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 tim
e.”
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 been working on for the last hour. “Don’t you?”
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.