Page 9 of Fawn

She indicates the letter. “We both miss Luna and her ways. She loves you well and would be so happy if you found your one.” Her eyes are sensitive as they rest on me, and she reaches across and squeezes my hand. “It is hard for humans to live among wolves.”

She makes an assumption about me, like everyone in the village does.

Sometimes, I wish I were human… it would be simpler. Luna is the only one who knows my secret and the reason I could not bear to live in a human village… the reason I must live apart from the pack. My father was a wolf shifter. My mother was not. I know they hoped I would take after my father, but it was not tobe. It was an unusual pairing. She never shifted unless Papa was there, and after he passed, she never shifted once.

I lied to Wolf. I do not only go to the old castle to pick daffodils; I go there because it is a quiet place where I can shed my human flesh and pretend for a while…

“Do you ever think of going to the capital,” I say, changing the subject. “To see Luna?”

“I have considered it,” she says, and a wistfulness in her eyes tells me she has considered it often. Petunia is human and was once mated to the Oberon pack leader. After he died, she moved to Blackrock with Luna. Only now, Luna has gone, leaving her alone.

She has a son who likewise lives in Imperium lands—she has more ties there than here.

“My mate’s soul belongs to these mountains,” she says, a telling glisten in her eyes. “I don’t know if leaving would be easier or harder than staying. I have thought about it a lot, and more so of late. I still have family there beyond my son and daughter. Perhaps one day, perhaps soon. I only know that I’m not ready to leave yet.” She turns to me. “Now, my sweet Fawn, will you entrust me with your secret, your wolf? Do I know this shifter well?”

I shake my head quickly, although I believe she does.

“He is older,” I say before I can think it through.

She raises both brows. “How much older?”

“Quite a lot... He would be considered mature.”

“Did he lose his mate? Or has he never mated?”

“He has never mated,” I say.

She tries to school her features, but I see the softening around her eyes.

“What?” I ask. “Speak plainly, please. With Luna gone, I have no one to seek counsel with.” My eyes lower to the cake on thetable. “I have loved him since forever, but he never noticed me—probably sees me still as a child… a stupid little Fawn.”

“Oh, love,” she says, taking my hand. When she touches me like this, it is like my mother holding my hand through the woman who was once her dear friend, which comforts me. There are not so many mature, unmated men in the pack who have never mated. If she were to think about it long enough, I’m sure she would work it out. “I do not want to crush your dreams.”

“But you’re going to,” I say, feeling sick to my core.

“No, of course not. If he does not act, there might be many reasons. He may think you’re too young or that he’s too old, which might sound the same thing, but it’s not. Males of any species can be dim-witted when it comes to matters of the heart,” she says dryly. “Sometimes, like with Luna and her mate, they need a nudge—with a sledgehammer—in the right direction.”

I chuckle. “The sledgehammer approach is more Luna’s thing than mine.” I want to feel hope yet sense she has more to say. I long for a mate like my mother, who would accept me as I am. Before my mother died, I know she intended to write to her former people to seek a place for us there. I begged her not to. This is my home. The only life I know. The thought of leaving and making a home among new people, even if they are my kind, makes me sad.

Some of my resistance was undoubtedly because of my feelings toward Wolf.

“Shifters are very different to humans,” Petunia continues. “They are gregarious. Yes, many form bonds, but others choose not to because it’s not in their nature.”

I suddenly feel young and foolish. I suspect Wolf knows I’m infatuated with him and does not want to encourage me. “You mean because he is older and not mated; that is how he prefers to be?”

“It’s possible unless you can think of another reason why he might never have taken a mate?”

“I don’t know of any reason. He seems to take his position within the pack seriously.” I’m halfway to confessing his name. “But after yesterday, I suppose I hoped.”

“Do you want to talk about what happened yesterday?” she asks kindly.

“I am being foolish,” I say.

“Fawn, you are the sweetest young woman I know. It’s why Luna loved you so well. But you wear your heart on your sleeve… And I have a strong inkling as to who your wolf is.”

I blush to the roots of my hair.

She shrugs and offers a smile. “He’s a fine male. Powerful. And if it’s whom I’m thinking, he has a strong sense of purpose, being the pack enforcer for many years.”

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