Part 9

(POV - Marcus)

Panting, Marcus tracked the scent of the last rogue, trying desperately to stay focused despite his growing fear for Helena's safety.

With the rest of the rogue pack taken care of, he was free to track down the last one, but the gaping wound in his heart made it so difficult. He found himself constantly looking back over his shoulder, towards the house where Helena was giving birth to their son. Where he was supposed to be but couldn't be, because the rogue was an expert at evading his every attempt to catch him. Just when Marcus thought he and Jaden were closing in, the damn wolf slipped through their claws, leaving Marcus seething and urgent.

A number of times, Jaden had darted off in a different direction, Marcus skidding to a halt to follow after him because he'd fallen into the depths of his fear again. But the scent of the rogue wolf was still strong, and it spurred them both on, their paws shredding the ground in their haste to catch him.

He twisted and turned, dodging trees and boulders, narrowly missing the sharp, gnarled roots of a tree that had collapsed, the harsh ends catching on his fur. He was sloppy. Too distracted to pay attention to the woods, which he usually knew better than his own hometown. Everything suddenly felt unfamiliar and daunting, taunting him with new bends and unexpected streams that cut across their path. He felt like a brand new wolf who had shifted for the first time and had no idea what he was doing or where he was going.

His heart thrashed in his chest, blood roaring in his ears and clouding his thoughts because he needed to get to his mate. She needed him, and he wasn't there. The urgency made him gag on a choked sob. He couldn't think past that pain, the very obvious agony telling him that Helena was in danger, that something had happened and he was too far away from where he needed to be, from where he should have been.

He knew he was fucking up, making mistakes that had him and Jaden circling back to catch the scent again before following. It was maddening. And the rogue seemed to know that Marcus was distracted, and when that scent veered off towards the house, towards his mate, Marcus roared.

Chunks of wet dirt flew as his paws shredded earth, sprinting towards his home where his keen ears picked up screams.

He wasn't going to make it in time.Something had happened to Helena, and he'd been stuck tracing and retracing the rogue's scent because he couldn't focus. It would be his fault that something happened to her.

He didn't bother shifting, and could smell the rogue all over his home. It made him see red.

He'd never hated the layout of his own home before.

With Jaden at his flank, Marcus struggled through the house, having followed the scent of the last rogue there. All the way to where his mate was giving birth.

Jaden followed close behind, his muzzle stained with dried blood. They were both careful to avoid smashing into the walls that would crumble under their weight and made it up the stairs in a single leap.

The door spun from its hinges when he burst in, an icy rage washing over him.

The rogue had its jaws locked around the doctor's neck; the nurses laying dead on the floor, their throats ripped open.

And Helena...

Every sound faded, his ears ringing, when his eyes landed on his mate.

She was still on the bed, eyes closed and looking for all the world like she might be sleeping, their son cradled in her arms.

But there was no life in her skin, no breath in her chest, and her legs and lower abdomen were a bloody mess of gore.

And their son, so small, so fragile, didn't move.

The world around Marcus disappeared, the loss of his mate and his son breaking something inside him that he knew could never be fixed. It broke something that was never meant to be broken.

Tears welled in his eyes and he was on the rogue in an instant, jaw locking around the back of its neck and thrashing until the yelps and whines died. Its head hung limp from its shattered neck.

Marcus shook from snout to tail, unable to look away from his mate and their son, his whole world, laying lifeless on the bed they'd shared. He whimpered, his chest aching with the hole that had been ripped open in his very soul, wanting to fall to the floor under the weight of his grief.

His wolf refused to accept what was right in front of him, aching to go and curl his massive body around them protectively until they woke up.

But they wouldn't.

He'd never hear Helena's tinkering laugh, or the way she'd scold him for treading mulch through the house after a patrol. He'd never see her beautiful smile again, never get to hold her close and feel her hold him back.

His soul would never feel whole again.

"Alpha."

Without dropping the dead rogue, Marcus turned his head to the voice, low and submissive in an attempt to calm him down.

It was the doctor's adopted son.

A young boy with a round nose and rounder eyes, his T-shirt and arms slick with blood. He'd been assisting with the delivery of Marcus's son, helping his father who lay mangled on the floor.

"I'm sorry, Alpha," he continued in that low tone. He kept his head bowed and his eyes on the ground. "Your child was a stillbirth, and Luna suffered postpartum hemorrhaging. The rogue burst in just as we were preparing to treat her, and she- she died before we could stop the bleeding."

He took another tentative step forward, surveying Marcus's wounds like he wanted to treat them, but Marcus let out a roar and before Jaden could intervene, Marcus had ripped the boy's throat out.

Jaden whined softly, unhappy and stressed, but Marcus didn't care.

The boy lay at his paws, the gurgling and choking fading as he bled out, and Marcus could not feel shame or guilt.

Only rage and pain at everyone and everything for the loss of his mate and their child.

Even Jaden stayed back, sensing that the Alpha was in a precarious mindset, and left before Marcus turned on him, too.

He couldn't even bring himself to care about the knowledge that he would have attacked his own Beta if he'd stepped into the room. He knew he'd tear Jaden's throat out as well if he strayed anywhere near Marcus's mate, and knew that he wouldn't think twice about it. And it should have scared him. It should have made him feel ashamed and guilty, but Helena's body was growing colder with every passing second. Their son curled on her chest, neither of them breathing the way they should.

The cavernous hole in his soul cracked, the fissures running and covering every inch of his existence. The loss stained him, turning his thoughts dark and his heart black.

There was no coming back.

Helena was never coming back. And neither was their son, who hadn't even tasted oxygen. And while she'd bled out, probably terrified and heartbroken from the stillbirth, where had he been?

A mile away, trying desperately to get back, to come back to his family and protect them.

And he'd failed. He'd failed Helena, and he'd failed their son.

He'd failed the bond that now lay tattered between them, no longer the bright, living thing that drew them to one another.

He grabbed a hold of the tattered ends of that quiet bond, padding over to the bed and laying beside her, his large body curved protectively over his mate and his son's lifeless bodies.

Helena, he called, pulling uselessly on the bond. It was once a sparkling bridge, their connection that ran soul deep and held them close even when their bodies were miles and miles apart.

It was supposed to be the two of them, with their own little family, until they were old and gray, watching their pups and their pups' pups grow.

"You said you'd grow old with me," he mourned, his snout smearing blood across her cool cheek. "I still need you, please, Helena."

But she wouldn't respond. She didn't shift, and the other end of the bond was silent, dark.

Empty.

Suddenly, a vision of his future stretched out in front of him, isolation swallowing any light that his mate and their son might have shed on his life. He'd be alone for the rest of his life, his true mate stolen from him too soon, their son ripped from their lives before they even had the chance to meet him, to watch him grow into a strong, independent wolf.

He'd never get to see Helena raise his pups, never get to gather them all up in his arms and sink into their love and their warmth.

He'd be alone.

Alone. Alone. Alone.

The word echoed in the emptiness of his heart, carving the letters where Helena's presence once lived. The beauty she'd brought into his life faded away the colder her body got, and his body ached with the torture inflicted on him.

Wolves weren't meant to be alone. They weren't meant to lose their true mates, and they weren't meant to suffer through it.

They weren't made for it.

They relied on their pack and within the span of a few hours, the most important members of his pack had been stolen from him.

"My Luna," he murmured into the abyss of quiet. "Please come back to me."