VEUX

Thirty Three

March 7

There was a pack of female wolves out there, somewhere.

Saoirse knew that since she was eight years old. Since the car crash, when only tall women surrounded her, and their mouths morphed into fangs to tear her brother's head from his shoulders.

Only, she hadn't known then that they were wolves. Or rogues. Or after revenge for the objectification of their gender.

She only knew of them to take Tiernan from her side, and now she believed they must have been the cause for deaths of the rest of her family. Attacking Eoin and her father, running her mother's health into the ground, following Saoirse on her journey to find her sister, Caoimhe.

She hated to think about it. Remember it. Yet she never healed from this trauma, never knew how to piece it together until now. Until she said it aloud.

At Obsidian's silence after her confession, she pleaded for a response. "Alpha?"

The male blinked, several times before coming out of his shell shock. He wet his lips, toying with his tongue as it grew fat between his jaws, unsteady how to phrase the forbidden words.

"Mate-killers," He finally whispered, mumbled under his breath. He locked gazes with her dark brown eyes, hiding no truths. "They call themselves the mate-killers."

There was only one pack of solely female wolves out there, that anybody knew of. The only pack bold enough to make themselves known, and dangerous enough to act on their thirsts for vengeance.

Instantly, Saoirse's throat grew tight. Like most things in werewolf culture, names were straight forward. Pack Law was the laws of the pack. Challenge to the death was a fight for survival. Mate was short for pre-destined soulmate.

Mate-killers...

She hesitated to say it out-loud. "Why do they call themselves that?"

She had broken the rule of the no-questions-asked game, but she didn't even cast it a thought. She felt the trauma surfacing, the memories of that summer day barging against the barricades in her mind. So repressed, so buried for so long.

The bedroom was brightly lit, with warm lighting from the bedside lamp. There was no darkness to surround her, but she felt it. Creeping closer. Settling in her pores where it could, over taking her. She felt sick, already knowing the answer.

Saoirse still lay in Obsidian's arms, her own wrapped around him. It was this moment more than any other that she refused to let him go. Comfort, she needed. Even in those she could barely tolerate. Obsidian's hands didn't know where to hold on her body, to stroke the curling strands from her face, to keep her closer. There was no action to ease the information he was about to tell her.

"Typically... they are male-haters. If that pack comes across a male, of any kind, they will slaughter him." He inhaled, and Saoirse noticed the shake of his breath. They too were hard for him to talk about. "I fear in the worst cases, when a she-wolf of that pack is mated to the male, their fate is much worse. They are also known as the mate-eaters."

Her eyes had closed, to hide the water lining them before they shed. She still wept for her brothers, especially Tiernan. She always believed his murder had been the worst of them all, because it was performed so up-close and personal. When her body let out a squeeze of stress in her palm around the shirt on his back, Obsidian knew to pull her in closer. He pressed his lips to the soft skin of her forehead tenderly. He now knew the level of gentleness he needed with her. She was a broken soul, he knew from the first day he met her in November. Slowly, he was learning what had broken her into this rageful fit of a child's anger. The mate-killers were possible of doing that.