by G. Bailey
“Another rejected?” Henderson asks.
“No, but an injured wolf from Ravensword. He woke up and asked for Mai,” Ragnar tells us.
“Then I’m going,” I say, placing my hands on my hips but not directly looking at a very naked Ragnar. Even if a part of me wants to sneak a peek.
“It could be dangerous. The alpha of Ravensword might have sent him here to kill you,” Henderson cuts me off. “So no, you are not going.”
“I am, with or without you. You must know by now I’m stubborn enough to find my own way to the lighthouse,” I counter, staring him down.
“Fine,” Henderson sighs.
Ragnar shifts back as Henderson and I go to Daisy, get in, and take off quickly through the forest. Beta wolves join Ragnar, running not far behind Daisy with him, and I look at them. How could one of them betray the alphas and want me dead?
We drive quickly through the forest as I wonder who is here from Ravensword, who possibly said my name. I just can’t think of anybody. The alphas might be right. The Ravensword alpha could have sent this person to kill me. Or he could be a rejected wolf. Possibly. We drive down the beach after a long time, straight towards the lighthouse where I first went and met the alphas. The place where they saved me and swore me to the forbidden god. Healer Saffron is waiting outside the door, her arms crossed against her white coat as we pull up. She looks straight towards me with a warm smile.
“Hello, dear. How are you?” she asks. As I get closer, she wraps her arms around me before I can answer her. “It’s good to see you looking so much better.”
“I’m sorry I’m back under unfortunate circumstances,” I say, breaking away from the hug.
“Me too,” she replies before bowing her head at Henderson. I hear Ragnar shifting back nearby and likely getting dressed.
“Who is it?” Henderson asks.
“I don’t know. He hasn’t woken up again,” Saffron says. “But when he did, he cried out Mairin. He sounded desperate.”
I frown and take a step towards the door. Henderson wraps an arm around my waist and tugs me back from the door.
“It might not be safe. I’m going in first,” he warns me, stepping around me, sliding his hand slowly from my waist.
Ragnar comes up the steps, in jeans and nothing else. I gulp at the sight of all that muscle. “You asked us to come here. We let you, but you let us go first.”
Saffron interrupts. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to interrupt you, alphas. But the truth is, this man is too weak and too injured to do much. In fact, I think he’s past the point of being saved.”
“But you saved me from near death?” I say to Henderson. “How is this man different? Why wouldn’t the forbidden god help?”
“I think he’s poisoned by Nightshade,” she softly answers me.
I glance at the alphas, finding both their eyes turned downwards, and I frown, questioning what the hell Nightshade is.
Dammit, who is this person anyway? I push past Henderson before he can stop me, and hear a low growl at my back as I walk into the room. I pause, my heart dropping in my chest when I see Daniel lying on the sofa where I was once. His skin is so pale, his one eye is closed shut from swelling, and he looks dreadful.
It’s still good to see him...but not like this. God, not like this. I rush across the room and pick up his hand in mine, feeling how clammy and cold he is to touch.
“Daniel, I’m here,” I whisper, my voice catching. I clear my throat and turn to Saffron and the alphas as they crowd the room. “What is Nightshade?”
“Who is this man to you?” Henderson demands instead of giving me an answer, his eyes focused on why I’m holding Daniel’s hand.
“An old friend. Not a lover,” I say to get him past the stupid possessive stuff I can feel rolling off him and his wolf in spades.
Ragnar steps forward. “Nightshade is the only thing in the world there is no cure for. They make it from an herb grown from dead wolves. It’s unnatural, and the gods can’t help. I’m sorry.”
“No,” I whisper, a sob escaping my lips.
“It kills you very quickly, within a few days. I’ve seen this once before, and I believe he’s been out at sea for a while before he washed up here. He has several injuries, and his heart rate is so low,” Saffron gently tells me, coming over to my side and placing her hand on my shoulder as I silently sob. “We can only take away his pain. Nothing else.”
Tears fall down my cheeks, dropping onto the shiny floor at my feet.
“Then take his pain away so he can come home,” I tell her and stand up on shaky feet, turning to my alphas. “Will you help me take him to your home?”
“Our home is yours and welcome to your friend,” Henderson replies, nodding his head. “I’m sorry, Mai.”
“So am I...he is a good man,” I say back. “One of only three people in my old pack who defended me and treated me like a genuine person...and I can’t save him.”
Ragnar and Henderson come to my side, wordlessly giving me the support I need for what will happen next. Alpha Sylvester is going to pay for everything he has done.
I’m going to become his biggest regret.
“Mai!” someone shouts, someone I know well. I giggle and hide behind the wall, pressing my back into the cold stone. I brush my blonde hair out of my eyes and close them, reaching out with my senses. He is getting closer.
Just before he gets to me, I jump out, and he catches me, twirling us around until we are dizzy and laughing as we fall onto the grass.
“You’re always going to be my best friends. All four of you. No matter where we run, we will find each other.”
Waking up with a jolt, I find I’m still seated in a chair, with my back bent over the side of my bed where Daniel is sleeping in the middle. I lift my head from my arms, struggling to remember what I was dreaming about. I vaguely remember a boy with blond hair before the dream slips out of my mind like most of them do. Except for a single sentence which repeats itself in my mind again and again like a broken record:
“No matter where we run, we will find each other.”
Shaking my head, I clear my throat and lean over to place my hand on Daniel’s forehead, hoping something has changed.
But of course, nothing has. He is still stone cold to the touch and unconscious.
Rubbing my tired eyes, I stand up off the padded chair. I walk around the room, no proper direction in mind but to stretch my legs, and I hear the door creak behind me. I look over to see Trey peeking in.
“Has your friend woken up yet?” he asks.
I shake my head and rest my arms together against my chest, glancing at Daniel. “Not yet.”
“Can I come in?” he questions.
“Of course,” I gently say. “When Daniel wakes up, I want to introduce you to him. Tell him about the cool kid who can run faster than anyone I’ve seen and eats way too much fruit.”
He grins widely as he comes into the room and hands me a glass of orange juice. “I brought your favourite orange juice. I thought you might like it after waking up.”
I accept the drink with a soft look and wrap my arm around his shoulders. He rests against me. “Thanks, bud.”
“I’m sorry you’re sad,” he replies in a quiet voice. “I don’t want you upset.”
“It’s very kind of you to worry so much about me,” I reply, moving him to the door. “But being sad is part of life just as much as being happy is. You can’t have one without the other.”
“I wish you could,” he replies as I take a long drink of the orange juice. He waves at me before leaving the room, even though I suspect he won’t be far away. Once I finish the drink, realising I was thirstier than I thought I was, I place the empty glass on the chest of drawers.
Slowly I peek around the door, finding Henderson is sitting with Ragnar outside on the sofa, the one they dragged up the stairs to sit on or sleep on. Both of them are talking quietly, and they turn their heads my way.
“Any change?” Henderson
asks.
I shake my head. “No.”
“Anything we can help with?” Ragnar asks, leaning over and picking my hand up in his. I squeeze his hand.
“Do you think there’s any way we could wake him up? I just need to speak to him.”
They look between each other. “We both know what Saffron said. We know that he might never wake up.”
“I can’t accept that he might die before I ever have time to speak to him. Never know why he’s here and what’s happened back in the Ravensword Pack,” I say, pulling my hand from Ragnar’s. I know it’s not his fault, but everything seems against me right now. “I will never get to say goodbye if he doesn’t wake up. That’s twice.”
My heart hurts at the thought, and I rub my hand against my chest like I can stop the pain from taking over my heart.
“Loss is never easy, but you are not alone,” Henderson replies. “Be with him in his last hours, Mai.”
My feet feel heavily weighed down with every step I take back to Daniel, wishing he was better, wishing for a miracle that can never happen.
I stare at my best friend, another foster kid just like me. A million emotions run around in my mind. I grew up with this man. All of me remembers the last time I saw him, as he found his mate in the mating ceremony, and how shocked he looked, like it was yesterday.
I still remember his shouts and growls as he tried to get to me when he found out who I was mated to in the ceremony. I just have no idea what happened next. All I know is that he stuck up for me, defended me, and I can’t save him like he tried to save me. I pick his hand up once more. “Daniel, can you hear me?” I ask, shaking his shoulder with my other hand. I hate how weak he looks. I hate that there’s really not much I can do about it.
His eyes flicker for a moment, and I jolt up, leaning over him as he slowly opens his eyes, his big eyes staring up at me. Shock and joy make me smile at him, and I move some of his dark hair away from his forehead and eyes.
“Is it really you, Irin?” he groggily asks.
“Yes,” I say, a swirl of emotions coming out in my voice. Happiness that he’s awake, sadness that it doesn’t change the outcome. “It’s me. You’re okay, Daniel. You’re safe. I promise I’m safe.”
He gives me a weak smile as I help him sit up a little with the pillows. “Do you need anything? A drink?”
He shakes his head softly. “No, it’s just good to see you,” he says. “It feels like it’s been a much longer time than it has been.”
I pause, not knowing what to say. I need to tell him he is dying. But how do you tell someone that?
“I bet you’re wondering what happened,” he fills in for me when I can’t reply, and I feel completely speechless. I’ve waited so long for him to wake up, and I have no idea what to say.
He looks so pale, so weak as he squeezes my hand tightly. “After what happened with you at the ceremony, the alpha locked me in his house with my intended mate, who screamed the entire time. The alpha soon killed her when she tried to escape, and that was my fault. Instead of being happy about my mating, I saw only red and tried to save you. It wasn’t right that they killed her,” he admits.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
“How are you alive?” he questions. “Everyone thinks the alpha killed you.”
“You could say the sea saved me when he threw me into it. His wolf wouldn’t let him kill me,” I explain.
He nods. “You’ve always been special.”
“No, I’m not. I was just lucky,” I reply. “How did you get here?” I ask him.
“Mike helped me escape the alpha’s house and the pack,” he tells me. “Brave old wolf that he is.”
That’s an understatement.
“I don’t know what happened to him after I left,” he warns me, and I gulp. I doubt he is alive. “But Mike came to the house to see the alpha, to demand that he give Jesper back to him at the foster home.”
My heart pounds in my chest. “Why would the alpha have Jesper?”
“Things have changed, and he took in Jesper as a ward...no doubt to make sure they could hold him against you if you came back.”
“What else has changed?” I ask.
“The pack’s on lockdown, and no one leaves their homes. He’s building an army, Irin.” He grabs my hand tighter. “And you need one too. Don’t let that bastard ever touch you again.”
“I won’t,” I firmly tell him. “He will pay for everything, Daniel. I promise.”
“When I was escaping his house, he shot me with an arrow which I pulled out of my leg, and they coated it with some blue stuff. I don’t know what it was, but I could feel the poison seeping into my bones, into my wolf,” he starts off, looking me right in my eyes. “I can feel what it is doing.”
“I—”
“I could always read you like a book, Irin,” he interrupts. “I see my death coming in your eyes. You are too easy to read.”
“I can’t lose you.”
“You can, Irin, because you’ve survived this far. Tell me everything,” he asks. So I give him a quick rundown of every important thing that has happened since I arrived to right now.
“He won’t stop,” he softly tells me. “And you have to save Jesper. He’s too young, too innocent to see what the alpha is truly like. Jesper doesn’t understand what the consequences of being the alpha’s ward are. It’s going to be nothing good for him.”
“I won’t leave Jesper with him. I will find a way,” I reply.
He moves a little, his face contorting in pain. “Dying is not as easy as I thought it would be.”
“I don’t want you to die,” I whisper around a sob that ends with me bursting into tears.
“Irin, look at me,” Daniel demands, and I lift my eyes. “You’re my best friend. My best friend I’ve been in love with since we were kids. I was never brave enough to tell you it.”
“Daniel,” I whisper in shock.
He gives me a smile. “I knew with no doubt that your feelings for me were not the same, and that is okay. It’s all okay, Irin. I’m happy for the moments I got with you.”
I push his admittance of feelings to the back of mind, knowing I have never felt the same way, and anything I say about it now, he doesn’t need to hear. “Thank you for always defending me, even when it ended up with you getting beaten to a pulp. I almost understand why now.”
“I saved you because it was the right thing to do,” he tells me. “Even if it hurt...it was right. My feelings only meant I was around you more to do the right thing.”
“I wish I could save you,” I almost cry out.
“Don’t be sad,” he gently says. “Just stay with me. Let it just be simply us until the end and don’t let go.”
And I do. I stay with him, clasping his hand in mine.
I stay with him as he drifts back off to sleep; I stay with him as his breaths slow down, and I hear his heart rate beating slower and slower. I stay with him as he goes deathly still, and I feel all of his soul drain from his body.
And he is gone. Gone.
I release his hand on the bed and lean over him, using my fingers to close his eyes.
“Goodbye, Daniel.”
Anger like I’ve never known it washes over me as I walk back in a haze, and I scream. I scream, grabbing the lamp off the bedside unit and throwing it across the room. I grab everything I can touch, throwing it and screaming in frustration and pain. Growls, almost sounding like howls, leave my lips as I burst into tears and smack my fists against the wall. I hit the wall, again and again, pouring everything out.
“Stop, you’re bleeding!” I hear someone shouting, but I’m too lost in the anger, too lost in the emotions swirling all around me. My mind can’t focus on anything, and I feel like I can’t breathe without thinking much. I need air. My soul needs to be out of this house. Bolting out of the room, I head straight out of the house and into the forest behind. My legs keep me running and running, not knowing where I’m going until I smack into a tree and fall t
o my knees. I cry in gigantic sobs that shake my entire body, my cries echoing around the trees.
I hear them as they surround me. Four giant black wolf alphas here to comfort me. To protect me. To remind me I’m never alone.
“No matter where we run, we will find each other,” I whisper, and each one of them howls into the sky. I might have lost my best friend...but I’m not alone. We will avenge him.
Funerals were never something I attended in my old pack, mainly because I didn’t know anybody well enough to lose them. I wasn’t close to anyone to attend a funeral made up of family and friends, but I saw some funerals from a distance. I drew a few too. And they were nothing like the funerals the Fall Mountain Pack has.
This funeral is done under the moon in the middle of the night, solid beams of moonlight shining through the spaces in the trees above us. Daniel lies on a platform of wood with dozens of glowing nightstones in piles around him, all the ones I found on the beach today.
Daniel doesn’t deserve just one nightstone. He always deserved dozens. Tears fall down my face as I stand in front of the platform with my alphas at my side. Trey and Phim are close by; even though none of them except for me knew Daniel, I feel their remorse for his death.
They trust me enough to believe me when I say he was a good man. A good wolf.
Sucking in a deep breath, I smell the damp forest and the alphas behind me. I feel the chilly wind blowing my hair around my shoulders, but I focus on Daniel. I need to say something about him.
I clear my throat.
“Daniel Ravensword was a good man, and he came from good wolves who all died, leaving him in the foster home where we met. The first day we met, he punched a wolf who was kicking me for fun, and then he became my protector. A protector I needed. He was a powerful wolf, and he died in a way that no powerful wolf ever should,” I say, my voice echoing around the trees.
“I would have been dead ten times over if it weren’t for Daniel, and I wish everyone I have become close to here could have known him, but I know I am lucky in my memories I will treasure of Daniel,” I whisper. I don’t say Jesper’s name out loud, but I think it, I think of him and how upset he will be when he finds out Daniel is dead.
