A Beautiful Disaster Of Silver And Grey

“Will?” I call his name, but he doesn’t move. “Will, look at me.”

Slowly, he turns toward me, and the guilt and shame in his eyes pierce my heart.

“I killed him,” he says softly like he can’t quite believe it. Honestly, neither can I.

“No, you saved me.”

He just shakes his head, still in shock. I struggle to stand, clutching the bleeding gash across my chest. Will managed to knock Kade off me before his claws cut deep enough to kill me, but the blow is still going to leave a large scar.

I don’t care.

I’ll add it to the ever-growing list. After all, it’s just one more mark on my skin to remind me that I’m still alive.

I grimace at the sharp pain from the cut that starts at my collarbone and extends down right above my navel. Long and nasty, but not deep, I tell myself; not deadly.

The sound of me struggling seems to be enough to snap Will out of his horrified haze. His eyes widen as he sees the blood trickling down my chest, and he rushes to my side. He wraps his arms around me, helping me sit up. He seems ready to carry me out of here to go get help, but I just pull him in closer. Silent tears are streaming down my eyes, and he brushes them away softly, kissing my forehead with heartbreaking tenderness.

“You’re okay,” he whispers, and I’m not sure which one of us he’s trying to reassure; me or him. “You’re safe.”

“I’m okay,” I echo, curling against his chest. He needs to know that it’s because of him. He may have taken Kade’s life, but he saved mine. “It’s really over. You did it.”

He stiffens slightly, muscles taut in my embrace.

“I killed Kade,” he says again, letting it sink in. He moves to look back at his brother’s body, but I grab his chin between my fingers, forcing him to turn back toward me and hold his gaze.

“You did what you had to do. You saved me, saved us; do you understand me?”

He nods, but there’s an infinite sort of sadness in those electric eyes of his. Kade started this war, and we ended it, but I have a sinking feeling that the final blow will haunt my mate for the rest of his days.

So be it.

I would spend my life reminding him of what I know to be irrefutably true. This handsome, broken, blue-eyed boy full of sarcasm and strength… he’s a good man. The best I’ve ever known.

“You are not a killer Will Blackthorn. You are the Alpha King of the Argent Pack, savior of Wynter City… my angel.”

He presses his lips against mine, and the kiss is somewhere between gentle and desperate as we melt into each other, convincing each other that this is real. We’re here. We’re alive. We’re together.

And nothing will ever tear us apart again.

Our thoughts pour into each other’s minds through the bond, flashes of everything we’ve been through. How many times have we saved each other? How many times has he protected me? I didn’t know it back when I first met him, but he’d been as lost and forgotten as I was. Still, we’d found each other.

We found ourselves in one another and called it home. We’ve defended what we love, what is rightfully ours.

But I’m so tired now. I rest my head against Will’s shoulder, and we collapse against each other.

Perhaps we will always be fighting, always be healing from our old scars as we acquire new ones. When did existing become so exhausting?

But Kade is dead, and I do not envy his rest.

For all we have suffered and sacrificed, there is no one, and nowhere else I’d rather be.

“I love you,” Will pulls away long enough to whisper the words to me, his breath warm against my skin.

“I love you too. Always.”

I don’t know how much time passes before Luke finds us like that, bare and bleeding, holding on to each other. At some point, someone hands us clean clothes. One of Luke’s Betas informs me that the mercenaries have been dealt with, and I suspect our short-tempered ally showed them as much mercy as they’d shown his fallen warriors.

The other two Alphas and their packs joined the final battle for Silver Manor, and once it was done, one of the healers from the other packs tended to the wound across my chest. Will holds my hand the whole time, and we don’t watch as Kade’s body is taken away.

A while later, Luke tells me that the elderly Alpha with kind eyes and gray hair died during the initial attack on Silver Manor.

His name was Bernard, and although he was fleeing the first time I met him, I’m told that in the end, he died with courage, fighting for his Alpha King and Luna Queen until his last breath.

He was a hero.

But heroes and villains are not a simple matter of sadness or happily ever after. Life is not black and white, rather a disastrous thing of silver and grey.

Alpha Bernard fled from the battle of Ossory. Alpha Luke was violent and merciless. Aunt Margo was manipulative, Ash was a spy, and Will killed his own brother to protect his mate. I acted impulsively and recklessly and will probably continue to make many, many, many more mistakes.

But at least we’re trying.

For all of Kade’s power and planning, in the end, he fought and died only for himself. But Bernard, that wise old Alpha, believed in a kinder future, and when it mattered most, he fought for that hope with everything he had.

What’s left of Bernard’s pack now falls under our jurisdiction, annexed into the Argent Pack. We will rebuild and grow together. It will take time, months, maybe even years to restore our pack and our city to its former glory. Or perhaps it will never be the way it was before.

Maybe we can become something new altogether. We live and honor those who don’t. We go on and make better mistakes.

We keep trying.