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His grip on my hand was crushing. “And if I can’t be with you, I still want you to be happy.”
There were reasons I wasn’t telling Sterling about Searle—because there was nothing good to tell. Sterling needed to focus onSterlingand not worry about me.
I was not going to jeopardize his life further. It was my fault we were in this mess.
He finally lowered my wrist back to the console, but didn’t release my hand. “Will you tell me about the scrolls?”
“I told you about them.”
“No, you put me off, and you still smell angry. Why are you angry about them?”
I took an angry sip of my slush. The unnatural flavor combo bit into the back of my throat. “Because I don’t know what to do about the damned things. If it was so important, why didn’t Momsay something? Or take it to her grave? What was the point in leaving it forme?”
“Considering I’m not familiar with the contents, I can’t say. Why do you think she did?”
I laughed bitterly. “Fuck if I know. Everyone involved is dead.”
“Archive integrity?”
“Like I said: everyone involved is dead with no children. Literally doesn’t matter.” It only mattered ifIsurvived, and that would only involve a quiet revision to my pedigree records, which would not be announced or discussed or be meaningful except as a cheap scandal to be exploited. My pedigree page, like Sterling’s, was a technicality, and updating it for future generations was standard record keeping.
“Then you can tell me,” Sterling said. “If it doesn’t matter.”
I sighed. “My parents weren’t mates. I’m not my father’s biological offspring. I was sired by her true mate. Birk of BlizzardFall. The war was fought over her. No idea if she was abducted or ran away. All I know is I wasn’t a product of rape, my mother was onlyjustpregnant when she returned to my father, and my father agreed to raise me as his own. I was passed off as a reunion blessing. My biological father is a cruor Alpha.”
“Blood clot?”
“That’s the moniker given to Alphas like him. In his case, he overthrew his Alpha in a True Challenge.” When Sterling gave me a blank look, I added, “The most brutal, gory sort of way you do things. Very rare, even centuries ago. Seems like he did it to remove obstacles to my mother, but the only records are the dates in the Volumes, so all the context has been erased. But that’s why there was never any question about the war. He was literally the most violent and bloody Alpha in, well… a long time. I’d have to check to see when the last successful True Challenge was. Centuries, maybe.”
“Are you…” He didn’t finish his sentence.
I tucked myself against the door of the truck. “Angry? Yes. I have no idea what Mom thought I could do with this information.”
“But that’s what Daniel was afraid we’d gone to FrostFur looking for.”
“Explains a lot of things about the older SilverPaw wolves. To them, they knew or strongly suspected Jerron and I had been born under bad stars.” I ate some of the terrible chips to distract myself. “I always knew my parents weren’t madly in love, but Ineversuspected they weren’t mates.”
“Thats reassuring,” Sterling said quietly.
“Don’t say that,” I bit back.
“Winter, I want you to—”
“I know what you want. I promised you, didn’t I? I might not survive your death at all, so I’m not making plans.”
“Don’t say that,” he snapped.
“Matesdon’t often outlive each other,” I said tartly. “That’s not a fairytale or myth. That’sreal.”
“Which is why you have to start preparing yourselfnow.”
I slurped my terrible drink. It seared my tongue with its chemical lime flavor mixed with acidic artificial jalapeño. “I’m not fighting with you about this. I gave you my promise. You gave me a private island as an emergency escape pod. Let’s just… enjoy what we’ve got left.”
I probably wouldn’t dramatically drop dead moments after Sterling, but a week or a few months? Some wolves committed suicide, but most times, the wolf simply faded, and the pack had to try to keep them alive. The fact that AmberHowl expected me to dust myself off and appear in public like it hadn’t happened was downright stupid and another indicator that they couldn’t be trusted. AmberHowl might have been gambling I’d be dead within a year. It wouldn’t have been the worst gamble. Problematic mated pairs were very often two-for-one deals.
Sterling reached. I fended off his arm. He persisted and secured his hand over my thigh and hauled me closer. All while managing tonotdrive us into the marsh. A billboard advertising a winery passed us by.
“Awinery? Outhere? I’m kind of curious.” I twisted around to get another look.
