If they were mine… I’d belong.

Then Gabriel was beside her.

“You are my pup, Ani.” Gabriel cupped her cheek in his massive hand. “To be worthy of you, any Hound would have to be willing to face me. He’d need to be strong enough to lead them.”

“I want to lead them,” she whispered. “I want to be their Gabrielle.”

“You’re too mortal to hold control of them.” Gabriel’s eyes were monstrous. His skin was the touch of terror, of death, of nightmares that were Un-Named. “And too much mine to not be with the Hunt. I’m sorry.”

She held his gaze. Something feral inside of her understood that this was why she couldn’t live with Rabbit: her brother wasn’t as fierce as her father was. Tish wasn’t. Ani desperately wanted to be. Like the rest of the Hounds mounting their steeds, Ani knew that Gabriel could kill her if she disobeyed. It was a restraint she needed: it kept her closer to following rules.

“I can’t take the Hunt from you”—she flashed her teeth at her father—“yet. Maybe I’ll surprise you.”

“Makes me proud that you want to,” he said.

For a moment, the pride in her father’s eyes was the sum of her world. She belonged. For tonight, she was included in the pack. He made it so.

If only I always was.

But there were no unclaimed steeds, and her mortal blood meant she’d never be strong enough to become Gabriel’s successor, never be truly Pack.

A taste of belonging…

It wasn’t enough, not truly, but it was something.

Then a howl unlike anything else in this world or the next came to his lips, and the rest of the pack echoed it. She echoed it.

Gabriel tossed her atop Chela’s steed and growled, “We ride.”