That night,I cry.
The knot in my stomach is so painful, I consider a pain potion.
But the pain is what I deserve, so I don’t.
Sixty-Five
RYDER
Returningto camp without Carina feels meaningless.
Today didn’t go how it should have. Carina should be here, with me. Conan should be alive and sitting with Holly, rather than resting dead on a pyre with everyone surrounding him.
Few look up at my approach. I slide through the crowd until pausing beside Leah and Xander. Xander looks to my right, seeking the mate who’s meant to be there, but I shake my head, telling him without words what he and everyone else is smart enough to put together.
Then I step towards my friend, my packmate. The second of us lost this week. Grief feels so heavy—and I’ve barely had time to process Dad’s passing let alone Conan’s. I rest my hand over his chest, over the mark that took him from us.
“Go to the Otherworld in peace. Thank you for your service. Thank you for everything, Conan. One day, we’ll run together again.”
And then I step back so Amos, waiting nearby with a torch, can set fire to his body and pave the way to the afterlife—wherever that may be for our kind.
The burning lasts half the night, with most of us remaining until the end. Those with pups wander away over time, until eventually, only Holly, the elders, Conan’s father, Xander, and I remain.
When Marissa and Amos leads Conan’s father away, Xander goes to check on Leah. Holly disappears into the trees to be alone, but I remain until the last stick is ash.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to the empty spot, the grass burned from Conan’s death.
Right beside the other scorch marks from Dad.
Enteringmy cabin is worse than being at the fire, because it’s tainted so strongly of Carina.
Tainted.A negative connotation, but fuck…it’s the closest thing to the truth. Carina tainted my home with her smiles and jokes and water magick and sweet scent and then ruined everything by refusing to come back and refresh it.
The door barely shuts, cutting off the outdoors scent, when I grab the first thing I see: that fucking chair where she curled up on the first night. The place I intended to leave her and should have. Instead, she ended up in my nest because there was no place more right for her, and that was the beginning of the end.
It smells like her. But she’s not here.
So neither should it.
Gripping the back of the chair, I swing it at the nearest wall with enough force that the aged wood splinters and cracks. The back goes one way, the legs another, landing in a crumbling pile of my dismay and regret.
I destroyed something she used, and now it’s forever gone. I lost a piece of her that my cabin should have clung to. She’s not here, so it doesn’t matter.
I face the bed, where her scent is the most potent. She slept in it.Weslept in there. Unknowingly, I once designed it for her…and she doesn’t want it. Bonded, there will be no other female—not that I want another. My life begins and ends with Carina, so what’s the fucking point in having a place to rest?
Claws shed; I yank off the top pelt and toss it to the side. Then I grab the second layer and throw it into the fireplace, watching with sick pleasure as the flames start eating it. It’s too large for the small fire, which pisses me off even more.
Annoyed, I turn for the next thing, and my gaze zeroes in on my chest—and her bag of clothes beside it.
With the rage of a dozen wolves, I grab the chest and yank everything from it. What she didn’t wear got tainted by what she did, so they all have to go. I won’t fuckingstandfor them being in here. With a growl my wolf contributes to, I slam the chest to the ground, breaking the lid and spiling everything out onto the floor.
As I’m reaching for her bag, the door flies open. Only the gust of air and the fresh scent erasing more of my mate’s makes me realize someone’s entering. I’d growl, annoyed over the interruption, except the destruction of this place consumes me.
“Ryder!” Two voices simultaneously cry out, but they’re echoed through the blood racing through my ears.
Another one shouts and then two arms band around my waist, yanking me away from the bag while smaller hands, female hands, grab it from me.
“Let me go, fuckin’ asshole!” I shove at my beta, twisting my body until getting free. “This has nothing to do with you.”
