Page 156 of Empowering the Wolf's Heart

Graham’s eyes glossed over as a sigh released from his lips.

Brandt and I sat in the middle of a battlefield in reverent silence.

I felt Shen check on me. His tendril over the bond was soothing, gently tugging, questioning.

I’m okay,I answered as if I were speaking with Ran. Somehow, I felt Shen’s eyes on me, even as he fought a shadowshifter, a mage who could melt into shadows and emerge from any pool of shadow.

He turned his mind back to the fight, but I felt him. It was soothing just to know he was there. That hefeltit. That he knew and mourned with me.

Brandt carefully removed Graham's Red hood and covered him with it.

I remembered the day he had each received that Hood—the day three eleven-year-old kids would become fast friends and would help each other survive over the coming years.

Now, it would be handed to his sister and mother as a testament to his service. A paltry exchange for a priceless life.

Graham had lost his way, but in the end, he was a man who’d tried to make amends for his mistakes.

“Go, Matriarch. End this. For us all,” Brandt said at last, looking me dead in the eye. His face was devoid of the mischief I had become accustomed to.

I understood why he wore humor as his armor. He was a serious soul who loved deeply but sometimes didn’t know how to show it. And right then, the pain etching each surface of his face was a strike to my gut.

I gave Brandt a salute and then bowed to the body that no longer housed my friend’s soul.

I rose to my feet, slicing a rogue’s throat when it got too close.

I wasdone.

“Fenbutt!”

He bounded from across the field, his footsteps shaking the earth even though he was but a fifty-pound little goblin.

“I need you,”I sent out.

The things Kingpin said were running through my mind. She’d mentioned that when I stole Fenbutt’s power, I’d be able to influence needs.

Could I do so with his permission?

Kingpin stared at us from across the bloody battlefield filled with screaming, writhing souls… and she grinned. It was the slow grin of predator to prey. The show of teeth that signaled hierarchy.

She had trained me. She had raised me. She had used me.

It was time to use what I knew against her.

Words resurfaced in my mind, the words the nymph had said so long ago.

When you need it most, what you need will be provided.

But what I never realized was that I had all Ineededall along. I was born for this.

Fenbutt nudged my hand at the same time as something nudged the walls around my soul with a feeling of both softness like fur and a hardness which reminded me of Fenbutt’s second form. It didn’t hurt, but I realized Fenbutt could have barreled through my wall with ease, and yet he merely asked for it todrop. It amazed me to realize he was a creature who had a connection to both this realm and the spiritual realm.

In order to allow him to connect with me, I would have to drop my walls entirely instead of merely opening a door to allow a few in. The pounding ofneedsand daggers of pain trying to pincushion me would penetrate my very being. I would have to allow them to touch my soul, and shred it.

I had to accept what I was and what I was made for.

But I didn’t want to. Allowing Shen and Torem Filius to touch my soul was enough. This would be something else entirely. This would?—

We are with you, Two-Legs,Ran said, roaring behind me with a throaty call that warned of death.

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