Page 68 of Wolf's Reckoning
My father was gone.
The concept felt foreign in my mind, like something borrowed. Like if I spoke them aloud, they’d steal the last of him from the air.
I stood outside my father’s rooms, still wearing the dress from the night before, though it smelled of smoke and sweat and reminded me of the bond I hadn’t wanted but received anyway. Wolfe hadn’t spoken to me since Killian found us.
Because when Killian found me in the trees, eyes gentle in a way they’d never been before, he hadn’t needed to say what he came to say. With the way he had looked at me, I knew that my father would take his last breath soon.
He passed to join the great hunt about an hour ago.
The Hollow had lost its heartbeat.
The mourning walk wasn’t optional. It was part of the old ways. A tradition as old as the stones that marked the pack’s burial grounds. We walked from the place he died to the highest ridge—alone—so the Goddess could hear our grief and carry it on the wind.
So the mountain would remember.
I needed to change. I pushed the door open to my rooms, dropping the dress behind me as I walked to my closet. My fingers paused on the hanger of my pants. With a low sigh, I pushed them back, my eyes going to the furthest item in my closet. A simple white cotton sleeveless dress. It had a floral appliqué around the hem, but other than that, it was unadorned.
Plain. Simple. Unlike my grief.
I took it from the hanger and pulled it over my head. It was loose and comfortable and…I didn’t care what I wore because my dad had died. With a shaky breath, I pushed that thought aside. That was not how a leader reacted. My pack would need me. I brushed my hair quickly, ran a wet cloth over my face and arms, wondering if I shouldn’t have taken a shower, and then left my rooms before I found an excuse to stay.
The pack hall was empty. Outside, the path was already cleared. Someone—likely the druid or Adair—had laid the markers. Small iron rings embedded in the dirt. Symbols of protection. Of passing. Seeing them made me falter, but I knew I had to keep going.
I didn’t cry.
Not because I wasn’t broken. But because tears weren’t how we mourned here. Blueridge Hollow grieved in ritual. In silence.
Each step was a memory. A wound pressed into the earth beneath my bare feet as Iremembered.
The time he taught me to track by scent, before my first shift. The way his voice cracked with pride when I bested him for the first time while we sparred. The sound of his laugh when I told him I’d rather marry a rock than marry Tyler. The way he called me little storm when I was younger, like he knew I would never be anything soft. The look in his eyes when he told me Wolfe had left the pack, and was there anything I needed to tell him? I never said a word, and he never pressed. But he knew. I knew he knew. Even at seventeen, I was choosing pack first…like he’d taught me.
The pack followed behind but far enough that I couldn’t hear them. This was my walk. You walked alone, and the pack walked alone behind you. One long progression of silence and solitude.
When I reached the ridge, high above the Hollow, wind howling like something half-wild and half-divine—I knelt. I placed my palm on the stone. Spoke his name and let the mountain take it.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t make myself get up. My palm pressed harder into the stone, and I fought back the tears. This was not the place to cry. This was not the place to break. Everyone was waiting for their turn. I could not break down. Not here. Not now.
The stone was still warm beneath my palm. As if it remembered him. As if it also refused to let him go just yet.
I didn’t move.
The wind picked up around me, pulling at my hair,tugging at the hem of my dress. I wasn’t cold, but I was shivering anyway.
This was where I was supposed to stand. This was where the alpha’s bloodline knelt in farewell. But I was just a daughter here, a daughter in mourning. I still felt like that little girl clutching her father’s hand the first time he showed her the ridge and told her,“This is where we come to speak to the dead.”
I pressed my forehead to the stone. “I’m not ready,” I whispered, feeling tears spill over. “Not like this. Not without you.”
The breeze shifted, and without turning, I knew he was there. Wolfe didn’t speak. Didn’t come closer. I could hear him breathing, though. That steady, quiet cadence. Calm. Present.
Watching me crack—but not offering pity.
I hated him a little for it. I needed it more than I could admit. “You’re not supposed to be here,” I whispered.
“I’m not,” he agreed.
He was behind me, a step or two away, not too close, but close enough that the air quivered between us.
“You were supposed to stay back and wait your turn.”
