Chapter 10

Cain said he had lost the will to live for a long time. He had nothing left to hold him here.

But now he wanted to stay longer. He wanted more time with me and our son.

When the boy turned eight, Cain's old illness came back hard. By day he coughed until his handkerchief came away with blood. He hid it, folded it before I could see, but he couldn't hide it forever.

In the end, he couldn't fight it.

We were in a small coastal settlement, watching the spring unfold.

There was a pear tree at the water's edge. Its branches stretched out over the surface, heavy with white blossoms.

We sat underneath it. The light was warm.

He talked about the past.

He told me that the first time he saw me, I had come into a gathering in a red dress and he hadn't been able to look away after that.

He told me that on our Bonding day he had been so afraid something would go wrong that his hands wouldn't stop shaking.

He told me that he had no regrets. That he had gotten everything he'd ever hoped for.

"Ivy," he said. "I have lived a very good life."

Then he leaned against my shoulder.

He closed his eyes, slowly, like someone falling into a peaceful sleep.

A white petal landed in his hair.

He didn't brush it away.

He never opened his eyes again.

I brought Cain back to the Capital Territory to be buried.

When I returned, I found out that Dorian had been unwell for some time.

The Pack healers had examined him many times. They said it was a problem with his heart. That kind of illness had no herb cure. He didn't have long.

After Cain's burial, Dorian called for me.

Time had marked him heavily. The young man I had once loved was gone. The man in the bed was worn through.

He sat up and asked, in a voice that had gone rough, "Ivy. Do you want to be the Grand Luna?"

He had no children. The Pack Elders had been pushing him to adopt a child from a branch family and name them his heir.

I understood what he was really asking.

The curtain behind him moved slightly in the air from the window.

I smiled.

"You can write it in the Pack decree."

He looked at me for a long moment, and something in his eyes went distant.

"You haven't changed, Ivy. I've gotten old."

"Do you still hate me?"

My eyes were calm.

"We've had almost nothing to do with each other in this life. There's nothing to hate."

He was quiet. Then a tired smile.

"Understood."

"I can't do much else. But I'll try to leave your son a Pack worth inheriting."

In the twelfth year of Dorian's reign, he died.

The Pack Chronicles recorded him as a leader who had worked without rest, who had found it in him to care for everyone under his protection, and who had been found at his desk at the end.

His decree named the son of Cain's mate as his heir.

The morning mist was lifting as I walked back through the gates of Wyndham Manor.

Everything ahead was going to be good.