Her lips part again, curving ever so slightly, the movement small and deliberate, like she’s choosing her words with care. What comes out is barely more than an exhale, but I hear her.
“A bird. Tell him…next time I think I’ll be a bird.”
And then Rhosyn Roarke-Davies is gone.
For a moment, the noise of the fight dulls, not disappearing so much as losing meaning. It’s like the world is taking a moment to bow its head in our shared grief. And in that pocket of silence, a wolf’s howl rips through the night, long and fractured, carrying a sorrow so deep it settles into my bones.
I don’t know if it’s real.
I only know the chest beneath my hand is still now.
Chapter 47
Noa
Sound returns in uneven, jagged pieces, as if the world itself is reluctant to move on from this loss. Magic still cracks in the air. Boots and paws pound through the bloodstained and torn-up earth. None of it matters right now. My focus won’t pull away from the weight beneath my hands, from the wrongness of how Rhosyn’s body lies before me.
With her neck loose, her head has turned and the weight of it has settled into my palm. My thumb presses to her throat without thinking, lingers there, then shifts an inch to the left, searching for something I already know I won’t find.
I keep trying, hoping persistence alone can convince her heart to start again, and only stop when Siggy collapses forward.
Whatever pieces she was holding together through sheer will shatter all at once, her grief tearing out of her in uncontrolled sobs that shake her whole body. She folds over Rhosyn, pressing her forehead to her shoulder, and her good arm tries to draw her closer. She clings tight to something that’s already gone. The distraught sound my Nightingale makes hurts in a way I don’t yet know how to carry.
I know I should be moving to her side, helping her through this. But I can’t make myself move from this spot.
Stepping away, removing my hands from her still body, it’s admitting it’s real.
At the outer edges of my mind, where everything is moving too fast and too slow at once, acceptance and denial collide.From there, memories reach for me. Memories of Rhosyn I’ll now be forced to look back on with a new, heartbreaking clarity.
Some of them sneak through. Rhosyn in my bedroom back in Ashvale, threatening to maim Rennick on my behalf before blow-drying my hair when I didn’t have the will or care to do it myself. Rhosyn grinning wide and laughing as she proved just how professional her bow-tying skills are. Rhosyn walking side by side with me down the chilly road, telling me how much she would hate to leave this place. That it’s home and?—
I shove it down, force it back before it can take over. Grief is stubborn. It doesn’t disappear just because I reject it now. It will be right there waiting for when I’m ready. Right now, I need it contained, because even if she isn’t breathing, the enemy still is, and they’re still battling against the shield Amara’s coven and the Fallamhain wolves have made around us.
Fingers curling, I slowly lift my hands away from her and as I do, I force determination into the hollow places grief has carved out. I sniff, swallow hard, and wipe my tears on my shoulder. With a steadying breath, the best one I can muster right now, I brace myself and prepare to call on my wolf—on purpose this time—before I step back into the fight.
A blaring sound slicing through the madness of everything stops me before I can start.
A car horn.
Flashing headlights follow close behind. They glare off the snow, slicing through the sickly green haze already blanketing everything. The brightness makes my eyes burn, forcing me to squint as I search for the source.
Between the bodies and magic still tearing into each other, my gaze locks on a familiar figure.
It never occurred to me that she’d involve herself tonight, and now I see that was a mistake. It’s no secret she wants revenge on me—her father said as much himself. I just wouldn’thave guessed she’d come for it personally. I thought their grand plan would be for Cathal to collect me himself and deliver me to her on a silver platter, wrapped up and waiting for whatever version of revenge she decided fit my so-called crimes against her.
Talis McNamara steps out dressed for the part, black from head to toe, a beanie pulled low over her copper hair. She rounds the SUV, her eyes snagging on mine for a split second. The smile she flashes me is wicked and ugly with satisfaction, before she turns and starts shouting orders, waving people into motion.
It takes my sluggish head a moment to understand what’s happening, but then it clicks.
She’s not here to collect on the debt she thinks I owe her.
That smirk isn’t just proof of her satisfaction. It’s proof that seeing me like this—on my knees in the mud, my friend’s body laid out in front of me, and cut off from my mate—is enough to sate her bloodlust. For now, anyway. She isn’t here to join her pack or their allies in the fight rioting around us.
No, Talis isn’t interested in getting blood on her hands or her clothes. She’s here to make sure the ones who did can walk away alive.
A getaway driver.
She’s ushering people toward her SUV and the other waiting vehicles—all Escalades stolen from our pack—but something about it feels off. The timing is too deliberate, the response too immediate. This isn’t her call, she doesn’t have the authority for that. She’s just the messenger. The one they sent in to extract what’s left now that the tide has turned and the victory they thought was a guarantee has slipped through their fingers.
