Love is never easy. It's what Mother kept telling me when she was still alive. She would look at me, then glance at father and sigh with those words on her lips. What she saw in the man who was an Apex of all werewolves, in the man who knew nothing but how to demand from others and then what she saw in us – the future born from that union she never once wished for?

I couldn't find out why she kept saying how difficult it was to love someone. She wouldn't tell me when I asked and instead just give me another sigh then quickly change the subject.

Years later, I knew what she had meant back then. I'd thought she hated father for taking her away from her life before him and she probably did but she must have loved him more.

"She made a deal, Regan. She wanted to keep us safe and she gave her life to do it." The truth ringing in her voice, she was finally telling me what I should have known years ago.

My sister who kept her secrets for years to protect me, just like my mother had tried to do, had decided to give me clarity at last.

"And I'm not telling you this so you can go get yourself killed. I... I just can't watch you being like this."

"I just don't understand how this is related to my mate," I mumbled keeping my palms against my face.

I was tired. So fucking tired I couldn't even muster the energy to keep my head up any longer. Weeks.

These weeks without listening to her voice, without her body next to mine, I could barely breathe during these weeks. Weeks in which time felt frozen, in which I could hear the sound of every second ticking like it was a purgatory custom-made just for me alone.

These weeks.

"Just hear me out and you will understand, Regan," she said, her hand on top of my head as if she was somehow trying to give me her warmth and assurance.

"I knew I should stop her. I knew that she had no idea that what she was getting herself into but... I hated her for doing what she did to you, Regan. I still do but I hate seeing you withering like this more and if she is your only shot at happiness I'd rather see you fighting for that chance than watch you die slowly..." her voice trailed off again. Silence stretched between us.

Was she thinking how to tell me these things she claimed I needed to know to understand? Was she thinking about what I'd do if I knew them?

I had no strength in me to do anything at this point.

"A few nights after father sent you away Nightingale came to our pack to ask for father's assistance. He told us the Council was trying to awaken them and that Sunset needed our help. Mom argued with him, pleaded with him not to go but he went. Just a word from him, Regan. It was all father needed to call his wolves and run to the city.

"Mom and I stayed in the pack while the males went to fight something they didn't know how to fight. I don't know what happened in Sunset."

Sunset city. Once we had lived just outside the supernatural capital. Being the Apex pack we had to live closer to other supernaturals than regular packs liked to. Alphas usually chose to situate their packs in less populated areas and as far from other species as possible but with father vying for political power in addition to him being the leader of all werewolves, it had been a necessity for us to build our lives as close to the city as we could bear to live.

"All I know is that two nights later, Father came back with more than half of our males missing and the ones who returned were severely injured. He didn't speak a word of what happened in the city but that they had lost," Christine went on.

"You should have seen him, Regan. It was the first time I saw him like this. Like he was the ghost of the man he was before. He would look at everyone with a faraway look, his face so pale, his hands shaking like he needed a drink badly and later, he'd go to lock himself in his cabinet and not come out for hours. And then, when he'd finally leave his office, he would reek of alcohol. A week after their return he no longer bothered to hide it. He would go everywhere with that bottle of whiskey and never speak to anyone."

The man she spoke of was not the same man I knew. The Apex I knew. I'd never seen the man she was talking about with my eyes. Perhaps just in the end, but then I had thought it was because of the loss of his mate.

"Mother would approach him and try to talk to him, I'd try to talk to him and he would only shake his head and not say a single word. The males who returned, they kept as silent as he did. They avoided our questions or drowned themselves in alcohol just like Father did. We would keep trying to get to them. We would keep asking..."

Raising my head from my palms I ventured a glance at her moon-illuminated face. She'd been my silent companion for weeks. Every night I went out here to mourn the loss of my mate, she would stay with me. She would sit on the moist grass, rest her back against a tree and just keep quiet for as long as I'd stay.

Not even utter a single word to try and make me feel better when she knew that nothing but my luna could ever make feel better.

Looking at her now, Christine seemed to be the one who needed to be comforted. Her eyes, those smart eyes hidden behind her glasses were now leaking quiet tears to her cheeks as she remembered a time I'd missed in her life.

"They wouldn't say anything, Regan. They would just mop around as if there was nothing they could do and wait. It was Mom who stayed strong. It was Mom who kept saying that everything would be alright. Father gave up but she never did. She was the pack's rock then and you know why?"

I waited for her to continue her tale. Taking off her glasses, she brushed away her tears, then went on, "Because of the deal she had made, Regan. It was the second week after father's return when I was patrolling the border with the other females since the men were too wasted to do what they were supposed to when I saw mother sneaking to the pack's border to meet him."

"Who?"

"Dominus."

"Dominus?"

"Yes. You know, the head of the Council."

"I know who he was, Christine. So what about him meeting mom?"

"She had been secretly meeting him and she never breathed a word about it to anyone. Not to me and not to father. I didn't even know for how long it had gone unnoticed until I found out. I listened to their conversation that night," she said giving me a bitter smile.

"And? What did they talk about?"

"He first asked her if she was ready, then told her that it was time and that she had one day. That's all he said to her before he left and I didn't understand what he was talking about until the next night." She drew in a shaky breath, closing her eyes and hugging her knees to herself. "The night after we were attacked."

Opening her eyes to look at me, the light blue in them transformed into a darker shade as if the light in them had been switched off by the memory of the horror she had lived through, she parted her mouth to continue but no words tumbled out.

It took her a deep breath and one more try to do.

"You can't even imagine it, Regan," she said. "Those things. They were no men, Regan. They looked human but they were not human. It was the first time I saw a heart being ripped out from the chest and someone eating it while it was still beating. The person wouldn't die but watch how they consumed it and scream all the while."

"But Christine--"

She lifted her hand and placed her fingertip on my lips to shush me.

"I know how impossible it sounds, brother. You don't even know how many nights I've stayed awake and tried to convince myself that what I saw that night was a fruit of my imagination but even now I can't get it out of my head. It's how I know that it's true. Whatever happened in Sunset ten years ago, whatever the Council did, they brought them here and I saw them with my own eyes."

Shaking my head, I couldn't understand what she was talking about and I told her so.

"Demons. Soulless creatures. I don't know what they are or what they call themselves, Regan. But whatever it is that they are, I know they were real, still are."

"So how did you survive, Christine? How did the pack survive the attack?" There was no way in hell they could have lived through that night, no way.

"That's the thing, brother. We survived. They had chained father outside to the post where he used to punish his wolves. One of them had my mom on her knees in front of him. A few more of them stood in a circle around her while the rest of them were holding the pack to our places to watch the show they were going to give us. The leader used his own teeth to rip a chunk of his hand off, then spat it on the ground and held his bleeding hand in front of mom.

"What poured out of the creature's arm was not red, Regan but black. Black blood he wanted to feed to my mom and he did. It probably took her minutes but it felt like hours passed and then something happened. She started to glow. The creatures started to panic when they saw it. Even the one who had been holding her. They started to run. They spread in all directions but not even a few seconds later something exploded.

"We were thrown a few feet from where we stood to the ground. Some of the creatures were melted on the spot, others managed to avoid the explosion but most of them were affected. Most of them died that night."

"But how?"

"I've thought a lot about it, Regan. And the only conclusion I reached is that Dominus did something to mom to literally turn her into some kind of a bomb that was going to be triggered by the creatures."

Yet, how did he know what they were going to do?

"He probably saw it in one of his visions and did that beforehand so we could survive," Christine answered my unspoken question. "But that's not the point. I didn't tell you this because of mom. I... I mean, yeah, it's because of mom since you needed to know what happened that night--"

"You should have told me a long time ago. So why didn't you, Christine? Why the fuck did no one tell me about this sooner?" I cut her off.

Like a flood. Emotions I didn't know I could still feel emerging from deep inside, a place I'd thought was no longer functioning without her, giving me a purpose - to die if not to live.

A sob made its way out of her mouth, her body shaking with these same emotions she could feel, only multiplied by the memories she had and I didn't. "Father ordered them to forget, Regan. He just left me out. He wanted me to remember so one day I could warn you if you needed to know."

"Then why the fuck did you keep this until now? Why are you telling me now?" Did she want to finish what Scarlet hadn't?

Looking at me for a long time, swallowing as if the words she needed to say were clogging her throat, eyes that watched me with apology in them, minutes later, finally she spoke, "Because the night mom died, these creatures had brought others with them and that Cole guy was with them. I remember him because he was the one who held me down, Regan and..."

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, then slowly let it out, making me fear what else she was going to tell me.

"She didn't leave you because she chose Lucas. She left because she wanted to go after Cole to keep you and the pack safe... and I hated her so much that I'd rather let her leave and get herself killed than have her stay and hurt you more."

"You knew about Mom and let me believe it was because of Father's wars that she was killed. You knew about Cole and you never told me. You knew about Scarlet's reason to leave me... Fuck, you probably knew long before she did it and you didn't say anything! Why, Christine? Why didn't you?"

Turning her face away from me, she couldn't look me in the eye. "I lost my mate. I lost my mother. I lost my father. I couldn't lose you too. I love you too much to lose you."

Love. All because of love.