Kael had been proud his entire adult life. He had treated the Alpha mantle as more sacred than his own breath.
Now he was on his knees in front of an outsider's home, his own pride pulverized at his feet, sobbing his way through every word, begging me to swear new vows with him.
Once upon a time, the sight of him on the floor would have broken me. I would have set everything else on fire to spare him this. Even if he had only frowned from tiredness, I would have flung my Luna-pride away to soothe him.
But you can only hold a poisoned blade to your chest for so long.
Now I looked down at Kael.at the shreds of him cracking apart on my doorstep.and there wasn't a single tremor of pain inside me.
Only a vast, blank desolation. The hollow of a wolf who has finally understood what the world
