“Actually, stop. Don’t tell me.”

“You don’t want to know?”

“No. Yes.” I swallow. “I think I should hear this from Koen.”

“Aw. Are you guys sleeping together yet?”

“What? No!”

“Well, since it’s probably going to happen, would you like a heads- up on the biology?”

“The what?”

“His dick. It— ”

“It’s not going to happen, Misery. It’d be against the law. He took an oath of celibacy.”

“I mean, sure.” She doesn’t sound sure. “But you should know that because you’re his mate, at the base of— ”

“Stop.” At the what of what? “I liked you better when you were a virgin.”

“Yeah, well, Lowe didn’t. So.”

I hang up and massage my eyes till the mental image is scrubbed from my brain, trying to ignore the way my stomach weighs a thousand pounds. Then something occurs to me: this could be my last conversation with Misery. The last time I hear her voice. The last time she hears mine.

I start texting.

Serena: Now that I think about it . . . Our shitty lives? I wouldn’t have them any other way.

Misery: Seriously? No other way? You wouldn’t, idk, skip over the part where the anti-Vampyre coalition mixed up our rooms and pumped you full of carbon monoxide?

Serena: What I’m trying to say is that I am grateful that our misfortunes brought us together.

Misery: Oh my god. Are you dying?

Shit.

Serena: Is that the only reason for me to tell you nice things?

Misery: It’s the only reason for me to listen to them.

I roll my eyes and throw the phone onto the bed. When I walk into the living room, the seconds are still there. I wave at them, listening in as I start the electric kettle.

“. . .all of their known hideouts. No sign of recent activity,” Saul is saying.

“That we know of,” Elle points out. “But our trackers extended their search and still couldn’t find any trace. And the cult didn’t create problems just for the Northwest— they’re despised by everyone in the area. We asked Human neighboring towns if they’d heard anything about them being back, and they were horrified.”

“Did you follow the kid’s trail from Dr. Silas’s home?”

“As much as we could,” Brenna says. “He knew what he was doing. Covered his scent in the ocean.”

“Any match between his and Serena’s DNA?”

“Unrelated. He was a full Were. According to the forensic expert, he spent most of his life in wolf form.”

I exhale. Continue puttering around the kitchen.

“Any Northwest markers in his DNA?”

“None.”

Koen nods slowly. “The good thing is, there can’t be many of them, or we’d have found them by now.”

“Maybe we could lure them out,” I muse, setting mugs, hot water, and tea bags for everyone on the coffee table.

The room goes so silent, the clicking of the porcelain feels louder than a chain saw.

I don’t let it bother me. “They think I’m their miracle Frankenstein baby, and they’re willing to go to some lengths to get me. If I were one of them, I’d think that I need me to recruit more followers.”

I plop down between Koen and the armrest, disregarding the way my thigh brushes against his. Tension swells in the room, heavy with discomfort, but I ignore it and gently press my knee against Koen’s thick quad to get him to stop manspreading.

He doesn’t budge, so I push harder.

He ignores me.

Until Saul tells me, “We’re not sure you were really a cult child, babe. And just to be clear, we would never think any less of you because of the circumstances of your— ”

“I know.” I smile. Reassuring, hopefully. “But the sooner we eliminate the threat, the better for the pack. And since we can’t find the cult, using me as bait might be the most . . .”

All the seconds stand at once, like they all received a simultaneous message from an alien mothership. I watch them do those weird, drawn-out nods in Koen’s direction, then quickly file out of the cabin. When I glance at Koen, I notice that he’s glowering and realize what dismissed them.

“Well.” I glance at the mugs. “That was a lot of work for nothing.”

“You’ll survive.”

“Not according to multiple physicians.”

His expression darkens further.

“Sorry. I was on the phone with Misery. Still in morbid humor mode.” It would make sense, now that there are more seats, for one of us to move away. We don’t, and Koen’s gaze stays on me, the platonic ideal of the concept of a scowl.

“Feel free to stop acting with reckless disregard for your life.”

“Aw. Thank you. Anything else I’m allowed to do, Alpha?”

His hand comes up to snatch my chin. “You could be fucking good, for once.”

“I can try?” I smile. My lower lip pushes against his thumb. “Why didn’t you tell me immediately that you suspect that I might be a child of the cult?”

Slowly, keeping his eyes on my mouth, he lets go of me.

“Let me guess: because you didn’t want to needlessly upset me in case it didn’t turn out to be true.” I sprawl against the backrest. “Withholding information to avoid hurting people. Reminds me of something someone was recently criticized for doing— ”

His palm slides to my neck. Tightens in a threatening curve at my nape.

I laugh, unfazed. “It’s okay, Koen. I forgive you.”

“Aw. Thank you,” he says, parroting me. But his expression is somber. “Remember your interview? Those people outside of the studio?”

“Not really. What— ” I gasp. “The man with the sign. Yelling something about . . . reborn flesh?”

He nods. “His talking points hit a little too close. I asked Amanda to track him, but it was Human territory, in the middle of a crowd. She couldn’t shift and she lost him.”

“I see. How many children were there in the cult?”

Koen presses his lips together, clearly worried, and my entire body hurts with how much I care for him. I would give a year of my life, a year I don’t even have, to press a kiss against the corner of his lips. Lower, where the stubble is quickly regrowing. I would do illegal, maybe even unethical things, in exchange for the right to bury my nose in the crook of his throat, where the scent of him is densest. “Several. A handful were Weres, and they were taken in by Northwest families. But Humans reproduce more easily, and over two dozen minors survived the cult. We partnered with Human services, kept tabs as much as we could, but we didn’t have access to their records.”

That’s how it went, then. Dozens of orphans, just like me. I wonder if they kept their memories. If we used to be friends. Where are they now?

This is too much. I can’t process it, not tonight. “I should go to sleep,” I say.

“Okay. Which room?”

“Um, mine?”

“Okay. We’ll sleep there.”

“We?”

“We.”

My eyebrow lifts. “Uh- oh. Celibacy Threat Alert.”

His look withers me, and every garden on the continent. “I’m going to stay in human form and monitor your temperature. We’ll catch your fevers early, and they won’t get as bad as they did last night.”

I open my mouth to say, I don’t want to put you out. I can take care of myself. It’s fine.

But maybe it’s not. Maybe I can take care of myself, but I don’t mind some help. Maybe he wants to be put out.

Maybe this is equally for him and for me.

So what I settle on is “Thank you.” I let my head roll back on the cushion. Meet his shoulder. Don’t bother hiding the way I’m burying my nose in the soft, worn flannel. He doesn’t mind: I can practically taste his satisfaction and relief at not having to fight me on this. It’s a sweet, joyful flavor against the roof of my mouth. “You know, your room might be better.”

“Why?”

“Comfier bed. Tub.” I blink a few times. Leave my eyes closed. “Smells like you.”

He grumbles something low that I can’t make out. Before I can ask him to repeat himself, I’m already sound asleep.