Havers' words continued to echo in my mind as I stared blankly at the door he just existed. He didn't know if the link I once shared with my pack would ever be restored. How could this be happening? It wasn't enough that I let their Luna die and Eric, which was bringing down a war on us. No, it's not even enough that I am injured, not able to help prepare my pack for this looming war. Now I can't even communicate with them. Would I never stop disappointing my pack?

The room remained silent as I continued down the path of self-loathing. I began to wonder if maybe I should have just given my pack over to Phillips. At least, they wouldn't be facing certain death if I had. How had my father and his father before him done this so well, when I was failing at it so miserably?

Neither Griffin nor Asher spoke, possibly trying to give me time to process the information, but I didn't need a chance to process it. What I needed was to know it could be fixed.

"You both should get going. There is too much to do for you both to be hanging around here all day." Which was true, but not entirely why I wanted them to leave. Company was the last thing I needed right now. Without saying a single word, both men left the room.

"Maybe you can get him out of his pity party for one." I heard Griffin say from just outside my room. The door slowly swung open. I opened my mouth fully prepared to give the person on the other side a piece of my mind. What I was not prepared for was for it to be Izzy.

Being alone with her sent an overflow of conflicting emotions coursing through me. Happiness, frustration, anger, lust, but the most prominent being guilt. It felt as if every minute that passed without telling her about Eric, I was lying to her, but I kept telling myself if I could just tell her in the right way, word it perfectly, maybe it would lessen the blow.

"I am sorry I left when I did," she apologized finally breaking the silence. "I didn't want to. I wanted to be here when you woke up, but --"

"No, it's fine. I wouldn't have been much company anyway," I said attempting to lighten the mood. Her guilt was only making what I had to do so much harder. "Izzy, about your brother." I hesitated.

"He is so tiny. So much smaller than Eric when he was born," she said. Her smile faltered at her mention of Eric. "I hope is all right." I could tell she was no longer speaking of the newborn baby. Taking a deep breath, I ready myself to deliver the news.

"Has anyone told you what happened, how I got injured?" She shook her head her eyebrows scrunching together.

"No, there was some mention of rogues, but nothing more."

"I went out to see if I could find any leads on where your brother might be," I started.

"I know I heard Griffin say so just before..."

"Just before I hurled all over the floor," I finished grimacing at the memory. "Well, I went out with one of our trackers, Brandon. He was possibly the best tracker we had."

"Had?" she asked not missing the fact that I had spoken of Brandon in past tense. I nodded slightly.

"Yeah, he died protecting me," I replied solemnly. She let out a soft "oh" but said nothing more allowing me to continue."When we were out there, he picked up the scent of some young she-wolves that had gone missing. We ended up running into some rogues and with them two of the three missing girls." I paused for a brief moment massaging my temples. The slow throbbing in my head became more of a fierce pounding. My next words felt as if they were stuck in my throat, almost choking me. "Eric was with them." Izzy's hands flew to her mouth and tears began to fill her eyes. I could tell by her reaction she already knew.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I thought I could get them out of there safely." My hands automatically reached out to hold her in a tight embrace, but she quickly stepped back. It was just as I feared. She did blame me, but I couldn't hold it against her. Izzy stood there only feet from me with silent tears streaming down her face.

"How?" she finally choked out.

"I told them to run. I thought maybe since I had three of the rogues attention focused on me, they would be able to get away from the fourth. Only the youngest girl hadn't been fast enough, and Eric went back to save her. He killed the rogue, but the fight caught the attention of one of the other wolves. I didn't realize what had happened until it was too late. I'm sorry. I should have fought harder, done more to protect them."

The silence stretched out between us. It was as if the longer she stayed quiet, the farther she got from me. Whatever we had been finally working towards seemed miles away now.

"Where is he? I want to see him." Her voice was void of all emotion almost robotic.

'Asher,' I called out through the link before realizing it was no longer there. Instead, I picked up the bedside phone. My hand hovered above the numbers as I tried to remember the number to my office. What was it? How did I not know my number? Never before had it been so apparent how heavily I relied on the pack link. Placing the phone back on the receiver, I let out an exasperated sigh.

"He should be a few levels below. It is where we store all our dead until funeral arrangements can be made."

"When can I go and see him?" she asked quietly. Her tears no longer flowed but remained trapped within her eyes.

"You can see him now if you'd like." Izzy nodded, her focus on whatever was outside the window. I gave up on trying to remember the number and settled for pressing the help button on the side of the bed.

It didn't take long for one of the older nurses to walk in. Our pack had been lucky enough to have a hand full of nurses on hand, nine in total. Doctors were another story. We had only four in the pack, but none of them were as knowledgeable as Havers, our head physician.

"Is everything alright Alpha?" she asked.

"Yeah, everything's fine. I was just hoping you could contact Asher and see if he is available to stop by." She gave me a puzzled look probably wondering why I didn't just do so myself but did not question it.

"Of course. I will give him a call right now," she said before hurrying out of the room. When I turned back to Izzy, I noticed she was staring at me as if I was some puzzle she couldn't quite figure out. I didn't dare speak out of fear that I might just push her farther away in doing so.

The twenty minutes or so it took for Asher to show up were excruciating. Izzy had remained closed off staring into the distance. When he arrived she seemed all too eager to leave the room without so much as a glance in my direction. Asher gave me a sympathetic look before following her out. I had a horrible feeling in my gut that allowing her to walk out that door was allowing her to walk out of my life possible for good.

~~~~~~~~~Author's Note~~~~~~~~~~

Living With Loss has reached over 60K reads and more than 3k votes thanks to all of your guy's incredible support. Thank you! And if you haven't had a chance to check out Learning To Let Go (Olivia's Story) the first chapter is up.

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