“Why do you care?” I shoot back, even as I put the horse back down gently.

He doesn’t answer, just walks out the door.

“Where do you want to run?” Jaxon asks as we make our way down the stairs to the front door.

“Down the other side of Denali?” I query. “Near the resorts?”

“Sure.” Once we’re outside, he takes off at a full-on fade, not quite what I’d had in mind.

I catch up to him, and we fade alongside each other for a while, but it’s not exactly conducive to talking.

He finally slows down for a second at the bottom of the mountain and I stop, determined to have my say before he takes off again.

“Hey.” I grab his arm.

Jaxon turns around with his fist clenched and, for a second, I think he’s going to punch me. Instead of fighting back, I decide to let him.

But the swing never comes.

He drops his fist. Shakes his head. And asks, “What are we doing here, Hudson?”

My skin starts to feel too tight. “I thought we were running?” I say as casually as I can manage.

“Not what I mean, and you know it.” He walks a little bit away, leans against the trunk of one of the big trees that fill up so much of the wilderness around here.

I do know. I clear my throat. Shift my weight back and forth. Stare off into the distance. Then finally manage to get out, “I wanted to say thank you.”

“For Grace?” he demands hoarsely. “Don’t thank me for that. The mate thing was all her—”

“I’m not thanking you for the fact that she’s my mate,” I tell him. “I’m thanking you for…”

“What?” he demands, and suddenly my baby brother looks tired. Really, really tired.

I blow out a long breath. “For what you did the other night,” I finally say.

He shrugs, jaw working. “It didn’t mean anything.”

“It meant everything—to me and, I think, to Grace. You didn’t have to do that—”

“Yeah, I did,” he tells me. “Watching Grace walk around like a whipped puppy may not bother you, but I couldn’t take it anymore.”

It’s bait, no doubt about it, and I know he threw it out there like that just to see if I would take it. But even knowing that, it’s hard to walk away when I’ve spent weeks trying to get out of their way, despite Grace’s and my bond.

Still I manage it, nodding and speaking through gritted teeth as I answer, “That’s fair.”

“That’s fair?” he mocks, and his black eyes are narrowed dangerously. “Nothing about this is fair, Hudson. You’d know that if you weren’t so busy being magnanimous.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?” I ask him.

“Isn’t it?” he shoots right back.

“Not even a little bit. I’m trying—” Again, I break off, because it’s not easy to talk to him at the best of times. Right now, when he’s determined to mess everything up? He’s impossible.

“What?” he snarls.

But I don’t answer him. I can’t. Instead, I just shake my head and turn back toward school. I knew going in that this was a bad idea. I just hadn’t realized how bad.

“So you’re just going to walk away?” he mocks. “You get me out here, and now you’re just going to walk away without telling me what you want? Real mature, Hudson—”

Something inside me snaps.

“I want my brother back!” I hurl the words at him like knives.

He freezes. “What did you say?” he finally asks hoarsely after a few seconds pass.

“You asked what I wanted.” I bite out the words. “That’s what I want. I want my brother back. I miss him.” I swallow. “I miss you.”

He stumbles back. “It’s hard to miss what you’ve never had,” he tells me.

“Is that what you think?” I whisper. “That we never had a relationship?”

“We didn’t.” He sounds so sure. “I got shipped to the Bloodletter when I was young. You stayed at home with dear old Mom and Dad and that was that. We’re just two strangers who happen to share the same blood. It doesn’t mean shit.”

“You don’t really believe that,” I tell him, even as something breaks inside me—something I didn’t even know was there.

“I do believe it. It’s not our fault. It just is what it is. Trying to change it after nearly two centuries—” He shakes his head. “There’s no point. Especially now.”

“The point is you’re my brother.”

“So what?” He shrugs. “It’s not like our family tree means shit to either of us. There’s nothing I got from either of them—from any of you—that I want to keep.”

The words hit like actual punches, and before I can stop myself, I’m snarling back, “Then why do you keep it? If you want nothing to do with any of us, why do you keep it?”

“Keep what?” he asks impatiently.

“The horse. I made it for you more than a hundred and fifty years ago, and I gave it to you the day Delilah took you away. If we’re two people who just share the same blood, if family doesn’t mean anything, why do you still have it?”

“You made it?” he whispers.

“Yeah. I still have the scar to prove it.” It’s a small, wicked-looking hook across my left index finger. “Where did you think it came from?”

“I don’t know. It’s just always been there…” He trails off as he realizes what he’s saying.

“You were crying the day they took you away. The only thing that made you stop was that damn horse. Thunder—”

“Thunder.”

We both say the name at the same time.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I never meant to hurt you. I never meant for any of this to happen.”

“I know.” He looks down, shuffles his feet. “And I’m sorry I… killed you. It was a shit move.”

For a while, neither of us moves as the words hang there between us. And then we both crack up. Just full-on, rollicking guffaws. Because seriously, that’s one hell of a thing to apologize to someone for.

“You think they make Hallmark cards for that?” I ask when we finally stop laughing. But just imagining it sets us off again, and for long minutes, we do nothing but stand there in the middle of the wilderness and laugh and laugh and laugh.

We don’t stop until an alarm goes off on Jaxon’s phone. “I need to go,” he says. “I’m helping Grace study for history in half an hour.”

Those words would have stung an hour ago. Hell, they would have stung fifteen minutes ago. But now, I don’t know. They seem…if not right, then at least okay.

Kind of like Jaxon and me.

We’re not right yet. We may never be right. But we’re better than we were, and maybe that’s enough for now.

Maybe it’s a start.

I can’t help grinning at the thought, even before Jaxon narrows his eyes at me and says, “Race you back?”

And as we take off fading back up Denali, I can’t help thinking that sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes the family you’re born with and the family you make coincide. And that makes all the difference.