by Sam Hall
Choked back sobs came from within the chapel, from without. The people outside wouldn’t sit the full vigil, but they marked the alpha’s passing with the required respect. That wasn’t why I was here. I couldn’t give a rat’s arse about his role, his standing in this town.
Daddy…
The point of the quiet, the dress, the dais, the chapel was this—the stuff of life, human or otherwise, was put to one side. You couldn’t distract yourself, couldn’t let all the many, many things that were going on in your life get between you and your grief.
The pain rose as the moon did, and I tried to push past it, not let it break me, like I did in the gym, keep on breathing, keep on going. But I underestimated the weight of this, this final severing of the parent-child relationship. I couldn’t say I was all alone in the world, but I wasn’t anyone’s kid anymore, didn’t have anyone checking in, keeping tabs, being part of my life, having seen it in its entirety since it began.
I didn’t want this.
I didn’t want to sit there, kneeling, looking at my dead dad and thinking thoughts. I wanted this to be bullshit, one big ruse to drag me home, where he would open his eyes, smile, and wink at having tricked me so completely. I wanted my tears to dry on my cheeks as I saw him rise and sit on the side of the dais, grinning down at me like he did when I woke him up in the morning, busting in with childishly created breakfasts of Vegemite toast. I wanted this to be a life lesson—don’t assume you have endless time left because you might not. I would be the most apt of students.
I would. I’d learn this lesson, if he just…
This wasn’t fucking fair. My teeth locked down so hard, I could almost hear them crack, anything to hold back the screams inside me. I wanted to shatter this fucking place with my cries, have it ringing out through the whole place until the stones themselves crumbled.
How could they not? How could they stay so solid and impervious, when all this pain poured out within it? People cried, sobbed, whimpered over and over and over, a relentless fucking wave. My eyes snapped open. I hadn’t realised they were closed, and I stared up at the moon now streaming through the circular window, bathing all of us in that white light.
It was pitiless, endless, this illusion of Mother Moon as this gentle nurturing goddess fucking bullshit, because where the hell was my peace? I saw it now, with much wiser eyes, eighteen and packing my bag, shoving my gear into it, but my focus was on him. The worry, the fear, the pain as he watched me get ready to walk out on him, the wrench inside him at my harsh words, my snapping responses. Him walking in, trying to pull me close, but me… My fangs lengthened, my hands going to claws as I watched myself push him away. He spoke in a steady stream of reassurance, of concern, of a need to fix this, fix me.
But I wouldn’t be fixed.
Every step I took away from him was a slap to my face, as it had been to him at the time. He’d watched me run down the stairs, getting farther and farther away, the twin pains of wanting to stop me with every breath coupled with the knowledge he knew he couldn’t.
I needed this.
Fuck, that slayed me, cut a great swathe through my heart as I saw my Dad accept my actions, even though it killed him, knowing exactly what was going to happen. That I’d grow apart, on my own, to my own dictates. That I’d stop being a child and become a woman, and he’d miss it all.
Because that was the true depth of the parent relationship, something I’d never fully understood until now. He sacrificed everything—that anal need to know what I was doing at all times, the constant checking in, the steering and training me for the role that was to come, that connection between heir and alpha. That connection.
I saw all the times he called and I didn’t pick up or return his calls, the stiff conversations when I did. My wriggling, writhing need to break free of the cocoon, right when he wanted to wrap me tighter inside it. But he held it back, so fucking much. The rush of pride each time he found mention of me on the internet, his dedicated collection of every scrap of information, because that’s all I’d given him, no matter what he needed—scraps.
My focus stayed on the shaking hand holding onto the bannister, knowing I’d find the marks of his claws there when I got home. They’d dug in deep to hold him back as I walked out the door.
At some point, my vision blurred, my eyes gone with tears. Whether it was hours or minutes later, I couldn’t tell. The chapel was always a timeless place. I cried because no matter what I wished or had done, this was the reality. That was the purpose of vigil in the end—acceptance. She might be our mother, but like any parent, sometimes she had to witness the pain of her children as they fought to accept what they must. There was no fighting, no logic, no way through this but to reconcile themselves to what is. I blinked my eyes until they were clear enough, stared at my father’s face, bathed in moonlight, and said my goodbyes.
“Pick her up.”
Hands were on me, jostling me from my frozen position, my body numb, my circulation sluggish, as if everything inside me slowed down once the real grieving began.
“It’s going to hurt her. She’s been awfully still. Rub her arms and her legs, get the blood going.”
“Is she… Will that be OK? I can get Zack.”
“Your brother is asleep outside the chapel, and you are the ones that Adam charged to care for her. The longer you wait, the more it will hurt her.”
Hands, so many hands all over my body, I wanted to shove away, but I couldn’t control mine enough to do so. My body, my heart had become numb, sinking deeper and deeper into grief. Away from the chapel, the moon, the world, life, just down, down, down.
But they fought to bring me back, something that drew a strangled cry, because it hurt just like my limbs did as they rubbed the circulation back. A sharp prickling at first, then followed by a heavy, dense pain that just grew and grew and grew. Scrambled, ragged noises clawed their way up and out of my throat despite my attempts to keep them down.
“She’s… We…”
“It’s painful coming back. It hurts so much to choose to keep on living when someone you love has died. They take some of that with them, that determination, when they go, but we must remind her of all that remains here, waiting for her. Rub her skin, stretch her limbs, work those muscles—”
“No!”
My eyes flicked open, and I saw all of them, clean, clear, and all too crisp. Nan stood over me, my aunties and cousins clustered close and looking down at a sprawled out me, but it was them I glared at—my father’s men, here to carry him to his grave. Their hands worked on me not him, massaging my skin, drawing my attention back to it, stroking my body, my head, my hair. They all stared at me, Declan, Micah, Mason, but it was his gaze that grabbed mine and held it.
“Yes,” Mason said with a definite snap. “You can’t stay here anymore. It’s hurting you. You’ve done your vigil.”
“No! No!” I fought my way out, lashing out with those ungainly, uncoordinated kicks I always scorned in new fighters, scrabbling free before clawing my way to the dais. “No!” I shouted at the moon as it faded, the dark sky going purple, then blue as the Mother turned away from her children and the sun was reborn. “No…” That was more of a howl, a horrible drawn-out wail of a thing, a sound so fucking alien, I couldn’t believe it came from me. It didn’t stop when Mason’s arms went around me, when hands pulled me back from Dad, holding me tight, the living, when all I wanted to do was hold on to the dead.
Scents clashed in my nose, arms wrapped around me, their hair and skin and muscle and bone all thrust itself into my consciousness, right when I didn’t want them to.
“Paige Marie Spehr!”
Nan’s voice cracked across my face like a bare-handed slap. She moved closer until she was standing before me, frowning, then looking me over with compassion.
“Darling, it’s time.”
“No, Nan, no!”
“Yes, darling.” I heard her own calm tone waver, but her nod was decisive. “Adam’s boys will carry him to
where he needs to go, at his side one more time. Don’t take that from them, Paige. I know you don’t want that.”
Which of course ripped the suffocating caul of self-involved misery from my eyes and made me see the chapel in total for the first time since we walked in here. Everyone was waiting, hurting, needing for this to end so they could go home and grieve on their own, and I was just dragging this out, because why? I felt a flush of shame, but Nan just shook her head.
“It’s OK. You can let her go now. She’s back, and you have your burden to pick up.”
I felt them pull away, every withdrawal of touch somehow feeling like another smaller loss, but I wrapped my arms around myself as I watched each man take a corner of the stretcher Dad had been laid out on. Mason, Declan, Micah, and Callum who had made up the fourth, walked out of the chapel with the body in tow, and we followed behind.
“Paige?”
Zack looked rumpled and exhausted, but he approached me as I stepped out onto the cold stone steps, Nan nodding when I took his hand. She led the trail of mourners down the street the short distance it took to get to the burial grounds.
Half the town was clustered around the grave site, though they were kept well back by temporary barriers, which made me wonder who had been here to set them up. As if sensing my thoughts, Mason looked back at me for a moment before they lowered Dad’s body into the grave.
“Are you OK? You were in there so long. You’ve not had any—”
I pressed my fingers to Zack’s lips, stopping the flow of terse whispers as my father’s beta stepped up to deliver the eulogy.
“We’re here today to commit back to the earth our alpha, Adam Meyer Spehr. I’m not one of you, I wasn’t born in Lupindorf. Rather, I came here as a young man seeking…” His hands flexed on the empty air. “I don’t know what I was looking for, but Adam seemed to know. I wasn’t much when I crawled into town. Skinny, been in fur too long, half feral. I’m sure there was plenty that thought a bullet in the brain would have been a blessing, but not Adam. He was early in his leadership then, but still, he had the unerring ability to see the good in people.”
My hand went to my lips now, wanting to hold it all back, and Zack’s arm snaked around my shoulder and held me tight.
“He gave me a feed, took me into his house. His alpha female, Lucy, Paige’s mum, she wasn’t too pleased. Just took me to the enforcers’ quarters and told me to have two showers. One to just get the dirt off, then another to get off the stink. But he just nodded when I came out, put a plate full of food in front of me, and told me to eat.”
He took a long breath, then looked out onto the group of people around him.
“I tried to argue with him, thank him for the shower and the clean clothes and everything and get the hell out of Dodge. It’s what I wanted to do. I hadn’t been around people for a while by that point and Paige was just a kid, so Lucy was none too pleased about me being around. But Adam?” He nodded to himself. “Maybe there were faster men or tougher men, but there were none stronger. He just looked at me with those steely eyes of his. Anyone who’s grown up here while he was alpha would know what I’m talking about.” A smattering of amused chuckles. “He just looked at me and said, ‘Mate, be the man I can see you are inside, and you’ll have no problems with me.’”
It was then that Mason’s face transformed, became something so damn hauntingly beautiful, my lungs sucked in air with the shock of it.
“So I was. You couldn’t help it with Adam. You wanted to be better, because it made him happy, because he believed you could. I saw it over and over with the young blokes he brought in as enforcers. They’d be antsy and wanting to prove themselves, or jumpy and wondering how they fit in the hierarchy, and he’d just walk out, all cool, calm, and collected, and then they were too. He helped men forge bonds that last lifetimes, find strength they didn’t know they had, become something more than they’d ever have thought possible, and then find them willing to walk over hot coals just to serve him. We lost a good man…” His eyes shone in the early morning light. “No, a great man, the other day, but the Mother, there’s some children she holds tighter than others, wanting them back with her because they’re too bloody good for this world, and I think that was Adam.”
He bent his head, clasping his hands before him, and we all did the same.
“We return to you, Mother, your son Adam Meyer Spehr. We conduct him to your care, know you’ll hold him within your heart, lead him to the pack lands beyond, watch him run free for eternity, a child of the moon.”
My tears ran freely, dripping on the ground, so when it came my turn, I stumbled. There were a few gasps from the crowd, but I bent down, grabbed a solid handful of earth, and then tossed it down on the body below. Nan stepped forward next, doing the same, as did my aunties, then all the women on the Meyer side. Nance and the other Spehrs did the same, then the enforcers, each one placing a handful of dirt in the hole. Then, when we all stepped back, Mase, as Dad’s beta, grabbed the shovel and scooped up the remaining dirt, the silence broken only by the sound of digging and transferring soil until it was done.
I felt hollowed out and empty, like a bell when I saw the mounded earth, the white marble headstone. I wavered a little on my feet, the lack of sleep and food coming crashing down on me, forcing me into submission.
“There’s a lot to talk about, since we don’t have a clear line of succession,” Mason said, moving closer to the barriers. “But I ask you to respect the family’s need for time to grieve tonight. Tomorrow night, a town meeting will be called, contenders will be identified, and a process hammered out for going forward. All of this will be done in an orderly fashion. We will avoid the bloodshed and the bullshit other packs go through when succession is not clear, because we fucking owe it to Adam.”
I’d never really heard Mason use his alpha whip, but he did right now, forcing the whole damn town in submission. Fuck, he was totally the right guy for alpha. If only… I shook my head. Maybe there’d be a way that he could take it without taking me. I shouldn’t be the thing that stopped him from becoming what Dad obviously thought he could be.
“I’ll make sure everyone knows about it. We’ll move forward on this, together.”
And then that was it. People slowly moved away, including my Spehr family, then the Meyers as well. I stood by my nan, blank and empty, when they hugged me, wished me well. I gripped them tight when they did, trying to make clear that despite my absence, my lack of response right now, I still loved them, that I absorbed every stroke of my face, my hair, the kind comments, like a parched plant did the morning rain. Then Nan turned to me and Zack.
She watched him put his arm around me, pull me into his chest, the way my eyes closed for just a moment, absorbing him too.
“You love her.”
It wasn’t a question, it was a statement, as Nan’s often were, and it wasn’t to me, though I stiffened in response.
“I do.” Zack’s rumbly answer vibrated through me from head to toe.
“He loves her too.” My muscles tightened and I went to turn away, but Zack kept me pinned where I was. “At least a few of them do.”
“Why wouldn’t they? You’ve seen her grow up. You know who she is. What someone else feels isn’t a threat to me, not even how she feels.”
Something ached inside me, getting harder, more painful at his words, at the slow slide of his hand down my back.
“So you’re strong then? Good, you’ll need to be. I’ve no loyalty to any one of you, no vested interest in seeing any man take the role of alpha, but Paige? You’ll find I’m very interested indeed in anyone who wishes to be a part of my granddaughter’s life.”
“Then I’d be honoured to come around, introduce myself, and earn your approval. Paige’ll tell you, I don’t back down from challenges, and I’m glad she has people looking out for her best interest.”
“A roast lunch, then,” Nan said decisively. “It’s been too long since she’s had my roast potatoes.” I groaned, my st
omach rumbling, almost able to taste those crunchy, fluffy, herby, buttery spuds. “You’ll be doing that at the end of one of my meals too. You’ve gotten too skinny, Paige.”
“Yes, Nan.”
“Go on then, love. Eat something, sleep, let your body process the vigil. You’ll come out stronger, Paige, I know it. See you soon, Zack.”
“Did I tell her my name?” he muttered to me.
“Nothing gets past Nan,” I replied, pulling back, seeing my father’s… No, they were mine until the succession had been finalised. Seeing my enforcers waiting, ready to take us home. I nodded, feeling chilled now, standing around in a flimsy gown, so home we went.
Chapter 13
How did I feel on the way back home? It was hard to say. Zack steered me over to the car, seeming to understand that I needed to go with the enforcers, even if that’s not what he wanted.
“She’s gonna need to crash when she gets home. She won’t want to, but she’ll need to,” he told Mason, still holding me in his arms.
“We’ve all been through a vigil before, Zack. We know,” Mason replied.
“But this is different now, for her. This is her first one on her own. I need to… I want to hold her while she sleeps. She’s got plenty of time to shower off my scent before the meeting.”
All twelve sets of eyes went to me, Mason’s, Zack’s, and the rest of the enforcers’. Declan was going to say something, and Micah watched me closely, so closely, I wondered at what he was thinking, but Mason spoke for all of them when he finally nodded.
“Last time, brother. You want to take the spot by her side going forward, you compete with everyone else. She rides with us though.”
“Done.”
This pricked at me a little, the big boys making the decisions for me, but I wasn’t up for much more. I just came along quietly when Mason reached out for my hand. He led me to the car, wedged me between him and Micah again, and I just lay back against the car seat, a limp mess.
