Chapter 24
SAPHIRA
Kaeleron’s hand had been in mine from the moment I had awoken in my old bed back in my family’s cabin and it had barely left it in the hours since then.
Through all the preparations, he had been beside me, and now as I stood beneath a blanket of stars, in the heart of my pack’s territory, he held it so firmly I felt sure he would never let it go.
I had never been so thankful for anything.
To anyone.
Firelight drove back a night that felt so cold and vast, golden sparks dancing high into the sky, as if they were the souls of those who burned on the pyres, finally freed from their mortal flesh and running wild with the wind towards their ancestors.
My gaze remained fixed on the largest pyres, on my mother and father, and in my heart whispered a quiet prayer that they would find peace in the world that awaited their souls, that they would leave behind all pain and suffering and know only joy with our ancestors.
“Run free,” I murmured to all the wolves laid before me. “Run with joy.”
Kaeleron shifted beside me, and I glanced at him, at his free hand as he lifted it.
And tears filled my eyes as I looked at the pyres.
Wolves made of the flames danced and leaped, playing with each other as they rose into the night, towards that endless starlit sky.
I watched them prance and play until they were nothing but glittering golden sparks fading into the darkness, tears spilling down my cheeks as a comforting warmth suffused me, as I found a little peace in how they ran, so filled with joy and light.
I squeezed Kaeleron’s hand, silently thanking him for doing that for me—for everyone here—and for being beside me, the strength I needed in this moment as I said goodbye to my family and my friends.
On the other side of me, Chase placed his hand against my lower back, his touch comforting as he watched the wolves with tears in his eyes.
Morden stood beside him, distant from us all, a faraway look in his eyes as he stared at the pyres.
It wasn’t over. All this pain and the blows we had suffered.
It wasn’t done. Our pack wasn’t free yet.
Everlee and Danica were still out there somewhere, waiting for us.
Waiting to be free.
And Lucas waited for my blade to meet his heart and my fangs to find his throat.
I tried to focus on that task that lay ahead of me as numbness encroached, attempting to battle it and keep it at bay.
More fire wolves danced upwards to the heavens.
I watched them go.
Feeling I had lost so much and was in danger of still losing more.
Lucas was still out there and I needed to stop him.
I couldn’t let him take more from me. He had already taken too much.
He had taken so much from my pack. More than a dozen pyres burned in the centre of our territory, filling the air with dark smoke and dancing wolves.
More hearts than just mine had been broken.
More tears than those cooling on my cheeks were falling as whispered goodbyes and prayers reached my ears.
I had failed my pack.
I was responsible for all this death.
My vengeance was coming at a steep cost, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was worth the price I was paying.
It wasn’t worth the price my pack had paid.
Around me, parents mourned their children. Children mourned their parents. Mates mourned, the loss they felt beyond my comprehension.
I looked at several of them, making myself see what I had done as the females wept on their knees as close to the pyre of their mate as they dared to get, held by their friends or family, and the males struggled to remain standing tall, stoically watching as their fated one burned.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
I turned from the pyres.
Kaeleron’s gaze lowered to me. “Saphi?”
“I’m fine.” I shook my head and then remembered who I was talking to, and that I didn’t need to pretend to be something I wasn’t around him.
I didn’t need to be strong. I lifted my gaze to meet his.
Because he would understand. He would understand and wouldn’t judge me. “I need a little air. Walk with me?”
He nodded and turned with me, his hand tightly holding mine as I led the way, heading towards the silent forest that separated the cabins in the heart of our territory from the lake and the mountains beyond.
The thick scent of smoke cleared, and I breathed deep for the first time in what felt like too long, pulling the night down into my lungs and letting it expunge this heaviness festering within me. Letting it free me of the chains of my guilt and my grief.
“I went to school in that cabin.” I pointed to one of the oldest cabins nestled among towering pine trees just on the edge of the clearing.
“No doubt you were an excellent student.”
I managed a chuckle as I shook my head. “I was terrible. My teacher had to have words with my father far too many times. But eventually I changed. I stopped—”
I halted as I stared at the dark cabin.
“You stopped?” Kaeleron rounded me, coming to stand before me, his face in shadow that seemed to caress and love him as the moonlight cast silver highlights in his hair and along the bare tips of his pointed ears.
I frowned up at him. “I stopped staring at the world outside. I stopped losing myself in daydreams.”
Because my father had made it painfully clear those dreams would never be a reality for me, not as long as I was a member of the Harper Pack.
I didn’t need to say those words for Kaeleron to know what had happened to change me.
That soft look that dawned in his silver eyes said he knew. He knew what my father had done and why I had become a better student overnight. I’d had nothing to distract me. No dreams of the world beyond my pack.
I had fallen in line.
Like so many female wolves before me.
I sighed as I looked at the cabins that ringed the edge of the clearing, memories flickering like an old movie through my mind, snippets of moments I had been at each one for different reasons.
Celebrations. Offering a healing hand. Bringing baskets of fresh produce from the garden.
Delivering presents during the holidays.
“It’s strange being here with you.” I slowly shifted my focus back to Kaeleron before I could look at the pyres that blazed in the centre of my pack lands. “Showing you around… sharing this with you. I wish it could have been under better circumstances.”
The tears I had thought were all dried up threatened to fall again as my gaze drifted back to the funeral rites even as I tried to stop myself from looking there.
“I caused them so much pain.”
“No, Saphi.” Kaeleron pulled me into his arms, wrapping me in their sweet shelter, as if he wanted to shield me from my own demons, from this anger and self-loathing that tormented me whenever I thought of what I had done.
“Not you. This is not your fault. This is his fault. He brought this on you, and on your pack. You did what you could to save them. You did all you could.”
I shook my head, rubbing my cheek against his black tunic jacket, craving his warmth as cold swept over me again.
“I could have done more. I should have looked for her sooner.” My voice hitched, throat constricting, and I couldn’t breathe again as tears filled my eyes.
I tried to hold them back, but I was too late.
They spilled down my cheeks, hot and then cold against my skin.
Kael just held me, saying nothing. He just held me as if he knew that was what I needed most—as if he knew that words couldn’t make this better or take my pain away. Only time could do that for me.
I let it all flow out of me. The hurt. The anger. The sense of injustice and need for revenge. I let it all flow out of me on the tears that refused to stop coming, soaking into Kaeleron’s tunic as he held me, as if he were absorbing all my pain and rage and guilt.
He gently stroked my back, the steady rhythm soothing, and I wondered if there was magic in that touch, a spell woven to calm me and steal some of my pain, or whether it was just his presence and the fact it was his touch that helped me breathe again.
He lowered his head, pressed his lips to my hair, and gathered me closer, holding me a little tighter, and I felt as if he was trying to hold me together and stop me from breaking completely and falling apart.
“You will be all right, Saphi,” he murmured warmly against my hair and drew down a deep breath before he sighed it out, stirring the strands.
“You will be. Today you will feel the world is ending… that you cannot go on… but tomorrow the pain will be a little less, and then the day after that it will be a little less again, and as long as you keep moving forwards, one day you will be able to think of your parents and smile again rather than cry. You will remember their warmth—their love—and it will warm your heart too.”
The tears came again as I listened to him, because he was speaking from experience.
He was telling me what he had gone through when he had lost his parents.
But I wasn’t sure he had reached that point he assured me was in the future.
I wasn’t sure he could smile when he thought of his parents rather than rage.
But as I held him in return, I felt that one day, when his vengeance was done and he was free of it and able to move on with his life, that future was waiting for him. He would be able to remember them with fondness and warmth and joy rather than pain and anger and wrath.
One day we both wouldn’t be so broken.
One day we would make each other whole again.
I vowed it to my ancestors as my tears dried up, as resolve filled my aching heart.
This vengeance Kaeleron needed to heal, I would be part of it.
I would play my role. Whatever it was. And I knew he would play a role in my vengeance.
We would do this together. I eased back and looked up at him, into sombre silver eyes that held hurt in their depths.
And something hit me.
I would walk through Hell itself for this male.
Because I loved him.