I was stunned. I stood in the humid Spanish night, my suit jacket slung over my shoulder, staring at the Beta's daughter as if she were a hallucination. She shouldn't have been there. She should have been back in the pack, attending the debutante balls and social functions fitting for her station.
"Kaeren, you look like you've seen a ghost." She beamed.
"What are you doing here, Celine?"
"I've been looking after her," she replied, stepping back to let me in. "She called me weeks ago. She was scared, Kaeren. She didn't want the doctors. She wanted someone who actually cared."
It was a masterstroke. Celine had spent months cultivating a relationship with my mother, playing the part of the devoted daughter-in-law I had never given her the chance to be. She had been the one to find her, the one to hide her, and the one to wait for me to arrive.
