Page 160 of The Ashpaw: Part One

And then his father told him to slit its throat.

“Must we kill it?” he asked, trying not to cry.

His father nodded.

“It is a mercy.”

And so Darion did as he was told, finding he was no longer proud of himself.

While the clan feasted on venison that night, Darion barely picked at his food.

“You cannot carve out room for guilt in your heart, son,” his father said.

Darion looked up.

“A true alpha learns from his mistakes and keeps moving forward. Dwell too long on the past, and you’ll miss the road ahead.”

He still felt bad for killing the fawn, but he wanted to be a good alpha like his father. So he nodded, sat up a little straighter, and finished his dinner.

* * *

Darion hadn’t thought of that fawn in many years, but he’d carried the lesson his father had taught him from that day forward.

It did him no good to sit mired in guilt over the mistakes of his past.

And so he adjusted his way of thinking after every failure. Considered alternatives, different methods, and experimented anew.

Yet as he gazed upon the sleeping face of Fern, lying in his arms on the floor because her nest was still destroyed, he thought he might finally be seeing the mistakes he’d made.

His wolf had been trying to tell him what she was, what she could be to him, but each time the beast urged him to get close, he’d ignored him and walked in the other direction.

And now that he’d finally given in and stopped fighting the pull she had on him, he saw what he could have had all along.

And he’d almost been too late.

The instinct was there, in the way her body responded, giving herself to him fully when she was in the fog of it.

But as lucidity returned—flickering in and out from the sedative or the disorienting heat—Darion saw the pain in her eyes. He felt the reluctance in her embrace.

She didn’t trust him anymore.

And why should she? Every time she’d needed him to be on her side, he’d ruled against her.

And the worst part was, he couldn’t even articulate why he had done so.

It would be easy to say Kyntha had swayed him, but Kyntha was innocent in this, too.

No, he had simply been unable to believe that the strength of the emotions she pulled from him could be real because he had not opened himself up to the possibility.

The guilt over it all, guilt he’d always wanted to avoid, was buried deep in his heart, and he worried how there could be any room left for both of the she-wolves he cared for.

He stared at her sleeping features for another few minutes, her face twitching and frowning as she dreamed. When she let out a small whimper, he pulled her closer.

“I’ll never hurt you again,” he whispered, hoping his words could reach her mind and ease her from her nightmare.

Her body warmed, and his cock hardened instantly.

Fern was waking, still in the throes of heat, and a wave was building. He’d learned to recognize the signs now.