Brothers’ Belated Regret

“This is the Moon Goddess’s will, Nora. Don’t blame us.”

Adrian spoke gently, but he still moved in front of Ivy as if he expected me to attack her.

I looked past him at our parents’ portraits.

My father had been Alpha of the Silvercrest Pack. My mother had been his Luna. They had been dead for twelve years.

In three days, I would be dead too.

The healer’s report was folded inside my coat pocket.

Three days left to live. That was the healer’s final verdict. There was no cure.

No one in the room knew.

I had come to Moon Hall to say goodbye to my parents. Instead, my brothers had placed an old silver urn on the altar and asked Ivy and me to draw for our future mates.

One token was supposed to be silver, with Noah Hale’s name engraved on it. The other was supposed to be black, with Alpha Kieran Blackwood’s name.

Ivy had drawn the silver token.

She held it against her chest, her eyes wet. Noah stood beside her. Adrian looked relieved. So did Cole, the commander of Silvercrest’s elite guard.

Mason was watching me.

I reached for the taper beside the altar.

He quickly lifted the urn out of my reach.

“What are you doing?”

His voice was sharp, but his eyes moved over my pale face with concern.

“I only wanted to light a candle for Mom and Dad.”

Mason’s jaw shifted. He looked away.

He knew I had noticed his suspicion.

Adrian took the taper before the silence became uncomfortable. “I’ll light it for you.”

He took the taper, touched it to the central flame, and handed it back. Just as he had when I was little, he curved one hand around mine to keep the hot wax from spilling onto my fingers.

The kindness almost hurt more than Mason’s grip.

I placed the candle beneath our parents’ portraits.

This was the last one I would ever light for them.

“Blackridge requested a daughter of the Alpha line,” Adrian said behind me. “We tried to refuse.”

I turned to face him.

“Kieran is very sick,” he continued. “He may not survive the week. If he dies before completing the bond, they’ll bring you home.”

Cole folded his arms. “And if the bond is completed, you’ll be his widow. No one in Blackridge would dare mistreat the daughter of our former Alpha.”

“But they might mistreat Ivy,” I said.

Cole frowned. “That’s not what I meant.”

It was exactly what he meant.

Ivy’s father, Daniel Rowan, had saved our parents during a rogue attack. He died from his wounds, leaving Ivy alone. Our parents had promised to protect her, and my brothers treated that promise as a debt they could never fully repay.

I had never asked them to send Ivy away.

I had only hoped their promise to her would not require sacrificing me.

Adrian rested a hand on my shoulder.

“Ivy has no parents and no Alpha bloodline,” he said. “Blackridge could see her as a burden. You’re different. You have three brothers and all of Silvercrest behind you.”

Behind me.

I looked at the four people standing around Ivy.

“I understand.”

Mason’s brows pulled together. “That’s it?”

They had expected me to fight.

A month ago, I would have.

Noah and I had known each other since childhood. When I returned to Silvercrest after seven years missing, he was the first person outside my family to recognize me. He had promised to wait for me. Our mating ceremony was supposed to happen in three days.

Now he was holding Ivy’s hand.

“Kieran is too sick to claim you,” Adrian said. “When he’s gone, you can start over.”

Noah finally looked at me.

“If Blackridge sends you back, you’ll still have a home with us,” he said. “Ivy and I won’t abandon you.”

He meant it as comfort.

He was offering me a spare room in the future that had once been promised to me, while Ivy stood at his side wearing the ring once meant for me.

I supposed I should have been grateful he was willing to leave me even that much.

He imagined me living in a spare room while Ivy wore the ring he had chosen for me.

I pressed my fingers against the healer’s report.

It didn’t matter. I would never return.

“Thank you,” I said.

Noah looked unsettled.

Adrian glanced at the clock. “Then it’s decided. I’ll notify Blackridge tonight.”

I turned back to the altar.

A wave of dizziness passed through me. I put one hand on the stone to steady myself, and my sleeve brushed the urn in Mason’s hands.

It fell.

The lid struck the floor. A second token spun across the white stone and stopped at Noah’s feet.

It wasn’t black.

It was silver.

Noah stepped on it at once, hiding the engraved name beneath his shoe.

But I had already seen it.

NOAH HALE.

There had never been a black token in the urn.