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Then came the hound. He nudged my ribs with his long, toothy muzzle and I let him take control. Maybe he’d track down Dad’s soul for me in the Other World and find a way to bring him back. Maybe he could bring Desi and his bull friend back too. Only he couldn’t. His magic didn’t stretch that far. He was a hound and he was a bit of me. He was just as bound by the laws of the spell Frost used to cement us together as I was.
He didn’t race away. He didn’t try to dart through the fading door. He dropped to his haunches and threw back his massive head until the moon came into sight. Then he howled. He howled like he himself had died and the sound echoed through me – warm and alive. He howled as if he could scatter our grief in all four directions to make it lighter to carry.
Syre’s coyote joined in the mournful tune and soon voices scattered across the village came to life. I wondered how many of them knew what was going on and how many just joined, because a wolf pack never lets you mourn alone. The basement hatch opened and Duke was the first out, with Baby Duchess in one arm he headed straight to his mate.
Then came Scott in his wolf fur. The moon played on his fur giving him a blue tint as he climbed out the hatch. I closed the gap between us, and he leaned against our side. Together Heartville howled the loss of men it never knew, but for one second, or the first time since my mother banished me, I felt at home. Maybe home wasn’t where you were the happiest, but where the folks around you supported your grief, even if they couldn’t understand it.
“I got you,” Scott said. “You’re here and I got you.”
“I love you, mate,” I said over the mating link.
“I love you too.”
We stretched out in the grass as the others howled on. I always thought I’d feel empty when Dad left for good, but I didn’t. Scott was there with me, and I felt warm and sad. Excitement tingled in all my tails thinking about what life might bring next. Dad was gone, but soon our family would grow, and our babies would be the first babies of the Lost Fang Coven to be born outside of the coven’s territory.
“You won’t be sad forever,” Scott whispered over our mating link. “The sad will linger but you’ll have other things too. You’re still here. We did it. We did it! We’re still together!”
