Chapter 18 A Mother’s Guilt
Tasha’s Mother(Helen) pov:
I was grinding dried moonroot when Thoran came home.
The sound of his boots crossing the threshold was enough to tell me everything before he said a word. He walked like a man carrying bad news…..slow, deliberate, weighed down by choices that would stain him no matter how carefully he made them.
I did not turn around.
If I faced him too soon, I would ask the question I was already terrified to hear answered.
“How many know?” I asked quietly.
Thoran closed the door behind him. The wards hummed once, sealing the house from wandering ears. Only then did he speak.
“Enough.”
My hand froze against the stone mortar. The moonroot slipped, scattering pale dust across the table like ash.
I swallowed. “Enough… meaning?”
“Snowpack knows,” he said. “Stoneclaw suspects. And Emerald—” His voice dropped. “Emerald is no longer blind.”
I finally turned.
My husband stood there in the dim light of our home, shoulders squared, jaw tight, the Alpha he had been forced to become again after months of pretending grief had softened him. But I saw past that. I saw the father who had once held our daughter as if she were made of glass. I saw the man who had shaken when he told me she was dead.
“She’s alive,” I whispered. The words still felt wrong in my mouth, like a lie that refused to settle. “They know she’s alive.”
Thoran nodded once.
And just like that, the room felt too small.
I sank onto the bench beside the hearth, my knees weak. The fire crackled softly, unaware that it was warming a house already burning from the inside.
“How long?” I asked.
“She’s been seen,” he said. “Felt. Her energy is… wrong. Twisted. Stronger than before.”
I closed my eyes.
I could still see her standing at our doorstep days ago….alive, breathing, eyes too dark, presence too heavy. The way the air had bent around her. The way my instincts had screamed danger even as my heart recognized my child.
I had told myself it was fear talking.
I had told myself rejection was protection.
“She came to us,” I said, my voice breaking despite my effort to keep it steady. “She came home.”
Thoran did not argue. That silence was worse than any accusation.
“And we sent her away,” I continued. “Like she was already lost.”
“She wasn’t the same,” he said gently, though his words cut deep. “You felt it too.”
“Yes,” I snapped. “I felt something was wrong. But she was still our daughter.”
The word daughter shattered something in me.
I pressed my palm against my chest, as if I could still ache there.
“She looked at me,” I whispered. “Not like she hated me. Not like she blamed me. She looked at me like she was hoping….just hoping….that I would pull her inside and tell her everything would be alright.”
My voice failed.
“And I didn’t.”
Thoran crossed the room then, kneeling in front of me. He took my hands in his……hands that had once wiped blood from our daughter’s brow after her first hunt, hands that had braided her hair before ceremonies.
“She scared us,” he said. “And fear makes cowards of even the strongest wolves.”
I laughed weakly. “We are the Emerald Pack. We pride ourselves on control, wisdom, restraint. And when our own child rose from the dead, we chose fear.”
He didn’t deny it.
“She is not just alive,” he said carefully. “She is resurrected. And that changes everything.”
My breath caught.
“Who else knows that part?” I asked.
“The elders,” he said. “And they are not calm about it.”
I already knew the answer before he continued.
“They want her brought back.”
I looked at him sharply. “Brought back?”
“To be contained,” he said. “Studied. Tamed, if possible.”
“And if not?”
His silence was answer enough.
I stood abruptly, pulling my hands from his.
“You cannot treat her like a threat,” I said. “She didn’t ask for this.”
“She is a threat,” Thoran said, his voice firm now, Alpha voice. “Snowpack sent a spy to observe her.”
My heart dropped.
“And?”
“She killed him.”
The room tilted.
“Killed… how?” I asked faintly.
“Violently,” he said. “There was blood. Enough that Snowpack will smell it for miles.”
I staggered back, bracing myself against the table.
“She wouldn’t—” I started, then stopped.
Because she would.
Not the Tasha I raised.
But the thing she had become?
“She’s losing control,” Thoran continued. “Every heartbreak strengthens whatever brought her back. The elders believe the resurrection corrupted her soul.”
I pressed my hands over my mouth.
“She is alone,” I said. “Rejected by us. Hunted by them. What do you think that does to someone like her?”
Thoran’s jaw clenched.
“It makes her dangerous,” he said.
“No,” I snapped. “It makes her desperate.”
The fire popped loudly, sparks jumping as if even it protested.
“What is Emerald planning?” I asked.
“To track her,” he said. “Bring her back before Snowpack or Stoneclaw makes the first move.”
“And if she refuses?”
Thoran met my eyes then.
“We will have to face her as she is now,” he said. “Not as our daughter. As something… else.”
Something else.
The words echoed cruelly.
“And Snowpack?” I asked.
“They are furious,” he said. “Their spy was meant to watch, not engage. His death gives them justification.”
“For war,” I whispered.
He nodded.
“And Noah?” I asked suddenly.
Thoran stiffened.
“They know he’s missing,” he said. “The elders are panicking.”
I felt a chill crawl down my spine.
“The prophecy seer,” I said. “They kept him leashed for years.”
“Yes,” Thoran said grimly. “They used his visions. Changed them. Twisted them to weaken Emerald and Stoneclaw while elevating themselves.”
I clenched my fists.
“And now he’s gone.”
“Which means they can no longer control the future they were promised,” he said. “And worse….someone used forbidden magic to resurrect Tasha.”
My breath caught painfully.
“No,” I whispered. “You don’t mean—”
Thoran’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“Only one kind of magic can reverse death without divine intervention,” he said. “And only one kind of wolf has ever wielded it.”
The room felt suddenly colder.
“The seer,” I said.
“Yes.”
“If Noah did this,” I whispered, “then he didn’t just betray Snowpack.”
“He betrayed all packs,” Thoran said. “And the elders will kill him for it.”
I sank back down, trembling.
Somewhere out there, my daughter was becoming something none of us understood.
And we were already sharpening our claws.
“She will come for us,” I said softly. “Not out of hatred. Out of pain.”
Thoran did not deny it.
“We must be ready,” he said.
I stared into the fire, tears slipping silently down my cheeks.
Ready… to face our resurrected child.
Or ready to destroy her.
And for the first time since the night she died, I prayed….not for protection…..
But for forgiveness.