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“Why? Why not pool your information? Why keep it a secret? We could have been collaborating this whole time!”
No one says anything. They’re all waiting for me to answer, because I did this. I set the tone these last weeks.
Starting when the revenant broke free of Drago’s control, I realized that if my time with him was limited, I didn’t want to waste a single second of it.
“I had a cat as a kid.” Rook stares at me, questions clear on his face, but I put up a finger, asking him to bear with me. “He was a stray that somehow made his way up the mountain and followed me home. Now, it’s strange enough for a cat to take to a family of wolf shifters, but this cat was so weird and scraggly and cuddly and sweet, I couldn’t just let him freeze outside.
“So, he became part of our family. He’d run with us when we shifted and wait on the sidelines for his portion when we caught something tasty. He was the best cat.”
That old pain eased open, and a fresh wave of grief washed over me.
“And then he got sick. It was sudden and drastic, and before I’d really processed it, he was gone. It was the worst kind of hurt I’d ever experienced. But I knew then, and I know now, that it was better than the alternative. If we’d known weeks or months ahead of time that he was growing ill, it would have hung over me, tainting every purr, every run, every chin scratch. Sudden was traumatic, but at least I wasn’t dreading it for months.
“I refuse to dread our demise. I refuse to spend the precious little time we may have concocting plans and researching myths instead of loving you. Instead of actually being with all of you. The healer mantle already took so much of my life. If we only have a few months together, then I want to make them fucking count.”
I stand from my seat and look at all my mates gazing up at me from their place at the table. Jonah, with his warm, velvety brown gaze. Rafe’s hard stare of forest green. Drago’s muted brown, constantly fighting the beast within. And Rook’s piercing blue, so hurt, so angry.
All of their attention is solely on me, on what I will say next.
If I say I want to keep living this way, ignoring our fates and enjoying each other until the scourge comes, they will.
And if I say we need to pool our information and come up with a plan, they will.
Each of them will agree to whatever I want because they love me.
And it’s tempting.
Gods is it tempting to hide from everything in my nest of mates and let them distract me from the world.
But that shit’s for whiny omegas who don’t listen to their own rules and get too deep in their emotions.
And last I checked, I was a badass Werebitch.
I’m not letting anything get between me and my mates. Not even our own fucking claiming magic.
“Alright, Rafe, you start. What do the Vancouver packs think?”
The tension evaporates, and it seems everyone in the room breathes a full breath for the first time in weeks.
And maybe that’s true.
Drago and Rook find coverage for their shifts that night, and we spend the rest of the evening comparing notes.
“Well, if no one wants to say it, I will,” Rafe says, rubbing his hand over his face after we’ve gone over the info for the seventy-eleventh time. “From coast to coast, everyone says there’s no way to break a claiming bond. Vancouver even suggests it’s the reason the remaining mate dies.”
Jonah nods. “The bond can’t be broken, so it pulls the remaining mate to the afterlife. It’s kind of romantic if you think about it.”
Rook aims a ball of purple-black like at Jonah’s head and fires it. “It’s not romantic for the non-wolf mate who gets fucking left behind, asshole.”
Jonah ducks just in time. “It is. You’re just bitter you’re not in the cool kids’ club.”
“Stop it, you two,” I murmur and go over what Sunny and Eden relayed last time we spoke. “You know, the vamps had a similar-ish situation not that long ago. Eden pored through Titus’s library, looking for a way to get Sunny unbound to him. She couldn’t find anything then, and they haven’t turned up anything this time either.”
“Are you saying there just isn’t a way? Because I refuse—”
“No, sweet mage.” I pat his hand across the table. “I’m saying if there is a way, it’s got to be something we haven’t thought of yet. Something no one has thought of.”
Rafe yawns. Loudly. Without covering his mouth. Rude. But point taken. “You’re probably right, but I need to turn in for the night and come at it fresh tomorrow.”
