Page 19 of Wynter Abandoned

“A little?” he asked. “Because Violet and Calla would never be a little anything. Those two are like overblown roses at the end of summer, petals falling around them and past the first flush of youth.”

“No, that’s them. I was trying to be tactful. Are they in your pack?”

“As much as I hate to admit it, yes. They and their mother are thorns in my side. They show up for every run and meeting with opinions and demands. The past few years, they are determined to find their mates and that those mates be alphas, no matter what the alphas concerned may think.

“Or feel. In fact, the alphas in our pack will do just about anything to avoid them up to and including, in a couple of cases, joining other packs.”

I chuckled, remembering the time I met the two sisters. “You are serious?”

“Deadly. You said you met them?”

“More like was accosted by them on the street of town. I didn’t know who they were but they kept calling me a visitor?”

“Rumor has it that there are a lot of guests coming into the area for the ball your pack is throwing,” the other alpha said. “Since we haven’t socialized with your pack in over a decade, and they would have been young then, they likely don’t remember you. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to leave it that way.”

“Thanks for the advice. Now, the person I do want to run into again is the female who was with them in town. Long silver hair, big blue eyes, on the thin side?”

“No…no idea who that could be unless…no. Nobody has heard of or seen her in almost ten years. Since right after her father died. Everyone assumed she’d gone away, maybe to a family member or school or something.”

“What are you telling me?”

“Mostly that I don’t know for sure. Wynter’s father was married to Mitzi, and when he died, we stopped seeing her. Wynter, not Mitzi. You say she was very thin?”

“Yes.”

“Now I’m concerned that maybe she’s been sick. Everything is so chaotic with your ball and everyone getting ready to attend. After they all get back, I’ll have to pay a visit to Mitzi and her family and make sure things are as they should be.” He was quiet for a minute. “Actually, I’d heard something else.”

“What is it?” I was eager to know everything about her. Any details. My wolf growled deep inside me.

“I’d heard that Wynter was unable to shift. Maybe from grief after her father died or some other trauma. I’m not sure, but Mitzi told me that Wynter stopped going into wolf form rightafter that. I think she implied that she’d sent her away to school for her mental health?”

Nothing I was hearing was encouraging. My wolf was demanding I go find her now. Rescue her from what was surely wrong. “Ernest, I think there’s something wrong in that house.”

Chapter Nineteen

Wynter

It was time to make another trip into town. My stepsisters did not like the dresses they’d bought and wanted more. In fact, they wanted some that came from better places, but that would have involved a trip to the city or order from a high-end boutique online, and there was just no time. And, I suspected, money.

Father had always cared for us well, and we lived in comfort, but the snowballing of my sisters and their expenditures would tax the finances of a family a lot wealthier than ours. At the start, their mother had been just about as bad, but even she had slowed down, as evidenced by the fact that she bought just one dress for the event.

“You’re going to have to take all the rest back if you want another,” she told them in a tight voice. They were in the dining room, gobbling their breakfast while I scrubbed the stove. Apparently one of them decided she wanted a snack during the night, and it was too cold out to come after me. When I wished I had a smart phone…any phone…I remembered that would give them the ability to call me twenty-four seven. It really was damned if you do or don’t because whichever thought they could make soup and a sandwich had spilled the soup, letting it cook into the stove, and also burned the pan for the sandwich. How they’d get by when I left was beyond me. Of course, they thought they’d be marrying their Prince Charmings after the ball, and I was never going to leave.

Where would I go?

While I scrubbed the floor on hands and knees—how could one can of tomato soup spread so far? I overheard Violet’s and Calla’s wails at their mother’s remarks.

“No, Mama. We can’t take the dresses back. Not only did we tear off the tags, but after we tried them on, we stuffed them in the hamper with the wet towels.” Violet’s note of triumph was disgusting. “They are unreturnable and unwearable. Even that girl won’t be able to make them better.”

“How will we ever get married if we show up in wet, wrinkled ball gowns?” Calla added.

My next job would be to try and salvage the dresses. I’d seen them try to exchange clothing they’d destroyed before, claiming it “came that way,” but those times had been their own decisions, mostly for the joy of ripping off the merchants. Their mother’s demand that they could not have more gowns without returning these? That was new. Why didn’t she just tell them to slow down and make the money last until they found their mates? It wasn’t as if they’d care what happened after they left.

If they left. Could Fate be so cruel as to give them mates but not me?

“Fine.” Of course, Stepmama capitulated. “But after this, we have to talk about living sensibly within our means.”

“After this,” Violet snickered, “we’ll be living within our new alpha mates’ means.”

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