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Had he not known how much pain she was in? How she would never back down, because she’d been so used to being thrown around she barely felt it?
He had not protected her. Like the low-bred ratter he was, he had wanted the prey too, and thought nothing of getting bitten up for a meal of filthy vermin. She was not a ratter. She was better than that.
And he had asked her to rat. He had thought nothing of sending her in again, and again, and she’d been willing… and he should have listened to the instinct warning him.
But he was a ratter. And her ferocity and the way she laughed and her pride and her softness and how she’d bitten down into any challenge had intoxicated him, and yet under all of that, she was soft, and broken, and loving, and that had been his, a softness she had only just barely trusted him with.
And he had failed her.
He was a ratter.
Her soul drifted like silk tatters against his.
Could she feel him? Was that his imagination, or was that her?
The AmberHowl doctor, Harmon, appeared with Luna Marcella. Demetrius took her hand in his. Sterling twitched as a rictus rattled his soul. He tried to focus on what the doctor said, but the words fragmented and swirled away.
“She’s almost entirely bled out,” Harmon was saying. “She’s had some blood transfusions, but she’s still bleeding. She needs surgery. There are complications from some silver still going through her. We need to take her to AmberHowl, but I can’t guarantee she’ll survive the flight.”
The spider threads stretched and stretched. This doctor was too composed. Too calm. Too defeated that his mate was already dead. Sterling fought to say, “Then we leave.”
Demetrius was about to say something when there was a commotion in the front of the house. Cerys was shouting.
“The fuck,” Garrett growled, shoving his way past Harmon.
Sterling followed. His mother’s voice cracked in panic.
He pushed his way into the living room and stopped, confronted with his own reflection.
A new werewolf male stared back at him. Tall, forties, silver-haired, intense blue-violet eyes, and pale skin. A sharp, harsh cut to his features, and a sprout of unshaven gray clinging to his jaw.
“Malte,” Cerys uttered the name in the sudden silence.
Garrett snarled, “You aren’t welcome here, Malte. You have shit timing. Get the fuck out.”
Malte’s gaze was riveted on Sterling. “Gaia, I’m too late.”
His impeccable English had a Nordic lilt.
“Get out!” Cerys shouted. “Get out, Malte!”
Malte snarled. “They came for my son, Cerys!”
“He isn’t your son! He has never been your son! He is Garrett’s son!”
“I have respected your wishes on that for too long and now look what it has gotten us! He is my son and you are my mate and I tolerate this… human because it pleases you, but this is too far!”
“Oh shit,” Jun whispered.
“You had your chance twenty years ago!” Cerys snarled. “You had your chance, and you walked away! You did worse than that, you coward! You coward!”
“He is my son, and you’re the one who has refused to let me acknowledge him. I’m finally in a position to go against my pack’s wishes and you won’t let me! He’s not a bastard, he’s not a hybrid, he’s my son, and this! This is your fault!”
“You let your pack curse him, you coward!” she shouted. “You could have spoken out, but you didn’t! You don’t get to decide to be a father when it’s convenient for you!”
“I pled for you to come to FrostFangare and be my mate and all you wanted was me to sign over my rights so this human could adopt him!”
“You gave up all your rights years before!”
