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I LOOKED away when Elizabeth stood before her son.
He tried to be brave. He really did. But when he couldn’t reach her, when he couldn’t touch her skin, his smile trembled and broke, and he—
“Fuck this,” Jessie muttered, and before anyone could stop her, she was next to Elizabeth, using her foot to break the line of powdered silver.
Elizabeth threw herself at her son. He caught her, nose going to her throat as he inhaled deeply.
Jessie looked back at the rest of us defiantly.
No one said a word.
THEY LEFT to give me time to center myself. To give me a moment to breathe.
Pappas prowled back and forth, tracking my every movement.
The line of silver in front of Carter had been restored. He sat on the ground, legs crossed. The timber wolf sat curled around him, tail on his legs. Carter looked down at it, resigned. He shook his head. “You know,” he said, “I never thought… well. I don’t know what I thought.”
“About?”
He shrugged. “Everything.”
“That’s… vague.”
“Right? I’m having hard time focusing.”
“It’s getting worse.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Has been all morning. I… I didn’t want Kelly to see. You know how he is.”
“Yeah.”
“You gotta take care of them for me, man. Just in case I—”
“I will.”
He nodded and closed his eyes, leaning back against the feral wolf behind him. “It’s been good, you know? Even through all the suckage, we’ve got a good pack. I’m very lucky to have had that.”
I looked away.
“Do what you need to do, Gordo. While you still can. He can hear you. I know he can.”
I did too. It was violet, the bond between us, and it felt like it was hanging in tatters, but it still held, no matter how stretched thin it was. The bite mark on my neck throbbed as I came to stand before him.
He watched me, Mark did. My wolf.
The raven was ink black against his throat.
His eyes burned.
“I’m sorry,” I told him quietly. “That it took me this long to get here. I should have—I should have done things differently. I didn’t know how.”
He cocked his head, sharp teeth bared.
“But we didn’t come this far just to lose it now. And if you try to leave me after everything we’ve been through, I will hunt you down myself.”
Carter sounded like he was choking.
I turned slowly to glare at him.
