As soon as he spoke these three words I knew. I remembered the vision Sasha had shown me months ago and suddenly, it made perfect sense.

A perverse kind of sense.

There was never a choice. There was no middle ground.

Lucas could give me a soulless existence, or no existence at all, and Regan was going to make us both get blood on our hands and live with that taint.

That choice felt like it was made long before I even knew about it.

Kill one to live and save the other.

I did the only thing I could.

The soulless had to die and if that meant I had to break a piece of my heart and throw it away, then I was going to do that.

Shatter.

Holding his hands with mine, feeling the flow of life that came from him and surged inside me, traveled out to saturate the bonds that connected me to my Apex and my pack, I held onto that brave man who had stayed true to himself till the very end.

My face felt hot, scorching tears saturating the skin as I drew more and more out of him. It was an endless pit of energy I had never felt before, the act something I didn't know how to do until it was time to do it.

Until he commanded me to do it.

Kill him to kill them.

My body shook from the sheer power that flowed through me. I took more and more of it. I kept taking, kept letting that power into the bond, barely listening to the howls of the pack that felt it too, to the cracking of bones close-by, to the shouts that didn't make sense.

The soulless had been screaming for what felt like hours. Those of my packmates who kept their human skin were screaming too.

There was too much power. Filling me. Filling the bond.

I couldn't stop. Not even when I felt the bond quaking, heard it cracking in protest.

It twisted and lashed at me. It heaved under the pressure I exerted on it.

"Scarlet, please!" I heard Regan shout. "You're going to break it!"

I couldn't stop now.

"Scarlet!" So much pain in that voice, his desperation resonating through me with every tide that swept.

I was too afraid to even open my mouth and tell him how sorry I was, but before I could try I heard it.

And I felt it.

Something that was never supposed to happen. Something that was nothing but a tale in our world.

The bond broke.

I was cut.

Both from my mate and my pack.

The hands against mine lost their substance. The man in front of me crumbled into small pieces like a body made of sand that dispersed with the tide and sunk back into the shore.

The soulless turned into burnt debris scattered by the wind.

The sky ruptured with thunder, lighting flashing followed by booming sound.

A wildling came to stand before me and I gasped when my eyed fixed on the creature's face. It let out a cry of utter and complete despair then bolted into the forest in a blur.

It disappeared into the wild, leaving me alone with the losses before the world faded out of sight.

Swallowed by darkness.

~

Nothing was left of the battle. Only the memories and the packmates we had to bury.

The wildlings had disappeared once more, this time on their own with the soulless gone from our private universe and now that the world was back to normal in their absence, nothing was like before.

Everything was silent. Everyone was grieving for the ones who had died, for those who were left behind by the people they loved and who loved them.

Heavy, burdening air filled the space between us.

Loss was a palpable ache in the hearts. Once filled with noise and whispers, the pack bond was quiet now. The mate bond was nonexistent too.

Everything had fallen apart and we were the ones to piece the ruins back together. Could we do that with how broken we were now? Was there a future for us to look forward to?

I wanted to believe there was. There had to be if we were still here to rebuild our lives after loss, death, bonds broken and lives gone.

We were here after the moon shattered and we were going to remain. I had to believe that. I had to be strong and wait for him to return to me.

Regan had been gone for a day and I already felt like I was going to be sick. Mere minutes after Healer had helped me out of my bed and the house.

Now, she had a hand wrapped around me to support my steps further into the clearing that was going to turn into a cemetery. The pack had dug multiple holes into the earth—graves where our packmates were going to be buried.

Men with bandages over the scars on their bodies carried the thick wood boxing the dead inside of itself. They placed the coffins one by one into the earth and waited. We moved, stopping in front of one and then another, sending our fallen comrades into the earth for their final rest.

It would have been more practical to burn them or bury them together, but the pack needed the strain of this work, and we needed to remember every one of them who had given their lives and souls for us to have a future.

The procession came and went. The females who sang along our steps never halted their melody of grief. Tears never stopped flowing and saturating the ground beneath our feet.

Christine never let go, instead, she whisked me toward the northern side of the graveyard where a small stream bubbled in a merry song.

A happy sound found at the most unhappy place.

"There was nothing we could find of Lucas except for this," she told me, holding her palm open to show me the golden ring I'd seen my friend wear on a chain around his neck. "His ashes were gone and only this remained."

"It's his," I confirmed, taking the ring into my hand and wondering whose it was.

There was the letter D engraved on top of it.

I never had the opportunity to ask him what it meant, and I never would now.

"I'm sorry. I know that you cared deeply for him." Her voice was gentle, her eyes apologetic.

It was not her fault he was dead. It was no one's fault but mine.

"Don't blame yourself, Scarlet," Healer said as if reading my thoughts right off my face.

I frowned at her.

"It's obvious what you're thinking. And it's completely normal to need some time until you can accept this, Scarlet."

I closed my eyes and huffed an annoyed breath. "You have no idea what it is to kill someone you love and then have to live with that knowledge."

I couldn't even stand looking at myself in the mirror now.

"No, but I know what it is to hurt someone you love so much that you end up hating yourself every day of your life. I doubt that Regan will ever look at me the same way, or that I will for that matter." She sighed. "But I am going to live with that the same way you're going to live with your own burdens. Life is a circle of heartbreak and joy, Scarlet."

"I don't know how long I can do that, Healer," I told her truthfully. "I want to think that everything will be alright, but I lost both of them so how am I supposed to live now?"

Life was for the brave and I was utterly broken.

She swung to face me, letting the hand around me come to my shoulder as her right clasped over my other shoulder blade.

"He's not gone, Scarlet," she said, leaning closer to me, blue eyes threateningly gleaming behind her glass frames. "He just needs time to recover, to let his wild out after losing his bond to you. This is not something a wolf just go through. He's hurting as much as you are--"

"He left me," I cut her. "He left me when I needed him the most. I understand that I broke the bond, but how could he just leave me, Healer?"

"He just needs time to think," she said curtly, raising a finger to point at me. "And you need to take care of yourself and the little one growing inside of you."

"What... how can you be certain--"

"You've been under my care for the last day, Scarlet. Are you really going to ask how I can be sure that you're pregnant?"

I placed a hand over my belly, opening my mouth to say something, but before I could, she cut, "Now, let's go back. You need more rest after what you just did and in your condition."

"Way to deliver the good news," I mumbled unenthusiastically, gaining myself another glare, then quietly allowed her to guide me back to the house.

It didn't feel right to bring a life to my world of misery.