“How old are you now?” Abby brushed a strand of dark hair from the boy’s forehead. “Two?”

“Three.” He held up four chubby fingers. “And a half!”

The conclusion surfaced in her eyes like an accusation when she turned to me. “You haven’t seen Faythe since Logan was born.”

I nodded. I’d moved on after Faythe chose Marc, but for a long time, seeing them together had stung. So, I’d stayed away to make things easier for all three of us.

Until now.

“No fair!” A new voice called as a larger but equally dark-haired boy stumbled to a stop on the top step, glaring at Logan. “You tripped me! And Grandma says close the front door ’cause she’s not in the business of heating the great outdoors.”

I took me a moment to recognize Desiderio, and if his eyes hadn’t been identical to Manx’s, I might not have. He was nearly five, by my count, and well-spoken for a kid his age. At least, judging by the standards my collection of younger half brothers had set.

Abby laughed and held her arms open, and Des ran into them.

“Abby! I didn’t know you were coming!”

“I didn’t know you were coming!” She scooped him up and held him on her right hip, unfazed by his size or weight. “Where’s your mom?”

“Feeding the baby. Daddy said we could wait up for Jace. Tell him to let us stay up longer!”

“Ha! That’s well beyond my authority,” Abby told the child, and he glanced over her shoulder at me, still hopeful, even though he couldn’t possibly have remembered me. He’d been less than a year old the last time I’d seen him.

“That’s not up to me, bud,” I said, and Logan pouted in my arms.

Desiderio looked puzzled. “But you’re an Alpha, right?” He sniffed the air in my direction, scenting out hormones. “You smell like an Alpha.”

“Dads trump Alphas every day of the week.” I set Logan down and the boys ran into the house together to find Owen, who’d adopted Des when he and Manx had married a couple of years before.

“Ready?” Abby whispered, and I could tell from how intently she was watching me that she knew how nervous I was. If she could see that, so would everyone else, and Alphas couldn’t afford to be nervous. Especially the junior-most Alpha—the one with the most to prove.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

She stepped into my path, facing me from just inches away, and her sudden nearness made my chest ache. Damn, she was beautiful. Light from the porch lit her curls on fire, and it took every scrap of willpower I had to keep from reaching for her. From leaning in...

“You’re going to be great.” She stared up at me as if I’d hung the very moon reflecting its light in her eyes. “All you have to do is let them see what I see.”

My throat felt tight. What did she see?

“Strength. Confidence.” Abby smiled up at me, answering a question I hadn’t even voiced. “Passion. Dedication. Determination. You’ve given everything you have and everything you are to this job. They’ll be able to see that.” She stood on her toes to wrap her arms around my neck, and the easy contact caught me by surprise. My pulse spiked before I could check the reaction.

If Abby noticed, I couldn’t tell. She snuggled closer, and as I wrapped my arms slowly around her, breathing her in, I told myself to keep it in perspective. Cats thrive on physical comfort from their Pridemates, and that was all she was offering. In fact, it had probably never occurred to her that anything else would occur to me.

Not that I was thinking of never letting her go.

I tried to relax into her touch, telling myself that this was more like hugging my sister than like touching…any other woman I’d ever touched. But my body didn’t believe my brain.

“I hope you’re right.” So far, I’d run my Pride in a virtual vacuum, intentionally maintaining distance from the other Alphas and their territories while I worked to establish my authority and get things organized. This meeting would be my in-person debut as a leader, and Faythe would be there to see it.

Marc would be there to judge.

If I failed to impress the rest of the council, my authority as an Alpha would be weakened, and I could not afford for that to happen before Melody got married. Before I had a chance to train her husband.

“I’ll be right beside you.” Abby’s breath brushed my earlobe, and again I lost control of my pulse. “For moral support.”

When she finally let me go, I exhaled slowly, trying to deny disappointment I felt like a physical ache. What was wrong with me? She was off limits, and if I couldn’t get my head in the game, the rest of the council wouldn’t let me play for much longer.

I followed Abby into the house and pulled the door closed at our backs. For a moment, I just stood there, taking it all in. I felt like I’d gone back in time to an alternate past in which the floor plan of the house was unchanged but the rooms had all been assigned different purposes. And different occupants.

When Greg was in charge, the ranch had felt busy but structured. Orderly. Organized.

Faythe was an entirely different kind of Alpha, and under her leadership, chaos reigned. But it was a cheerful chaos, and that was actually a nice change.

A rocking horse sat in the entryway, still draped with a little boy’s Batman cape in place of a saddle. Down the hall, one of the kids was crying, and behind the last closed door on the left, fast-paced, half-synthesized music blared from the room that had once belonged to Michael, Faythe’s oldest brother. Kaci had moved into it more than four years before, after the South-Central Pride had taken her in as a lost and traumatized thirteen-year-old.

From the kitchen came the hum of both coffee pots running at once, along with the soft growl of the dishwasher and the clank of heavy pots. Faythe’s mother was cooking chili, based on the scent. At ten P.M. Because a shifter’s appetite knew no schedule.

Before I could absorb all the other nostalgic sights and sounds, the back door flew open and three large, broad enforcers came in, debating the benefits of one video game sniper rifle over another. Victor Di Carlo led the group and the moment he saw me, a smile took over his face.

He jogged down the hall, arms already open, and a second later, he was thumping me on the back. “Three years, you selfish son of a bitch! When we said don’t be a stranger, we meant it!”