Page 27 of Ravaged Wolf
I’m not brave, I’m not strong, and I’ve lost the right to any claim on her. But how can I abandon her, too, after what I’ve done?
I close my eyes and press both palms to my chest. For the first time since the roof, I listen closely to the bond.
At first, I can hardly find it. The connection is more of a ghost, a blur, or a glitch. My brain is so beaten, so deaf from the screaming, that my attention keeps slipping, and it slides through my fingers, but I try, again and again, and eventually, I figure out how to focus and keep hold of it.
My pain fades. Izzy’s agony replaces it. She’s hurt. Scared.
Ashamed.
I stand on a rock jutting into the river with tears streaming down my cheeks as her pain flows into my chest. I welcome it. If I can take it from her, I will. I open myself completely, my arms rising to my sides of their own accord.
My muscles tense until they cramp. My teeth clench. I use every ounce of focus and sheer force of will to draw her pain into my body. It feels like letting your brother punch you in the gut with all his strength, but a thousand times worse. It’s like taking fire without flinching, like standing still while a wolf rips into your neck.
Like I tore into Izzy’s.
Her despair slices my insides to shreds, and the pain is a relief to me, but it doesn’t help her. Her misery keeps flowing, relentless, pitiless.
It’s not enough.
I’m failing her again.
I can’t.
I won’t.
The moon shines from miles above, so lovely despite the horrors it gazes down on. So distant, so useless.
Can Izzy see the moon from where she is now?
Would it make her feel better to see it? Females love the moon. As a bonding gift, males buy their mates necklaces with a charm of the phase of the moon on the night they met. I had it in my mind to buy one for Izzy. I’d dropped by the jeweler and priced it out.
The unholy racket in my brain threatens to distract me, but I’ve got the moon in my sights now. I don’t know how to do what I want, but I’m not letting that stop me.
I’m going to give Izzy the moon.
I stare at it until my eyes blur. I imprint it on my brain until it belongs to me, and then I channel it to the bond and send it sailing like a folded paper boat in a stream. I pray, harder than I’ve ever prayed.
I send the moon’s perfect roundness, its glow, the shadows of its seas. I send its glimmer on the water. I send its quiet. Its distance.
And then I listen.
Did it work? Maybe. I can’t tell, not with any certainty, but I think maybe the pain is a little less sharp, maybe it’s cutting a fraction less deep.
So I turn my attention to the moon’s reflection on the water, focus with all my might, and send her the calming rush of the river and the flickering glitter of moonlight.
For a few hours, I shove my shame and self-loathing deep down and do the only thing I can for her other than pray, until I fall asleep, exhausted, on the rock.
I send her the beautiful things in the world.
Because the memory of her is the only beautiful thing left in mine.
5
IZZY
Far away,in another world, a machine beeps and fluorescent lights glare overhead, but it’s dark where I am. I’m asleep, I think, but not deep enough to escape the pain. This is a dream, and my body still hurts.
My wolf is curled in a ball on a cold, damp rock. Her nose is tucked to her chest. She shivers and shakes. A cold breeze riffles her fur. We’re alone, scared and hurt. Our mate did this.
