My breath catches, and I look up in shock.
“The demon was lured here because of this trap,” he fumes as he points to the device on the ground. “It took advantage of a fellow Snehvolk wolf because this thing was activated.”
Brooks’s anger is evident in the furious glint in his eyes, and I reach out instinctively for his shoulder. “Brooks, I’m—”
He cuts me off by shrugging away from my touch, turning to me with a dark, menacing glare.
“Go home, Rissa. I will take care of this mess myself,” he commands flatly, his eyes full of disappointment.
It’s that disappointment that leads me to rush back home without protest, my heart pounding with the fear that I’ve committed a terrible crime against the pack I’ve committed to help.
I can’t forget the way Brooks glared at me, or that someone died because of what happened with Laura.
It’s all my fault, even if I wasn’t the one who activated the trap in the first place. But no matter how hard I try to console myself, nothing seems to be working after Brooks looked at me like I was the biggest disappointment in his life.
After waiting in the kitchen all night for him, he finally returns at the stroke of midnight. I want to apologize for my part in this mess, but he passes the kitchen as if he’s avoiding it.
“Brooks…” I catch him in the hallway on his way to the staircase.
“Not now, Rissa,” he says without turning, his voice emotionless. “It’s been a long night.”
His inability to turn to face me has my heart breaking into a million pieces in a matter of seconds when he takes the stairs and leaves me at the bottom.
That’s when I realized that I was waiting for him to defend me out there, instead of sending me home as if I were the guilty one. Now that the guilt threatens to strangle me because of his coldness toward me, my heart is crushed.
This is exactly why I couldn’t allow myself to feel anything for Brooks except the resentment I held on to for many years. Feeling anything else opens me up to this kind of heartbreak, and as I crumple to my knees with tears staining my eyes, I feel worse than I did when he bullied me.
His coldness is much worse than his horrible words.
Chapter 22 - Brooks
“Amelia Emmerson was a loyal member of Snehvolk. She worked hard and sacrificed her life to the service of the Howell family. She didn't have children of her own, and her mate died many years ago,” I sigh as I stand at the podium in the pack hall and give my speech about the fallen pack member who died the night Laura attacked Rissa.
My nostrils flare as a puff of anger leaves my nose, and I continue the speech to the Council members and a few older werewolves who attend Amelia’s memorial. It’s a small, contained gathering of those who knew the older woman, just so that we can bury the pieces of her that were found after the demon killed her near the river.
The poor woman’s death was gruesome, but what’s worse is that I’ve neglected to visit her since I’ve been busy dealing with everything that’s been going on. The guilt of not making time for the old she-wolf who’d worked in our house growing up hangs heavy on my shoulders, a burden I’ll have to deal with on my own.
I didn’t even get a chance to tell her about Rissa. Now, I’ll have to sit beside her grave and speak to her while receiving no guidance from her.
Hanging my head with guilt, I commemorate Amelia’s life within the pack, how she selflessly spent her years taking care of our household right up until my mother died a few years ago. The older woman practically raised me like her own until I relieved her of her duties, and she spent the rest of her days in her little cottage near the Turnagain River.
Her death was unfortunate, and she was at the wrong place at the wrong time when Laura attacked Rissa. It activatedthe trap that lured the demon toward Girdwood. I can’t burden my mate with how guilty I feel for not being there in the first place to protect her from Laura.
It would have prevented so much, even Amelia’s death.
Now I have to wrestle with both the guilt and the grief of losing someone so dear to me.
When I’m done with my speech and head to the table for the small feast prepared in honor of Amelia, my friends try to cheer me up, but nothing can bring my appetite back. I just need some time to process my grief.
That’s why I’ve been distancing myself from Rissa, and why I didn’t even tell her about the memorial tonight. She doesn’t need the added weight of my emotions to affect her while she’s working hard to set up the traps for the demons. It’s not fair to burden her with what I’m feeling, especially after everything she’s been put through by the pack.
“Want some bread?” Connor asks me as he pulls the basket over.
“Nah,” I murmur, toying with my food on the plate with a fork. My appetite is so dead that I’m chasing a single pea with the sharp tips of the fork the way Amelia would scold me for when I was still a child.
My absentmindedness is cut short when I hear Rissa’s name at the table behind ours.
“They said she attacked the old beta’s daughter with her magic,” a woman gasps. “It’s a dangerous thing to have a witch on the loose when she can't control her powers.”
