The next morning came too soon. Aria woke to find her mother sitting in the chair by her window, watching her sleep. Cassidy's eyes were red-rimmed, like she had been crying too. The early light cast shadows across her face, making her look older, more worn than Aria had ever seen her.
"Mama," Aria said, sitting up slowly.
"I need you to be honest with me," Cassidy said without preamble, her voice rough from lack of sleep. "Not as the Little Luna to her pack. Not as goddaughter to Luna. But as my daughter to her mother. Has Mira contacted you?"
The direct question caught Aria off-guard. She opened her mouth, a denial ready on her tongue, but something in her mother's face stopped her cold.
Cassidy looked heartbroken. Afraid. And underneath it all, beneath the exhaustion and the worry, there was a pleading that had nothing to do with pack safety and everything to do with a mother's desperate need to protect her child.
