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“Like who?” I asked.
“Demons.” Bishop shivered. “I fuckinghatedark magic.” He glanced at me. “But you know all about what dark magic can do, don’t you?”
I frowned. “Why would I know that?”
“Because of your alpha’s dealings with vampires.”
I sighed. “You’ve mentioned that before. It was an idea that ended up blowing up in our faces. It didn’t work, so Colter cut it off, but yeah, I know what dark magic can do.”
Bishop nodded. “Dark magic nearly ruined this city, this pack… My dad was hungry for power, so he turned to darkness to get more of it. As a result, I lost the woman I thought I would be with for the rest of my life.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. Bishop’s loss was tangible, thick in the air.
“Shit happens, right?” he asked bitterly. “It was bad enough that I’d lost her, that I mourned her. To lose my dad on top of that…”
“How did he die?” I asked softly.
Bishop closed his eyes, and his face was riddled with pain.
“He felt like shit about what happened to Aster. It was his fault, because of the dark magic and him looking for power where he shouldn’t have. He’d turned away from it by then, but Aster was already gone, and he couldn’t forgive himself. He thoughtIcouldn’t forgive him, although I would have. It would just take time, you know?”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t have to say anything, though. Bishop was in his mind, far away from the office, reliving it all.
“He killed himself,” he said bluntly.
My breath left my lungs, and my knees buckled. Words failed me as I finally whispered, “I can't begin to understand the pain you're feeling, but please know that I'm here for you, Bishop.”
He opened his eyes again. “Thank you, Rory. I don’t know why he thought doing that would take the pain away, because it just doubled it. Tripled it. Fuck.” He clenched his jaw. “Anyway, I’m alpha now, and there’s no way I’ll ever let something like that happen again. When I heard about your alpha and his dealings with the devil…” He smirked at the way he said it. “I thought you guys were going down for sure, but it looks like he figured it out.”
“Yeah, it worked out okay,” I said.
“He had help,” Bishop said.
So, he knew about Liv, Colter’s mate with special powers. He knew about the vampires. Turk had come back and told him all about it, hadn’t he? It was what Colter had been afraid of—his secrets being exposed, his strengths and his weaknesses.
“We all could do with a little help,” I said. “A little companionship. Colter’s life with Liv has nothing to do with power and everything to do with love and fate.”
“Hmm,” Bishop said. “Fate.”
I didn’t know what he was thinking. His mood had changed away from the sorrow. Something between us had changed, too. Something was sacred about letting a person in close enough to know the innermost pain we walked around with every day, and Bishop had opened up to me.
I always felt drawn to him when we were together—my wolf and his wolf seemed to be made for each other in a way that scared me when I thought about it too much. One person to another, though… Bishop was drawing closer to me, and I liked it. I liked having him this close. Not just two wolves together, but two souls who fit together like one.
“The clinic here is to your liking?” Bishop asked, changing the topic to lighter things.
I hesitated before I shook my head. “It can use a lot of upgrades and much better resources.”
“I haven’t heard any complaints,” Bishop said.
“How involved are you?”
Bishop shrugged. “Not that much, I’ll admit. I’m sure they’re doing the best they can.”
“The best they can?” I asked, surprised. “You mean, the best they can with what they have.”
Bishop didn’t answer me. That only made me talk about it more. I was getting on my soapbox.
“Right now, that clinic is government funded, and the government doesn’t know about the shifters it helps. That means that whatever we need, it’s not necessarily there, and we, as doctors and nurses to the shifters who are in trouble, have our hands tied. The least you could do is look at private funding.”
