“Axel,” Thalia corrected. “They’re going to hunt him down and be all…correctabout it.” She sniffed. “Noble.”
I shook my head. “I think you’re wrong.” I thought about it. “I worry they’ll go too far,” I admitted.
Thalia lifted a brow. “Too far?”
“With Axel?” Adair scoffed. “After what he’s done? There’s no such thing.”
“There is,” I murmured, even though part of me agreed with her.
That was the problem. The violence towards him could bejustified.
I exhaled slowly, gazing out at the chaos around us as the Council was still being led away, fighting among themselves—fracturing in real time, exposed under every set of eyes in the Hollow. They appeared smaller now. Not powerful. Not divine. Just men cornered by truth. My pack lookedtired and ready to drop, but they were still rallying, and I wondered how long it would take for us all to recover from this and be healed.
We may never be healed from this. But it wasn’t them I feared.
It was what would become of the wolves I loved.
“We’ve all lost something tonight,” I said softly. “None of us are thinking clearly. Not Wolfe. Not Diesel. Not Killian. Not Cody. And Axel is out there—he’s still their betrayal made flesh.”
Adair’s grip tightened around my arm. “You think Wolfe will tear him apart?”
I swallowed. “I think Wolfe will do whatever he believes keeps his pack safe.” I scanned the shifters in front of me, watching them all. “I think they all will.”
Thalia sighed, leaning her head against mine. “That’s the part I wanted,” she admitted. “But hearing you say it… It scares me.”
I didn’t answer because it scared me too. The Hollow was thrumming beneath my feet—steady, present, almost…listening. Like it waited for my reaction. Like it needed it, and the truth slid cold through me.
“I don’t know what’s coming next,” I said. “But whatever it is…it’s not over.”
Thalia squeezed my hand. “Then we stand with you.”
Adair nodded fiercely. “Always.”
Warmth swelled in my chest, sharp enough to steal my breath for a moment. “Thank you,” I whispered. “Both of you.”
A sudden roar in the distance—Wolfe’s voice, unmistakably enraged—resonated across the clearing. We all froze.
Thalia’s fingers clenched around my sleeve. “That wasn’t a fighting roar.”
“No,” I agreed, pulse kicking hard. “That was something worse.”Grief.
Adair’s eyes went wide. “Rowen?”
I squared my shoulders, turning to Thalia. “I’m so sorry, Thalia, Brand is gone.”
Thalia trembled in my arms, a broken sound tearing from her throat. I held her tighter, Adair anchoring us both as we wept for the loss of one of our own.
Brand. Steady, fierce, and almost painfully gentle at times, Brand.
The Hollow rose and fell beneath us, a slow, mournful thrum—its own form of grief, ancient and aching.
“I should have been there,” Thalia choked, fists gripping my shirt.
“No,” I whispered fiercely. “No. This was not on you. Or on any of us.”
But her pain didn’t listen. None of ours did as we made our way to where they gathered. I kept my eyes on Wolfe—not because I didn’t want to see Thalia’s heartbreak, but because Wolfe’s grief hit me like a physical punch.
He wasn’t just kneeling. He wasbreaking.
