“But I can find him!” he protested. Veronica had been with him a moment ago, but she didn’t seem to understand the urgency of this. He’d had a headstart, he’d be gone without a trace if they didn’t find a way to track him soon, now, and there would be no one to help them with it – just them. If they wanted to bring him back, they...

Theo had been ready to tear up the desk in service of finding some shred of evidence to point his father’s journey in one direction or another, but Veronica stopped him, bodily, with her hands on his shoulders. It was gentle; he could still feel his shoulders rising and falling with his chest in breathless anger.

He paused again, to look at her. They wanted him back, didn’t they? Cee and he were his children, and he couldn’t help that, he wanted to protect them – but he had made the choice to marry Veronica. He had been a werewolf when he married her. I hope you continue to consider her family, his father had written to him, before leaving her in the worst position of all.

So much for loving any of them, then. Maybe this was who he really was.

“He’ll miss us, he said,” he choked out, still not comprehending it. “But he’d rather leave us than be here.”

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