Broken.
God damn it.
God damn me.
I felt the wave of it hovering, ready to descend upon me again.
Despair and helpless anger ...
They were all dead.
All dead, and it was my fault.
But no one was dead.
Not yet.
All dead.
All of my children, my loves, and it was my fault.
I put them at risk and failed.
They died because of my failure.
I smelled Stefan.
Adam's golden eyes met mine, the color proving the wolf ascendant.
He kissed me again, pressed something against my lips, forcing it between my teeth with a forefinger and thumb without removing his mouth from mine.
It was such a small scrap of bloody meat to burn down my throat as it had.
It meant something.
"Mine," he told me.
"You aren't Stefan's." The dry grass crackled under my head, and the coarse dirt made a noise like sandpaper that echoed behind my eyes.
I licked my lips and tasted blood.
Adam's blood.
The Alpha's blood and flesh ...
pack.
"From this day forward," said Adam, his voice pulling me out of wherever I had been.
"Mine to me and mine.
Pack and only lover." There was blood on his face, too, and on the hands he touched my face with.
"Yours to you, mine to me," I answered, though it was a dry croaking voice that made the noise.
I didn't know why I answered, other than the old "shave and a hair cut" involuntary response.
I'd heard this ceremony so many times, even if he'd added the "only lover" part.