Zack had been her big brother in the ways that mattered, acknowledged or not. Knowing shouldn’t change anything. But that wasn’t how knowing worked.
Knowing always changed everything.
A wave of stress and worry hit Jay first, just before Eden came into the dining room and dropped an open cardboard box onto the trestle table.
“You okay?” he asked, sliding his paperwork over to give her more room.
“Fine.” It came out terse and rough, and she gripped the box hard enough to bend it before sighing. “No, not fine. It’s been a weird day.”
Bothered, but not scared. Jay frowned. “What happened?”
“Before or after I quit my job?”
“You what?” He reached for her hand. “Eden, did something happen?”
“No, no.” She twined her fingers with his and circled the table to lean against his shoulder. “That was the good thing. I was standing there in my office and all I wanted to be was back here getting stuff done. Dealing with the new refugees and helping Mae and Kaley get the barn set up. So I made my choice.”
She sounded relieved—about that much, at least. “So if you’re not upset about your job, what’s wrong?”
Her fingers tightened around his hand. “Were any of you born wolves? It seems like everyone I meet was turned, not born.”
“Keith, the enforcer from Red Rock. He was born a wolf. Can’t really think of anyone else you might have met besides Zack.” He tipped his head back to look at her. “It’s not as common as it used to be, but it happens.”
“Only wolves having babies with other wolves?”
A question as puzzling as her confusion. “Yeah, it has to be two werewolves. I thought you knew that.”
She wasn’t looking at him. “And wolves never change for the first time before the full moon, either. Except me.”
An exception, one that even Stella admitted could have any number of explanations they’d never know. “The kid thing is a little different. Wolves have one first change, but most of them have lots of sex. Babies with humans always turn out human.”
Eden tugged her hand free and turned to rummage in the box, surfacing with a meticulously cared-for picture frame. Inside, behind squeaky-clean glass, stood a man and a woman outside Olsen’s Diner.
The smiling woman cradled a baby in her arms, and she looked so much like Eden that Jay lingered over the image. When he finally looked at the man, Austin Green’s wide, ever-present grin was unmistakable. “Your parents.”
“Just over thirty years ago.” Her finger hovered over her father’s head. “He doesn’t look like anyone to you?”
The man looked a little bit like Eden, but mostly he looked like himself—strong jaw and a straight nose, and tall, commanding if not for the humor sparkling in his blue eyes. Then again, if you disregarded the look on the man’s face, there was something oddly familiar, something Jay had never seen in Austin. A tilt of the head, a particular stance.
“He looks—” He broke off and met Eden’s gaze, certain he had to be wrong.
Silently, she pulled another picture out of the box. A birthday party, cake and all, tiny little Eden wearing a sweet smile and Zack, clean-shaven, a broad grin on his face.
Jay’s breath caught. “Jesus Christ,” he murmured. “Is he your brother?”
“You said he can’t be,” Eden said just as softly. “But my dad thinks he is.”
“DNA testing. Find out for sure.” He set both frames on the table. “Does Zack know?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything past what my father told me. That he had an affair with Zack’s mom, and my uncle always suspected it.”
Staring at the photos, only one question would come. “Why didn’t Austin just take Zack?”
“He wanted to.” She wrapped her arms around her body and shook her head. “I think Albus threatened to tell my mother everything.”
“So?”
Eden’s shoulders tensed. “It wasn’t a good decision, but he was scared of losing my mother. You know how this town is.”
A flimsy excuse. “Maybe, but was your mom the kind of person who would rather have seen a child suffer than find out about her husband’s indiscretions?”
“They weren’t indiscretions! My parents weren’t even married yet—” Her teeth snapped together and she dragged in a breath. “I don’t know all the reasons, but my dad cared about Zack. If there’d been a way, he would have taken it. You’re the one who said we couldn’t have done anything even if we told the law.”
The police wouldn’t have been able to help…but they wouldn’t have had to. “I said they couldn’t prove abuse. That wouldn’t have mattered if Austin had filed for custody as Zack’s real father.”
That stopped her for a moment, but a prickle of uneasy power accompanied her defensive stance. “Could he have gotten it?”
“It depends, I guess, on the availability of paternity tests. DNA, that sort of thing.” He nodded to the frames. “Are you going to tell Zack?”
“Tell Zack what?” Zack cut in, stepping into the doorway.
Eden fell silent, both of her hands closing over the frames as if to hide the pictures. She was frozen, still, as her fear and uncertainty washed through Jay.
He did the only thing he could think of. He deflected. “How to lay tile. Once we get through redoing the kitchen, I think maybe the bathrooms should be next.”
“DNA testing and tiling.” Zack’s flat gaze rested on Jay for a moment before switching to Eden. “I thought you were going back to work today.”
“Tomorrow,” she managed hoarsely. “But I don’t think I’m going back.”
“Not going back.” The words were so cold, so empty.
Every instinct screamed, and Jay suppressed a shudder as he rose and carefully insinuated himself between Eden and Zack. “She quit. To spend more time here at the farm.”
“Quit or got fired?”
“Quit,” Eden all but snarled. Her temper was rising too, but Jay could sense the panic underneath it. “I quit, Zack. My choice.”
“Bullshit. Look me in the eye and tell me those bitches who run the place didn’t tell you to stay away from me.”
Eden’s silence echoed through the room, stricken and helpless.
Jay kept his gaze on Zack. “She’s needed here, and that’s okay. She’s okay.”
“She’s losing her life!” Zack slammed his fist onto the table, his growl eclipsed by the thunderous crack of the wood splitting. Eden’s box pitched to the floor, spilling framed pictures and knick-knacks across the floor in a cacophony of shattering glass.
“Zack, stop.” Jay infused the word with as much alpha power as he could muster.
Zack drove his boot into a piece of the broken table. It skittered across the floor and slammed into the wall, rattling the window in its frame. A sick growl wrenched free of his throat, one of rage and betrayal. “You were supposed to keep her safe.”
“I’m okay—” Eden’s voice cracked, and he flinched like she’d struck him. His gaze dropped to the shattered table and the broken glass, and he shuddered before spinning out of the room.
Eden started after him, but Jay caught her arm. “Don’t. It’ll just make it worse, seeing you hurting.”
She winced as her shoe crunched on a piece of glass. “I didn’t think it would upset him this much. But he blames himself…”
Christ, he didn’t want to have this conversation with her. Not ever, but especially not now. “He might not ever stop blaming himself, Eden. I’ve seen it before. The trauma, the outbursts—it’s bad for anyone, but worse for wolves.”
Every muscle in her body turned to steel. She knew the truth—on some level she knew it, the instinctive level that had embraced her wolf so completely—but she wouldn’t admit it. “Maybe after the situation with Memphis is settled for good. We’re all stressed about it.”
Jay had to look away. “Ignoring this won’t make it go away. We have to talk about it, figure it out.”
“If it doesn’t get better, then we get him help. He’s my family. He could be my brother.”
He grasped her arms. “I’m not talking about Zack being depressed or punching a table, Eden. I’m talking about him breaking down, losing control of everything, including the wolf.”
She blinked at him, those big eyes impossible to read now. “How do we fix it? Is there magic, or a spell?”
“No, honey. There’s nothing like that.”
Denial bled into anger. “And what does that mean? You just give up on him?”
“It’s not about giving up. It’s about protecting the rest of the pack, and protecting him from shit I know he wouldn’t want to do if he had any will or sense left.”
She didn’t look away from him. “Say it, Jay. Say the words.”
Her fury burned in his gut, and Jay had to fight not to let it spark his own. “I don’t want to. I don’t want to consider this at all, but I don’t have a choice. Zack asked me to take over this pack, and this is part of it. The hard part.”
Eden jerked her arms free of his grip, but she didn’t back off. “Say the words. If we’re going to fight, let’s fight for the right reason.”
Damn it all. “If he has to be put down,” he said quietly, “then I’ll do it myself. Quick and painless, I swear.”
“Put. Down.” She wreathed every word in ice. “You want me to get a DNA test to find out if he’s my brother before you kill him.”
“I don’t want to do anything,” he shot back. “Eden, you quit your job and he broke a f**king table. How far from the edge do you think he is?”
“I don’t know where the edge is! Is it that quick a jump from breaking a table by mistake to having to die?”