“I doubt Knox would be pleased about being laid to rest in your raggedy hair, either,” Brunton said, jabbing at his new leader. “He’d give you shit for a century, at least.”
“Yeah, he would. Maybe we should have a bonfire tonight and tell stories about him until the reality that he’s gone fully sinks in.”
“Then we can drink until we forget again,” Jagger added. The sadness in his eyes impaled me, and I wrapped my arm around his waist and pulled him close.
“I’m game if you guys are.” I turned to where Merc and his brothers stood. “Can we?”
“Of course,” Merc replied without pause. “We can stay until just before the sun rises on the east coast.”
“Then perhaps we should stop talking and start spreading his remains so we can get to the drinking part,” Kat said, leaning an elbow on Jase’s shoulder. “I could use a whiskey or ten.”
“I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but did anyone bring booze with them?” Brunton asked. “Because we sure as fuck aren’t going to salvage any from in there.” He pointed at the remains of his former home, and our hopes for drowning our sorrows disappeared in an instant.
“Well, I can’t do this sober,” Kat said.
“Neither can I.” Sadness leaked into my voice, and Merc wrapped his arm around my shoulders.
“Your pain honors him.” He looked at everyone in attendance, meeting their hollow stares. “He felt more for you than any of you fully understand, so tonight, we will do the same for him.” He took the container of ashes and held it high above his head. “Trevor Knoxville was a warrior, a savior, a hero, and a mate. He will be missed beyond measure. But he will never be forgotten.” He handed the bag back to Foust and clapped his hand on the new alpha’s shoulder. “Though they are your wolves now, they were once his. Let them each have a hand in laying him to rest.”
Foust nodded, his keen eyes wet and shining in the moonlight, then opened the bag and took a handful of Knox’s ashes before passing it along to Brunton, then Jagger, and on and on until every one of the Alaskan pack held a piece of their fallen alpha.
“Piper,” Foust called, looking back at me. “A little wind, if you please.”
I dragged my sleeve across my face and whispered to the air around me. Seconds later, a gentle gust danced around us as the pack raised their hands in unison.
“I’ll always love you,” I said softly. Then the breeze swept upward as the boys opened their hands. Knox’s ashes rose in a cloud and drifted toward the forest until they disappeared. My chest tightened, and I leaned into Jase. Dean rested his head on mine as we stared off into the darkened forest. Knox’s place of eternal rest.
“So now what?” Kat asked, her voice thick with sadness.
“Now we go home and do what we’ve always done,” Dean said matter of factly. “Keep shit in order.”
“Which should be much easier now with our connections to the witches and the warlocks,” Jase added before turning to Foust. “You wanna help out by filling the New York alpha vacancy? That pack was unstable at best with Mack running shit. It won’t be better with him dead—especially not after how everything went down.”
Foust’s mouth pressed to a grim line. “Some of the boys really want to come back here—to stay. To rebuild everything we had before this whirlwind named Piper Jones showed up and turned our world upside down.” He flashed me a mischievous smile, but I could see the pain through it; feel the uncertainty that coursed through his body.
“What would Knox want you to do?” Brunton asked.
Foust closed his eyes as he contemplated the question. “He wouldn’t want me to abandon the boys, but he also wouldn’t want me to leave the New York pack a problem for these guys.” He jerked his head at Merc and his brothers.
“Then I guess you know what you need to do,” Brunton said as he brushed his hands clean on his pants. “We go back.”
“I could stay,” a soft voice called from the group. Jagger stood, his posture submissive but confident nonetheless as he spoke. “I could hang behind with the others and fix this place up again.”
“Jagger—” Foust began, but the ginger-haired wolf cut him off.
“I love Piper as much as the rest of you, but New York isn’t my home anymore. And for a lot of the guys here, it never was. You were there back in the day, Foust. This is your cross to bear, not mine. Let me stay behind and run things.”
Foust’s brow furrowed as he turned to Brunton. “What about you? You want to stay behind too?”
I noticed Kat go tense at the question. I also saw how Brunton avoided eye contact.
“Where do you need me?”
The new alpha looked at Jagger, then his fellow Original. “You’re with me,” he said. “I’m going to need help if we’re going to take over the ragtag pack in the city.”
“And you will have ours,” Merc decreed. “My enforcers will be at your disposal.”
Foust nodded. “All right, then, Jags. You can stay.” He looked at the pack. “You answer to him in my stead, got it?”
They all nodded in unison.
Jagger’s smile gleamed in the fading moonlight. “Thanks, man—”
“You can thank me by not fucking up.” Foust’s comment did nothing to stifle the wolf’s enthusiasm.
“You won’t regret it!”
Foust muttered under his breath. “I already do…”
“Kat,” Jagger called, his beaming smile still in place, “are you staying, too? We could use someone like you around here.”
“If by ‘someone like you’, you mean a sweet piece of ass to stare at while she cooks and cleans for you between mating sessions, I think you’ve taken leave of your senses,” she replied. “If I stay, I’ll be the one running the show, not you, and I think we both know it.” The redhead’s smile fell ever so slightly. “So I’m going to ignore the implications of your statement and let you live so you can enjoy being the big dog here while Foust is running the city. I’m not really much of a country girl, and besides, I’m thinking about going back to my real hometown for a bit. I’ve got some unfinished shit there to deal with.”
“You’re leaving me?” I asked, my voice tight with emotion.
Kat flashed me her famous flirty stare. “Oh, I’ll be back. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
“Do you want me—us—to come with you?”
“As much fun as that would be,” she said with a sigh, “this is something I have to do on my own.” Grizz bumped her hip with his muzzle, then plopped down next to her with a harrumph. “Sorry, buddy. Not sure you can come. It would be much harder to hide you in a place like St. Louis. You wouldn’t have the chance to get furry nearly as often as you’d like.”
The bear snorted his displeasure, then sat on his haunches and folded his arms across his furry chest.
“We can discuss the matter further upon our return,” Merc said, checking his watch. “Our window is closing rapidly.”
Foust quickly went about reading Jagger the riot act while Jase and Dean said goodbye to the wolves they had bonded with during their time at the mansion. The two looked genuinely sad to leave Jagger behind. Kat planted a kiss on the poor boy that made his cheeks turn as red as his hair and caused quite a ruckus with the others. But when it came my turn to say goodbye, I could hardly push words past my lips.