I sit in the chair beside his bed and take his hand. It is warm.
Come home, brother, I project into the quiet room of my mind, sending the thought down the bond to where Kade is working in his office. He’s coming home.
I feel it, Kade replies, his mental voice thick with emotion. The mortar is holding him. Asher is doing it.
I look at the monitors, tears pricking my eyes. We saved the world. We saved the pack. And now, we are saving our Beta.
At 2000 hours, the sun sets.
The sky is a brilliant, fiery canvas of reds, oranges, and purples. The stars are beginning to prick through the twilight, no longer blurred by the cosmic static, no longer hiding the approach of a monster. They are just stars. Beautiful, distant, and entirely peaceful.
Kade and I stand on the balcony of our suite. W
