Page 28 of Pack: Posy 3

She turned the page to display a group shot of five or six people.

"This is her family. The Swifts of the Crystal Caverns pack. I don't know any of them. I wish she would have labeled them."

"That's Liam Swift, the current alpha," I pointed to the guy on the left side of the photo. "Obviously this was taken well before he was alpha, but I can still recognize him from what Jay linked us."

"Ash," she said in a slow, careful tone that put me on guard, "Jayden helped Alpha Liam with something three months ago. Is that when and where your beta died?"

I sighed. I should have - weallshould have - known she'd put the pieces together correctly. Our girl was smart.

"Yeah. Mase was helping the king with an issue at the royal pack. Cole was in Texas acting as a mediator between two packs, and Wyatt and I were still in school. So Jay took Ev Breckenridge with him and left the other betas in charge of the pack until he, Cole, or Mase got back."

"Did Ev die because of something Quartz did, or in Quartz's place?"

I blinked.

"How did you—"

"Based on Quartz's reaction at dinner when it was brought up," she said with a little shrug. "Why else would he be so upset? Either Quartz caused his death, or he died saving Quartz."

Forget smart, I marveled.Our girl is a genius.

Yep!Sid was much happier with our mate distracting him from his anger.Smartie smart mate!

"He took a hit meant for Quartz," I admitted. Debating whether or not to tell her the whole truth, I decided it would do no harm for her to know. "It was the damndest thing, too. Ev was shifting into his wolf and the attack hit him just at the right second to kill Ev, but miss Spring. Never heard of anything like it."

"Wait. What? The man died, but the wolf survived?"

"Yeah. Jay brought Ev's body back, along with a whole and functional wolf." I paused, then reframed my answer. "Well, for a given value of functional. Spring wasn't doing too great without his other half."

"So what happened to him? Is he still alive?"

"He is. He needed more help than we could give him here, so King Julian took him to the royal pack, where some healers and elders are working with him." I tilted my head as a thought crossed my mind. "I wonder—"

"What? You wonder what?"

"Hmm? Oh. Just something the king said this morning. Do you think he might try to introduce Spring to Reau?"

"Like, a wolf who lost his shifter becomes friends with a shifter who lost his wolf?" She frowned, then nodded. "It might work. For comfort, if nothing else."

"Hmm. I think it will all depend on how stable the king decides Spring is right now. The last thing we want to do is make Reau's situation worse by introducing him to a nutso wolf," I said dryly.

"True enough." She set her photo album on the coffee table. "There are some more pages of people I don't know at the end that I think might be my father's people. I hope the king finds at least one relative still alive in the royal pack. I'd like to know more about him."

"I would, too. He created a great daughter, after all." I grinned down at her, and she blushed. "Mom and Mama made a book for us as well. It's a family photo album, but also tells the story of how Five Fangs came into being. Want to see it?"

"Of course!"

I got up and grabbed the book from the shelf in the corner. It was a lot like hers, professionally bound in hardcover, but in black leather, not green linen. Sitting down next to her again, I took a big breath, then opened the cover to a picture of my parents.

"So it starts with these people. Gabriel and Kristy Mitchell. I told you they died when Dark Woods was attacked by hunters when I was two, right?"

"Yes. I'm so sorry." She laid a hand on my arm.

"I don't really remember them, but it's so damn sad. Look how young they are. They never really got to grow up, you know? Dad was only twenty-one, and Mom was twenty. I don't know much about his family, other than that his mom, my grandma, came from Samoa. Her family moved here when she was in high school and that's where she met my granddad, who was the alpha of Dark Woods, and it turned out that they were mates."

"Wow. Samoa. That's in the Pacific Ocean, right?"

"Mm-hmm." I nodded. "Closer to Australia than the US."

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