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“Do you remember me begging you?” Malte shouted. “I begged you before this human was even in your life!”
“This is very much not the time, wolf,” Demetrius said darkly. He gestured to the doctor.
The wolf came towards Sterling. Burian held out a hand to stop him. “That’s close enough, buddy. That’s close enough. You don’t get to play daddy now.”
The new wolf didn’t care. He told Sterling, “My name is Malte Öberg, of the Elder Pack FrostFangare. I am your—” he glanced towards Garrett, grimaced, and said, “biological father and your mother’s mate. We have never met. And this is the first time I have ever seen or smelled you.” His voice thickened with emotion. “And I have waited—”
Cerys smacked into him and shoved him with both hands. “Get out, Malte! He isn’t your son and you have no place in his life!”
Malte snarled at her. “I’ve been in his life fifteen years! Yes, you chose a very fine human to rear him into a proper male and man, but he is a wolf because I provided for it because you asked me to! I have accepted you with a human, I have accepted my son being raised by a human, because it is my penance for having failed when you needed me most. I have arranged for my son to be educated and trained, and I have respected your desire to stay away from him. Who did you call when the dogs he fostered with burned him with silver? Did I interfere when he was in my pack’s care? I am not standing by any longer, Cerys! You will get him killed!”
The color bled out of Sterling. Jun steadied him as his mind swam in a drug and grief haze, and Winter’s life pulled against his soul like the grip of a dying hand.
Marcella slipped her hand into Demetrius’ coat pocket. “We need to go. Harmon is getting Winter ready.”
Malte interjected. “I’ll take him back to Iceland. You take Winter.”
“You don’t know the extent of the situation,” Demetrius said. “You won’t get involved, you were never here. I’ll contact you if I need you.”
“You do not—”
“His mate is near death. Your mate has told you she doesn’t want you in her life. What you want doesn’t matter. It stopped mattering when you let your pack dictate right and wrong and set this species on a collision course with extinction. Now the one she-wolf that can save us is dying. I do not care what you want, Öberg, and I doubt very much that your brother knows you are here interfering in Elder concerns.”
Malte growled to himself. “And what do you intend to do with Rodero’s daughter? Or my son? He will face Alan of FrostFur this summer. The SilverPaw—what’s left of them—want them dead. The GranitePaw need them dead. You will start a war, Demetrius. Or is that AmberHowl’s goal?”
Marcella tugged on her mate’s coat. “He’s right. Too many wolves need Winter and Sterling dead for too many reasons. The GranitePaw believe she is dead. This could be to our benefit.”
Gaia’s Wheel groaned under the weight of it all. Sterling shuddered again as she struggled against death, her soul pulling and grasping at his. The world was in fragments and fractures, and his soul tried to flee after hers.
He would never be whole again without her. There was no life without her.
The nightmare of seeing his own face was nothing in that moment.
He should have been upstairs with his mate, comforting her as she died—as best he could—and not down here talking politics with the Alpha who had sent them into the abyss.
Demetrius’ voice rattled him again. “AmberHowl proposes an extreme solution. We let the world continue to believe Winter is dead. We take her back to AmberHowl, disguise her, and give her a new identity, and she will help us deal with the cancer rotting our species. You’ll come too, but we’ll send you to one of our outlying training camps. You will be the grieved, anguished, bereft male who only lives to avenge his mate. The remaining SnowFang will return to Manhattan to grieve their dead Luna, and their Alpha who abdicated to pursue his single-minded vengeance.”
Sterling lifted his head. “And when I defeat Alan?”
“We will hopefully have what we need to save our species from its manufactured demise, and you can deal with GranitePaw in the manner of your choosing.”
Garrett snorted. “So how are you going to explain Winter’s sudden appearance in AmberHowl? You can’t disguise her scent.”
“Very few AmberHowl have met Winter. Hair dye, contacts, keep her at the heart with our most trusted wolves. There are gaps in the Archives specifically so we can give wolves new identities and backstories when we have to hide them. We’ve asked MaryAnne to locate a suitable one for Winter.”
This was a terrible plan. Sterling twitched with impatience, but the sense of Winter’s dying had eased a tiny bit, or at least not gotten worse. “Why would AmberHowl take in a loner female?”
“Because,” Demetrius weighed Sterling heavily, “the younger of our two First Betas, Searle, does not have a mate.”
Sterling froze, and the threads froze with him, like Winter could hear it even in whatever dark void she stumbled through. “She is my mate and my wife, and no.”
“You’re going to order your First Beta to take Winter as a fake-mate when her true mate is right there?” Burian said.
“Not the first time it’s happened,” Cye whispered.
“Yeah, which is why we’re dying out.” Burian flung up his hands.
“If Searle refuses, I’ll find someone else who will,” Demetrius said.
