“You sure you want to split up?” I asked my dad as he parked the truck. Braden had stayed behind to handle a problem with one of our deliveries for the Honey Pot so we couldn’t even pair off in teams of two.

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “Take the truck and head over to Annora’s old house. I’d like to have some words with her old alpha.”

“Camden stays with you,” I insisted.

“What? You don’t trust your old man to handle one wolf?” he asked crossly.

“From what we’ve learned, it won’t be one wolf. His enforcer is almost always at his side,” my brother reminded him from the backseat.

“Fine, two wolves,” our dad conceded.

“We all know your bear can take on more than two wolves. That’s not the point,” I hissed. “Odds are I won’t find anything after all this time at her house if what we’ve heard is true. The smart move is for one of us to head there and two of us to meet with the alpha.”

“You did always teach us to make decisions based on whatever made the most sense,” Camden chimed in.

“Smartasses,” Dad grumbled.

“Better than dumbasses,” Camden shot back.

“Damn straight,” I agreed. “Now, get out of the truck so I can go check out the house and get back here as soon as possible, just in case you guys need me.”

“Shit, bro,” Camden griped, “it’s not like I won’t be right there to have Dad’s back.”

“Like I said, I’ll hurry,” I said, chuckling as he slammed the door behind him and turned to glare at me.

The town was small and it only took a few minutes before I was pulling into the driveway of the house where my sister had grown up. The sensation of my bear’s fur rubbing against my skin surprised me. Figuring he had awoken because of the anger coursing through my veins, I pushed him to settle down. He didn’t respond to my command as quickly as usual. I guess I was more rattled by the sight of her perfectly normal looking childhood home than I realized.

I was kind of expecting the exterior to reflect the horrors she had suffered while living there. Instead, as my gaze swept across the upper levels to the garage, I found nothing in disrepair. Even the lawn was perfectly cut. Then I noticed the woman tottering on a ladder at the top of the porch steps and my bear practically broke through my skin to get to her. Fighting the urge to leap from the truck, it took me a moment before I realized who she was to me. Apparently, my journey to avenge Annora led me straight to my mate. I wasn’t sure I would ever find her, yet there she was, in the very last place I ever would have expected: the house I’d dreaded visiting.

She had the tall, lean frame and dark hair of most she-wolves. The memory of the suffering my father went through at the hands of his wolf mate almost had me backing out of the drive. Then her head lifted, the wind blew her hair away from her face, and our eyes locked. Before I knew what I was doing, I pulled the keys out of the ignition and threw the door open so I could climb out. Never allowing our gaze to break, I walked toward her, feeling a magnetism pulling me her way. Her body swayed as if she felt the same pull, shaking the ladder underneath her. As it started tipping toward the stairs, I sped up my pace. By the time she tumbled down, I was able to catch her in my arms.