"Hello?" Aubrey waved her hand in front of my face and I shook my head to clear the cobwebs. All week, I'd been going through the motions of my work in the storeroom methodically and mechanically. Each movement precise. If I focused this way, I could keep my mind on the tasks in front of me. I could keep it from wandering back to Gabriel. To the feeling of his hand holding mine, his skin against my skin. To the calm I felt when he finally relaxed beside me.

But here in the cramped back room of the clinic, sorting, counting, and labelling was all that mattered, and I committed myself fully to the work. Since I'd returned, Aubrey had tried to get me to share details of the weekend, but she was growing impatient with my distance.

"What is it?" I asked. I shouldn't have.

"Why won't you tell me anything about the gathering?" She was sitting atop my workstation, having carved herself out a section amidst the jars and pots and vials.

"Because there's nothing to tell." I leaned back on my stool and looked up at her. "I sat in a library and read all weekend. I was just there in case anything happened."

"You didn't go to any meetings?" She pushed.

"I went to one," I acquiesced.

"With Gabriel?"

I turned my attention back to my label making. "With my Alpha."

"Gabriel is your Alpha." Aubrey insisted, as though I needed a reminder. It didn't matter; I didn't consider him as such. He'd made it abundantly clear that I was not a member of his pack, so there was no need for me to accept him as my Alpha. I huffed out a short breath through my nose in response.

Aubrey switched tracks. "What about the woman?"

"Odette. Daughter of Erick, Alpha of the Cascade Pack." I listed off the two facts I knew. I left out that she was a talented painter.

"I know that, but why is she here?" She wasn't going to relent.

"What Gabriel does in his personal life is none of my concern, nor is it any of yours," I said shortly. For all my efforts to distract myself, Aubrey was ruining my peace of mind. What Odette was doing here with Gabriel was the last thing I wanted to imagine.

"They'd make a nice pair," she posited, picking up a jar to examine its contents. "This has gone off, by the way. It shouldn't be brown like this."

I took the jar she was holding and added it to the pile on the floor. "What color is it supposed to be?"

"Blue."

I made a mental note.

As much as I wanted to sulk by myself, Aubrey's persistence had lit a tiny spark of hope in me. I thought she might be starting to come around, and I desperately needed a friend. So I indulged her curiosity a bit.

"My Alpha's mate told me on the first night that Odette's mother and father were looking forward to introducing her to Gabriel, since he was the only unmated one there." The words felt heavy on my tongue. I wouldn't speculate any further; she could do with that information what she would.

"I knew you knew more than you were letting on." A grin stretched across her face. "What else?"

"They were meeting to discuss alliances." I withheld the specifics. I didn't know how closely Gabriel held security matters here. Back home, such topics were fairly openly discussed. Dmitri appreciated hearing the perspectives and opinions of his pack, but I guessed that Gabriel likely did not.

Aubrey rolled her eyes. "I don't care about that. I meant what else about Alpha Gabriel and Odette?"

"They went for a walk together one night. They rode back together in the other car. Now you know as much as I do." I pasted a new label onto the jar of nettles.

"It's about time he found a mate, anyway." She slid off the table and stooped to look through a stack I'd already sorted.

"Maybe it'll soften him up." I'd spare her the foul language I'd used to express a similar sentiment to Constance. I wondered what he would be like, falling blindly into a fated, bonded love as I'd seen so many do in the past. Would Gabriel be different with a mate by his side? She might convince him to be more approachable, more willing to let others in.

Aubrey hummed thoughtfully. "Maybe. Or maybe he'll be even more guarded if he feels like he has more to protect."

She brought up a point I hadn't considered. It was entirely possible that having a mate would only make Gabriel more closed off, more focused on his own pack and less willing to form alliances or extend help to others. I pushed the thought aside.

"I hope it works out for them," I said, trying to sound neutral. I wanted to feel that way, truly. But I was lying through my teeth. "It's important for the pack to have a strong Alpha and a supportive mate."

Aubrey nodded, but I could tell she wasn't convinced. "Why aren't you mated?"

"Wow, bold." I threw her a look and she shrugged. I'd learned from our first conversation that she never shied away from these sorts of questions. Though she asked without judgement, she certainly didn't ease into it, either. "I don't have one. I don't have enough wolf blood."

"That's sad."

"I don't think it is. I do have a partner." I sniffed inside of a jar and set it on the floor. It smelled stale.

Aubrey handed me another jar that I'd missed earlier and nodded toward the pile. "Expired. A partner?"

"Jack." Thinking of him brought a wistful smile to my lips. "He never shifted, so he's not mated either. We've been best friends since we were kids, so we just sort of paired off."

"Like how humans do?" She asked.

"I guess so, similar." I thought about the day Jack asked me to be his partner. He'd walked me back to my apartment from the clinic and after awhile he'd taken my hand and asked me whether I'd consider living with him, being more than just his friend. We never really discussed what that meant, but the way it turned out felt easy. Natural.

"So you love him?" Aubrey was a researcher, a tested healer. These sorts of questions had less to do with her interest in me as a person and much more to do with expanding her understanding of the world around her. To her—to most wolves—love without a mating bond must have seemed strange.

"Of course." I tried not to sound defensive. Of course I love Jack.

"Why isn't he here?" Again, I reminded myself, just curious.

I sighed. "Gabriel wouldn't allow him to stay. He's not a part of the debt."

Aubrey looked pensive. "I think the last time I was away from Noah for any amount of time was the sickest I've ever been. I could hardly get out of bed."

"Really?" I frowned and set my work down to listen.

"Years ago, we were thinking of moving on. He went out with a group to scout new territories. He was gone a couple months." She grimaced at the memory. "We bonded when he turned eighteen, I hadn't even shifted yet. We'd basically been together most of my life."

"I didn't know it could affect someone that way." I supposed being on the outside, I only ever heard about the positive things to being mated, the things that made me feel jealous of a kind of love I'd never have. But there are two sides to every coin.

I could hardly wait to get back to the apartment that evening after my conversation with Aubrey put Jack on the forefront of my mind. We had scheduled a phone call, our first since I left, and I'd been thinking about it anxiously all day.

My name was the first thing he said when I answered the phone. The way he said it—easily, lovingly—soothed every worry I had. I instantly regretted not calling him sooner.

"I've missed your voice," I said, trying not to let my own crack.

"I've missed your everything," Jack replied sincerely. "How are you doing? How was the gathering? I want to hear about everything."

Everything sounded overwhelming, but when I mentally parsed through what 'everything' was, I realized there was in fact very little to tell. Sinking onto the futon and pulling my knees up to my chest, I began with the clinic: "Marie, who you met, still hates me. She has me shut away in a back room doing inventory. Half the things in there are expired; I'm sure come spring I'll be the one harvesting new stock."

"I know how much you love harvesting," he teased. I always offered to help him during our own harvest season but regretted it every year and made sure he knew just how much I hated it. I smiled.

I told him about the book I'd found, and how I was beginning to teach myself about the plants and herbs that I was sorting through.

"What about the other healers, besides Marie. How are they?"

"There's one, Aubrey. I think we could be friends." I felt even more hopeful this was true after our conversation that morning. "The others haven't really bothered with me. Most everyone here looks at me like I'm..." Unwanted. Dirty. A pariah. "An outsider."

"They'll come around." He promised. It was easy for him to say; it was in Jack's very nature to be liked by everyone. "I heard you did well at the Alpha gathering."

"Hardly," I scoffed. "I made one comment in one meeting and spent the rest of my time in the library."

"Well, Dmitri said you were impressive and that you held your own. I knew you would." He paused and his voice darkened. "But he also said that Gabriel isn't...particularly nice to you." I could picture him: he'd be pacing now, running a hand through his hair. Frustrated that he was there, and I was here, and he could do nothing to protect me.

Of course, Dmitri hadn't seen the other side to Gabriel that I saw that weekend. Those brief, precious moments in the dark of his room, when his guard was lowered and he'd finally relaxed enough to sleep. When he was almost kind to me. But this wasn't something I felt compelled to share with anyone, let alone Jack. It felt too private. Too personal.

Instead, I agreed: "He's not, but he's not particularly nice to anyone really."

"What about outside of work?"

I was grateful that he'd changed the subject, but I didn't want to think about myself anymore. "There's not much to do outside of work. I want to hear about how you've been."

He caught on quickly and spent the next half-hour filling me in on all the details he'd left out of his letter. I closed my eyes as I listened, imagining that I was sitting beside him on our sofa, a fire on the hearth and dinner in the oven. I could almost believe in the fantasy, but not quite. My mind kept pulling me back each time I shifted and felt the scratchy material of the futon against my skin, or heard the noisy heater kick on, or caught the scent of stale air coming from what I was sure was mold in the walls. I wasn't at home; I wasn't anywhere close.

We ended the call with earnest I love you's and a promise to speak again soon. Now that I knew I could handle it without breaking down, I had every intention of keeping my word.