“You’ll be safe here,” he continued, his voice raw with emotion. “Dimitri has promised to look after you. To protect you.”
I looked up at the cold, beautiful boy who watched us with shuttered eyes. He didn’t look like someone who wanted to protect me. He looked like someone who resented my very existence.
Then Uncle Asher reached for Dimitri’s hand, his grip strong despite the faint tremor in his fingers. He took my own fingers and laced them around Dimitri’s. My hands were small in his grip. His skin was warm, his touch firm but fleeting—like he wanted to make it clear he didn’t want the contact to last. Yet beneath thedeliberate brevity, an involuntary spark leaped between our palms, a low thrum that raced up my arm and lodged behind my ribs, unfamiliar and electric. And I saw his brows drew together in a sharp, puzzled frown. Hesitation flickered across his face like a shadow, then twisted into something darker—disgust, raw and unguarded—before he smoothed it away.
“Dimitri is going to be your stepbrother. He’s going to protect you.” Then, Uncle Asher turned to Dimitri.
“Promise me, son,” Uncle Asher said quietly, turning to Dimitri. “Treat her as you would a sister.”
It’s like he wanted me to hear Dimitri promise. Like that would give me reassurance.
Dimitri’s jaw tightened. For a long moment, he didn’t speak. Then, finally, he nodded.
“Yes, Father,” he said. But the words felt wrong.
When his gaze flicked to me, there was no kindness in it.
But Uncle Asher believed in him.
And I believed in Uncle Asher.
So, I nodded, even as my heart splintered into a thousand pieces.
Three weeks spedby like the days had wings. I was huddled outside Uncle Asher’s bedroom door, listening to the ragged sound of his breathing.
He was dying. Everyone said it. Ever since the start of the week, he hadn’t been able to get out of bed, and they said it was only a matter of time.
I pressed my ear to the crack in the door.
“Promise me.” Uncle Asher’s voice was weak, barely a rasp. “Promise me you’ll protect her, son. She’s innocent in all this. Don’t let her suffer for my sins.”
A long silence. Then Dimitri’s voice, low and reluctant. “I promise.”
“Swear it.” Each word seemed to cost him. “On the pack. On your honor as the future Alpha of Garnia Pack.”
“I swear,” Dimitri said, stronger now. “I will look after her. Protect her. You have my word.”
“Thank you.” Uncle Asher’s relief was palpable. “Thank you, my boy. I know I don’t deserve your mercy, but—”
“Rest, Father. Save your strength.”
“There’s no strength left to save.” He coughed, the sound wet and rattling. “Now I can leave this world knowing I can count on you, and on your promise.”
There was a long pause between them, and when Dimitri spoke again, his voice was curious and ragged with hurt. It was the kind of hurt that made my heart sink, because it was my mother who had caused it.
He asked, “Why, Father? Why her? You had a Mate, a family. Yet you left us for a woman who isn’t even one of us. Was it worth it?”
I could hear the smile in Uncle Asher’s voice—the same soft one he always wore whenever he talked about Mama.
“One day, you’ll understand,” he said. “One day you’ll know what it means to love completely. And when you do, you’ll understand why I cherished it…why I chased it, even to the ends of the earth.”
Then I heard it: the long, final exhale and the terrible silence that followed.
“Father?” Dimitri’s voice cracked, all his cold composure shattering.
But there was no answer.
There would never be an answer again.