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Once Hudson’s laughter died down, we drove on in silence.

“Can I ask you something?” I said softly. “And I need you to be completely honest with me.”

Hudson flicked a glance toward me, his green eyes warm. “Always.”

“How in the actual hell did nobody fact-check me?” I asked, throwing my hands up slightly. “Seriously, Hudson. I walked into your family reunion, gave vague answers about my past, used fake shifter essence I bought off Etsy, and accidentally joined a supernatural pack. How did nobody look at my face and say, ‘Hey, wait a minute, you look nothing like our long-lost cousin’?”

A slow, genuine grin spread across Hudson’s face. He let out a low laugh that rumbled through the cab.

“Honestly?” he said, shaking his head. “Loany was always a total ghost. She hated photos, stayed out of pack business, dodged every get-together for eight years, and moved around so much nobody knew her face anyway.”

I blinked. “Eight years?”

“At least,” Hudson confirmed. “The only time anyone ever heard from her was when Grandma Ruth forced her into a group chat once a year, and Loany would drop a single thumbs-up emoji before disappearing into the ether again.”

“So when I showed up…”

“In this family’s specific chaos,” Hudson said, looking over at me with that quiet, devastating warmth, “a quiet, photo-averse girl showing up, bringing butter-heavy cupcakes, and claiming to be her was one hundred percent plausible.”

I sank back into my seat, an incredulous laugh escaping me. “I spent weeks having full-blown panic attacks in my living room over a girl who was literally a myth.”

“A myth who hated camera flashes,” Hudson added, his mouth curving. “You fit the description perfectly.”

“I hate all of you,” I muttered, but I couldn’t stop myself from smiling.

Hudson grabbed my hand, weaving his fingers through mine. “No, you don’t. And for the record? We like our version of Sloane a lot better.”

I squeezed his hand. “Thanks. But I still don’t understand how I was added to the chat in the first place.”

“Grandma switched us over to a new app because the old one had lots of hackers. We try to be careful about sharing information on any platform that can be hacked. The app was secure against hackers. Apparently, it wasn’t secure against Grandma manually entering numbers.”

I thought for a moment. “So it truly was a mistake? A wrong number?”

Hudson nodded. “Yep.”

“Since we’re airing everything out, I have another confession to make.”

“I don’t know if I can take any more tonight,” Hudson laughed.

“I might have purchased a fake wolf tooth online because I thought it was genuine.”

“Why the hell would you do that?” he asked.

“I thought it would make me smell more like a wolf.”

He laughed and stopped at a red light. His hand found my neck and he pulled me close, kissing my jaw and breathing in deep. “I love your natural scent. There’s no need to cover it up anymore.”

My skin prickled at his touch.

Hudson and I still had conversations ahead of us. His family still had questions. Caldwell had accepted juice from me and trusted me during the emergency, but he hadn’t returned to the easy affection we had shared before the truth came out.

I didn’t expect him to.

Once the light turned green, I turned to face him again. God, he was so handsome. When he had kissed me next to the waterfall, I’d considered pulling him down to the ground and asking him to do all the dirty things to me. I was a lady, though, unfortunately. But I could only restrain myself for so long now that Hudson knew the truth and was still choosing to be with me.

We drove another fifteen minutes before the route became familiar. A strip mall appeared on the left. A gas station passed on the right. Then a pharmacy, a discount store, and the sign for a shopping center I had visited enough times to recognize from the back.

I looked at Hudson again. He kept his attention forward. “You said this was phase two.”