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his hot chocolate. “What?”
    “The place I grew up was really different from Galena.”
    “Where are you from?” Mars?
    “A little town right near Kansas City called Mission. Lots of wealthy folks live there, and my family was in society. All my life, I thought covering up the birthmark was for the sake of my mom’s vanity. She needed her family to act and look perfect. But then I found out Buck had one down his neck, and now I don’t know. Maybe my mom was hiding it so she wouldn’t be reminded of him when she looked at me. Or so my dad…er, stepdad…wouldn’t be reminded I wasn’t his. Or maybe it was to hide how different I was.”
    “You didn’t fit in?” He knew all about that. He wasn’t a man-eater like the rest of his family, but he wasn’t a bear like the pack he’d chosen either. He had betrayed the McCalls to save Elyse, but he would always ghost the outskirts of the Silver family until the day Ian put him down. He hated that Nicole didn’t feel like she belonged either. It was the loneliest feeling in the world.
    She shook her head and moved her scarf down a little farther, exposing her chin now, too.
    Good mate.
    Link gritted his teeth and barely resisted telling Wolf to shut up again.
    “I always felt different, but I couldn’t figure out why. I spend way too much time thinking about it.” She sipped her hot chocolate with a thoughtful look in her soft brown eyes. She wore her hair down today, and it fell in dark, shiny waves down her shoulders. In the stark lighting of the shop, it looked like black silk. He wanted to touch it.
    Do it.
    Link gripped his cup harder.
    “I didn’t find out about Buck until a month ago.”
    “About his death?” Link asked, surprised.
    “No, about his existence. My mom and dad—er, stepdad, who I thought all along was my real dad—just got divorced. I know it’s supposed to be easier if your parents split up when you’re an adult, but it kind of shattered my world for a while. It was an ugly divorce, and my mom was awful, just spewing hate all the time at my stepdad. She was the one who’d been unfaithful, and I was so angry at her for breaking up our family. She showed zero remorse, so I picked a side. I wanted to spend more time with my stepdad and make sure he was okay, you know? My sister and brother were doing the same thing, and he was receptive to their attention but, for some reason, he didn’t want me around. And when I showed up at his office one day to ask him to go to lunch with me, he told me.”
    “Told you what?”
    Her voice turned dark, her words jagged. “That I wasn’t his. That he didn’t want anything to do with me because I had been part of the problem with his and Mom’s marriage.”
    Link shook his head and leaned back into the bench cushion. Naturally, he had a shit dad who’d been put down when he was too young to remember a single good memory about him. That’s just the way it was for McCalls, but the reality of his life had always been harsh. Link had no qualms about the way he was raised. It was the same for every McCall, but Nicole…she’d had a decent life and a decent family, and then they’d betrayed her. He didn’t know any differently, but she’d had a good life snatched away in a moment.
    “I’m sorry,” he murmured.
    Her full lips stretched up in a slow smile. “So here I am, searching for myself in a place I’ve never been.”
    “That’s pretty brave. Alaska isn’t exactly a spring break beach trip.”
    She laughed a pretty tinkling sound and grinned down at her steaming cup. “I admit I was completely unprepared for this place. I mean, we have snow down in Mission, but nothing like this.”
    “The bone-deep cold is hard to get used to.”
    “Yes! I don’t think I’ve been fully warm since I got here. And look.” She pulled her gloves off and rested her hands on the table, palms up. They were torn and blistered, and Link winced at how painful they looked.
    “Chopping