He directs this last question to me, and I tighten my grip on my own shovel, my fingers slippery with sweat. The sun glares down with a heat and a brightness that seems out of place on such a scene of death and sadness. I glance over at my father’s body. He’s wrapped in a funeral shroud Hope made him.
She’s been with him for years, and she stands watch over him even now, tears coursing down her cheeks as she stares out over the growing field of graves. The sight of her stark, raw emotion makes my own throat close, and I can’t speak.
Dare puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “You’re going to be okay. Maybe not today. Or tomorrow. But one day.”
“You would know,” I agree softly.
“You’ll never forget,” he adds. “It’ll never stop hurting. And that’s okay too.”
I muster up a thankful smile, though I’m sure it doesn’t meet my eyes. I’m glad to have these three men on my side, but the pain of my father’s death is still too fresh to really appreciate it. I know I’m locked in my own mind, self-absorbed in my own grief, but I don’t know how to claw my way out of it yet. Not with my father’s body lying at my feet.
Ridge and Trystan have been busy as hell today, overseeing the gathering of their own dead, and still they’re here, now, helping me dig my father’s grave. We’ll hold a service later—one for all the dead, not just my dad but every soul lost in this battle. When the grief isn’t quite so fresh. When the packs have cleaned up the mess, licked their wounds, and found a new kind of normal.
Until then, we need to get the bodies in the ground.
All three packs suffered devastating losses in the battle yesterday. But we fought hard, and all three packs are still here. We escaped utter destruction because we faced the threat together. Too bad we didn’t embrace that idea sooner. Maybe Dare’s pack would still be with us.
I glance out over the burial preparations taking place all around us. Farther in the distance, beyond the trees, a plume of greasy black smoke billows into the sky. Not the black smoke of magic, but the black smoke of burning bodies. The witches’ dead. They didn’t deserve the respect of a burial, the same respect given to my father and my pack mates.
“Let’s do this,” I say, shoving aside my pain. I look down into the six foot grave where Trystan’s leveling out the bottom. “Switch places with me. I want to be the one…” I trail off. I can’t even say the words.
But Trystan seems to understand what I mean. He holds up his shovel to me, and I haul him out of the dirt as he walks up the loose wall. Then I leap down into the hole and steel myself for the weight of my father’s body to add to the weight of my grief.
Ridge and Dare lower the blanket-wrapped bundle into my arms. In the final months, Dad lost so much weight he hardly registers in my arms now. He just wasted away, the disease eating him up the same way the magic did last night.
I lean over and set him gently on the soft dirt, taking a little extra time to make sure his limbs are stretched out. He could be only sleeping beneath that shroud, but I know he’s gone. A fresh wave of anger laced with agony washes over me, and I remain on my knees for a long time, unable to leave him.
Finally, I glance up to see my friends have gathered around the grave. Trystan. Ridge. Dare. Sable. Amora. Hope. They hold hands, forming a circle around us as they bow their heads in respect to my father. They’re a life raft when I feel like I’m drowning, and it takes everything I have not to break down.
After I pull myself together, I climb out of the grave with a helping hand from Trystan and Dare. I brush dirt off my knees and hands, swallowing against the lump in my throat. I’ve never known heartbreak like this, but I know I can’t wallow in my grief. I’m the alpha now. It’s up to me to lead my pack, to be there for them in their time of need.
But fuck, I miss my dad.
Sable comes to stand beside me over the grave, and she slips her hand into mine. Her fingers are cool against my skin, and I can feel waves of silent comfort and support flowing through the mate bond. I squeeze her fingers, grateful for her. If anyone can help me survive this hole in my heart, she can.
Dad was right about that.
It takes much less time to fill the hole than it did to dig it. Before I know it—before I’m ready—he’s gone, and there’s nothing but a fresh mound of dirt left behind. Hope and I drag the temporary marker to rest above where his head lies, and I promise him silently that he’ll have a better one soon.
The whole pack came to honor their alpha’s life, and I can feel their presence behind me as I gaze down at the grave. A number of the North and West pack shifters came too, and their presence means more to me than I expected it would. It fills my heart with an aching sort of pride to know that my father was respected even outside his pack.
He never asked to fall ill. He was dealt a shitty hand, and he faced it with more grace and strength than anyone I’ve ever known.
And he died a fucking hero.
He saved the woman I love.
“Thank you, Dad,” I murmur, my voice catching on the quiet words.
As the gathered crowd begins to disperse, we walk back to my cabin as a group, though there’s very little talk. Everyone is subdued, mourning their own
