No one spoke for a long cruel moment during which terrible doubts assailed me. Was it true? Did Maxwell share Francis’s sentiment? Maxwell could be a hard person sometimes – almost the opposite of his brother and sister – and his gruffness often made me feel like a little kid waiting for a scolding. I understood him a little better since learning he was the leader of a werewolf pack but it didn’t make me any less worried about his displeasure. If he was as angry as Francis implied, would he order Roland and Peter to stay away from me? As alpha his commands had to be obeyed no matter what my friends wanted. My heart squeezed painfully at the thought of losing them after everything we’d been through. My dad was gone, I’d lost Remy, and in a few days I had to leave Nate and my friends and everything I knew. I didn’t think I could survive another loss.

Brendan let out a long deep sigh and my fear grew at the grim set of his jaw as he looked at me. Brendan was the kind-hearted one, the peacemaker and they’d decided that he should be the one to tell me I was no longer welcome here. I braced myself for the blow and saying goodbye to the people who had been like a family to me.

“Max and I are not pleased with what’s been going on here lately, especially how reckless and foolish you youngsters have been. Last night, you never should have gone off like that without alerting the pack to what was going on. Because of that, we almost lost a pack member and that is inexcusable.” Beside me Roland tensed and hung his head as Brendan continued. “You two are young men now and should know by now to not go off alone, which means something is obviously missing in your training. That will be remedied soon enough, I promise you.”

He turned his attention back to me and I shrank away from the disapproval in his eyes. “We made some allowances for you considering your past and everything going on in your life lately. It’s a lot to deal with for someone your age. But you’ve shown a lack of good judgment and a reckless disregard for your safety that we never would have expected from you.”

“I’m sorry,” was all I could say past the lump in my throat.

“For all your mistakes you are a good person, Sara, and no one doubts your loyalty and courage. What you did here last night was nothing short of miraculous. You saved one of ours and the pack does not forget something like that. So where does that leave us?”

“I… don’t know.”

Brendan’s expression did not falter. “Max thinks you three need to be separated because you encourage each other’s bad behavior.”

“What?” Peter cried and Roland shouted, “No!” I didn’t say anything because I was not surprised. The ache in my chest grew and cold settled in my stomach.

Brendan held up a hand. “We talked it over and we decided that breaking up your friendship would be cruel but there will be some new rules if you want to keep it. To start: for the next three months, the only place you will see each other is at school. Every spare minute you boys have will go to extra training and trust me you’ll be too tired to get into trouble. There will be no more adventures like last night. You three pull something like that again and that’s it. Understood?”

All I could do was nod. I was so relieved that Maxwell hadn’t ordered me to stay away from the pack that I was afraid I’d start to cry if I spoke. Roland shifted like he was about to argue and I squeezed his hand hard to stop him. This was the harshest I’d ever seen Brendan, which said a lot about how serious he was and I didn’t want to push the matter.

Brendan was not finished. “There is one other thing. Sara, you need to tell your uncle what is going on in your life. We aren’t going to try to force you to do it but it’s not fair to him for you to be running around putting your life and maybe his in danger and keeping him in the dark about it. He deserves better than that. You’ve been on your own for far too long without supervision. I’m not saying that Nate is a bad parent, just that he is not informed enough to guide you properly and set restrictions when needed.”

“I’m going to tell him today when he gets home.”

“Good.” Brendan slapped his hands against his knees and stood. “The three of you have to work to earn back the trust you lost, starting now. Maxwell is coming over soon to talk to you boys and I promise it will not be pleasant. The Mohiri is outside waiting to give Sara a ride home.”

Roland tightened his grip on my hand. “Already? Can’t she stay a little while longer?”

“No, I need to go,” I said, already dreading the task ahead of me. “I should get home before Nate does.”

Peter made a feeble attempt at a smile. “It’s only three months, right?”

His words brought on a pang of anguish. I had to tell them I was leaving and it hit me just how hard it was going to be to say goodbye to them. We’d stay in touch somehow but it would never be the same as what we had here. It hurt to think of not finishing our senior year together, not sitting together at graduation or looking at colleges together.

“I… made a decision,” I said, unable to look at them. “I’m going to stay with the Mohiri for a while.”

“What!” Roland cried in disbelief.

“Nikolas doesn’t think it’s over with the vampires, and I-I think he might be right.” I told them about the sheik and Nikolas’s theory that vampires were working with the humans to try to get to me. And that the sheik might come after me if he thought I could heal his disease. “No one is safe as long as I’m here.”