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“That is barbaric,” Cerys said, voice shaking. “That is utterly barbaric. How are you going to fake her human death?”
“I’m sure your husband can manage something should it become necessary for her new identity to become permanent,” Marcella said.
Demetrius directed a final addition at Sterling. “And if you die, she’ll continue to live as his mate. She will be safe.”
“What does it matter?” Cerys asked angrily. “Why would she even want to? You want her to have more little bastard pups too?”
“It isn’t about her offspring,” Marcella retorted. “Winter is the last link to Rodero’s research. Jerron destroyed all of it, probably under Daniel’s direction. We need it to save our species.”
“Why didn’t you just say so months ago?” Sterling snarled. “Why did it come to this?! Fuck your prestige games, Demetrius!”
“Because I was not going to involve you in the sensitive business of the Elders and other wolves,” Demetrius snarled back. “You were not my ally, wolf, but now my pack is caught in your riptide, and if drastic measures are not taken, this species will die.”
The strain of Winter’s death pulled at him like claws.
“Sterling, you can’t do this,” Burian was saying, “Don’t listen to them. This is some kind of sick Elder trick. GranitePaw couldn’t get you so the AmberHowl are trying. They’re all in league with each other!”
“She’s going to die,” Jun said tearfully.
Cye wept.
The spider’s silk spun airy and excruciating. Her death was nearly here.
As if Gaia Herself whispered it to him: What will you do to save the she-wolf you love, Male?
Anything. No price was too high. Anything.
Will you, though?
Cruel and vicious, with a face blurred and unknowable, a war-form she-wolf taunted him from the far reaches of his mind.
There was no other way to save her. No other way to protect her. No other way to give her a life better than being a prisoner, no matter how luxurious her surroundings. She’d hate him, perhaps. Maybe she would hate him like his mother hated Malte. Choose to stay with her fake-mate in AmberHowl.
The prospect of a terrible future where he was forced to watch from afar, perhaps summoned to serve as a secret stud dog, unfurled in his mind as the faceless she-wolf spun the nightmares for him.
But he could not let her die.
He could not put her in more danger.
He could not make her a prisoner in a gilded prison, and he could not do that to their children.
He’s going to sacrifice the white queen.
He turned his head, expecting to see her there.
What were the chess pieces she had seen? The black bishop was still in play, as was the black rook, and presumably the black king… and the black queen.
They had not been the rook.
He had been the rook.
And now, to save the game, he had to sacrifice the queen.
Jun pled, “But is this how she wants to live? She’s going to wake up and you’ll be gone! She would rather die with you!”
And Winter would never want a futile death, a pointless death. She never wanted a life on an island or on a mountain. She never wanted to be warehoused like some frozen bit of biological material or dusty old manuscript on an Archive shelf. Winter wanted to fight. She wanted to scratch and claw and harry and hunt.
Except Gaia had paired her with him: a degenerate ratter who did not know how to not be a ratter.
