Page 139 of Empowering the Wolf's Heart

Mother shook her head, covering her mouth as a sob erupted from her lips. She was nothing more than a broken, tortured creature.

“You know you can, right? You can see light again.”

My mother shook her head. “It is too late for me, child. Much too late.”

Alia set a hand on mother’s bowed shoulder. “It is never too late?—”

A flash of light glinted off steel. Instinct kicked in. Alia’s breath caught as I shoved her aside, sending her rolling.

Mother came down on my blade, her breath easing from her in a gentle sigh as the blade pierced between her ribs to stab into her heart. The blade that had incited my instincts to protect my mate fell from her hands, clattering against the rocky dirt.

I caught her as she fell, brushing the hair from her eyes as blood dribbled from her lips. “Why?” I whispered.

She lifted a feeble hand, sitting it on my cheek. “My wolf will not allow me to end my life. Now I may know…”

The light left her eyes. Her hand fell from my cheek.

“Peace,” I finished for her.

Alia’s gentle scent of rain and grief mixed with the scent of my tears as I cradled my mother to my chest with one arm and tried to stop the tears on the bridge of my nose with my other hand. It did nothing to ease the ache behind my eyes and the pain in my soul.

“She loved you. In her own, twisted way. But she never loved you in the way you needed. It’s ok to grieve the person you needed and never had, and to grieve who she was.”

With her gentle words and her warm arms wrapped around my shoulders as she kneeled beside me, I bowed my head over my mother’s limp form and cried. I cried for the little girl who was so broken. I cried for the woman who was so twisted. And I cried for the mother I needed but never had.

CHAPTER 49

Unwanted

ALIA

Ahorn sounded. Enforcers rushed inside, only to find a dead werewolf, Shen, and myself. Grandmother was out for blood. Shen’s sister had disappeared.

“Shen…”

“We will bury her later. For now, we must find your grandmother.”

I nodded. I gestured to Enforcer Markus. Anger curdled in my chest, but I pressed it back. I had to lead, and that meant putting the past behind me while being aware of all who could be my enemy within my ranks.

“Take her. Gently. Have the maidens wrap her in linen and prepared her for burial.”

Markus bowed. Two of his enforcers came forward at his bidding. Shen glanced up at them, his eyes glossy but the tears dry. My heart ached for him as hisneedhit me with the strength of a battering ram. Heneededhis mother.

His arms tightened around his mother’s body before he physically forced himself to release her.

“She was never going to be what I needed. But could I have been what she needed?” Shen asked as the enforcers walkedaway, his mother’s body between them, her long hair flowing behind her.

The Reds were as preparedas we could be. We had gathered in the war room of the Matriarch’s Palace, a place just off the throne room. There was a gloominess about the place despite fires roaring in hearths at either end of the room and lamplights above the massive table.

The elders spoke at length about the civilians and how they would know to escape through the underground passageways should the Reds fall.

“What about the magical creatures?” Elder Vera began. “Can we use them?—”

Elder Timone interrupted her with a sad shake of his head. “It would be a swell idea, if not for the animosities which have only just begun to change. The common people have accepted the creatures, but the Reds have not. They killed the sphinx baby without qualm. It would be a mistake to let them join the battle when there is only a tenuous peace holding.”

My mind went back to the way that Red had stabbed into the sphinx, effectively killing the little baby. I nodded my agreement. “It would be a mistake.”

“But Matriarch, we have accepted you, accepted what you have done. Should we not use every resource available to us?” Elder Vera said, her eyes pleading with me to reconsider.

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