THE WOLF IS GONE,

Elaris's pov

I stay put on the cot based on the healer's caution.

For a change, obedience is not a flaw.

Something feels different within me.

Not yet whole, not yet fully formed as it might have been if Caedmon hadn't decided to tap into me for essences, but not empty either.

My strange sense of detachment that seems to have possessed me while wandering aimlessly around the healing chamber for days and nights is gone.

I can breathe deeply into my lungs and my hands no longer shake as though I were on the verge of collapse.

I press my palm against my abdomen and feel the tiny heartbeat against my palm as a thrill of something close to fear races through my being.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

For the first time in recent memory, I don't have to wonder if I'll live through another day.

Which means I know what I've just done to myself and it terrifies me.

Averic is still in his chair across from me.

The healer takes a final check of her patient.

Her fingers trail slowly over the same pressure points as before the transfer, but her expression is even more intent than the first time.

I watch her carefully, noting that whatever news she brings is something she isn't looking forward to delivering.

"The transfer is complete," she finally announces.

Averic didn't move, only a taut muscle in his jaw betrayed his anxiety. "And?"

She meets his gaze. "There is no recoverable wolf essence."

There is no need for subtlety in her tone, but the meaning is still unmistakable.

Averic's wolf is not napping inside his ribcage.

It is not injured or resting, waiting for whatever poison Caedmon's taking from me has loosened its grip.

It is gone.

The healer examines him once more to be certain, but the result is the same.

"There is no residual spark," she says. "Nothing for the body to knit back together."

Averic nods once, acknowledging what she's saying as if hearing it from another healer wouldn't make it any easier to accept.

I study him from my place on the cot.

He was the Alpha of the western territories, able to exert his will on whomever he deemed fit to be under his rule.

His wolf was a part of him just as his mind was, as were the instincts that guided his decisions and the loyalty his men felt for him.

He held a position that allowed him to shape the future of his people, answerable only to the council above him.

Now he sits cross-legged in some random hut outside the palace walls without the one thing that defined him.

He is still him, except he isn't.

That is the most unnerving thing about it.

I know exactly what it is like to be discarded, to have spent so long giving a piece of yourself to another only to discover it wasn't enough.

I have known what it is like to spend a portion of your life in service to someone else, believing the devotion was genuine before coming to terms with the fact that it wasn't.

I have known the loss of the parts of myself that mattered because of it, but I have never known what it was like to watch someone suffer through the same realization for longer than they had to.

Averic watches me study him and neither of us speaks.

The tension hanging between us seems to fill the room.

The healer packs up the items she used for the transfer and issues instructions with little regard for my comfort.

"I want both of you on minimal activity for the next two days."

She gestures vaguely at me.

"You'll stay in this bed for another day at least with the exception of necessary travel.

Your body has received its fair share of essences, but it still needs to acclimate to the change within."

She studies Averic briefly before adding, "As for you, nothing strenuous."

Averic almost manages a smile.

"I assumed you'd have said that."

"You shouldn't assume it's enough," she replies, her gaze hard.

"Your body is adjusting to the absence of your wolf and you could experience weakness and dizziness.

Your senses may be off as well, but the most important thing is not to confuse physical strength with proper healing."

He nods once and that's all the confirmation she gives him before setting restorative draughts beside me.

She stops to look at me once more.

"The child is stable," she said.

Those two words are more important than either of us care to admit.

She gathered her medical bag with a final look at the room.

"I'll be leaving word with my pack that the transfer was completed, no more, no less. "

"You won't have them report the details," Averic muses, watching her retreating form.

"You were invited as a medic, not an envoy," she says over her shoulder.

The door closes behind her with a solid click, leaving us once again at three.

Neryss locks the door with her mind, pausing at the window to slide the latch set in the wooden panel and check the reinforced wood behind the back door before returning to the main room where the fire burns low.

Nobody says anything and suddenly the emptiness left in the healer's wake feels heavier than it should.

The fire cracksleddis as another log burns down, the day outside uninterested in the drama taking place within the sheltered walls.

I watched Averic shift slowly, his muscles moving in a very small range.

Neryss exchanged once glance between Averic and I before wisely remaining silent.

We are among friends, it seems, but there are also no guards, no council representatives and certainly no palace servants to serve as an audience for what happens next.

Not that there should be any reason for them to be here.

For a time, I find myself oddly comforted by the hush that fills up the air after we are alone once more.

What feels like an eternity passes before the question I refuse to consider until it can't be put off any longer.

"What will the council do?"

At another time, under different circumstances I'm certain, I might have said the council would consider first and weigh options.

Perhaps the argument could be made in favor of sustaining his rule despite the permanent loss of his wolf.

He doesn't sound the least bit concerned with possibility. "They will remove me."

I frown.

"You don't know that."

"I do."

Averic's gaze drifts to the closed door.

"An Alpha without a wolf cannot function effectively within the hierarchy.

His or her authority will be overruled in regards to dealing with a shifting pack, should that pack wish to challenge him."

I chew on the implications.

"Will they allow you to remain in the palace?"

His shrug is languid. "That will be a matter for debate.

I look at him, understanding that he knew all this long before he allowed the healer to do what she did.

"You knew this would happen.

You knew this before the transfer.

Yes.

You knew you risked taking the throne.

Yes.

Averic eases back on the cot, his muscles relaxing in a way I realize he hasn't been able to do since he's been in this room.

"I knew before I sat down.

I knew when the healer told us what she would be doing.

I knew when I let her.

Just as I also knew this wasn't a decision the council would look kindly upon."

"What did you expect?"

Averic's eyes are locked on his hands.

"I expected them to call it folly."

"And will they?"

"There is a strong possibility considering the circumstances.

Averic hesitates.

"The may call it the abandonment of duty for myself, my lady and the child.

I look at him in something close to shock. "You saved your child.

"You saved me," he amends,

Neryss looks at me. "The child?"

He nods slowly.

Averic looks at me as if waiting for me to thank him once more. I turn away from him, unsure of how to interpret what is left in sacrificing an entire day to the needs of another.

An apology for what he'd do to himself would have been easier to offer than what he asked of me.

Perhaps that's why I find it strange that there is nothing in his gaze to show he regrets what he had done.

He isn't surprised in the least that what he wanted was impossible.

If anything, he looks as if he has accepted what he will have to live living the rest of his life without.

No wolf, no throne, and no right to dictate the conditions of another life to himself.

I consider the image of him at Caedmon's heels again, this time remembering that there was another whose life I took when the battle was joined that day.

A man who didn't have the choice I had, but who was willing to give up everything so I would have this life.

The similarities between him and Averic stop at the devotion, however, and no matter how much I want to, I won't romanticize what Averic has done.

Despite knowing all this, I focus on my child, on the fact that no matter what happens between Averic and I, what comes next for the living thing growing inside me will not be at the expense of some negotiation over politics between two former friends of convenience.

The morning wore on without further incident, the healer allowing me to sit up on my own.

The movement doesn't agree with me at first, making me dizzy and cold but it soon becomes clear that the exhaustion I've grown accustumed to since waking no longer agrees with me in the same was either.

I allow her to give me more water and eat a small portion that she insists on, but no more.

I'm not ready to rest again, though my body is sending signals that I should.

Averic leans against the opposite wall with measured patience, watching my every move.

He makes no effort to come closer, shifting his stool so that it isn't pressed up against my foot and he never says a single word regarding whether or not I've changed my mind about him as my companion.

I would be entirely too pleased with myself to pretend otherwise if he had.

Near noon, Neryss hears the lone rider before I do.

She leans out the narrow space between us and the wall.

"One rider."

The horseman drew up within sight of the cabin but not close enough to the house to suggest danger.

Neryss went outside to speak with him.

She took whatever message he bore back inside with her, shaking her head once she was seated again.

"A council notice," she said.

I watches as Averic broke the seal on whatever it was she gave him.

The emblem didn't appear more than once on what could have been a letter or a scroll.

I don't miss the fact that his usual bearing upon seeing such an item in the palace is entirely absent at the moment.

"I believe that is your name," Averic murmurs.

No words escape me as I stare at the missive in his hands.

He unfolds it and reads through it with a solemn expression, his fingers still curling around the edges of the parchment as the words inside sink in.

"They know."

Neryss's eyes are on him.

"Already?"

"The council has been notified of the loss of my wolf."

Averic read the notice again, the words no less difficult to get through the second time.

"A special session of the council has been called.

When?

"Tomorrow evening," Averic says, setting the notice down on the table.

"They expect me to attend.

"For what.

Averic pauses, as if considering the answer rather than giving one. "To answer for my decision.

I shake my head.

They're not asking how you'll survive another year, another month, another day," I point out.

"They've survived without one another for a lifetime," Neryss says.

They are asking about the throne.

The first order of business for the council is the matter of succession and inheritance, but only because it concerns the wellbeing of the entire region.

It is not unusual news that the Alpha of the western territories has permanently lost his wolf.

It is breaking news that Averic of House Dain will no longer have the power or the ability to ensure its continuation.

I look at him again.

"I will do as you asked," I say, watching the slow shift of his fingers as he carefully, meticulously folds the notice back up.

He places it alongside the healer's supplies and turns to me.

"I will go.

I will not oppose my removal.

Once again, he is giving up something he thought he had no choice in retaining.

Perhaps that is what makes a single statement all the more poignant.

The council can determine my new status within their ranks, but there is one thing Averic is prepared to stand by in spite of them.

"The right to stay near you and the child while I still have it," he adds.

It isn't what he wants me to believe, only what he can accept with all of the grace in this world.

Averic's body is rigid with tension as he watches the rider wait for a reply from the palace.

I, in turn, watch the man that no longer possesses what once made him who he is and, for the first time since he crossed the threshold of this home, he is asking for something rather than saying what he will do if I refuse him.