“Seven.” I finally answered Valene's question. I knew that she would find it impossibly young. “Seven what?” her brow rose suspiciously. My expression said it all. Her eyes widened, and suddenly, her expression displayed that of sympathy. “Surely you don’t mean he was so young as seven when he’d taken over the pack! That…that is well below the age that a child should even have their own say! You let him-” “Ares may have been young, but he has always had his own mind, and when it all boiled down to it, I was not his father.” “Were there no adults…to look after the boy?”  “There were adults,” I said. “There were pack members, a delta, but none were fit to lead. They became lost

Valene:To wait! I was forced to wait! If I was going to be accompanied by the beast, the least that he could do was be on time. I refused to go back into that Packhouse. I hadn’t been there long, but I was certainly there long enough to have memories. It was hard walking past Harold’s room as Tobias seemed to be his closest friend. He was taking the loss extremely hard. And it was even harder to walk past Tobias’s room. Somehow, losing him- someone whom, while I did have regular dealings with, I did not truly know, was one of the most difficult things that I ever had to deal with.I’d always assumed him to be a superficial human with an arrogance about him that pushed him to believe that he could commit transgressions, transgressions that were usually punishable by severe imprisonment or even death. Only since I moved into the Packhouse did I realize that Tobias was not completely who he was made out to be, but a little more.He died, and I could feel that there was so much more mean

Alastair:   I hadn’t seen Valene hardly at all after our little back and forth. I thought that giving her time to cool down was for the best but apparently, it wasn’t. Maybe…maybe she wasn’t going to calm down. Maybe I’d finally crossed the line, but…but I just could not imagine that this would be her breaking point.  She was no longer outside, and she was nowhere in the packhouse. She wasn’t at our home either. Where could she be? Part of me had hoped that she’d left but my gut told me that she hadn’t. Ares would have informed me before they left. “I have a bad feeling, Wade,” Aziz whispered in the back of my mind.

Alastair:Per usual, he was right. Aziz was right about how I’d been treating Harlyn. It was as if I was exploring new ways to be an even worse father than the day before. I had completely discarded Harlyn’s life in an attempt to avoid positive emotions. Birthdays meant nothing to me anymore; holidays meant even less. Everything that I did after Valene’s death just provoked a feeling of going through the motions. Toran had taken the helm for the greater part of a year and a half. He was understanding as he, himself, realized that he didn’t know what shape he’d be in had he lost Talon. He could hardly stand losing Tobias as he did.“I’m sorry, Az,” I finally said. “I…I have been selfish, and I apologize. Ha

The seemingly young woman’s expression turned curious. “Daughter? A human?” a dry chortle left her lips as she took yet another shot. “You can understand why that is hard to believe.” “I’m sure,” I agreed. “It wasn’t an easy title to have,” I confessed. “In fact, more often than not, I didn’t display good father characteristics. She’d probably be here now if I had.”At this point, I had begun receding into my own thoughts and regrets concerning my title of father. I couldn’t imagine that Caris would be particularly proud of how everything turned out. She sacrificed herself for nothing.“Caris did not sacrifice herself for nothing!