“It’s not a sign,” Koen declares flatly. “It’s fucking poaching.”

Karolina laughs, reaches forward to exchange a long hug with Koen, and then leaves as I yell after her, “Please, do share with the pack newsletter about my excellent work as Koen’s personal groomer.” I turn around to receive what should be Koen’s undying gratitude but will likely be a giant load of crabbiness, and—

Suddenly, I cannot breathe.

Because I didn’t expect him to be standing so close to me. But also, clean shaven and without his hair hiding his features, he seems younger. Less moody. His face feels so . . . open. Direct. Available. Like maybe, if I applied myself, I could tell what he’s thinking half of the time. There could be room for me, in the life of a man with that face.

“Hey,” I say.

His nostrils work. “Hey, killer.”

I clear my throat. “You look so much more dignified, now that I’ve de- shed you. Cuter, too. Just like that hot guy. From that movie.”

“What movie?”

“All of them.” I wet my lips. Look down at my toes.

“Serena.” There is something in his tone, something that I refuse to contemplate, something I need to cover up quickly.

“By the way.” It comes out shrill. I don’t care. “I know you have a job and everything. You don’t have to stick around with me all day, if there’s something else you need to be doing.”

“The bowling league will wait. We’re going out.”

“Where?”

“I had an idea.” He dusts hairs off his pecs. I really wouldn’t mind it if he put on some clothes. “Well, Brenna had an idea, but if it works, I’ll pass it off as mine.”

“An idea for . . . ?”

“Figuring you out.”

“I love it when you talk about me like I’m the ultimate escape room. Tell me more.”

“You’ll see when we get there. Give me five to shower.” He heads for his room. Stops. “And, killer?”

“What?”

“Tuck that T- shirt in your pants. It’ll look less like it’s mine.”

CHAPTER 18

He wants to show her every corner of his territory. The deep blue lakes and the snow-capped peaks. Moss-draped trees and rock spires. He wants to be with her for each marveled intake of breath.

THE DRIVE LASTS ABOUT HALF AN HOUR, ONCE AGAIN ALONG the jagged coast. Koen spends most of it on the phone with a dozen different people, discussing pack matters that seem to range from crop rotation to solar power to children’s swimming lessons.

I listen to him talking a group of teachers out of taking a shit on their principal’s desk and wonder if all Alphas are this intimately involved with the goings- on of their packs. Why am I surprised that Koen is this good at this job?

We park in front of a red-roofed farmhouse that looks like something I once saw on a postcard. “No way.” I once again paste my face to the window. “This place is unreal.”

“Of course it is. It’s my territory.”

“I still don’t think you can take credit for that.” I laugh. “Look— they have cows!”

“If I’d known what a fan of livestock manure you are, I’d have— ”

I ignore him and exit the car right as a young man comes toward us. His mop of dark curls is swept around by the wind, and his frame is slight, especially for a Were. “Dr. Sem Caine,” Koen explains after they exchange a hug.

My stomach drops. Did Koen find out? Does he know that I’m about to—

“Don’t worry,” Sem says. “You’re not here as a patient. In fact, you’re not even here to see me.”

The reason we came, I discover after we step inside, is Sem’s grandfather— “Dr. Silas Caine,” Koen explains. “Dr. Silas is one of the elders of the pack, and he used to specialize in pediatrics. Any boy or girl who was born in the Northwest in the last sixty years was examined by him at some point.”

I immediately understand where this is going. “Would he remember me, though?”

“Not your face,” Sem explains. “Which is just as well, since his eyesight has been deteriorating. He’s in his nineties now. But he might remember your scent. Come, he’s this way.”

In the living room, Dr. Silas sits between two women: the first looks so much like Sem, she has to be his sister. The second has short strawberry-blond hair and a shy smile. Her fingers slide around Sem’s as he introduces her as his partner.

“Layla is one of the pack’s midwives,” he explains. Before adding, a little sheepishly, “We’re all doctors in this room.”

“You are making me look bad,” Dr. Silas says from his chair. He’s a robust man, with a full head of milk-white hair and a husky voice. “My entire family became doctors, and people assume that it’s because I’ve been butting my nose into their lives and pressuring them. And now we have Sem’s daughter, who cannot read yet and is already saying she’ll be a surgeon.”

“Don’t worry, Grandpa. We’ll tell everyone that you pushed us to become trapeze artists and coal miners, and that we severely disappointed you.”

“Is it too much to ask for a poet? Or a musician? I so love music . . .” He sighs and turns in our direction. When he smiles, his face splinters into a million fine, leathery lines. “Koen, child. It’s always a pleasure to see you. And how kind of you, to bring me the halfling.”

I glance at Koen, puzzled. “The what?”

“We have stories in the north. Legends, ballads. Ancient stuff about children born of Weres and Humans. Weres and Vampyres, too. We call them halflings.”

“Halflings.” I taste the word, then smile. “I like it. More than ‘hybrid.’ Makes me sound less like a car.”

“Do come closer,” Silas beckons. “You will forgive me if I don’t stand, won’t you? Serena, right?”

I nod, taking a step toward him. Then I remember what Sem told me about Dr. Silas’s eyesight and add, “It was given to me at the Human orphanage. If we met before, you might have known me under another name.”

“I see, I see. Will you sit, please?”

I drop to his feet, cross-legged. “These halfling legends . . . Do you think they might hold some truth?”

“Most stories do. Although the truths we seek are often not the ones we find. But if you’re asking whether you’re the first of your kind . . . I do not believe so, no.”

Juno said the same: hundreds of thousands of years ago, Weres and Humans and Vampyres used to be one. There are lots of theories about how speciation occurred, and I’m sure that at this very moment at least two anthropologists are fisticuffing over them at a sparsely attended academic panel. The bottom line, though, is that some groups split off and went their merry way. By the time they attempted to rejoin, they were no longer the same.

But reproductive compatibility is fluid, Juno said. Our DNA is similar enough that all it takes is a few mutations at the individual level to allow procreation. There will be people referring to you as the harbinger of the decline of civilization, but what you are is not new, per se. It’s just . . .

A comeback?

If you will.

What you’re saying is, I’m vintage.

It’s not really what I—

And Renaissance Girl should be my new nickname?

I didn’t—

Deal.

“How old are you?” Dr. Silas asks, leaning forward in his seat.

“Twenty-five, as far as we know.” I fall quiet and fail in my quest to not glance back at Koen. I must have lost my object permanence skills, because I need constant reassurance that he exists, he’s here with me. He gives me a small nod, and I feel marginally less like used kitty litter.

I shouldn’t be nervous. I’ve lived my entire life not knowing who my parents were, and I’ve been just fine. I never allowed my origins to define me, because if I had, I would have been destined to remain undefined. I may be Serena Nobody, but I’m still Serena. The past doesn’t have to shape the future.

Hell, I don’t even have a future.