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It made sense that Knox could help them all.

If he was a good Alpha. If he was nothing like his father. If he actually had a plan that could work. If he hadn’t harmed Lena. If he didn’t intend to.

If

If

If…

Phoebe was about to risk her entire relationship with Theo on a lot of ifs. She could only hope that he would understand. That when all this was over, Theo would see she had made the right choice, the choice that would benefit them both.

Hopefully, he would look past his fucked-up relationship with his brothers and his pack and see that Fee just wanted what was best for their shared home.

She wasn’t a seer by any means, but even she knew this could end in disaster. And still she said, “Okay, I’ll do it.”

Gert blew out a sigh of relief.

“One week,” Fee said. “I can’t lie to him for longer than that. I won’t.”

Gert leaned in and kissed her cheek. “One week.”

When Fee pulled back, Gert smiled at her, her face soft and sweet once again. “And maybe at the end of the week you’ll stop lying to him about other things, too.”

Phoebe opened her mouth to argue, but Gert just guided her toward the door.

“Goodbye, dear. Safe travels!”

There was nothing safe about this trip, Fee thought as she strode out.

Chapter Five

As promised, Theo showed up to Fee’s house an hour later. The only problem was, he couldn’t see it.

Phoebe lived in this section of forest with an ever-changing cast of dryads. Their colorful homes up in the trees were cloaked from human (and wolf) view. To anyone walking by, he was standing in a grove of giant oak trees. Only he knew better. Those trees were part of the dryads themselves, and this grove was their home. Like a little neighborhood right in the middle of the woods.

It still took his breath away every time Fee unveiled it for him. The old treehouses were nestled together in various states of disrepair. They’d been built and rebuilt so many times over the years, they were now a hodgepodge of styles and materials. Theo himself had been recruited on a number of occasions to fix leaks and patch holes. But with the vines and leafy branches hanging low over the roofs, the overall effect was cozy and not decrepit. Theo liked the nymph grove more than his own lonely cabin.

But it was kind of a pain when he was coming to see her and couldn’t actually see her.

“Hey, Fee!” he called. “Phoebe!”

He leaned against a tree, waiting for her to respond. He’d asked her once if she made her human customers call out to her like this and she’d laughed.

Of course not, she’d said. They set up an appointment, and she made sure her house was visible when they got here. Why she never seemed to remember to do that for him, he didn’t know. He was pretty sure she just liked to make him wait.

“Fee! We gotta get going!”

He’d also asked her what the humans thought of the fact that she lived in an actual treehouse. She’d shrugged and said they thought it was awesome.

Which was fair.

He still remembered the first time he saw it.

The first time he saw Fee.

Ten Years Ago

Ryder raced ahead of him as they tore through the underbrush. They’d run farther than they usually did, far from his father’s watchful eye, and it felt good.