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The wolf’s jaw clenched as he fought his emotions.
“All it will take is Finley opening a portal for them. He’s a call away.”
“Do it,” Kingston said.
“No. We won’t leave the pack.” Mrs. Farrell stood in the hallway between the kitchen and living room. There was no mistaking the matriarch of Kingston’s family. “But the offer means more than you will ever know, Viking.”
Kingston went to her without a word, wrapping his arms around the smaller woman but seeming like a child as she held him close. I saw it the moment he crumbled. I would’ve done the same were I in his place. As his shoulders shook, we all averted our attention elsewhere, giving him the moment he needed to fall apart.
We were no closer to our answers, but we wouldn’t find them today anyway. Kingston and his family needed time to grieve. Thorne and I could give them that much while we did our best in the meantime to make sense of everything. Because if one thing was certain, this was just the beginning.
As if proving my point, Thorne’s phone rang. Before he even spoke, my berserker rattled its chains, preparing to leap to our defense as a sense of ominous anticipation rolled through me.
What the fuck had happened now?
ChapterTwenty-Two
THORNE
“Father? What is it?” I couldn’t keep my voice from shaking as apprehension wormed its way through me. It was one thing after another these days, to the point I couldn’t believe something as innocuous as a phone call promised anything resembling good news.
“No, brother. It’s me.”
“West?” My younger brother never called me, and definitely not from my father’s phone. “What’s going on?”
I knew before he answered he’d tell me something that shattered my world. Who hadIlost?
“The fae... they attacked early this morning. Most of the manor is gone. Burned to the foundation.”
My head went fuzzy as my pulse roared in my ears. “How?”
“We don’t know how the fire started yet, though we assume the bastards did it to draw us out. They got...” My brother swallowed, and my heart sank further. “Noah, it’s Rosie. She didn’t make it out. Martin eith—”
My hand clenched around my phone so tight I heard the plastic groan in protest. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not. She was in Aunt Callie’s lab. No one could get to her. Father... he found her a pile of ashes.”
“No, he must have been mistaken. It wasn’t her.”
“Noah, we found her necklace. The one you gave her. Itwasher.”
His grief was more convincing than his words. Still I refused to believe it. Rosie couldn’t be gone. I’d just seen her. Alive. Healthy.
“No,” I whispered, deep in my denial. I could feel the intense gazes of Alek and the others on me. Kingston and his mother had left the room, but I knew it was only a matter of time before they’d be back. I should go, leave them to their grief before adding any of my own, but I couldn’t seem to make myself move.
“There’s more...”
“Please don’t.” If our mother or father were lost to this war against the Apocalypse as well, I would personally take it up with the entirety of the Shadow Court until they were nothing but a memory. Killing innocents did not further the goal of stopping what had been put into motion. What end did this serve but senseless destruction? What had Rosie ever done to deserve such a fate?
“Noah.”
Steeling myself for what would surely be another blow, I gritted out, “Who else?”
“Mother.”
My knees buckled, and I hit the floor hard, the jolt running up my thighs and knocking sense into me enough that I could process his statement. “How is that possible? Father would have gotten her out first. She couldn’t defend herself against—”
“She’s alive. In a manner of speaking.”
