Bonus Chapter Kendrick
24 years ago
There was nothing left but ash. Their bodies, so broken, so thoroughly burned, were unrecognizable. Desi hadn't even shifted yet, she was still too young, and my wife cradled her in human form, her arms wrapped around our daughter like those petrified casts in ancient Pompeii.
Broken metal, shattered glass, and debris from the crash litter the ground. Sticky, coagulated residue of their blood is all that remains. Their scents are faint now.
Honey, jasmine flowers. Dogwood and lavender. Amy leaves tied sprigs of lavender all over the house. Her way of saying she's always there, even when she's away visiting friends and family. I'm always too busy with shifter politics. Why am I too busy for her? For them?
Their scents are almost gone. Tainted, too. Acrid and pungent.
I clutch the sprig of lavender Amy tied to my rearview mirror in my fist.
And I break down. To my knees, and I try to inhale their scent, blood, life essence.
Almost gone for good.
"Máni," my second calls, not for the first time. "We have to—"
"I still don't understand. Explain this to me again, Simon. How my—" my throat closes, and I choke on my words.
It isn't until I hear the strangled sounds around me that I realize my alpha is pulsing out of me, uncontrollably, his rage pouring like a tsunami. Simon, nearly a thousand years old, one of the strongest alphas in the world, his knees buckle and he bares his neck.
I try to comprehend his words, to listen, but I'm nearly blind with it, lost in my grief.
My hand ghosts over Desi's tiny fingers—dust, practically, and I'm afraid to touch, afraid she'll float away.
"Máni," he tries again, from the ground behind me.
"She's so small. She only just… her omega only just emerged," I rasp, recalling her first birthday, only months ago. Her wolf had not yet surfaced; some don't shift until they are a few years old. But their designation comes through as shifters grow into their scent.
And Desi is—was, I remember, achingly—an omega. Her scent was so beautiful, so sweet and loving. Even as a baby, everyone wanted to be near her, to soak up her lovely smile and comforting energy. Everyone wanted to hold her and play with her.
And my wife…
Do I bury them, mother and daughter, in this terrible, desperate embrace? Would Amy want to be separated from Desi, even in death?
She was the light of her life. The light of mine.
Simon manages to get up, as my grief cascades through my rage, breaking it up into pieces. My alpha doesn't know where to focus—on the bodies of our family, or on the cause of their accident.
Needing something to hold on to, something actionable, I turn to face my second, though my gaze whips through him and he stumbles again. I can feel my eyes blazing, but I don't hold it in. There's no point.
"What. Happened."
"Amy was on her way to the waterfalls. She was meeting Bethany and her pack. When Amy didn't show…"
He turns to look at the carnage. Then continues, "When she didn't show, Bethany's alpha, Tommy, came to check on her, and that's when he found—"
Tommy is busy consoling his wife. After calling in the accident, which he'd found along the quiet road at the base of the mountain, he called my cabin.
Simon answered. Tommy waited for our arrival, and after explaining what he found—nothing, apparently, no scent aside from theirs, no magic, no evidence beyond the stupid fucking truth, which is, a leaky fuel tank, an icy road, and an accidental collision with a tractor trailer—I'm having an extremely difficult time comprehending anything beyond the fact that my family is dead.
My daughter is dead.
And there is no explanation, no reason, beyond a simple, incomprehensibly stupid accident, and it just doesn't make any fucking sense.
Their scents are fading. Rain is coming. Near the redwood trees, the rain is dense, and soon it'll wash away the last traces of my family.
I want someone to pay. But there is no one to blame.
Just a simple, stupid, useless, tragic, wretched fucking accident.
My Desi—Desdemona—and my beautiful wife, gone and dead from this world. And now I have to live in it without them.
Thank you so much for reading!