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I look toward Luna Selena. She heard him. Her expression doesn’t change as she directs another family into the room. Jasmin walks past me a moment later with a small notebook in her hand. She pauses near one of the groups, listens, then writes something down.
My gaze follows her pen.
“Ronan wanted to keep Silver Moon strong,” someone says from farther across the room.
My attention snaps toward the voice. Different wolf. Different group.
“Maybe he had a point.”
Jasmin’s pen moves again.
“Rylan is changing too much too quickly,” someone else says.
My wolf rises inside me. They’re doing this on purpose.
I’m beginning to think so. There’s a difference between a frightened mother asking whether the attack has reached her home and a wolf walking from group to group telling everyone who should be blamed for it.
Damian adjusts the glasses in his hand as he eats his snack. I stare at them, then look at Jasmin’s notebook again. Words on paper can be denied. Someone can say she misunderstood them or left something out.
I reach into my bag and pull out my phone. “Damian.”
He looks up at me.
“Can Mommy borrow those for a little while?”
His hands tighten around the glasses.
“I’ll give them back. I promise.” I hold out my phone. “You can play your games.”
His eyes drop to the screen. The decision takes about two seconds. Damian places the glasses in my hand and takes my phone.
“Can I play the racing one?”
“Yes.”
Darlene immediately scoots closer to him. “I wanna play.”
“You can watch.”
“I wanna play too.”
“You can take turns,” I say as I put the glasses on.
Damian opens his game while Darlene stands beside him with Teddy tucked beneath one arm and her snack in the other hand. I start recording, pick up my bag, and glance toward Luna Selena before moving through the safe area with my pups.
“Come on, pups.”
“Can I keep playing?”
“Yes. Stay with me.”
Damian follows without looking away from the screen. Darlene follows her brother, trying to watch him play as I move slowly through the safe area.
“Ronan wouldn’t have allowed half these changes.”
I stop near another family and pull a second snack from my bag. “Want another one, Darlene?”
She nods.