Page 19 of Ascendant King

At the contact, my whole body went tight, and I realized I was keeping myself tense so that I wouldn’t start sobbing.

“This is where it happened?” Cade’s words were cool, but I heard the disquiet underneath, the strain.

“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Right here. I should have stayed. I should have?—”

“You were sixteen.” Cade’s words were chilly, precise. “You were sixteen. What were you supposed to do?”

“I could have…” I sighed again, still seeing the carnage, how quickly sixteen wolves could kill children. “Maybe I could have saved Albert.”

“You would have died.” I opened my eyes and found a sneer on Cade’s face. “Is that what any of them would have wanted?”

“What kind of alpharunsfrom a fight?” I demanded. Cade’s fingers curled. His grip was so tight my jaw ached at the pressure.

“An alpha who is a child.” Cade’s nails dug in, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if they drew blood. “Icouldn’t save my parents. There was no wayyoucould have saved your siblings. Neither one of us died. There doesn’t have to be awhybecause it’s a fact. We lived. They died.”

I gaped at him, unable to believe that he was comparing our two stories. But I was also unable to ignore the hint of forgiveness in his words. I closed my eyes again, leaning into the pressure of his hand, and he dug further into my skin. He reached up with his other palm and framed my face, squeezingso hard that I felt, for the first time since stepping into the house, like I was really there.

The buzzing in my ears quieted. I took a deep breath, sighing out all the air in my lungs. Cade released me suddenly, his hands gone, I blinked my eyes open, and he was all the way across the room, lit by the stream of light coming in from the open door.

I looked around again, but there was nothing in the room worth salvaging.

“I should check upstairs.” I cleared my throat. “See if there’s any evidence of…”

“Of your parents’ plan to kill mine?” Cade challenged, his expression hard again.

Shaking my head, I said, “You know I don’t believe they did it.”

“I know what I saw.” Cade spat the words. But his eyes looked at the ground again, the old blood painting a gruesome picture. “You should see if you can bring home any mementos.”

Nodding, I started up the stairs, hesitating and pulling my hand back from the railing. Pieces of it had been smashed, and the top was scratched with curse words. Upstairs, the destruction was milder but somehow worse.

Everything was broken, defaced. I couldn’t even bring myself to go into the girls’ rooms. At the door to the bedroom I’d shared with Carlo, I hesitated. Ignoring the graffiti on the walls, I looked around, trying to see pieces of my old life in the shattered bunk beds, the mildewy clothes and books spread over the ground.

I wanted none of this. I wished I could go back to before I stepped inside, erase this memory entirely from existence, keep the farmhouse as it had been in my mind. The white of the walls, Carlo’s band posters and framed vinyl albums. My side with the books on the shelf, the PSAT study guides, and the portfolio of writing for the artist summer camp I’d been thinking of applying to.

Stepping inside, I kicked at a few piles of papers, but everything had been burned or destroyed by mold and mildew. This wasn’t the place I remembered.

And maybe that was enough. Maybe this house had been taking up so much space in my mind that I couldn’t create a new home anywhere else. Now, I could finally let it go. I wiped at my face, digging fingers into my hair and forcing air into my lungs.

I couldlet it go.

“Miles?” Cade was right at my elbow, and I hadn’t heard him approach. He was looking at me as though he’d never seen me. “Are you all right?”

The sound I made wasn’t wolf or human, a choked noise that I closed my throat on. Swallowing, I tried to speak. Cade searched my face, then looked around the room, his eyes searching the mess.

I focused on breathing. In and out, air seared my throat and lungs. I had tobreathe.

“Here.” Cade picked his way through the mess and bent down. He pushed aside a toppled bookshelf and pulled out something stuck close to the wall.

When he handed it over, I stared at it for a long beat before my mind made sense of it. It was a pale blue envelope. My mom’s handwriting on the front labeled itMiles.

Carefully, I opened it, the card decorated with a dog in a party hat, the balloons around it spelling out Happy Birthday.

Dear Miles,

Happy sixteenth birthday! I know you think you’re too big for all this fuss, but you’re still my baby, and you always will be. You’re coming into yourself as a person and a wolf and I’m so proud of you.

You’re kind and generous and so protective. Someday, you’re going to be an alpha who outshines even his mom. I see in you great things.