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I heard the whimping of the pups, and the she-wolf with the blurred face telling meyou can paint it how you likebefore throwing a chair at me while I tried to escape with the puppies.
“Promise me,” he said, lifting my hands to his lips and breathing on them in the damp cold. “Start today. Start when you get back. Build a life with Searle. Don’t look back. Don’t wait for me.”
“No! Don’t you dare give up. Don’t youdarelie down and die for Alan. I’m not giving you permission to die!”
“I willnevergive up. It’s not in me. But we both know what I’m up against, and the real possibility I will die. I need to know you aren’t going to die with me.”
“I can’t promise you that,” I whispered.
“Promise meyou will not give up.”
I was not listening to thisif I dienonsense. “Well, too bad for you I fully plan on running up to you this summer and stepping on Alan’s corpse, and I have no intention of changing my plans.”
“And if that doesn’t happen, I need to know you’ll put one paw in front of the other. I need to know you’ll wake up the next morning, and the one after that, and you can hate me for leaving you to do it by yourself, but I need to know youwilldo it. Promise me.”
“I promise I won’t toss myself off a cliff without you.” I fully reserved the right to toss myself into two inches of bathwater while extremely drunk.
“Winter.”
“I am not going to build a life with Searle while I still have a life with you!” Even if it was only for a few more months. I was going to cling to that hope until Gaia Herself pried it out of my silver-twitchy claws.
“Winter. I need this burden off my mind. I need to know even if I die, you’ll still chase the prey.”
His thumbs dug into the delicate skin between my knuckles. My bones creaked, and his entire body tensed, and Ifeltthe pounding of his own heart striking me like a fist against a door. Like the moment when I let my mother go. When I had realized she was fighting to stay with me.
When I had whispered to herit’s okay, Mom. I’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.
Even though it had been a total lie. Even though itwasn’tokay. And I wasn’t okay. And none of us had ended up okay.
But asking her to stay and fight until the bitter, horrible end when she’d fought so hard and clung to life just for us had been wrong.
It’d felt like her fingers had lifted off my soul, and she’d slowly slipped away, like a leaf sliding under a pond’s surface.
Now I had to let Sterling go.
My heart cleaved right down the center, sliding into a thousand thin pieces like cheap lunch meat slid across the slicer. How many pounds, Gaia?
All of them, little wolf. All of them. Sliced thin.
“I love you,” I told him. “I’m not giving up, Sterling.”
Maybe if I said his name enough, it might hold this at bay. My wolf-of-silver. My wolf ofsilver.
Silver is war. Silver is death.
NO.
Sterling inhaled the scent off my hands. “I haven’t given up. I willnevergive up. And I need to know you will not die with me.”
I love you. You can go. I’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.
That wasn’t something I could promise him. Mates tended to die in pairs. Sterling’s death could, very well, be my own.
And I was just fine with that.
He squeezed. “Winter.”
Didn’t he know that? That the instant he challenged Alan it wasn’thislife, butourlife? That itwasn’tsome overly romantic fairytales mates didn’t outlive each other?
