**AXEL**
The moment my mother dies, my father collapses.
It is not subtle and it is not delayed, and there is no mistaking it for shock or age or weakness, because Alpha David hits the floor like something has been ripped out of him mid breath, his hands clawing uselessly at his chest as pain tears through him hard enough to make the entire room freeze. The bond between them snaps loud and brutal, a psychic rupture that sends a shockwave through the pack, and every wolf within range staggers like the ground itself has tilted.
I feel it too.
It slams into me through the bond with a violence that steals the air from my lungs, fear and loss and certainty crashing together in a way that makes my knees buckle, and Atticus catches me automatically even as his own face drains of colour. There
