Page 71 of Empowering the Wolf's Heart

Why didn’t he fight? Even Fen would fight me.

And why didn’t I attack with my daggers?

The answer to that question was one I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to admit to myself that I already knew the answer.

He pulled his cowl down and spat blood from his mouth. I put a blade to his throat. “Fight me,” I yelled as he slowly turned, meeting my eyes with his golden gaze.

“Never,” he whispered.

I stumbled back as if struck, tripping over my own feet and landing on my butt.

“Shen?”I gasped. No. He was not Hood. I sawFen. I knew Fen was?—

His face fell, pain in every ridge and divot. He pulled his hood further back, exposing the dark hair I had longed to run my fingers through to see if it was as silky as it looked. He glanced up at me with eyes vulnerable but unyielding, lips pursed, andcrooked nose highlighted by the silvery moonlight. His eyes turned from gold to the darkness swirled with gold as if they were stars in an abyss.

He rose cautiously as if I were a spooked filly. He kneeled before me and grabbed the blade I’d dropped in my shock, putting it in my palm. Without breaking my gaze, he drew my hand and the blade to his neck, tilting his head in submission and baring his artery for the kill. When the icy blade touched his neck, he closed his eyes.

I dropped the blade as if it’d burned me.

His eyes snapped open, a question in them. Why didn’t I kill him? I didn’t know. But I just knew that I couldn’t.

We stared at each other for many long moments as my brain went back through our time together. From our first meeting, where he nearly killed me and I stabbed him to our last, where he held me and showed such pain over the mark on my wrist and let me hold him while he mourned the one he’d lost.

Tears wouldn’t come. Shock was settling too deeply.

He bared his neck in submission once more before he rose and walked away. I sat there with numbness coating my frozen heart.

Shen was Sicario Hood.

Shen had killed my grandpa right in front of me.

Shen was the one I would have to kill in order to save my sister and become Matriarch of the Reds.

CHAPTER 24

First Blade

ALIA

“What am I supposed to do, beaut?” I whispered against Ran’s mane.

She leaned into me, offering what support she could. But how do you kill the person who took care of you when you were sick, who helped feed a wolf pup despite his aversion and continuously showed a gentleness of spirit despite his horrendous situation? Shen was dangerous, but not bad.

Yet he was the one thing standing between me and the heirship.

I couldn’t do it. I just… couldn’t. I thought I could. Even if it were Fen, I wasn’t sure I had the strength to go that far against my conscience. It would kill what was left in my soul.

I couldn’t do it.

I clenched Ran’s mane in my fists.

We were close to the tribe, but not close enough to be in view of the spotters in the trees. Even if we were seen, I just couldn’t bring myself to care. I was done.

Done trying to be everything everyone thought I should be. Done trying to fill everyone while I was empty. Done trying to meet everyone where they were when my life was falling throughmy hands like sand. I couldn’t catch it. Couldn’t stop it. Could only watch as everything I worked for disintegrated before me.

I’d stopped by the house to see my family sleeping peacefully. Rey must’ve brought back the kids, as Fina and Jess were sleeping in bed with Anna. Anna looked peaceful. She was ok.

For now, though I didn’t know how long that would last.

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