“The letter was from my father. His last words.” The breath grew heavy in my throat. “His name was Bron. He was alpha to a small pack back east. The first time they met, the mate bond kicked in…” A sad smile touched my lips while Grayson leaned forward to stir the fire. “She didn’t want to leave with him, for various reasons, but when she learned she was pregnant with me, she wrote to him. He promised he’d come back, but he never did. And then she got that letter.”
Sparks sputtered up in a small tornado before disappearing through the chimney.
“He was murdered. Pack shit, I guess. He’d warned her about it.”
Grayson twisted around to face me, his legs drawn up like mine. Firelight gleamed off the curve of his shoulder, lost itself in his dark hair. When my gaze drifted to the wolf tattoo, I thought the wolf was watching me, too.
“Does it ever end?” I asked.
“Pack violence?”
“Mosbach… the feeling that I stared evil in the eye without fully seeing it.”
“We caught him in the act, Noa. Three kids, kidnapped from out of the area. Two boys, one girl. Mace’s contacts provided the details. Phone records place Mosbach in the areas where those kids were last seen. He’s been working with Alpen smugglers, setting up Lec Rus while trying to undermine me. He used spelled triangular locks—witch magic—and it’s a good bet Mosbach recruited Autumn Paige through an Alpen connection.”
The elder had always shifted blame to others.
“Your wolf—”
“Loves you,” Grayson said, reaching out to stroke a finger across my clenched hands. “Thank you for what you did.”
“I balanced our energies. My super power.” I wiggled my fingers, then rubbed at the scarred sigil on my wrist. “I can’t feel this twitch.”
Grayson took my hand and brushed his thumb over the remnants of the design. “My promise to protect you didn’t end just because some asshole cut through the runes. Magic is too entrenched for that.”
“Then I should probably tell you.” I moistened my lips. “I offered my promise to your wolf that I’d always protect you, and he accepted.”
Skepticism arched Grayson’s eyebrows. “He can’t say words.”
“He growled.”
“And that was a yes to you?”
I swallowed once. “I’ve given you my sigil a thousand times, every time we made love. When I touched you. Or you touched me. And although you never accepted it, you let it settle in your heart.”
He rubbed a hand across his eyes. “Noa… I can’t ask you.”
“You’ve never had to ask, Grayson. This has always been my gift to you. I have no other choice, and even if I did, I would choose you again. And again. Cybelle told me you and I together were Amal’s greatest fear. Let the enemy see your ruined sigil on my wrist. Let them think they destroyed us… when my sigil is safe with the wolf. And he… is safe with you.”
Bedisa… Grayson’s thumb pressed unsteadily, rubbing against the scarred design he’d inked on my skin months ago.
I’m not sorry. I cupped his cheek. I love you. That will never change.
You are… my life. Every moment breaks my heart—
No. I pressed a gentle finger against his lips. We stay in the now. Don’t think about yesterday. Or what tomorrow brings. We live for this moment. This touch.
This love, Bedisa?
“This destin noir,” I murmured. Our black destiny. However that would play out because reality was closing in and time flowing fast. I would return to Westvale. He would go to the Refuge. I would force myself to read Amal’s journal. Help Laura with her research. Find out what Caerwen and Effa had to say after they talked to Aine, because the Queen of the Forest had been far too interested in reading the first book, finding out what an original wolf queen had to say.
And I would find a way to close the hole in my chest, stop the grief rolling in, enough to drown me. “We should build another snow-wolf before I go.”
“Make snow angels instead,” he said.
My heart clenched, but I forced a smile. Met the shadows in his eyes and knew he was doing the same, fighting back the clench.
“What?” I teased, as if the world was a perfect place and we both were blessed. “The Alpha of Sentinel Falls wants to make snow angels?”
