- Ryker –
I sit in the chair by the window and watch Elena sleep like it is a task I can complete if I do it hard enough. Her lashes are still damp. Her face looks younger in rest, softer in the way it used to be before Marcus, before the witch, before we learned how quickly a pack can bleed out.
Today should have helped. That was the point. Give the grief a shape. Give the pack a place to put their hands, their offerings, their words. I watched them line up at the stone—tough wolves with scarred knuckles and hardened eyes—and every single one of them looked like they were holding themselves together with string.
And then Elena stood up and carried it for all of us.
I’d risen because that’s what an Alpha does. We speak first. We keep our voice steady so no one else has to. But s
