I’m not sure why, but for the first time since the night I lost my sister and cried myself to sleep on my mother’s lap, I entrusted another person with a portion of my sorrow. This man who mourned his own loss, so sharp and fresh, he was unable to endure it without the pack’s support. That gaping hole in him should have made him weak, should have made me handle him with more care, but our negative spaces called to one another.

Both of us had made decisions we regretted, both of us had taken actions we couldn’t undo, and both of us would live with those burdens. Ours was an isolated punishment, self-inflicted as all the deepest wounds were, but in this moment, trapped against the warmth of his body and breathing the scent of his skin, relishing the strength in his hands and marveling at the contented sigh he released, I wondered if perhaps the way to lessen guilt and grief was to share them.

Gods knew nothing else I had tried worked.

Forcing my muscles to loosen until I was cozied up to Graeson and he trusted me to stay put enough to link his arms around me, I tipped back my head and found his hazel eyes inches from mine, the pupils dilated and the striking emerald striations in his irises made more vivid by the greenery surrounding us.

“Tell me about your sister.”

Tension ricocheted through him, tightening his jaw where it rested against me. Feeling awkward, I started to pull away, but he held on to me as though I was the one thing anchoring him against the swell of his heartache.

“Mom died in childbirth, and Dad never recovered. He was broken. Too broken to run a pack. That’s when Bessemer made his bid for alpha. He bled my dad and took over.” Old bitterness without much bite laced his words. “A few weeks later, Dad picked a fight with a warg a few rungs up the new dominance ladder and lost. I was seventeen. Marie was three. The pack let me hold on to the house, helped me find work so I could support my sister. A chain of mothers organized sitters for the days I was in school and the nights I was at work.” He sat there for a while, so long I thought he was finished. “Her favorite color was vermillion, because she said it was a million times better than the plain old green I liked.”

Heart a wounded thing in my chest, I did for him what I hadn’t allowed others to do for me.

I sat.

I listened.

And I held him as he told me the story of how his world ended.

Chapter 7