned his head against the window. The trees were changing — thinner, lighter, more birch than pine. They were leaving Ironhowl territory.

Something in his chest loosened. Just a little. Harper was good at that — talking enough for three people until the quiet in the car stopped feeling heavy.

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