LEAH LEFT TAG sleeping in the guest bedroom. He would recover, though it would be a week or more before he was up and moving with anything like his old strength. She was distantly glad of it. The pack was safer with Tag in it.

For lack of other tasks, she wandered into her bedroom and caught sight of herself in the full-length mirror. She walked over and stared.

She’d showered and put on makeup. Like Tag, she had weight she needed to regain—though nowhere near the same amount. Outside of the gauntness and a hollowness in her eyes that might only be her imagination, she didn’t look any different than she ever had.

But now she remembered. The moment the Singer died, she had remembered everything. And yet that woman in the mirror was more of a stranger than she had ever been. She reached up and put her fingertips against her jawbone, just to make sure that it was really her.

Bran didn’t make any sound approaching her room, though like the good werewolf she was, she knew he was there. Of course she knew. She closed her eyes briefly, trying to find a center of normalcy. But she had killed her own son and used his heart to kill a god. She wasn’t sure where normal was in that.

“We need to talk,” her mate said.

And that quickly, she couldn’t breathe. She did not want to have this talk with him. With anyone. Her chest ached as she forced herself to calm.

She might be a stranger to herself, but she knew Bran. Her mate. He had violated his own rules when he had forced her to live through her Change and convinced her to be his mate. For two centuries both of them had ignored that. These last few days had shoved his sins down his throat. Now he would need to fix it. And that terrified her.

“I don’t want to talk now,” she told him truthfully. She looked down at her fingers and regretted painting her nails red. Like blood. It had seemed fitting at the time—but she regretted it now.

“Nevertheless,” he said.

She bowed her head and closed her eyes, but forced herself not to hug her chest, too. He would already know how unhappy and defensive she was, but she didn’t need to shove it in his face.

She inhaled to give herself strength and could have cursed because her breath hitched. Damn it.

She turned around.

He hadn’t come all the way into the room, but leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. He watched her with hooded eyes. Started to say something and clearly reconsidered.

“You have been greatly wronged,” he said finally. “Not just by me, but I did my part. And I don’t want to lose you.”