Arlo released him and stepped back. Hope lit in his eyes. “That’s a good sign. Your instincts haven’t left you. Our wolf knowledge—often we don’t discover it until we need it.”
“But I’ll lose my instincts too, right? Eventually.”
Arlo’s hands settled firmly onto his shoulders. “You don’t have to. That’s why I brought you out here, to explain things. But first things first: the alpha should know about this. He might have learned something from William that I don’t know, something that could help.”
His chest squeezed. He grabbed onto Arlo’s forearm. “I can’t tell the others. Not even Malachi. I can’t ever tell them.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t.” He couldn’t explain why. He might not even know. “Besides, if Malachi needed to know, he would’ve figured it out the same as you did.”
“At his age, maybe not. He’s never caught the scent of fading before. And it began for you so early, Trevor. All you young ones were still growing, all your scents evolving, including Malachi.”
“Okay, maybe,” Trevor said, “but I’m not telling him.”
“Doesn’t your brother know? Or your father?”
“No, no one.”
A low growl of reprimand, but Arlo didn’t press him. “Am I right? Did it begin when she left you?”
She didn’t. “Within a couple months.”
“Were you ever taught about this? Do you know what happens to a wolf who doesn’t pursue his mate, who tries to cope without her?”
“I can control it. I have been for a long time.”
“That’s the danger, though. Controlling it.”
“Um…what?” The danger would come innotcontrolling it. In losing himself to the hurt and loneliness.
“Burying the loss of your mate is the thing that’s burying the rest of you. You can’t shut down only one part of yourself. It doesn’t work.”
“It’s been working fine.” Trevor didn’t try to dull the edge in his tone. Arlo was pushing too hard, and anyway Arlo had to be wrong. The last nine years proved it. Trevorcouldbury loss. He was an expert at it.
“And what makes you think so? You’re in bad shape, pup, and if you don’t deal with Kelsey it’s going to get worse.”
Get worse? How much further could he fade? “You mean… I’ll turn into a vanilla?”
“No,” Arlo said, a little sharply. “A wolf is always a wolf.”
Heat crept up Trevor’s neck at the elder’s reaction to his question. “I don’t get it.”
Arlo nodded to the dirt road that stretched for another two miles ahead of them. They resumed walking, gravel crunching under their shoes, a cardinal swooping past them, under the electric wire and into the trees. If he weren’t fading, what else would Trevor notice? What was he missing right now, endless sensory input that Arlo didn’t have to miss?
“A wolf who finds his mate and doesn’t pursue her has two paths ahead of him. He can cling to her absence, and in a decade or maybe two he’ll be headed for true insanity. Or he can absorb the loss of her into his body, shut it down and try to go on.”
Absorb. Another word Trevor had known by instinct. He nodded. Pretty clear which of the two paths he was walking now.
“But as I said, that second choice is no good either. The wolf who tries to shut down his pain ends up shutting down his entire self. Wolf gifts fade, eventually leave him altogether. He stops changing under the moon—instead he lies paralyzed every night he should be in his wolf form. And his lifespan is drastically reduced.”
“I’ll…” Trevor shook his head. No way. “I’ll die of a broken heart. That’s what you’re saying. Arlo, that’s nonsense. Nobody believes that anymore, none of the wolves, not even the alpha and he’s learned the lore by heart.”
“It’s not so fast or dramatic, but it’s real. It’s the truth the myth was based on.”
“I’m twenty-seven. I’ve got tons of life left.”
“Internally you’ll age fast. By the time you’re forty, your body will labor like it’s ninety-five. You’ll die before you turn fifty.”
