by Callie Rose
I nod, pressing my face against his chest and squeezing my eyes shut to force the tears back. I wish I could pretend any of that was on purpose—that it wasn’t just blind luck that the witches were hit and not my friends. Not my mates.
Before I can say anything else to Dare, I catch Trystan’s scent behind me. A second later, I’m being swept up into his arms. My other two mates join us a moment later, and as I feel all four of them surround me, the awful feeling that’s stayed with me ever since I pulled the torrent of magic back into myself finally begins to fade.
They’re all alive.
They’re all here.
I cling to all of them, letting myself take comfort in their presence even though my limbs feel heavy and weak, and my heart aches for what we lost today.
We held the witches off.
But did we really win?
As the packs begin cleaning up in the aftermath of the battle, Malcolm demands to be taken home.
“He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” Hope says softly as she sponges his head with a cold, wet rag. “He’s feverish. Slipping in and out of coherency. I think moving him right now would be detrimental.”
But the alpha is too strong-willed to be denied.
“I refuse to die on anything but my own damn land,” he snarls, voice stronger than he looks. He doesn’t even open his eyes, but there’s a note in his tone that says if we don’t obey, there will be hell to pay.
Archer’s eyes are shiny with unshed tears as he says, “We’ll bundle him in a blanket. Carry him that way. Gently. If he wants to go home, we’ll take him home.”
Amora graciously slips out to help organize efforts in the cleanup. Trystan, Ridge, and Dare help Archer get Malcolm wrapped in blankets, and then the four of them convey the alpha back to his cabin.
It’s a solemn parade that trudges through the streets, carefully avoiding bodies in the process. As we pass, every shifter stops what they’re doing and turns to bow their heads in respect. Malcolm’s eyes open and close periodically, at times seemingly cognizant of the destruction, and other times so far away that I wonder if he’s already passed.
But he’s conscious as my four mates carefully place him in his bed. His green eyes roam his bedroom, where the curtains are still open on the village. Shifters move through the streets outside, gathering the dead and sweeping up shotgun shells. I see him acknowledge the grim tableau, his face crumpling in despair for only a moment.
His home is untouched by the battle, which I hope gives him a little peace in light of such horror. Hope returns from her room in a fresh pair of her signature blue scrubs and bustles around her charge, ensuring he’s covered and warm. With deft fingers, she sets up a line for fluids, even though I know—and she knows—they’ll do nothing but help keep him comfortable as the end comes.
Archer steps up beside her next to the bed, his voice a low murmur. “Have you been able to do… anything?”
Hope shakes her head gravely. “No. Whatever injuries he sustained from the magic, it’s beyond my abilities as a healer. There are no lacerations. No bleeding to be found.”
“It’s the spell itself.” I speak up, my voice cracking. “It’s inside him, poisoning him.”
Archer’s jaw tightens. “Perhaps there’s a witch injured but still alive on our streets that might know how to fix it.”
“I’ll go look,” Ridge offers, giving Archer’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. He strides from the room, but not before I see that he’s just as affected by Malcolm’s situation as I am.
It’s hard to watch a strong man be weak. I imagine it’s even harder when you’re a strong man yourself, as if you’re looking down a tunnel toward your own possible future.
Archer’s green gaze meets mine. “Sable. Is… is there anything you can do?”
My blood runs cold, my stomach dropping. “No.” I swallow. “I mean, not that I know of. I only have the one book that Gwen gave me, and there are no healing spells in it, nothing for health at all, just a bunch of charms and hexes, lots of binding…”
I trail off as I realize I’m rambling. I want to help. I want to do something, anything, to keep Malcolm from dying.
My mate’s bloodshot eyes take on an almost manic gleam. “Can’t you just lay hands on him? Do something?”
A fissure opens up inside me, reminding me how little I know. How little control I really have, no matter what happened today on the battlefield.
None of that was under my control. I’m just lucky that all the anger and pain inside me channeled toward taking the witches out and not something worse.
And rage won’t help me now. I need control, experience—and I still don’t have it.
“I don’t know how,” I admit, my heart breaking. “I’m not good enough.”
“Archer.” Hope’s calm voice chases away some of the mania in his gaze, and he slumps against the edge of the bed as she continues speaking. “Sweetheart, Malcolm has been sick for a real long time. We’ve been planning for the eventuality of his death. It’s just… a bit more premature than we expected.”
“Hope’s right.” Malcolm’s voice is gruff as he opens his eyes. “My time has come, son.”
“You don’t know that. Ridge might find someone—”
Malcolm reaches out and places a hand on Archer’s arm. “Son. I need you to be strong now. More than ever before. You hear me?”
Archer nods once, a tear slipping over the edge of his eyelashes.
Then the dying alpha looks at me. With his other hand, he gestures for me to come closer.
Tears fall freely from my own eyes as I join the two of them at the bed. Malcolm looks so small and pale. I wish I knew him before the disease took hold of him. I bet he was a hell of a man. The complete opposite of the kind of man my uncle was. Someone who would’ve cared for me as if I were his own.
His hand feels papery thin in mine as he says, “You’re good for my boy. I’m glad he has you. He’ll need your strength when the sun rises.”
I squeeze Malcolm’s fingers, my voice strangled as I promise, “He’ll have it.”
“You take care of him, Sable.”
Archer looks away, tears dripping from his chin but his face so stoic I think he might fracture into pieces. I put my arm around his waist, trying to bolster him with what little strength I have left. “I will, Malcolm. I promise.”
The old man smiles at me, and for a moment, his face looks younger, healthier. Then he closes his eyes and takes a ragged breath, as if all that talking has worn him out.
Ridge appears suddenly in the doorway, magic still rippling around him from the shift. He doesn’t even need to speak for us to know that no witch remains alive within pack boundaries. The look of despair on his scruffy face is enough.
Malcolm glances at the North Pack Alpha and nods as if he expected this. “You four men need to take care of one another.”
Trystan and Ridge exchange surprised glances, and Dare takes a single step closer to Malcolm’s side, bowing his head in acknowledgment.
“It’s very clear to me,” Malcolm goes on, “that Sable has become more than just your mate. She’s the bond between our packs. While your mate bond is… untraditional, it seems that maybe you’re exactly what the packs need. After all, it’s only by joining together that we all managed to hold off utter destruction today. We need each other. You need each other.”
All four men respond with a respectful, “Yes, sir.”
The room is so charged with emotion that it feels like a different kind of magic in the air.
The old alpha finally turns his gaze back to his son. “I’m proud of you. Proud of everything you’ve done by my side. I’m proud of everything you’ll do without me.”
“I don’t want to do it without you.”
“You’re alpha now, son,” Malcolm says sternly. “And what a great alpha you’ll be.” He huffs a breath, a weak smile curving his lips upward. “Maybe I should say, what a great alpha you already are. Have been for quite some tim
e.”
My men bow their heads at Malcolm in response, a gesture of respect to the man in front of them. I follow suit, my heart aching and tears burning hot paths down my cheeks.
“No. I’m not the alpha. You are,” Archer says vehemently. He’s openly crying now, squeezing his father’s hand between both of his as if a tight enough hold could anchor him to life. “I can’t do this without you.”
“You can,” Malcolm murmurs, his eyelids fluttering. “You will.”
“I love you.” The words tear from Archer as if they’re coming from the deepest, most sincere part of his soul. As if they were ripped from him like a part of his body. He’s shaking as he leans over Malcolm, burying his face in the covers wrapped over the alpha’s chest.
“I love you,” Malcolm whispers, and each word seems to take great effort for him to utter them. His eyes are closed, his breaths light and shallow.
The room comes to a standstill. Nobody moves or speaks. Somewhere in the house, a clock chimes the hour, and it seems almost sacrilegious that it chose this exact moment to sound the alarm. But something about the sound of the clock’s melodic bells seems to reach Malcolm. His expression smooths out, and his entire body relaxes. We watch the alpha take his final breaths. Then he’s gone, leaving behind a peaceful look on his face and a strange feeling of emptiness in the room.
Archer straightens away from his father’s body. His face is crumpled, full of raw agony and despair. Magic rolls over him, adjusting his bones, changing his skin, shifting him from human to wolf form. Then he paws at the bed plaintively, turns his nose to the ceiling, and howls his pain.
One by one, everyone in the room joins him. We each shift, tilt our heads back, and howl until a chorus of despair cuts straight through the walls and into the village. Moments later, the rest of the pack joins in as they realize what’s happened. Their distant howls from outside among the battle-stricken homes mingle with ours.
There’s something freeing and haunting about sharing Archer’s pain, about coming together to grieve the loss of a good man. A good alpha.
My voice disappears into the song of the shifters, and for a time, we’re all one. There’s no North Pack. No West. No East.
Just the wolves, and the universal language of grief.
27
Archer
I never imagined that one day, the beautiful rolling meadows that surround my home would become a graveyard. The resting place for dozens of shifters from every surviving pack in the area. I never dreamed that one day, West Pack bodies would be laid to rest beside those wolves lost in the North Pack.
Lost to my pack.
“I think that’s deep enough,” Ridge grunts, shoving the sharp edge of his shovel into the pile of dirt we’ve been working on for the last hour. “Don’t you?”
He directs this last question to me, and I tighten my grip on my own shovel, my fingers slippery with sweat. The sun glares down with a heat and a brightness that seems out of place on such a scene of death and sadness. I glance over at my father’s body. He’s wrapped in a funeral shroud Hope made him.
She’s been with him for years, and she stands watch over him even now, tears coursing down her cheeks as she stares out over the growing field of graves. The sight of her stark, raw emotion makes my own throat close, and I can’t speak.
Dare puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “You’re going to be okay. Maybe not today. Or tomorrow. But one day.”
“You would know,” I agree softly.
“You’ll never forget,” he adds. “It’ll never stop hurting. And that’s okay too.”
I muster up a thankful smile, though I’m sure it doesn’t meet my eyes. I’m glad to have these three men on my side, but the pain of my father’s death is still too fresh to really appreciate it. I know I’m locked in my own mind, self-absorbed in my own grief, but I don’t know how to claw my way out of it yet. Not with my father’s body lying at my feet.
Ridge and Trystan have been busy as hell today, overseeing the gathering of their own dead, and still they’re here, now, helping me dig my father’s grave. We’ll hold a service later—one for all the dead, not just my dad but every soul lost in this battle. When the grief isn’t quite so fresh. When the packs have cleaned up the mess, licked their wounds, and found a new kind of normal.
Until then, we need to get the bodies in the ground.
All three packs suffered devastating losses in the battle yesterday. But we fought hard, and all three packs are still here. We escaped utter destruction because we faced the threat together. Too bad we didn’t embrace that idea sooner. Maybe Dare’s pack would still be with us.
I glance out over the burial preparations taking place all around us. Farther in the distance, beyond the trees, a plume of greasy black smoke billows into the sky. Not the black smoke of magic, but the black smoke of burning bodies. The witches’ dead. They didn’t deserve the respect of a burial, the same respect given to my father and my pack mates.
“Let’s do this,” I say, shoving aside my pain. I look down into the six foot grave where Trystan’s leveling out the bottom. “Switch places with me. I want to be the one…” I trail off. I can’t even say the words.
But Trystan seems to understand what I mean. He holds up his shovel to me, and I haul him out of the dirt as he walks up the loose wall. Then I leap down into the hole and steel myself for the weight of my father’s body to add to the weight of my grief.
Ridge and Dare lower the blanket-wrapped bundle into my arms. In the final months, Dad lost so much weight he hardly registers in my arms now. He just wasted away, the disease eating him up the same way the magic did last night.
I lean over and set him gently on the soft dirt, taking a little extra time to make sure his limbs are stretched out. He could be only sleeping beneath that shroud, but I know he’s gone. A fresh wave of anger laced with agony washes over me, and I remain on my knees for a long time, unable to leave him.
Finally, I glance up to see my friends have gathered around the grave. Trystan. Ridge. Dare. Sable. Amora. Hope. They hold hands, forming a circle around us as they bow their heads in respect to my father. They’re a life raft when I feel like I’m drowning, and it takes everything I have not to break down.
After I pull myself together, I climb out of the grave with a helping hand from Trystan and Dare. I brush dirt off my knees and hands, swallowing against the lump in my throat. I’ve never known heartbreak like this, but I know I can’t wallow in my grief. I’m the alpha now. It’s up to me to lead my pack, to be there for them in their time of need.
But fuck, I miss my dad.
Sable comes to stand beside me over the grave, and she slips her hand into mine. Her fingers are cool against my skin, and I can feel waves of silent comfort and support flowing through the mate bond. I squeeze her fingers, grateful for her. If anyone can help me survive this hole in my heart, she can.
Dad was right about that.
It takes much less time to fill the hole than it did to dig it. Before I know it—before I’m ready—he’s gone, and there’s nothing but a fresh mound of dirt left behind. Hope and I drag the temporary marker to rest above where his head lies, and I promise him silently that he’ll have a better one soon.
The whole pack came to honor their alpha’s life, and I can feel their presence behind me as I gaze down at the grave. A number of the North and West pack shifters came too, and their presence means more to me than I expected it would. It fills my heart with an aching sort of pride to know that my father was respected even outside his pack.
He never asked to fall ill. He was dealt a shitty hand, and he faced it with more grace and strength than anyone I’ve ever known.
And he died a fucking hero.
He saved the woman I love.
“Thank you, Dad,” I murmur, my voice catching on the quiet words.
As the gathered crowd begins to disperse, we walk back to my cabin as a group, though there’s very little talk. Everyone is subdued, mourning
their own losses. I told Ridge and Trystan to go be with their packs, but both refused. They promised me they’ve said their goodbyes already to the deceased, and their packs know where to find them if they’re needed.
I’m grateful. Honestly, I don’t want to be without any of them right now. Sable is the axis, while Dare, Trystan, Ridge, and I are the spokes, and every part of this wheel is necessary for my sanity.
A street away from my house, Hope gives me a warm, strong hug before she trudges away toward my dad’s house. I make a mental note to check on her later. My father has been her only responsibility for years—his home has been her home. She likely feels as adrift as I do, and I owe her so much for what she did to help us these past few years.
Inside my place, I head to the kitchen and through the motions of making a pot of coffee, because it gives me some sense of normalcy. Inwardly, I’m numb, going over and over the moment my father died and wondering if I could’ve done something differently. Not that it really matters. I can’t turn back time on death.
Dare heads toward the back of the house to grab a shower, and Ridge digs into the fridge looking for something to cook up for lunch. I’m measuring grounds into the filter basket when Trystan looms over my left shoulder, startling me. I jerk, finely ground coffee beans flying out over the counter top.
“Shit, man. I’m sorry.” Trystan grabs a towel from the rack and swipes the spilled grounds into the sink. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“You didn’t,” I lie, reaching for the tablespoon to measure out a new portion. “Just distracted is all.”
He stares at me for a moment as if he’s considering calling my bluff, but he refrains. Then he purses his lips, pulling them to one side. “Hey, look. I need to tell you something.”
I groan inwardly. I don’t know if I’m up for dealing with whatever bullshit he’s going to say. Usually, I can let his judgmental attitude roll off my back, but today, I don’t have it in me.
“What?” I ask, jamming the filter basket into place above the pot.