Didn't say anything about being strong. Didn't offer platitudes about time healing wounds. Just held on while Rafe fell apart, the way someone should have held him weeks ago when this first happened.
I looked away. Gave them privacy. Caught Evan's eye and saw my son watching with an expression I recognized, because I'd worn it myself. The look of someone learning what kindness could do when you offered it without expectation.
Gideon finished his cleansing and came to stand beside me.
“Ready?” he asked.
I nodded. Stepped forward. Let my wolf rise just enough that my voice carried the weight it needed.
“Ash Hollow Pack,” I said. The words felt ancient in my mouth. Right. “Wolves of Warren's line. You lived with honor. You died defending your home. The earth remembers. The moon remembers. We remember.”
Evan joined me. Then Nate. Then Michael, his arm still around Rafe's shoulders, helping him stand.
“We remember,” they echoed.
Gideon's magic touched the pyre. Flames erupted, clean and gold and bright, nothing like the sickly corruption that had poisoned this place. The fire reached toward the sky like a prayer.
We stood there until it burned down to embers. All of us. Pack and human and grieving survivor, bound together by the simple act of witnessing.
When it was done, when the ashes had scattered on wind that finally, finally felt alive again, Rafe wiped his face and straightened his shoulders.
“Thank you,” he said. His voice was wrecked. Raw. But steady. “I didn't... I never thought I'd get to say goodbye.”
“Everyone deserves that,” Michael said. “No matter what.”
We walked back to the truck together. The forest around us felt different now. Still wounded, still scarred by what had happened here, but no longer screaming. Nate's magic and Gideon's cleansing had given it something to work with. A chance to heal.
Rafe climbed into the back seat this time instead of the truck bed. Sat between Evan and Nate like he belonged there. Like maybe, just maybe, he was starting to believe he did.
Michael's hand found mine on the gear shift as I started the engine.
“That was good,” he said quietly. “What you did for him. What we did.”
“It was the right thing.”
“Yeah.” He squeezed once. “It was.”
We drove home through mountains that were starting to wake up to spring, leaving Ash Hollow and its ghosts behind. Not forgotten. Never forgotten. But released.
And in the rearview mirror, I watched Rafe's eyes drift closed for the first time since we'd found him bleeding at our border.
He slept the whole way home.
7
MOONLIGHT POOLS LIKE WATER
MICHAEL
Idrove another nail into the window frame, focused on the impact, the satisfying thunk of metal meeting wood. Physical work was good. Physical work meant I didn't have to think.
“That's crooked.”
I nearly put the hammer through my own thumb.
Evan stood in the doorway, arms crossed, wearing work clothes and an expression that suggested he'd been watching me for longer than was polite. His pale eyes swept the room, cataloging details with that predator awareness I'd come to associate with wolves.
I pressed a hand to my chest. “Do you people ever make noise when you walk?”
