Chapter 17

Sarah POV

I recognized it was entirely possible I was going to vomit right there on the paved path. Yes, right there in front of the girls, the two stoic bodyguards, and Zane, Sarah Astor was about to toss her cookies. I would be apologizing for months.

Then the ground steadied, and then it steadied some more. I got my hands off my knees and straightened up to see them all looking at me in concern, except the bodyguards, who just stood there wearing their sunglasses and checking the perimeter.

“Are you all right, Mommy?” Chloe asked, putting a hand on my hip.

I sighed. “I should have trusted the sign that warned me humans might not be able to handle the roller coaster. You werewolves are hard to keep up with.” I shot a hand out and tickled Chloe lightly, she shrieked out a laugh and jumped back.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t try!” I said and laughed, feeling much better.

“Let’s go again!” Chloe shouted. “The line’s not long!”

I looked over and saw with some dread she was right. Lots of people were taking a break from the rides to eat lunch, I supposed.

A breeze caught my hair, which I was wearing in a ponytail to match my casual (but still luxurious) outfit of wrinkle-free linen pants and a silky top with rhinestone sandals. The park really was a lovely place, with topiaries of wolves and dancing spirits. Images of Luna were everywhere, but they varied depending on their native origins, making the place feel as much like a sunlit museum as a play area.

Beside us rose a bank of yellow and red flowers, some of the blooms bigger than my head. I caught their scent in the air and breathed in with contentment, happy to feel my stomach fully settle.

“I don’t think Sarah is up for another round,” Zane said, catching my eyes with a smile.

“Oh,” Chloe said, looking guilty.

“You three go on,” I said. “I would love to sit on that bench over there and enjoy looking at the flowers. It’s such a pretty day.”

I reached into my purse. “Tell you what, I’ll take some pics of you when you come around that main bend over there. You can wave to me.”

Everyone seemed to like that plan, and soon they were headed back to the line. To my surprise, one of the bodyguards stayed with me, unobtrusively standing behind my bench.

I turned my face up to the sun, closing my eyes and drinking in the warmth. If I thought too much about the past few days, I’d get as dizzy as I was on that roller coaster. In fact, the ride was a good metaphor for my recent past, including the part about being almost too much for a human to handle.

With two lawyers looking on in Zane’s study, I had signed the papers that made me the girls’ official goddess-mother. I learned what duties and what privileges were involved. Chloe was over the moon, and Grace had kissed my cheek.

I was a little concerned about Grace. Ella’s near-constant presence, I guessed, had really shoved the little girl into a corner of her father’s life. I had made a few subtle suggestions to Zane about how he could pay more attention to her, and he had followed my lead, to my delight.

I think he saw Chloe’s extroversion and courage as something Grace might emulate. I thought personally Chloe could take on a little of Grace’s sweetness, though of course my daughter was perfect.

I smothered a laugh, not wanting to alarm the bodyguard. Honestly, though, life was so fantastic, I thought as I sat there, I was almost waiting for something bad to happen.

But something bad did happen, I thought, something so horrible it’s hard to think about it. Someone took Chloe from this life, from her father and sister. Someone wished that little baby harm.

After a few more minutes, I got up and walked over to the fence around the roller coaster to get a good view of the main bend. Not too long afterward, I saw the girls and Zane (no bodyguard) inside one of the cars, and soon they were rushing past as I took shot after shot.

I was looking through the somewhat blurred images with a smile when they emerged from the ride, laughing. I showed my work off, and both girls wanted copies on their phones to send to their friends. Grace’s friends, of course, were now firmly Chloe’s as well.

Zane looked over to a booth nearby featuring a backdrop and the services of a large Polaroid camera.

“Let’s get a full family shot, shall we?” he suggested, to which of course the girls eagerly agreed. So did I, actually, but I didn’t jump up and down at the idea, though it was a near thing.

The girls stood in front of me and Zane as the beta photographer fawned over the alpha werewolf. He offered the photo for free if Zane would let him hang a copy on his booth wall, but Zane simply explained he wasn’t comfortable with the idea of photos of his children on display.

“That’s fine,” he said. “You can have it for free anyway. The park won’t mind, sir.”

So we took the photo, which the photographer set inside a sturdy piece of cardboard and handed to me with a flourish. Looking at it, I thought it really did look like a snap of a family. My heart swelled, though I admonished it not to.

After that, we ended up walking through the gift shop, where Zane bought so many things for the girls that he ended up getting a gamma park attendant to take all our packages to the car. I admit I didn’t part with the photo. It was too precious to risk.

After that, we ate tacos and drank lemonade, then we wound up passing by a haunted house attraction. It was built into the hillside and featured a real decommissioned silver mine. Faint howls of ghosts called out to us, which meant, Chloe announced, that we were being summoned and, “It would be rude to say no.”

I wasn’t thrilled about going into a haunted house, but I told myself there wouldn’t actually be anything scary in there, like, say, Ella, and walked with the girls, the bodyguards, and Zane inside the dim, cool structure that smelled of dirt and popcorn.

“Don’t worry,” Zane murmured in my ear. He held out his arm for me to take. “I’ll protect you from the ghosts.”

I laughed to cover up the fact that I did feel comforted. I had never before interacted with an alpha so closely before. His strength of character and his natural aura of power were intoxicating.

Head out of the clouds, I told myself. Feet on the ground.

The six of us entered the mine and meandered down the path to spooky noises and few scary animatronic creatures that popped out at us, making the girls shriek and laugh. Grace had taken my hand and was walking quite close to me when Zane stiffened and halted.

“Zane?” I asked.

“That’s not right,” he muttered, then tensed in alarm. “We need to get—”

A wooden beam in front of us snapped clean in two, and rocks fell all around us. In the dust and noise, all I could do was push Grace to the ground and cover her as best I could. Then everything went dark.