The pack house estate stretched endlessly under the grey December sky; unlike most packs in the west, Decembers in Ravenspire had the worst cold.
It snowed so much that we’d be locked in the house for weeks until the worst of it passes. I stood at the window of my childhood bedroom, staring out at the frozen lake where I used to race across as a child. Back when everything was simple and the only thing that mattered was if I could reach the shore.
My fingers traced the thin diamond bracelet around my wrist—Charis’s memorial bracelet, the one I’d had made with her initials engraved in elegant script. E.R. Eamon Riggs. The boy who had never really existed, but whose death had torn a hole in my chest that refused to heal.
She had never really existed either, had she? Charis. My mate. The girl I’d fallen in love with without ever knowing her true name, her real face, her actual voice when it wasn’t modulated to sound masculine.
Three weeks. It had been three weeks since the funeral, three weeks since we’d lowered her coffin into the ground and pretended we were burying someone real. Three weeks since Kael had walked away from us all without a backwards glance, leaving Slater and me to grieve alone.
"Rhett." My father’s voice cut through my thoughts. He stood at the doorway, his presence filling the room. "We need to talk."
I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in his eyes again, the way he looked at me like my feelings for Charis were not valid.
"White Moon Pack sent another invitation," he continued, moving to stand behind me. "Their daughter Benita is quite accomplished. Graduated summa cum laude from a reputable human university, speaks four languages, including the human tongue, trained in classical music and diplomatic protocol."
"I’m not interested," I said quietly, my breath fogging the window glass.
"You’re twenty years old, Rhett. The heir to one of the most powerful packs in the world. You can’t spend the rest of your life mourning a girl who—"
"Don’t." The word came out colder than I wanted, and my hands clenched into fists at my sides. "Don’t you dare diminish what I felt for her"
My father sighed, and I could hear him moving away from me, settling into one of the leather chairs that had belonged to my grandfather. "Son, I understand that you formed an attachment to Charis—"
"Formed an attachment?" I turned to him. "Are you kidding me, Dad. Charis was my mate. M-A-T-E. I loved her. I still do, don’t you understand."
"Fine, bottom line is, the investigation board were impartial. They would never have indicted her if she weren’t guilty. Maybe she did do it, since we’ve not been able to prove that until now."
"Charis is not capable of all those crimes, Dad. The only thing she literally wanted was to stay away from her father and survive. She didn’t care for so many things."
"None of this would have happened if she hadn’t chosen to run away from home."
"She didn’t choose anything!" I spun around, finally meeting my father’s gaze. "She was driven to it! By her father, by the stupid laws that do not protect women and give young girls a voice, by people who were supposed to protect her!"
"The Academy conducted a thorough investigation. I told you I checked, and the evidence was overwhelming. Everything checked out"
"The evidence was circumstantial at best," I shot back, anger giving me strength I hadn’t felt in weeks. "And even if she did hack those systems, it doesn’t mean she deserved to die for it!" Fresh chapters posted on novelꞁire.net
"No one deserves to die for their mistakes," my father agreed. "But the weak rarely survive in our world, Rhett. You know this. It’s a harsh lesson, but a necessary one for someone in your position."
His words weakened me. The weak rarely survive. Is that what he thought of Eamon? Of her? That she had been weak, disposable, unworthy of mourning?
"Besides, Lydia is still waiting for you. You can’t just end things with her without any suitable explanation, and you know this. Both of you are practically engaged, and we need to speed things up before...
"Get out," I whispered.
"GET OUT!" A roar tore from my throat with such intensity that my father’s eyes widened in surprise—I’d never used that tone with him before, had never dared to challenge his authority so directly.
But instead of anger, I saw something that might have been pride flicker across his features. He rose slowly, studying me with new interest.
"Now that," he said quietly, "is more like the son I raised. Hold onto that fire, Rhett. Channel it into something useful. This Pack needs strength, not sentiment."
He left without another word, closing the door behind him. I sank onto my bed, my hands shaking from the adrenaline rush. The Alpha dominance had come from somewhere deep inside me, some well of power I hadn’t known I possessed. It felt different from my usual abilities, like something fundamental had shifted in the weeks since the funeral.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand, and I glanced at it hopefully, wondering if it might be Slater. Since we were both Charis’s mate, our wolves had taken the death so badly that all they had done for the first few days was to howl and cry.
Since we couldn’t afford to let anyone know Eamon’s real identity, we made it a point of duty to reach out to each other each day. It didn’t seem realistic at first, as we would both stay on the phone, just listening to each other’s breath, but as the days passed, the ache in our hearts began to lighten.
Instead, I found a text from Marcus the student president.
Hey man, hope you’re doing okay. I just wanted to let you know—some of us have been talking. The whole Eamon situation doesn’t add up. If you want to look into things when the term starts again, you have support.
I stared at the message for a long moment, feeling something open in my chest. Not everyone had bought the official story. There were others who questioned what had really happened, who remembered that Eamon had been kind and gentle and incapable of the crimes they’d accused him of.
My reflection caught my eye in the mirror across the room, and I was shocked by what I saw. My face was gaunt, my cheekbones hollow with weight loss I hadn’t noticed accumulating. Dark circles shadowed my eyes, and my clothes hung loose on my frame. When had I gotten so thin? When did I stop eating properly and taking care of myself?
The weak rarely survive in our world.
My father’s words echoed in my mind, and I felt a surge of defiance. I wasn’t weak. I was grieving, yes, but that didn’t make me weak. Loving someone—truly, deeply, completely—took more strength than my father would ever understand.
I pulled out my phone and started typing a reply to Marcus.
Count me in. When we return to school, we’ll find out what really happened to him. All of it.
As I hit send, I caught sight of the memorial bracelet again, the diamond gleaming in the late afternoon light. E.R. Eamon Riggs. The boy who had never existed but had been real enough to steal my heart.
"I’m going to find the truth," I whispered to the empty room. "I promise you that much."
Outside, snow began to fall, dusting the frozen grounds of the pack house with fresh white. But inside, I felt determination flickering in my chest again.
The weak rarely survive in our world. But I wasn’t weak anymore.