Chapter 82

** Ryder’s POV ** I stay beside Paige as we watch the pack kids. Jax is playing with them as if he’s always been here. They don’t treat him like the new kid or an outsider. They don’t look at him like a leader either. To them, he’s just a pack kid the same as any other. Watching him run and laugh with them does something to me. It gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling, and my heart swells in my chest. We should be getting Paige home, but I let myself watch for a moment longer than I should. Inside Cora’s cabin, Paige asked the questions she had been afraid to ask us. What the heat felt like, if she’d still be herself, whether a body like hers could be made into something else by those who loved her. Cora’s answers had been exactly what was needed, and she had given Paige condoms until we could get her to a human doctor for something more permanent. Growing up as a human, condoms were not a foreign concept to me, but here, in wolf packs, they’ve never really had a purpose. My human side wars w