Page 57 of The Broken Wolf's Redemption

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

“Florida is nice.”

“It is, but you should see her farm. It’s so storybook. The perfect place, with a yellow house and wraparound porch and even a red barn. It came with chickens, goats, a cow, a donkey, two dogs, and several barn cats. Rome is going to find them good homes. None of them like him. They all sense the wolf in him, and it sets them off. It sucks because I always wanted a pet growing up and we did try, but we always had to rehome them. They just… went berserk when it came to living with us. Dogs lasted the longest, but even still.”

“I always wanted a pet too. It’s true wherever you are, I think. If you’re a wolf, they know.”

“So, we came to pack up the rest of Rome’s condo. He moves out at the end of the month. It was just rented, something Kieran found for him after… well, after Rome had to leave and decided it should be here.”

“And the auto repair shop?”

“He’s still part owner, and he’ll always make money off of it for as long as he has it. He doesn’t need money, though.”

Jesus, if such a kind, lovely, sweet young woman with zero guile and so much patience and love for her daughter and an obvious passion for her mate could be with a man who used to kill people for money, a man who had kidnapped her, a man who was definitely much harder and darker when she’d met him, what did that say?

Maybe it said that Briar May knew a special kind of person because she herself was one.

But that wasn’t something Seren wanted to contemplate.

She hated the way her insides tied into knots at the fact that Rome had taken her advice. Pretty much exactly as she’d given it.

“The farm is in neutral territory,” Briar May explained. Maybe she was a mind reader too. You never knew what talents people had. “It’s only fifteen minutes away. He told us that you gave him that advice. Go home. Be close. Let Waverly be with us during the day so we could teach her and help her and so she could be part of a pack.”

“Yes. I did say that,” Seren mumbled, staring at the floor.

Briar May inhaled like she was gearing up for a big speech. Seren felt powerless to cut her off. Maybe if she said what she wanted to say, they could just get on with talking about tattoos again. “We all just want Rome to be okay. He’s done so many things he regrets and some he doesn’t, but either way, I’m not ashamed to call him my brother. I know that even as an okay version, he’d be kind of messed up. Seren?”

“What?” Her head jerked up. She had to stare into Briar May’s soft eyes.

“As a mated wolf, I can recognize the connection when two people have it. Your souls are always going to be tied up in one another, even if you stay apart all your lives.”

Ouch. Also… wow.

“I don’t believe in fated mates. Rome certainly doesn’t either.”

“I kind of do, but that’s only because of what happened when Castor and I met.”

“I don’t think that means you’re fated. If the moral of that story is that fucked-up things can have happy endings, I do believe that.” She didn’t have to say that she didn’t believe it was for her. That was obvious from her skeptical, slightly abrasive tone.

“You kind of haven’t really even had a proper beginning, so there’s still a chance, if you want it. He does. He hasn’t exactly made a secret of it.”

Having one’s body crave another’s, wasn’t the same thing as having a deeper connection. A body could want one thing while a mind wanted another, and the mind and the body could want something totally different from the heart. It was better that it was just the body. Getting the heart involved was an excruciating mess and a risk that Seren wasn’t willing to take.

“The way he wants me isn’t the way one wants a mate. It’s not… he wanted…” She didn’t really have to explain that, did she? “He wanted me the same way someone wants something shiny and dazzling, but when the shine is gone, they lose interest.”

Briar May shook her head stubbornly. She rubbed a hand over her belly and left it there at the bottom, her palm cupping the underside over her coat. She had that happy little smile that only pregnant women got because their body was doing an amazing thing, creating life, and they knew that soon they were going to hold their child in their arms, and it was the most incredible feeling.

Seren was not going to be jealous. She was devastated by her diagnosis and the failed surgeries, but she’d had time to recover. Her heart had mostly healed from those wounds. She’d accepted that it was her lot that she was never going to carry, birth, or hold her own child.

That didn’t mean she couldn’t be a mother one day if she chose to. It would be harder, but it wasn’t impossible.

“Relationships are based on trust,” Seren choked, her voice a little bit thick from what she was trying desperately not to feel, about her body, about children, about Rome. “I don’t want one. All of them start out strong and then just fizzle out. I don’t want that again. I don’t want to give the wrong person all of me and all of my world and try so hard and come up empty. Every person is the wrong person. I should be clear on that.”

“Rome isn’t just a person, though.”

Touche. Briar May was a tough sell. “Neither was my ex. He was a half breed, but still. I didn’t have to hide myself from him. My parents adored him. Can you imagine what they’d say if they ever met Rome?”

Far from being offended, Briar May’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “Oh, yes. Probably what they’d say about this.” She waved her hand, indicating the room with the bed and the tattoo equipment put away in a neat cabinet on the side, all the stencils and outlines and artwork on the black painted walls. “That it’s a bit of a catastrophe, I’m guessing. Or maybe a full-on crisis. Something you need to be saved from. They’d probably say to themselves that you’d logically turn back. Or that it’s part of your rebellious phase. One that has lasted for years. But then they’d meet Waverly, and they’d fall in love. That’s not negotiable. Anyone would fall in love with her. She misses you, by the way. She asks about you a lot.”

---