“There were birds,” he insisted. “Before…”
I brushed the hair out of his face. “There were birds singing outside?”
“Da. But now … there’s nothing. God,” he whispered. “Mother is dead.…” His voice cracked.
The only thing I could think to do was redirect him. “I didn’t hear them,” I admitted. “The birds.”
A vein near his hairline twitched, and I knew my words did nothing to reassure him. But if they distracted him from the greater loss …
From upstairs the sound of Max’s change taking hold of him threatened to tear the bathroom door off its hinges.
“Maybe the birds left?” I tried.
Pietr twisted in my grip and stood, hauling me up with him to peer past the lace curtain and out the small window of the porch door. He pointed.
I saw them then, a few stubborn sparrows animated as if song was bursting from their fluffy breasts. Still, I heard nothing.
“Is this it then?” he breathed. “Is this how quiet it is when you’re only human?”
What sparked in his eyes was part wonder and—my heart stuttered in my chest recognizing the emotion—part fear.
“Yes, I—” I stroked his cheek and he shivered. “I think it must be.”
“I had forgotten. I feel so…” His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed hard. “… so alone?”
I held him tighter, my joints aching with the effort. “You aren’t alone.”
He nodded, sticking his chin out like an obstinate child being brave just for me. “Hmm. Okay then.” But he clutched me to him, winding my arms tightly around him. “Jess?”
“Yes?”
Closing his eyes, he leaned down, resting his head on my shoulder, and whispered, “Just—don’t let me go.”
“Never,” I promised as my eyes lifted to catch Amy watching us, propped against the dining room’s doorjamb, arms crossed, tears edging out of her eyes.
I realized we’d all lost something precious. And not just with the loss of Mother’s life. Because in the end, it’s not love—or werewolves—that breaks us. It’s the choices we make—the cures we scramble to find, to take, both good and bad—and the lack of time we get to study and make better choices. Because it’s always our choices that either save us or screw us.
So I chose to make sure Pietr knew he wasn’t alone and would never be alone again. Maybe there were other werewolves—oboroten—from the experiments that made the Rusakovas, and maybe not. But there would never be another Pietr, never another us. So as long as we stayed together, neither of us would truly be alone again.
Marlaena
We were so screwed.
The winter wind pulled me along, claws dug deep in my nostrils, dragging me toward destiny. With hunters barely two states behind and snow hemming us in on all sides, our choices had been limited since we lost Harmony by the Ferris wheel on Navy Pier. The gunshots still rang in my ears like they’d been fired yesterday, although Chicago was far from the mountains we now raced across.
I wanted to shake free of my humanity—the stain seeping through the wolf in me and reminding me I’d failed, that I’d made the choice to leave the Windy City too late. That my failure had cost my pack.
In lives. Every human cell in my wolf body whined, weak and slow, sluggishly processing our loss.
Lingering over worthless emotion.
Muscles burning with effort, I pushed on, clawing into thickly frosted ground, my eyes slitted against the sting of the snowflakes threatening to blind me. Warmer weather wouldn’t have narrowed our options. My snout wrinkled. We should have gone south with the migrating birds.
I should have known better. As alpha, I should have been smarter—more prepared. I glanced around the fur rippling across my shoulders and counted the wolves fighting to keep pace.
Eleven stumbling, bleary-eyed wolves with bellies rattling like beggars’ bowls followed me. And one ran ahead, laying down our path with nothing but scent, a thinning reminder of his red hair and fox-like features. All together twelve wolves looked to me to keep them all safe.
All we had was one another.
And that amounted to next to nothing with hunters on our tails.
Jessie
Closing the door to Pietr’s room, I leaned against it and caught my breath. Only a few hours had passed since Tatiana’s death. Inside, Pietr dozed on his bed, exhausted from the impact of the cure and the emotional strain of losing someone he’d only just won back. Disbelief and anger at our failure warred within him.
The same way they’d battled inside me when I lost my mother.
Over the past months I’d dealt with my grief (certainly not gracefully), but it didn’t make me any better at helping Pietr through his pain.
I was failing. I should’ve known the right thing to say or do to make things better. But every time his eyes met mine, my throat clogged and all the words stopped.
There had to be something I could do.
The temptation to have Dad come get me was strong. I could head home and saddle up Rio. A ride in the crisp wind might help clear my head.
I closed my eyes. What would a ride do for the Rusakovas?
Nothing.
Now was not the time to be selfish. Now was the time to buckle down and do whatever I could for the people who needed it most.
Even if most of those people were werewolves.
… were werewolves. Past tense.
With a groan I pulled away from the door and stumbled down the hall. I paused by the bathroom to assess the damage Max had done: towel racks torn from the walls; tile broken; chunks of plaster and a coating of white dust covered a floor that wallpaper brushed, trailing raggedly from the walls in long shreds. The mirror over the sink was shattered—by fist or paw, I couldn’t tell.
What had he seen to make him lash out, intent on destroying his own reflection?
The sink, tub, and shower were still intact. That was good, at least. I’d talk to Max about cleaning up a little later—but before Cat decided to talk to him and the tension between them grew even more difficult to control.
Or … I stepped into the bathroom, glass grinding between my sneakers and the tile. Maybe I’d just clean it up myself.
“Jessie.”
I jumped, but breathed a sigh of relief seeing Amy in the doorway.
She held a bucket and mop in her gloved hands. “I can’t do nothing,” she said. “I’ll do the physical cleanup, and you handle the emotional. You understand this better.” Her eyebrows pulled together, and she looked at the bits of glass sparkling on the floor. “I just don’t know what to say,” she admitted, squeezing past me.