Ivy's POV
I stared at my mother, time stretching between us like a taut wire. "Mom..." The word escaped my lips as barely a whisper.
She shook her head, another tear tracking down her cheek. "I knew then that I could never mate with Rober. So I left. I talked to my father, just like you talked to me, and he promised he would never force me to mate with a wolf who viewed females as disposable—using them at their most vulnerable and then killing them when he was finished. Whenever Rober came looking for his mate, my father would immediately send me away."
"How did you meet daddy?" I asked softly.
A blush colored my mother's cheeks at whatever memory had surfaced, but before she could answer, another desperate howl tore through the air. I watched her shoulders slump in resignation.
"We should go," she said, quickly extinguishing the fire and packing up our things. "Faith will lose his mind if we don't show up soon." Her lip curled in disgust. "Can you handle the next four years?"
