The pack held funerals at dawn which felt wrong because dawn was supposed to an new beginnings and there was nothing new about watching six pyres burn while families sobbed and I stood there useless.
I’d tried to skip it. Told Kael I didn’t belong there, didn’t deserve to mourn people I’d failed to save.
He’d looked at like I’d lost my mind and inford in his Alpha King voice that I was attending whether I wanted to or not because the pack needed to see their Hybrid Queen grieving with them.
So here I was. Grieving. Publicly. While my chest tried to cave in.
The families stood closest to the pyres—parents and siblings and mates who’d never get to say goodbye properly—and I watched their faces twist with grief I’d caused and wanted to disappear.
"Stop blaming yourself." Riven’s voice ca quiet through the bond. "I can feel it from here."
I didn’t answer. Just stood there with my hands fisted at my sides while Kael spoke words about honor and sacrifice and dying to protect the pack.
Pretty words. Useless words.
Dead was still dead no matter how you dressed it up.
One of the families—a woman who’d lost her son, maybe twenty-two years old with his whole life ahead of him—caught my eye across the clearing.
I braced for her anger. For her bla. For her to scream at that this was my fault.
She nodded once. Solemn and deliberate.
Then turned back to her son’s pyre.
The gesture broke in ways screaming never could have.
She didn’t bla . She should have blad . I’d failed her son and she was nodding at like I’d done sothing worth acknowledging instead of standing there alive while he burned.
My thumbnail found my finger, notching into the pad hard enough to hurt, and I had to lock my jaw to keep from making noise.
Through the bonds I felt four different versions of grief mixing with mine—Kael’s controlled sorrow, Riven’s quiet ache, Draven’s clinical compartntalizing, Thorne’s feral rage—and the weight of all five of us hurting at once was too much.
I closed the bonds partway. Not all the way because that felt like abandoning them, but enough that I could breathe without drowning in shared pain.
The pyres burned higher as the sun climbed, and I watched smoke carry what was left of six pack mbers toward a sky that didn’t care they were dead.
Sowhere in the forest the demon was healing. Planning. Preparing for round two.
And I was standing here watching people grieve instead of training to make sure round two didn’t create more pyres.
The thought tasted like guilt and rage in equal asure.
When the ceremony ended—when the pyres had burned down to ash and the families had said their goodbyes—Kael found standing at the edge of the clearing staring at nothing.
"You okay?" His hand settled on my lower back.
"No." Honesty felt easier than lying. "But I will be."
"When?"
"When the demon’s dead." I turned to face him. "When it can’t kill anyone else. When I’m strong enough to make sure this never happens again."
His jaw tightened. "Selene—"
"I want to train." The words ca out hard. "Now. Not tomorrow. Not later. Right now."
"You need to rest. You need to—"
"I need to make sure six doesn’t beco sixteen." My voice cracked but I pushed through it. "I need to be strong enough that the next ti it attacks I don’t just drive it back, I end it."
He looked at for five seconds that felt like an hour. Then through the bond I felt his grief mixing with pride mixing with absolute terror for what I was asking.
"Okay." Quiet and careful. "We train. But we do it smart. We don’t burn you out pushing too hard."
"I can handle—"
"I’m not negotiating." Alpha King voice engaged. "We train hard but we train smart or we don’t train at all."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to push back and demand we do this my way because my way ant throwing myself at the problem until it broke or I did.
But the look in his eyes said he wasn’t budging, and honestly I was too tired to fight him.
"Fine." The word tasted like surrender. "Smart training. Whatever that ans."
His mouth twitched like he wanted to smile but knew better. "Co on. The others are already in the training yard."
They were.
Riven had set up new training dummies—reinforced ones that wouldn’t explode when I lost control—and Draven was laying out what looked like tactical maps while Thorne just stood at the edge of the clearing radiating feral readiness.
They’d known I’d want this. Had prepared for it before I even asked.
The realization sat warm in my chest.
"Okay." I rolled my shoulders. "What first?"
"Combining bond power without exhausting yourself." Draven gestured to the dummies. "Yesterday you pulled from all four bonds and nearly passed out. We need you able to sustain that for longer than thirty seconds."
Right. Because thirty seconds of god-tier power didn’t matter if I collapsed afterward and left the pack defenseless.
"How do I do that?"
"You learn to pull gradually instead of all at once." Riven moved beside . "Like drinking water instead of chugging it. Sa amount of power, just distributed over ti."
Made sense in theory. In practice it ant calling the shadows and then reaching for the bonds while maintaining concentration on both, which was like trying to pat my head and rub my stomach except infinitely harder and with actual consequences for failure.
I tried anyway.
The shadows pooled easily now—muscle mory from two days of constant practice—and I reached for Kael’s bond first because his was the easiest to find.
His strength flooded through and the shadows grew darker, sharper, more responsive.
Good. That was good.
I reached for Riven’s bond next and felt his patience layer over Kael’s strength, and the shadows spread wider without losing their edge.
Better.
Draven’s bond ca third—control wrapping around strength and patience—and the shadows started responding to intent instead of just emotion.
Almost there.
Thorne’s bond was hardest because his was all wildness and feral instinct and it fought being controlled, but when I pushed through anyway the shadows beca sothing new.
Alive. Hunting. Eager.
I held all four bonds open and let power flow through in a steady stream instead of a flood, and the shadows held for a full minute before my concentration slipped and they dissipated.
"Good." Kael’s satisfaction bled through his bond. "Again."
So I did it again. And again. And again until holding all four bonds beca as natural as breathing and the shadows stayed solid for five minutes, then ten, then fifteen.
By the ti the sun hit midday I was sweating and exhausted and my head was pounding, but I could maintain combined bond power for twenty minutes without collapsing.
Progress. Real asurable progress.
And when the demon ca back I’d be ready.
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