Page 34 of Atlas and the Traitor

The murder, however, came from the opposite direction. “Is that so?” Paris’s raised voice from across the table drew everyone’s attention, indignation unfamiliar in his soft voice, judgment unusual on his typically serene face. “When I found him, when I told him the truth about his sister, he’d been sleeping outside in the field where she died for days.”

Jenn immediately retreated, gaze cast aside as she tucked her tail and slunk to Abigail’s side.

Rotating on his shoulder, Atlas angled Robin’s direction, and when he spoke, it was a request, not an order. For Robin’s decision, irrespective of the opinion of anyone else in the room. “There needs to be another visible blowup, in case anyone is watching. Can you do it?”

His call, his will, his independence. “I can do it.”

Twenty-Four

It had been a decade since Robin set foot in his childhood home. Not much had changed inside since and yet his entire world outside it had been turned upside down.

The family home—a two-story stucco structure built into the side of a hill, halfway up the mountain Mac’s mother’s people referred to as Kanamota—was well cared for. Freshly painted a soft white, none of the roof’s terracotta tiles missing, the windows sparkling clean. The home cared well for its inhabitants too, its location naturally protected from elements and enemies, its foundations strong and sturdy, surviving the earth’s shifts for three generations of Whelans.

From the main floor balcony where Robin stood, the grounds around the home seemed similarly in order. Among the cultivated fields that dotted the forest clearings, half of them were beginning to show the first shoots of winter vegetables, while the other half were at rest until spring when they’d be planted with sunflowers, sage, and more.

And beyond the homestead, the peaks and valleys of the pack’s range were just beginning to recover from the long hot summer. In a couple rainy months’ time, the peaks would be green and the valley floor awash with yellow from the wild mustard that flourished in these parts.

Growing up, March had always been his favorite time to run, when the towering, swaying weeds made the range feel a little less huge. When the mustard reminded him of his mother. They’d laid him and his sister on her chest right after their birth, as she’d struggled for breath, the life bleeding out of her, and she’d smelled like the wild mustard did under his paws.

“Never thought I’d see you back here.”

Robin rotated away from the view to the older man standing over the balcony threshold. “Uncle.”

Jasper’s strawberry blond hair was thinner and streaked with more white than the last time Robin had seen him, but those white hairs and the deeper wrinkles around his eyes and mouth were the only signs of age on his mother’s brother, the man who’d raised him and Deborah.

Their father had died within a year of their mother. A broken heart, everyone had said. A self-inflicted gunshot wound, the police report said. Jasper had seen Robin through that and more, until the day of Deborah’s funeral when he’d told Robin that he never wanted to see him again.

Toned arms folded, Jasper’s stature was as imposing as Robin remembered, his golden eyes as sharp and discerning as they’d been whenever Robin had pulled explosion-worthy stunts as a teen. “What brings the prodigal son home?”

“I need Mom’s letters.” There’d been a stack of them waiting for him and Deborah when they’d come of age. Everything she’d wanted them to know in case she didn’t survive their birth, like she’d somehow known she wouldn’t. He’d read them countless times over, looking for clues and finding few, the mate bit having stuck with—frightened—him most. Now, given that the mate bit had come true, and given everything else he’d learned the past few months, plus the wealth of knowledge in said mate’s head, he might connect the dots he hadn’t recognized before.

“They’re gone,” Jasper said, as he wandered back into the great room.

Robin followed, momentarily distracted by the additional pack members who’d gathered inside, including Jenn and Abigail. Their wide-eyed expressions indicated they were just as surprised as him by Jenn’s father’s statement.

“Gone where?” Robin asked, trying to squash the tangle of anger and panic rising in his voice. No way Jasper would destroy those; they were all he had left of his sister. They were all Robin had left of his mother. After he’d last read them, the day of Deborah’s funeral, he’d put them into the family safe like he and Deborah had always done. Jenn, who’d assumed the mantle of pack leader after Deborah’s death, had assured him they’d always be there, as part of the pack’s historical record.

“I burned them.”

Jenn vaulted off the arm of the couch. “Why’d you do that?”

“In case this war you two”—Jasper waggled a finger between them—“are set on fighting goes the other way.”

“You’d fold?” Robin scoffed. “Just like that?”

“I’m protecting our family and this pack.”

Robin glanced around the room, meeting each pack member’s gaze. “Do all of you feel that way?”

“We’re with Jenn,” said Bruce, her younger brother.

“And I’m with her, always,” Jenn replied, her devotion to Nature unwavering, but when she swung her gaze to Robin, it was clear her feelings toward him were more than just an act’s worth. “But where are you, cousin?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You turned Paris over to a giant,” Abigail said, and Robin’s gaze shot to the most level-headed member of their team, the one who understood nuance better than most, abandoned by a pack who had allied themselves with a giant.

“Just like your mate did,” Jenn added.

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