Page 5 of The Alpha's Betrayed Mate

“Rylan,” Belmont said warningly. But Yara dropped to her haunches to be closer to the boy’s eye level, taking both his shoulders in his hands as she spoke.

“No, sweetness. Some of the others are at the infirmary with Raske, getting looked after.”

“But not all of them. Not Mom.”

Yara’s face twisted. “No, Rylan,” she said softly. “Not your mom. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t want to be here,” Rylan whispered—then repeated it at a shout that made some of the nearby wolves wince. “I don’t want to be here! I want—I want—” The tears caught up with him quickly, and Belmont could see Yara struggling to hold back her own grief as she held the boy close.

“I’ll take him home,” Belmont said in an undertone, aware of the eyes of the pack on him.

“He can stay,” Yara said, but her voice wasn’t steady. “He should be with his pack, he should be with his family—”

“I want to be by myself,” Rylan choked out through his sobs. “I want everyone to leave me alone.” He struggled out of Yara’s embrace and headed unsteadily for the door, and Belmont followed. There was nothing he could do for his pack tonight, that much was clear from the looks on their faces. They were together, they were safe, and they had food and bedding for the night. Right now, it was Rylan who needed him.

Not that he had the faintest idea what he could do for the boy.

Kurivon felt considerably less friendly at night, and a blustery wind had picked up that was pushing hard against Rylan’s slight form. Belmont moved up behind him and tried to put a hand on his shoulder, which was quickly shrugged off—but it didn’t take long to coax the boy into following him. Where else was he going to go, after all? Belmont walked in silence with his son at his side, wishing he felt more confident that he was doing the right thing. There would be questions, when he showed Rylan the cottage that was waiting for them… questions about the layout of the house, the three chairs at the dining room table, the third bedroom that had been set up according to the tastes of a woman who’d never see it. Belmont knew he couldn’t think too much about Tetra. She was one of his oldest and dearest friends, and if he confronted the reality of her loss right now, he wouldn’t be able to provide the strength Rylan needed.

By the time they reached the cottage, the boy seemed to have run out of tears again. Belmont showed him into the living room, but Rylan’s eyes barely seemed to register what he was seeing when the lights came on. He sipped obediently at the glass of water Belmont poured for him, shook his head mutely when asked if he wanted anything to eat.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Belmont heard himself asking. He felt immediately guilty about the wave of relief that washed through him when Rylan shook his head. It was still early, and Rylan had spent much of the last twenty-four hours asleep, but when the boy said quietly that he was tired, Belmont was only too willing to take him to his room. Without so much as a glance around at his new bedroom, Rylan climbed into his bed and buried his face in the pillows. Half convinced his son was already asleep, Belmont was almost to the door when he heard Rylan’s voice.

“Dad?”

“What do you need?”

“Why did they attack us?”

Belmont sighed. “Demons attack us because they’re demons, Rylan. They’re not like wolves—they don’t think or plan like we do.”

“But they don’t come into cities. They don’t come where lots of wolves are. That’s the whole point. Why did they come so close? Why did they follow us?”

The truth was, he’d been wondering that himself—as had the rest of his pack. The demon attack made no sense at all. The mustering of such a powerful force should only have been possible in the more remote, dangerous parts of their world, and would have come across dozens of other settlements of wolves before reaching as far into the heart of Halforst as they had. But he couldn’t tell Rylan that he didn’t have any answers for him. “Go to sleep,” he said instead, hoping he’d have something more useful to tell him the next time he asked. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

But Rylan didn’t want to talk in the morning. He got up and got himself dressed when Belmont asked, but he seemed to have lapsed into a subdued, sullen silence that he was unwilling to stir from. Belmont hadn’t had a wink of sleep, and though he was worried about his son, there were a dozen other worries on his list. He took Rylan to the community center to be with the rest of the pack, then made his excuses and left, ignoring the pang of shame he felt at the sight of Rylan’s face through the closing door. Priorities, he told himself firmly. He had to make sure what remained of his pack were safe. Then he could worry about being a good father.

First he visited the wolves in the infirmary, grateful to learn that their wounds were all healing well. Raske had already gotten up and dressed himself, refusing to take up a bed for any longer. The old man had always thrived under pressure. He and Belmont sat in the sun outside the infirmary, and Raske wasted no time in getting to the difficult subject of the dead. Twenty wolves, almost half the pack’s number.

“We’ll have to hold,” Raske said briskly, his voice clipped and businesslike as though they were discussing a delivery of supplies. “But whether that’s here or back in Halforst—”

“Here,” Belmont said. “Kurivon is our home now. Just because those we lost didn’t reach it in life, doesn’t mean they should be buried so far from us.”

Raske nodded. “The bodies are interred at the Council, now. I’ll see to it that they’re brought through to be buried … here?”

“There’s a place,” Belmont said simply. On the northernmost edge of the island, cliffs dropped into the ocean below. There was a place there, clear of trees, a short walk from the edges of the settlement, with a beautiful view of the ocean beyond. It was the place that the wolves of Kurivon had agreed to bury their dead, when the time came. None of them had anticipated such a sudden influx of graves, of course.

“Another subject, then,” Raske said briskly. “The exile. Have you made a ruling?”

For a moment, he almost didn’t realize what the old wolf was talking about, so forcefully had he focused on everything that wasn’t Venna. But he knew better than to try to avoid a subject with Raske. “I haven’t decided. I need to hear from the pack about exactly what happened in the attack.”

“It’s hardly relevant, is it?” Raske raised an eyebrow. “She was exiled. Her appearance during the attack is evidence of defiance of the terms of that exile. She must be punished.”

“Syrra told me that her wounds were incurred fighting on our side,” Belmont pointed out. He’d not intended to discuss with Raske the afternoon visit he’d made to Venna’s room. It had been hard enough to stand there with Syrra’s curious blue eyes on him, trying not to let it show on his face how hard it was not to rush to her bedside, to shake her awake and demand to know just what the hell was going on. “She almost lost her life, protecting a pack who exiled her. That ought to be taken into account.”

“She survived. Twenty didn’t.” Raske’s voice was level, his gaze unflinching. “The pack is grieving.”

“You suggest more suffering is the remedy?”

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