Page 67 of Empowering the Wolf's Heart

“She’s my grandmother,” I said.

“Give me something better or else I will complete my mother’s order without issue or qualm. I will not feel bad about killing the one who hurt you.”

That shook me out of the trance his words and the pain in his eyes had put me into. “Shen, if anyone is going to kill her, it’s going to be me.”

A low rumble spread through his chest and it took a moment for me to realize he was laughing. “Only you, Little Red, could snap my wolf from a murderous rage with a death threat.”

“Murderous rage?” I squeaked.

He pulled back, and I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed when I saw his eyes merely flecked with red rather than consumed by it. “You will never understand how close I came to ripping your grandmother and every adult in your village to shreds, Little Red,” he said quietly.

I shivered in his arms, even as I buried my nose into his neck. Words wouldn’t come. No one, not even my family, had become so angry at the punishments doled out by Grandma for the ‘good of the tribe.’ But Shen… he… he…

He kissed my hair and wrapped his arms around me and Fenbutt, who had sat so silently I’d nearly forgotten he was in my arms. We sat there for a good while, just being.

And it was nice.

Shen

A sigh escapedAlia as she burrowed into my chest. I tightened my hold on her, Lycus aware but nearly ice cold in his rage. Her own grandmother was responsible for the scars along her body. The pain ran deep in this one.

“Why?” I asked.

“For the mission I didn’t complete.”

Even werewolves do not mark their progeny because of failure. My own mother does not do such things. I had been captured and tortured a few times in my life, but that was mostly by my own volition to gain access to a leader. My tormenters had died the moment I had escaped. My own mother did not torture me. No, she let others do such things and took my will, but she did not torture me.

“What mission, Little Red?” I said, attempting to keep my voice even.

“It was why I kidnapped you. To draw him out. But he didn’t come. And then I… I let him go.”

“Who?”

“Sicario Hood.”

My blood ran cold.

Alia

Something came over Shen.Aneedbroke through. And for once in my life, I could not read theneed.It was all over the place, a seething, teeming mass that stabbed into the wall around my soul.

“Shen?” I whispered, moving back to peer at his face.

The person who peered back was the emotionless visage of the one I’d first kidnapped. A cold chill ran down my back and my heart sputtered in my chest as fear wrapped icy fingers around my heart.

“Shen?” I whispered again.

“Alia, I—” His claws gently poked into my back as he partially shifted. His shoulders slumped, and he leaned his forehead intomine. “I am so sorry,” he said, his voice taut with anguish and loathing.

“For what? You didn’t do anything, Shen,” I said, trying to understand.

“I am the reason you were hurt.”

“That’s not for you to take. My grandma marked me because I failed. That’s all there is to it.”

“But why mark you? Why not do something different?”

A hollow feeling came to my chest. “In the Reds, we are bound by different rules. Grandma knows I have an aversion to killing, so she made the only pathway forward about killing. And when I went against my tribe, she made sure those above and beneath me in the Reds would know I’d failed. It isn’t my first.”

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