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There’s just enough space to take one step outside, but that’s it. There’s no room for anything else. It’s more of a large window than a balcony with a wooden railing that reaches my belly. But I guess you wouldn’t need a balcony on the ground floor with the large expanse of grass on the other side of the railing.

Looking up, the rooms on the second floor have actual balconies that you could maybe fit a small chair onto. It’s a nice home. Definitely not something that has been thrown up in a hurry, so the Raleighs have been back for a while, maybe upwards of a year, to have built this home.

Which means they have had time to plan whatever it is they have set in motion. Maybe it’s just snatching omegas. Maybe it’s something more.

“And if I don’t want to make a home with Shane?” I turn to face Franklin, who is standing in front of the open door with his hands stuffed in his jeans pockets.

Shane is watching me, his eyes so watchful that when I run, it has to be when he’s not around. Franklin might not care, but Shane will definitely try to stop me.

“I’m sure you can work things out with Shane.” Franklin turns to leave.

“Mack is my mate,” I call after him. “Why would you bring me here if you intend to let me go away with Shane? Why not keep me with the other omegas?”

Franklin twists back to face me. “Mack is the true next Raleigh Alpha. We were never stronger than when a Raleigh led us, and we will be again. We’re merely getting things ready for him.”

I frown. “But I don’t understand. Why bring me?”

“Becausehewill come afteryou. And when he does, he will stay.”

“He has a pack already. He won’t want to lead you.”

Franklin steps outside and grips the door handle, preparing to close it. “He will when he sees everything we could be. The Raleighs are back, Aerin. Hewilljoin us.”

Franklin closes the door, leaving me alone with Shane.

I feel him watching me.

I spin around so I don’t have to look at him or the only bed in the room. The thought of having to share a bed with him is making me feel sick.

“We can be happy, Aerin.”

“No, we won’t. What happened to Bree?”

When he doesn’t respond, I look at him.

He crosses over to the crib, and I retreat when it puts him closer to me than I’m comfortable with. Especially after that kiss, and especially in a room clearly meant for a mated couple.There is only one king size bed in here, and I have no intention of sharing a bed with my former mate in this lifetime or the next.

“She died,” he says, looking at the crib as he rocks it.

The last time I saw them, Bree was shoving me off a cliff near Mack’s home, wanting me dead because Shane’s wolf still viewed me as his mate and had tried to attack Bree. She worried that Shane would eventually change his mind about wanting her and he would come back to me instead.

With Shane’s sudden determination to play happy families, it looks like Bree might have been right. He wants me now. Not Bree.

“Your wolf killed her?” Bree killed Shane’s dad, Iain, after Iain stopped Shane’s wolf from attacking Bree. With Iain dead, maybe there wasn’t anyone around to stop Shane from killing Bree.

Shane rocks the crib again.

It looks expensive, but it’s nothing compared to the crib Mack built for our baby. We did it together. I sat next to him, reading the instructions and handing him things as he did the bulk of the building.

And we laughed so much as we puzzled out the instructions. It’s a memory I will hold in my heart forever and I can’t wait to tell my child about it when they’re old enough to understand.

“Not me,” he says.

I wish I didn’t care about his answers. I wish I didn’t have a reason to talk to him at all, but I can’t help but be curious. What happened to the Dacre Pack? And what happened to Bree?

Shane loved his pack. I didn’t know him too much because he kept so much of his thoughts and feelings from me, preferring to open up to Bree. I couldn’t help but see how much he loved his pack, his father, and how much they loved him.

So why is Shane no longer Alpha and who killed Bree if he says it wasn’t him?

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