Page 68 of Empowering the Wolf's Heart

He lifted his head and stared at me with eerily dark eyes. “Show me.”

I took off my other bracer to show a mark just like the one I’d recently received, though my older one had healed into a red scar instead of a white one because of the Ambrose ink which leaks from the blade used to make the mark. It seeps into the skin and causes an odd necrosis when it heals, leaving the scar a mottled black and red. “This was because I let my grandpa die.”

“How old were you?”

“Eleven.”

Shen stared at me with horror growing in his eyes. And there was something deeper, some hint of a revelation. His eyes broke contact and he glared down at the mark on my wrists.

His face appeared older and haggard, drawn with some burden I couldn’t define. “Alia, there is something I must tell you?—”

A low pop interrupted us and Shen gagged right before a wave of scent washed over me. I scowled down at the sleeping puppy at our feet, but a low laugh bubbled up from my chestwhen I saw Shen plugging his nose and breathing through his mouth.

“It’s notthatbad,” I teased.

He raised that scarred brow. “For you with your useless little nose, perhaps it is not so bad,” he said, tweaking said nose.

I grinned up at him, and he melted, pulling me back into his arms. “I am sorry, Little Red. None of that should have happened.”

“Are you… ok?” I asked at last. His needs were buried, but it was odd. They nearly felt numb, as if he was resisting the significant pain he was suffering.

He let out a hollow chuckle. “Why do you ask?”

“You’re not yourself.”

“You know me that well?”

I pulled back to look at him. I saw dark circles beneath his eyes, and there was a spot on his chin that was missing hair. I reached up and touched it, feeling smooth skin, as if it were freshly grown. He closed his eyes and leaned into my touch, a soft grumble sounding from his chest and making me jump. He didn’t seem to notice, and I realized it was almost a sound of contentment.

“I—” He stopped like he’d second guessed what he’d been about to say. “Someone who was under my protection is on Seventh this night.”

My heart broke at the lack of emotion in his voice. He was trying so hard not to feel. “Shen.” I tilted up his chin. “Look at me.”

He opened his eyes. In that moment, his walls fell. The emotion poured from his heart. And hefeltit. Oh, how he felt it. His eyes burned with a pain that eclipsed anything physical and tore apart the very soul.

I reached up and grabbed the back of his head and guided him to lay on my shoulder, trying to hold him together with pure, physical strength.

His shoulders shuddered. He lifted a hand to press into his eyes. “I should have saved her,” his voice cracked. “I wastherebut could do nothing. I see it over and over again in my mind. The sword. The blood. The sigh as she crossed from this world to the next—” His shoulders shook, and I felt hot tears soak into my tunic.

My lips trembled and my heart ripped inside me. This sweet soul who had carried so much… Nothing I said could make this better. Freakin’ nothing.

But I could be here. And I could feel with him and mourn a beautiful soul who was no longer with us.

The sky rumbledas I made my way back to the village. A rabbit hurried into its burrow and a ground wren huddled in a stand of tree roots that made a slight cavern.

“I saw you,” a voice behind me whispered from the underbrush. I spun, blade outstretched. Graham’s sad blue eyes peered at me from beneath his Red hood. “Why have you betrayed us?” His voice was lowered, pain coating it. “Betrayed me?”

I quickly shook my head. “They aren’t like what you think. There are good shifters. Good mages. Good of every kind of being.”

His face grew hard. “After all we have been taught, you really believe those lies?”

“What if what we were taught were the lies?” I stepped forward. “Graham, don’t you see?”

“You speak nonsense, Alia. But for the sake of our friendship and the honor of your family, I give you this chance. Do not dally again, or I will report you.”

My fists clenched into fists. “I’m not someone to be ordered about like a damsel. I’m a free being with sound reasoning. Look beyond your fear for a moment. Look beneath the cracks of what we were taught. Can’t you see?”

His eyes softened for a moment. I thought… I thought he understood. But his next words shattered that. “I believe you think so, Alia. But you have been put under a thrall. It’s the only explanation. Can’t you see that? Do you really love a werewolf? They’re monsters!”

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