“Hope’s right.” Malcolm’s voice is gruff as he opens his eyes. “My time has come, son.”
“You don’t know that. Ridge might find someone—”
Malcolm reaches out and places a hand on Archer’s arm. “Son. I need you to be strong now. More than ever before. You hear me?”
Archer nods once, a tear slipping over the edge of his eyelashes.
Then the dying alpha looks at me. With his other hand, he gestures for me to come closer.
Tears fall freely from my own eyes as I join the two of them at the bed. Malcolm looks so small and pale. I wish I knew him before the disease took hold of him. I bet he was a hell of a man. The complete opposite of the kind of man my uncle was. Someone who would’ve cared for me as if I were his own.
His hand feels papery thin in mine as he says, “You’re good for my boy. I’m glad he has you. He’ll need your strength when the sun rises.”
I squeeze Malcolm’s fingers, my voice strangled as I promise, “He’ll have it.”
“You take care of him, Sable.”
Archer looks away, tears dripping from his chin but his face so stoic I think he might fracture into pieces. I put my arm around his waist, trying to bolster him with what little strength I have left. “I will, Malcolm. I promise.”
The old man smiles at me, and for a moment, his face looks younger, healthier. Then he closes his eyes and takes a ragged breath, as if all that talking has worn him out.
Ridge appears suddenly in the doorway, magic still rippling around him from the shift. He doesn’t even need to speak for us to know that no witch remains alive within pack boundaries. The look of despair on his scruffy face is enough.
Malcolm glances at the North Pack Alpha and nods as if he expected this. “You four men need to take care of one another.”
Trystan and Ridge exchange surprised glances, and Dare takes a single step closer to Malcolm’s side, bowing his head in acknowledgment.
“It’s very clear to me,” Malcolm goes on, “that Sable has become more than just your mate. She’s the bond between our packs. While your mate bond is… untraditional, it seems that maybe you’re exactly what the packs need. After all, it’s only by joining together that we all managed to hold off utter destruction today. We need each other. You need each other.”
All four men respond with a respectful, “Yes, sir.”
The room is so charged with emotion that it feels like a different kind of magic in the air.
The old alpha finally turns his gaze back to his son. “I’m proud of you. Proud of everything you’ve done by my side. I’m proud of everything you’ll do without me.”
“I don’t want to do it without you.”
“You’re alpha now, son,” Malcolm says sternly. “And what a great alpha you’ll be.” He huffs a breath, a weak smile curving his lips upward. “Maybe I should say, what a great alpha you already are. Have been for quite some time.”
My men bow their heads at Malcolm in response, a gesture of respect to the man in front of them. I follow suit, my heart aching and tears burning hot paths down my cheeks.
“No. I’m not the alpha. You are,” Archer says vehemently. He’s openly crying now, squeezing his father’s hand between both of his as if a tight enough hold could anchor him to life. “I can’t do this without you.”
“You can,” Malcolm murmurs, his eyelids fluttering. “You will.”
“I love you.” The words tear from Archer as if they’re coming from the deepest, most sincere part of his soul. As if they were ripped from him like a part of his body. He’s shaking as he leans over Malcolm, burying his face in the covers wrapped over the alpha’s chest.
“I love you,” Malcolm whispers, and each word seems to take great effort for him to utter them. His eyes are closed, his breaths light and shallow.
The room comes to a standstill. Nobody moves or speaks. Somewhere in the house, a clock chimes the hour, and it seems almost sacrilegious that it chose this exact moment to sound the alarm. But something about the sound of the clock’s melodic bells seems to reach Malcolm. His expression smooths out, and his entire body relaxes. We watch the alpha take his final breaths. Then he’s gone, leaving behind a peaceful look on his face and a strange feeling of emptiness in the room.
Archer straightens away from his father’s body. His face is crumpled, full of raw agony and despair. Magic rolls over him, adjusting his bones, changing his skin, shifting him from human to wolf form. Then he paws at the bed plaintively, turns his nose to the ceiling, and howls his pain.
One by one, everyone in the room joins him. We each shift, tilt our heads back, and howl until a chorus of despair cuts straight through the walls and into the village. Moments later, the rest of the pack joins in as they realize what’s happened. Their distant howls from outside among the battle-stricken homes mingle with ours.
There’s something freeing and haunting about sharing Archer’s pain, about coming together to grieve the loss of a good man. A good alpha.
My voice disappears into the song of the shifters, and for a time, we’re all one. There’s no North Pack. No West. No East.
Just the wolves, and the universal language of grief.
27
Archer
I never imagined that one day, the beautiful rolling meadows that surround my home would become a graveyard. The resting place for dozens of shifters from every surviving pack in the area. I never dreamed that one day, West Pack bodies would be laid to rest beside those wolves lost in the North Pack.
Lost to my pack.
“I think that’s deep enough,” Ridge grunts, shoving the sharp edge of his shovel into the pile of dirt we’ve
