Page 31 of The Healer

“She’s a doctor?” Rhys grinned. I swore an oath.

Dane half-chuckled. “So she claims.”

“Just…” Rhys rubbed a hand over his face. “Go easy on her, Dane. She’s suffering.”

He locked gazes with Rhys. “I know, and she won’t say why. Cried on my shoulder yesterday.”

Rhys’s heart twanged, though why he cared, he couldn’t say.

“So, what brings you to Coedwig?” Dane finished his donut and gestured to Mo for another round of coffee.

“I needed a break. I’ve so much going on. Trying to repair what Alrik destroyed, rebuilding my pack’s morale. And on top of it all, I’m working closely with the humans and vamps to form a policing unit. Devereaux thinks we can…” Rhys didn’t want to discuss any of that, didn’t want to rehash the emotions Callie invoked.

“Devereaux?” Dane frowned.

“Callista Devereaux. Although, I suspect she’s de Winter now.” Pain cinched his chest, and his bear roared, deafening his internal hearing. Threatening tears stung his eyes. Dammit, an alpha never cried. Get it together.

“Ah, for a moment there, I thought you knew our Devereaux.”

Rhys shook his head. What were the odds of stumbling on a descendent of the Devereaux line right here in Coedwig. Could it be Callie’s lineage? He almost grumbled at his staccato heartbeat. Not all Devereauxs came from the same melting pot. And he couldn’t swap his infatuation from one woman to another.

“Amos’s Mona was a Devereaux.”

Everything within Rhys stilled, and for once, that included his bear. “So her granddaughter is…?” He struggled to swallow. The one woman he found attractive since meeting Callie turned out to be related to her?

Dane nodded, a mischievous smile splitting his face. “She’s new to Coedwig, but if I was you, I’d steer clear.”

“What? Why?” Warning him off had the opposite effect. Now he had to see her again.

“She’s under my protection, Rhys. Alpha to alpha, stay away from her. Like you said, she’s been hurt. Whatever happened, she needs time, space, for however long it takes to heal.”

Dane had the right of it. Rhys grunted. Still, she intrigued him, and it wouldn’t hurt to get to know her better. “Two alphas protecting her is better than one.”

Dane leveled an unflinching stare on Rhys. “You’ve changed.”

He grimaced. “I have.” Having tasted what love could feel like, he was more than determined to find it. And in doing so, break the hold a non-mate Callie had over him.

Dane sipped his coffee. “I might be howling at the wrong moon. We’ll touch on this after you’ve met Ilona and she’s chewed you a new one.”

Not for all the moons in the universe would Rhys reveal he’d met her already. He drained his cup and rose. “I look forward to it.” At Dane’s furrowed brow, he laughed. “See you at Cromwell’s.”

Chapter Twelve

MAGIC

Danesteeredintoanarrow road, following its zigzagging as it meandered around large pine trees that had to be centuries old. He drove around a corner, and before Ilona nestled a cabin against a grove of trees. Sunlight spilled across the clearing. He jerked the car to a halt in front of a salted walkway leading up to a wraparound porch.

The door was a pretty sky blue, and everything looked well-maintained.

“This is yours.”

“What?” she squeaked, twisting in her seat to face him.

“This was your grandmother’s, and Amos kept it pristine in the hopes she’d return. Giving me the keys was his way of saying it’s yours now.”

“But…if Gran returns with him, won’t she want it back?” Ilona scanned the pretty house with its chimney and shuttered windows. She could imagine herself enjoying her morning coffee on the porch swing built on one side.

“She’ll move in with him if I judged his determination correctly.” Dane grinned and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

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