Page 104 of Wolves of the Golden Sun

“It’s too late, young wolf. I’ve had my fill of the Champion and his magic. I won’t return until the next generation.”

The abomination leaps up and disappears against the midnight sky.

“Drago.” I touch his face, the only part of him spared from the Wendigo’s hunger. It’s cold; the chill of winter seeped through his skin.

Drago, please. This can’t be our end.

I don’t feel him in the bond. There’s no calm acceptance. No deep well of strength.

I don’t know if I scream out loud or if it’s only into the vacant bond, but I know we don’t have long.

You need to get here now,I say in the pack link.

I don’t know how long I sit there, staring at my Alpha Killer’s face while I wait to die.

Wait for my mates to come and die with me.

But eventually, they come.

“Willa.” Rafe’s the first to speak, his voice like broken glass as he sinks in the fluffy, bloodied snow next to me and wraps me in his arms.

Jonah kneels next to Drago and takes my hand, my human hand, over our fallen mate’s body.

And the sobbing takes hold of me.

“I wasn’t here for him. I wasn’t here. The scourge tossed me halfway down the mountain, and I couldn’t…”

“Shhh, sweet Omega. It’s OK. He knows you did your best.”

Rook sits in the snow by Drago’s head and touches my knee. “You’ll be with him soon,” he says with a creak in his voice.

Another wail rips from my throat. “Rook.”

I can’t even say the words. How much I love him. How much I hate leaving him like this.

“Don’t look at me like that, wolf girl. You made the scourge eat the witch who kept me a prisoner in her bed. I’ll always remember that.”

Even as he says the words, the tears stream down his face.

“I love you, Rook,” I say as the midnight of the sky seems to grow darker.

“I love you, Willa.” He squeezes my leg, and the cold snow doesn’t seem so cold.

The wind not so bitter.

I slump into Rafe, who lets out a piercing howl as my eyes fall shut.

RAFE

I never thoughtit would come to this. Never thought I’d get to have my mate, only to lose her less than a year later.

I take solace in the fact I won’t be without her for long.

Her breaths slow against me, and I feel the link between us slowly fading into nothingness.

I will always love you, Will.

I know,she breathes into my mind on the last remaining embers of our bond.

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