Chapter 29 Blood and Broken Glass #2
Nate's scream echoed through the ruined house, raw and broken and holding more pain than any human throat should be able to produce. He collapsed against his mother's body, hands trying desperately to hold together wounds that had already stolen her away.
“Mom.” His voice cracked on the word, grief cutting through him like a blade. “Mom, please. Please don't leave me.”
But Anna was already gone, taking with her the warmth that had made this house feel like home. Taking with her the woman who'd welcomed me into her family like I'd always belonged there.
Michael staggered backward, pale and shaking, still trying to make sense of a world that had just revealed teeth and claws and magic. “Witches?” His voice barely qualified as a whisper. “Wolves? What the fuck is happening?”
Gideon's shoulders sagged. The magic had faded from his hands, leaving behind just a tired man who'd seen too much death. “We'll explain everything, Michael. I promise. But not here. Not like this.”
Before Michael could respond, boots thundered across the front porch. Dad burst through the destroyed doorway with half the pack at his back, wolves in human form bristling with violence barely held in check.
His eyes swept the scene, taking in the dead rogues and shattered furniture, the blood that painted everything in shades of tragedy. When his gaze landed on Anna's body, his face hardened into something that belonged in old stories about gods who demanded payment in blood.
“Calder is behind this,” he growled, voice carrying Alpha authority that made the house itself seem to lean in and listen. “This was meant to break us.”
Nate lifted his head, eyes wild with grief and fury that transformed his face into something I barely recognized. “Break us? They killed my mom! She's dead because you dragged us into this! Because you—”
He choked on the words, clutching Anna tighter like he could keep her soul from slipping away through proximity alone.
Dad knelt beside them, placing a heavy hand on Nate's shoulder. “No. She died because Calder has no honor. But if you want justice, you'll stand with us. With Evan.”
His voice was iron wrapped in velvet, already pulling Nate into the war whether he was ready or not. Because that's what Alphas did. They turned grief into purpose, pain into weapons that could cut down the things that threatened their people.
I stood frozen between them, torn between holding Nate while he fell apart and following Dad's lead into whatever came next.
My wolf howled inside my chest, demanding I protect what was mine, but I didn't know how to fix this.
Didn't know how to bring back the dead or heal wounds that went deeper than flesh.
“Mom,” Nate whispered, and the word broke on a sob that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than his lungs.
“Mom, please. I can't— she was supposed to meet our kids someday. She was supposed to—” His voice shattered completely, and he pressed his face against Anna's shoulder like he could hide from a world that had just stolen everything good from it.
The sound of his grief, raw and helpless and utterly human, cut through me worse than any blade. Because this was what our secrets had cost. Not just Anna's life, but Nate's faith that the world was a place where love could keep you safe.
My silence was the sharpest cut of all.
Gideon finally spoke, voice carrying the weight of knowledge that came too late to matter. “This isn't the end. This is only the opening strike. And the hand behind Calder isn't his own. It's Silas.”
Nate stared at Gideon, tears burning tracks through the blood on his face. “Then I want him.” His voice shook with grief and rage and something darker that made my chest tight with fear. “I don't care if I have to bleed for it. I'll make him pay.”
The vow hung in the air like a promise and a threat rolled into one, and I could see the exact moment when grief carved Nate into something sharper. Something dangerous.
“Nate.” I reached for him, desperate to hold onto whatever pieces remained of the boy who'd loved me despite my claws and fangs.
He pulled away like my touch burned, eyes finding mine with accusation that cut deeper than any rogue's claws. “You should have been here. You should have protected her.”
“I came as fast as I could—”
“It wasn't fast enough.” His voice carried a bitter edge I'd never heard before, grief transforming into rage that needed somewhere to land. “She's dead, Evan. My mom is dead and I watched it happen and I couldn't stop it because I'm just human. Just fucking human in a world full of monsters.”
The self-hatred in his voice, the way he spat the word human like it was a curse, made my chest tight with a different kind of pain. Because this wasn't about secrets or lies. This was about a boy who'd just learned that love wasn't armor enough to keep the people you cared about safe.
“Nate.” I moved toward him without thinking, my wolf whining at the scent of his grief, at the way he was folding in on himself like he was trying to disappear. “This isn't your fault.”
“It is exactly that simple.” Nate struggled to his feet, leaving bloody handprints on walls that would never feel safe again. “She's dead because I'm human. Because I can't protect anyone that matters.”
The self-hatred in his voice cut deeper than any accusation he could have thrown at us. I reached for him, catching his face in my hands before he could pull away, forcing him to meet my eyes.
“Listen to me,” I said, voice rough with my own grief and the desperate need to make him understand. “Your mother died because monsters exist, not because you're human. She died because evil found its way to your door, not because you weren't strong enough to stop it.”
Tears tracked down his cheeks, leaving clean lines through the blood and dirt that painted his face like war paint. “But if I'd been like you—”
“If you'd been like me, you'd still be mourning her,” I interrupted, thumbs brushing away tears that kept falling faster than I could catch them. “Being supernatural doesn't make you immune to loss, Nate. It just gives you different nightmares.”
He leaned into my touch despite himself, and I felt some of the rigid tension in his shoulders start to crack. “I should have been able to save her.”
“You tried. You fought for her. That's what matters.” I pressed my forehead against his, breathing in the scent of him beneath the copper tang of blood and violence.
“Your mother saw you fight for her. That's the last thing she knew—that her son loved her enough to try to move mountains to keep her safe.”
Nate's breath hitched, and fresh tears spilled over. “I don't know how to do this without her. I don't know how to exist in a world where she just... isn't.”
The raw honesty in his voice made my chest tight with helplessness.
I pulled him against me, wrapping my arms around him like I could somehow hold all his broken pieces together through sheer force of will.
He collapsed into me, fingers fisting in my shirt like I was the only solid thing left in a world that had just proven how fragile everything could be.
“You don't have to figure it out tonight,” I whispered into his hair, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head. “Tonight, you just have to breathe.”
“I can't.” His voice was muffled against my chest, but I felt every word like a physical blow. “How am I supposed to breathe when she can't?”
“Because she'd want you to.” I tightened my hold on him, letting my own tears fall into his hair. “Because Anna Harrington didn't raise a son who gave up when the world got dark. She raised someone who finds light even when everything else is burning.”
For a moment, we just stood there in the wreckage of what used to be safety, holding each other while the world fell apart around us.
My wolf was silent for once, understanding that this wasn't about pack bonds or supernatural politics.
This was about love and loss and the terrible mathematics of grief.
“I need to sit with her,” Nate finally said, voice steadier but still fragile as spun glass. “I need to... I need to say goodbye.”
I wanted to stay. Wanted to hold him until the grief stopped tearing him apart from the inside. But love sometimes meant knowing when someone needed space to fall apart without an audience.
“Okay,” I said, pressing another kiss to his forehead. “But you're not alone in this. When you're ready, we'll be here.”
Michael finally moved from where he'd been frozen by the window, crossing to kneel beside his wife's body with movements that looked like they hurt. Father and son, keeping vigil over a woman who'd deserved better than to die afraid in her own home.
Dad touched my shoulder, gentle pressure that carried decades of understanding about grief.
We left them there, father and son keeping vigil over a woman who'd been the heart of their small family. The walk back felt like a funeral march, each step carrying me further from the boy I loved and deeper into a war that had already cost us more than we could afford to lose.
But for those few minutes, I'd been able to hold him. I'd been able to remind him that he wasn't alone, that grief shared was grief that could be survived.
It would have to be enough. For now, it would have to be enough.