Page 46 of Omega Hunted

“Soren?”

His eyes were fixed somewhere far away.

“He…” A sob broke through. “He was dead.”

The words came out flat, stripped of everything except disbelief.

“Yannick was lying on a gurney.” Tears streamed unchecked down his face. “I thought…” He shook his head violently. “I hoped he was sleeping.” His breathing became ragged. “Then I saw...”

He couldn’t finish.

I waited.

“There was so much blood.” His voice cracked. “He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t...” Another sob tore through him. “He was gone.”

His fingers curled tighter around the wolf until his knuckles whitened.

“His babies weren’t there …” His face crumpled. “There was no crying.” His words were barely audible now. “No bassinets. Nothing.” He swallowed hard. “Just… him.”

Silence settled between us.

“I picked up the wolf because...” He looked down at the stuffie in his hand as though he was seeing it for the first time. “Because it was his.” His voice trembled and he wrapped his arms around himself as if he were suddenly freezing. “What happened to him… that was probably going to be me next.”

My wolf lowered his head because that story was painful for Soren, and it was clear that Yannick had been important to him in a place where he had nothing else. And now all that remained of his friend was a battered stuffed wolf and the certainty that somewhere out there, Yannick’s babies would never know how much their parent had loved them.

“I want to find his family one day,” he said, determined.

I nodded. “We will.”

What?

We will?

Where had that come from?

“We?” He asked carefully.

This was my chance to correct myself, to tell him I meant that he would one day find the family, but it wasn’t my wolf that made me say the next part. It was all me.

“We’ll find them when you’ve had Asha, and you can tell them what you remember of him.”

“You’ll help me?” He paused. “I mean, after the snow goes, and…”

“Yes.”

He eyed me with something like suspicion, and I’m not sure he believed me. “Okay.” Then he took the tiny wolf to the sink and rinsed and washed the blood with care, patting it dry, and then placed it on top of the warm stove to dry, wiping away the tears and taking a moment to settle his breathing. “We should… I need… Let’s get all this stuff sorted.”

I carried, and Soren directed, for the better part of an hour, and somewhere in the middle of it, he stopped being careful and started being himself, moving through my room with a focus I hadn’t seen in him before, pulling open the closet and reorganizing the shelf space, holding up two blankets to compare them, stacking and sorting. He talked while he worked, not to me exactly, just out loud, half to Asha, assigning roles to things and changing his mind and changing it back, and I shifted boxes and held shelves steady to assist.

He was still going when he stopped mid-sentence and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Thank you. For getting the wolf out of the car. I know it’s stupid, but…” His fingers curled deeper into the worn fabric. “It’s for Yannick’s babies.”

“It’s not stupid, and it wasn’t any trouble,” I said quietly. “I’m glad I found it.”

He went down to get it, and then tucked it into his nest, rearranging its position twice, then instead of relaxing, he turned and took a hesitant step toward me. Tears spilled down his cheeks, and he brushed his hair behind his ears and bowed his head.

My wolf already knew what to do. Hold him.