“He won’t be alone,” Titus said quietly, his voice still shaking. “That’s what pack is for, Mommy. The angel said pack holds those up who cannot stand, and they hold them until they can support themselves.”
“You’re right,” Costin said as he looked down at their son. “Alpha Fane will not fail because he has all of us to help him.”
“Even me?” Titus asked.
“Especially you.” Costin smiled as tears filled his eyes. “You are the next generation. You, Thia, and Slate. The current generation might lead our pack, but it is the next generation that will carry on what we have started.”
Titus’s eyes widened a bit, and Sally just knew that he was about to say something a four-year-old shouldn’t understand.
“I guess that means you guys better start something good,” the child said sternly.
Sally nodded. “We are, sweet boy. We are starting something good. Because we won’t let Vasile and Alina’s deaths be for not.”
* * *
Jacque shook so badlythat she worried she was going to drop Slate. She paced, unable to sit still because she knew the minute she sat down, she would lose the little bit of calm to which she clung.
Vasile and Alina, her alphas, the parents of the other half of her soul, were dead. The pain of them being torn away from the pack bonds had been rough, but it had been nothing compared to the anguish she’d felt through the mate bond. It was like a part of Fane had died, and she could feel that part slipping away.
He needed her, and yet all she could give him were mere words. Hell,sheneeded him, too, but she wasn’t about to let him know just how close to the edge of falling apart she’d come.
The door to her room suddenly opened, and two males walked in. She could smell that they were wolves. They’d brought food, just like they always did three times a day, and asked if she needed anything for the child.
Jacque was too screwed up in the head to do anything more than grunt at them. Her heart was shattering, and her arms were shaking so badly that she realized she needed to lay Slate down before she dropped him.
When the door closed, she took a blanket and wrapped it around her son. He started to fuss, but she bounced him gently on her shoulder and hummed the lullaby that Alina had always sung to him. He calmed and thankfully fell asleep. Jacque laid him in the bassinet, careful not to jostle him.
As soon as he was out of her arms, she walked over to the wall and lifted her hands, pressing them against the smooth surface. Jacque turned her head, pressed her mouth into her shoulder, and screamed. Her gut clenched so tightly she thought she might vomit. One hand clenched into a fist, and she pounded it against the wall as tears streamed down her face. When her air ran out, she sucked in more and screamed again and again until her throat was raw.
Despite the words she’d said to Fane, Jacque wasn’t as calm as she’d let on. Her heart was pounding alarmingly hard in her chest. Alina and Vasile’s faces filled her mind. They’d become her family, as much parents to her as her own. She loved them simply because they’d created Fane, but that love grew and became multifaceted because of the people they were. They’d given so much of themselves to their pack, and it had ultimately cost them their lives. Jacque knew that Vasile and Alina would have had it no other way. They didn’t back down from a fight, especially when it was the right thing to do. But it had cost a son his parents, a daughter-in-law her new family, and a grandson the chance to know his grandparents. The price was incredibly steep, and Jacque wasn’t sure the sacrifice would even be worth it.
She pressed her forehead to the wall and tried to take a breath, but her lungs wouldn’t expand. The walls felt as if they were closing in on her. Not only had she lost Alina, but now she’d been placed in the former female alpha’s shoes, and they were shoes Jacque knew she wasn’t worthy to fill.
“Why them?” Jacque wasn’t speaking blindly. She was addressing the Great Luna. “Why did you have to take them? Of every damn person on the battlefield, why them?” It was horrible of Jacque to think that someone else’s death would have been acceptable, but she felt like she could have handled it better if it had been someone else. Maybe it was because she was feeling Fane’s grief, and maybe it had something to do with the new pack bond that had attached her and Fane to the rest of the pack. Whatever it was, all Jacque knew was that at any moment she was going to fall beneath the anguish building inside of her. No person could hurt this much and not shatter.
She tried hard not to let her pain seep through the bond to Fane, but she couldn’t close it down completely or it would make things worse for him. He needed to be able to feel her presence to keep his wolf from taking over.
She didn’t get an answer from the Great Luna, not that she’d really expected the goddess to pop into her prison and sit down for a chat. Jacque didn’t know if any answer would help with the loss. She heard Slate’s little voice, just a sound of discomfort, and she immediately wiped her tears away and took a deep breath. She turned and walked over to the bassinet. Slate was wiggling, trying to escape the blanket in which he was swaddled.
“He’s strong.” Alina’s voice filled her mind, a memory of a conversation they’d had one night when Slate had refused to sleep, and Jacque was exhausted.
Jacque sighed. “He’s stubborn.”
Alina took Slate from her arms and began to slowly walk around the living area of their suite. “Rest, Jacquelyn,” Alina said. “Let me see if I can bring the little wolf to heel.”
If anyone could, it would be Alina.
“She’s not here, little wolf,” Jacque said as she leaned down and unwrapped her pissed-off son. He was practically glaring at the blanket wrapped around his arm. “You’re stuck with me.” She pulled off the offending blanket and lifted him into her arms. Jacque held him so he could look over her shoulder. Alina had made the comment once how Slate was just like Fane. Fane had always wanted to be up where he could see everything that was happening around him. He hated to lay down if he was awake.
“I got so tired of trying to rock him to sleep that I just let him bounce himself to sleep in his bouncy,” Alina said with a good-hearted laugh. “And I didn’t take him out after he fell asleep. I just let him stay there because I knew the minute I touched him, he’d wake up.”
“Dammit,” Jacque huffed out as she shook her head, trying to keep the tears from falling. As much as she knew the memories would be good, at the moment, remembering hurt so deeply.
As if her mind simply enjoyed torturing her, a memory of Vasile rose unbidden as she patted Slate’s back. Vasile had visited her one evening a few nights after she and Fane had been pulled from the edge of death. Fane had been asleep on the couch with Slate on his chest, also sound asleep. When she’d answered the door, she’d told him that Fane was asleep but to her surprise he’d said,“I’m not here to speak to my son. I’m here to speak with my daughter.”
More tears filled Jacque’s eyes at the word he’d used. He’d claimed her as his, and though Dillon was her biological father, she’d never really had a dad.
“Come on in,” Jacque told him and stepped back. Vasile’s presence immediately filled the room. His dominance and power was not something he could hide. It wasn’t an intimidation tactic. It was simply just who he was. They’d sat at the kitchen table and spoken in soft tones to keep from waking up Fane and Slate.
