Marrying Her Alpha

Ch. 9: Saying goodbye

"Are you going to stay by my side?" Almec asked me. His voice filled with sadness as he watched the cemetery entrance.

"Where else would I be?" I grabbed his hand and guided him across the gate. "Everything is going to be fine."

"As fine as the wake that ended in a fight?"

"That wasn't your fault," I said, leading him through the trees surrounding the inside of the cemetery for some privacy. "You did your best to give Ezra what he deserves but you can't control everything that happens around you. The important thing is that those who love him were able to be with him one last time."

"He deserved better than this." Almec leaned his back against one of the trees and raised his head toward the sunny sky. "He deserved to live."

Almec's pain was present on his face. The life in his eyes seemed to have faded and the large circles under them showed how little he had slept.

He didn't even have time to grieve, his responsibilities as alpha kept him busy day and night, turning the death of his friend into a bureaucratic process.

I suffered with him. Every night he didn't come to bed my heart broke a little more, and yet, I knew it couldn't compare it to what Almec was feeling.

"Do you want to talk about it now?" I asked him, holding his hand.

"I don't know what to say. I can't even understand what I feel," he confessed. "On the one hand, I know that I miss him, on the other, I can only think about getting revenge. But then there are moments when it seems that I have already forgotten what my life with him was and I feel guilty for not remembering it, especially when it was my fault he's dead."

I pulled Almec's hand away from the tree and hugged him with all my strength. He held me with the same intensity as if I was the only thing keeping him upright.

"It's not your fault," I told him, stroking his back. "You didn't kill him, and you have the right to move on with your life once you overcome the grief."

Almec hid his head in my neck and let out all the emotions he had locked up. His tears wet my skin as I kissed the crown of his head.

"What if I forget about him?" He asked me, lifting his head.

"You won't," I told him as I wiped the tears from his eyes. "I know it seems that when they leave they take with them all traces of their life, but I assure you that you will not forget the moments you shared with him. He is an important part of you and he is not going to abandon you."

Almec nodded, grabbed one of my hands, and brought it to his lips.

"How come you always know what to say to me to make me feel better?" He asked me before kissing my knuckles. "We should leave now, people are going to arrive any minute."

The gloomy air regained its power as soon as we left the line of trees. Even though the cemetery had a beautiful lawn and the tombstones were decorated with carvings that made them look like a work of art, death was still around.

There was a special area reserved only for people of important rank, where Ezra belonged, among the previous betas and gammas of the pack.

Each of them had a sculpture to mark their graves, one more beautiful than the other, and yet, none as large as Ezra's.

Almec had made sure to have a sculpture made that represented the affection that everyone had for his friend. I almost lost my breath when I saw the wolf even taller than Almec, surrounded by eagles.

"Why eagles?" I asked Almec.

"They were his favorite animal. Once he found a wounded eagle in the mountains and brought it with him to take care of it."