She reached up to cup my chin. “Fret not, child. All will be well.”
Clamping down on the words I wished to speak, I shook my head instead.
How could it be well?
How could anything be well?
“I need to be with your father,” she whispered. “It’s my time.”
“Mother,” I rasped. “You’re still needed here.”
“No. You shall see. My sacrifice will not be in vain.”
Losing father two years ago had been hard enough, but to lose my mother too? I understood her suffering and her choice as a leader. But as a son?
I’d never understand.
Because she was, in her own way, as stubborn as me, I didn’t argue. I just grabbed her hand and squeezed. I had been a late child for my parents, and I mourned that lost time, even as I helped guide her up to the totem.
We were in the Highbanks’ forest, right in the center where the council always gathered. Hundreds, maybe thousands of years earlier, one of my ancestors had carved a totem pole and placed it here. We still worshipped the same Mother, still believed in the same deity and the same practices, but we were different. This was the new millennium, after all, not the past one.
In a concentric circle, the highest ranks within the council supplicated themselves before me and the totem. Only I had the right to stand. Not even the omega could, unless…
The new and old millennium were about to coalesce in a way I’d never envisaged.
Two weeks ago, when she’d spoken to me of the rite she wanted to fulfill this evening, I’d thought she was joking, but she’d swiftly shown me otherwise.
Her blood would spill tonight, and all for a ceremony that might not even work.
As we approached the altar, I rasped, “This isn’t necessary. I’ll find another mate.”
She sighed. “Your mate is the pack’s omega. This is vital, my son. Without a mate, you aren’t whole. Without an omega, the pack is lost. You know this as well as I do.”
We weren’t born knowing who our mates were, but at thirteen, or whenever we had our first shift if, like me, it was before thirteen, each of us had a ceremony at this very totem and learned if our mate was out there.
As the next alpha, my mate was important to the pack, not just for myself. When I’d learned I didn’t have one, we’d been reeling ever since.
Thirty-plus years of reeling was wearisome, but it hadn’t been a problem, not with my mother still living.
“It might not work,” I whispered, even as I helped her stand in the totem’s shadow.
Four wolves were carved into the totem that soared dozens of feet into the sky. With the trunk as large as three men, it was an impressive sight, but at its base, there was a kind of pedestal where a single person could stand.
It was stained red with blood, for any ceremony that took place here required a sacrifice.
My mother’s sacrifice would be her life.
Her life so I could find my mate.
“The totem never fails us, my son,” she said huskily, and it hurt me to hear the delight in her voice.
She wanted to die.
No mate outlived the other for long. I’d known each day I had with her was a blessing, but I’d never thought she’d seek this route. Had never imagined—
Her soft, wrinkled hand reached up to rub over my scowl. “All will be well, child. It’s my time. Your father needs me.”
The words had me almost choking on my misery, but I stepped back when she pushed at my shoulder.
The totem stood in a clearing with a twenty-foot wide perimeter. It was clear of the leaves and debris that were prevalent in the rest of the forest. It had always amazed me as a child to notice how not even a single leaf or ant could cross the circular barrier.
As far as we knew, there was no magic that could craft such a force field, and it had always been considered the Mother’s blessing on this holiest of places.
All around me, I felt the council’s expectations, their grief, their excitement, their fear. Only in the circle could I sense this. Normally, it was cut off from me and the omega handled it. For that reason, I spent as little time here as I physically could. Ceremonies and rites were one thing I couldn’t avoid, however. Without me to complete the circle, the ritual wouldn’t work.