mate. “Evershaw isn’t here.”
“I know,” the dark-haired witch said coolly. She scanned the area, lifting her sunglasses to rest on top of her head, and frowned at the building. “We were looking for a place to practice.”
“Practice?” Henry glanced at Ophelia’s flushed cheeks and Mercy’s bouncing excitement, and figured it was something to do with magic. “Silas is inside; he can help you find one of the garages if you need to—”
“Henry,” a sharp voice called from across the street, and he went still.
It couldn’t be.
Deirdre glanced over his shoulder, polite disinterest all over her face. “Looks like you’ve got an admirer, Henry. Need some help?”
He did. He really, really did. But he shook his head, though a growl escaped as he turned on his heel to confront the woman who charged across the empty street. “It’s fine.”
The tall woman with bottle-blonde hair had their mother’s eyes and a lifetime of disappointments in the lines around her mouth. His older sister’s disapproving glare set his hair on end, and the wolf wanted to both flee and fight. Nola ignored everyone else there, her one-track mind once more setting them up for a hell of a lot of trouble. “Why haven’t you answered my calls? You haven’t responded to a single message.”
“There’s nothing to say,” he said, jaw clenched. He really didn’t want to deal with Nola, and he wanted even less to do it in front of an audience. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“We’re here to bring you home,” she said. Nola didn’t spare Deirdre a second glance, despite that the witch muttered under her breath, though Henry wouldn’t have minded seeing Deirdre square off with his sister.
“We?” Henry folded his arms over his chest.
She gestured at where she’d parked her rental car across the street, and a leggy brunette stepped away from the sedan. Henry’s heartbeat echoed in his ears as he studied the woman, trying to place her semi-familiar face. Someone from the pack, that was for sure, and probably someone he’d known before he left, but... her name escaped him.
Nola’s lips thinned with disapproval as she looked around at the industrial neighborhood and the scrappy buildings and people. “This is where you want to stay, instead of returning to your family? Henry, what’s the matter with you?”
He growled and wrestled with control. The wolf wanted to shift and run, to get the hell away from everything she reminded him of, and to find someone to fight so he could release the fury that boiled up in his chest. She had no right to disrupt his life, to drag up all the old problems and fears. He was done with all that. He didn’t want to return to Montana, he didn’t want to revisit their shared history, and he sure as hell didn’t want to be alpha of a pack that had abandoned him when he’d needed them most.
Deirdre stepped around him and offered her hand to Nola. “We haven’t met. I’m Deirdre. My mate is Henry’s alpha. And you are?”
The witch had the self-possession and presence of an alpha female, enough that a wolf like Nola recognized it. His sister sniffed and daintily pressed her fingers into Deirdre’s, though she dropped the other woman’s hand as fast as possible. “I’m Nola, Henry’s sister. And this is Fran, Henry’s mate.”
He rocked back on his heels, barely catching a curse before it exploded out of him, and stared at his sister as Deirdre, Ophelia, and Mercy stared at him.
Fran. He remembered her as a gawky teenager when he’d been barely a man himself. He shook himself and refused to do more than nod to her, the young woman’s face scarlet as she half-hid behind Nola. No doubt Nola bullied her into coming all the way from Montana to confront a man she didn’t even know.
Henry squared his shoulders. “She’s not my mate, Nola. You’ve got no business here. I told you before, I’m not interested in returning to the pack and I’m damn well not going to be alpha. You’ve wasted your time. You can spend the night at the pack house, but you should be on your way in the morning.”
Nola’s face flushed with irritation. “I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer, Henry. This is your duty.”
“You’re mistaken,” Deirdre said, her voice growing colder as she confronted the other woman. Henry had never loved her witchy-ness more. “Henry’s duty is here with our pack.”
Fran looked like she wanted to run in the other direction, starting to