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A chuckle escaped me. “I won’t.”

Ivy released me, then smoothed both hands over the soft leather on my shoulders.

“Send word as soon as you’re able.” She hesitated, then added low enough for only me to hear, “I know how newly mated Omegas can be.”

I smiled. “All right. Will do.”

She looked at me as though she wasn’t quite ready to let me go, gave my gown one last inspection, then reluctantly stepped back just as Nora threw her arms around me.

“Mind the cape!” Ivy cried.

“Ivy. You will allow your sister her farewells.”

“Mo—”

“Hush.”

I almost laughed.

Nora looked up at me, her eyes already shining. “I shall miss you dreadfully, sister. Will you write often?”

My throat closed.

“I’ll try.”

“No.” Her expression became solemn. “You must do more than try.”

A laugh escaped through the tears threatening to come. “I will write.”

“And I shall write to you as well. I shall tell you how everything and everyone”—she glanced pointedly at Ivy—“are faring.”

Then she wrapped her arms around me again and whispered close to my ear, “I love you, Elowen.”

Something inside me gave way.

I never got to say goodbye to my own sisters. No warning, no last hug, no chance to tell them I loved them, and I disappeared from their lives. Now I was standing here, holding another Nora while some horrible, twisted part of me was all too eager to pretend I was getting the goodbye I’d never had.

For a heartbeat, I saw my Nora.

“I love you too, baby sis.”

Nora wiped beneath her eyes as she stepped away. My gaze moved from her to Eleanor, standing only a few feet behind her, trying so hard to smile that it hurt to look at her. Neither of us knew what to say.

I didn’t give her the chance to come to me. I almost tripped in my hurry to throw myself into her open arms.

Mum.

She even smelled like my mum.

I buried my face against her shoulder and breathed her in, holding tighter as her hand came to the back of my head.

“Be happy, sweetling,” she whispered. “May your Alphas love you even a fraction as much as I do. It would still be enough love to cherish you for two lifetimes.”

A sob caught in my throat as Eleanor’s purr began beneath my cheek.

Love. Peace. Comfort.

The sound moved through her chest, low and soothing, settling the worst of my emotions almost immediately. Then another pair of arms wrapped around us.