Page 46 of Fractured Mates

“I know, but I had to see for myself if the house was still empty,” she says. “Just a quick sniff to see if they’ve been back and then we’re done. I won’t even go inside.”

“Why?” I don’t mean to ask the question. It’s none of my damn business, but I don’t understand why she cares so much about making sure they’re okay when it seems rather obvious to me that they were never there for her when she needed them the most. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have ended up in East Texas, basically on her own at sixteen.

Her eyes narrow and upper lip lifts into a snarl. “They’re my family. It doesn’t matter if I haven’t seen them in years. I won’t abandon them like they?—”

She cuts herself off and turns away from me.

Right then, I know without a single doubt my wolf was right. It made sense when he said it, but I assume the rest of her sentence was going to be “did to me” and that is all the confirmation I need.

Thane wasn’t the only person in her life who made her feel unworthy.

I reach for her and squeeze her shoulder without trying to make her look at me. “It’s okay, Sophie. We’ll check the house, and if they haven’t been home, we’ll still sneak into the pack.”

I want to tell her that they’re probably fine even if they haven’t been home, but giving false hope isn’t part of my job.

She jerks out of my hold and stomps forward. “I’ll be back.”

Like hell am I going to let her do this by herself this time. If she thinks she can push me away right now, she’s about to be really fucking disappointed.

Chapter Eighteen

Sophie

Making a deal with my wolf is like making one with the devil. She knew I wanted to stop by my family home again and could only make the time to do so if we were in wolf form. She then swore to behave herself with Kyler’s wolf, only to alter that promise once she was in control.

I’m not saying I’m going to attack his wolf, but I’m also not saying I won’t swish my tail and let him sniff my ass, she muses and as much as I want to be annoyed…I still laugh.

Some days, I don’t know what to do with you and others, I don’t know what I’d do without you, I reply, specifically not telling her which type today is.

You would die without me every day, so there’s that, she says smugly.

No, I’d just be a human, which might be worse than death. Knowing the magic of the world, the freedom to run through the trees, to feel the vibrations of the earth… I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

But that’s not what I need to be focused on right now. Kyler and the way he looks at me as if he knows all my secrets are making me crankier than my wolf.

He makes me want to tell him everything. The good, the bad, and the ugly—things I’ve never admitted out loud. And I don’t like it.

It’s okay to be vulnerable, my wolf says. Not everyone is an asshole like Thane.

I hear her words. I know they’re true, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready to believe them, which is why I’m stomping away from Kyler. Treating him like shit is easier than allowing him to heal the aches I live with every day.

Worse, I know he would and could. I’ve only known this man for two days, and I may not fully trust him, but I feel confident that his intentions are true.

I don’t know why. There’s just something in my gut that tells me so. A nudging that I very rarely ignore. Though, I have no problem avoiding thinking about it for a while longer.

Especially as I sneak closer to my family home to scent if they’ve been back since I was here.

My sister’s window is still open from us escaping hastily, and I growl, remembering how Kyler threw me out the small opening.

“I’m not trying to stop you,” he says from behind me. “I’m just here as backup.”

Now I know my thoughts are really fucked. I hadn’t even realized he was following me, and he must have thought my growl was for him. I mean, it was, just not in the way he must think.

I call my wolf forward enough to utilize her advanced senses as I scan the outside of the home. I’m not smelling any fresh scents, and one glance in the window shows the comforter on the bed ruffled, likely from the commotion yesterday. If it had been slept in, I’d expect it to have been made perfectly again.

“They haven’t come home,” I say despondently.

“That doesn’t mean they’re in trouble,” Kyler tries to assure me, but his words fall on deaf ears.