1 7

s p i k e

Spike's funeral was unlike any I'd ever seen before, if only because it seemed so ritualistic and strange compared to the ones I saw back in the human world. It was familiar, at first – Jed oversaw the whole service as I stood by his side and Adrian standing on his other, Lance several feet away holding a distraught Lorraine who couldn't stop sobbing throughout. Brutus, Giles and two other guys carried Spike's casket to the front of the square.

Then Adrian said some words – telling everyone how Spike had been found several miles from the city. He'd been ambushed in his car and he didn't even have the chance to shift. He didn't stand a chance against the rogues from Prometheus. Some people came forward to give eulogies and others came forward to place flowers while a red-eyed Lance weakly joked about how Spike would've completely hated it had he still been alive.

Jed was silent throughout, and I didn't think anyone else noticed the way he was barely keeping himself together. His jaw was clenched and his eyes were stoically, emotionlessly fixed on where Spike lay in the casket and he didn't move throughout the whole service.

And I didn't hold his hand or touch him or even move closer to him because, sometimes, comforting gestures like these weren't necessary. Not yet. Not when he was already struggling to keep from breaking down, and breaking down in front of all of Titan was the last thing I knew Jed wanted to do.

He was the Alpha, after all, and you had to be strong when everyone else couldn't be.

I was Luna but I was, at the very essence of it, human; and so, after the normal service ended, Adrian motioned me aside and told me that I could easily sit out for the next half of the funeral.

"We're going to be shifting," He explained quietly, his voice painfully flat like he was trying his best to keep the emotions at bay. "Paying our respects to Spike in wolf form but if you want, you can stay – "

"No, it's alright," I assured him, still sniffling and dragging the sleeve of my jumper across my nose, which was disgusting but I hardly cared because Spike was dead. "I'll just be over there." I pointed to the back of the courtyard, where Dimitri was watching the proceedings with an overall air of boredom like this was something he literally saw everyday. Adrian reluctantly nodded and I reached forward to give him a quick pat on the shoulder. "Take care of him, please," I added, jerking my head subtly at Jed, who was still staring unseeingly at Spike's body. "And take care of yourself. I'll be right there if you need anything."

"Thanks, Luna," returned Adrian, a tinge of gratitude seeping into his voice as he quirked the faintest of smiles at me and stepped away.

Before turning to leave, I took a few steps closer until I was next to Jed and reached down to give his fingers a fleeting squeeze. They were frigid cold, I realised, and he didn't squeeze back. In fact, there was not a single glimpse of emotion from him, save for the way the muscle along his jaw ticked as he clenched his jaw even tighter, and I quickly pulled my hand away and headed off.

Dimitri was yawning openly when I came up, dragging a hand through the stubborn locks of his hair and flipping a switchblade in his other hand. I didn't know how he got it, but so long as he didn't stab me, or anyone with it, I figured he could have it. Besides, who was I to argue when I had two knives with me whenever Jed wasn't around, one of which was silver and hanging around my neck?

"If you're going to be snivelling the rest of the service, sit over there," He muttered to me in disgust, pointing to the other end of the low-rise wall he was sitting on, before sneering at the weeping Lorraine, who was standing near the front by Spike's casket. "It's terrible enough to have to hear that woman wailing like a fucking cat in heat. You could wake the dead with that amount of noise. Maybe that's what she's trying to do for her mate," He added dryly.

It was a good thing that Dimitri was far away enough and spoke quietly enough for no one else but me to hear. Too drained to argue, I simply placed my palms flat on the wall and pushed myself up on it. But it was higher than I expected and I fumbled midway through, only to have Dimitri unexpectedly grip me firmly by the elbow and haul me up.

"Thanks," I murmured, once I'd settled down beside him and heard him make a dismissive noise in return. By then, most of the members in the pack had already shifted and as sad as the overall atmosphere was, I couldn't help but feel fascinated by the way everyone looked.

All wolves, a perfect synchrony of black and brown and grey and white in the dark. I'd never seen all of Titan gathered like this and I couldn't help but think of the perfect irony of it – that it'd taken losing someone to bring everyone else together, but this was the kind of silver lining I knew Spike would like.

"Just out of curiosity – " Dimitri's voice was strangely quiet when he finally spoke, barely audible in the soft silence. And when I glanced over at him, I realised that he was staring fixedly at the pack. " – is everyone here a part of Titan?"

"Yes," I replied, making sure that my voice was just as quiet as his because it seemed unlike Dimitri to be so discreet about something. It was like that time when Jed and I figured out his alias – the more he kept his real name hidden, the more lethal the situation really was. This felt the same. "Phobos and Deimos heard about it and they offered Jed their condolences, along with Mimas because that's where Jed found Spike's body. But this is a closed service."

Dimitri kept silent for a prolonged moment. Then, after a cautious glance around to make sure none of the wolves were looking our way, he tapped the space separating us and held out his fingers briefly to me, keeping his actions as surreptitious as possible. "Phone."

I bit my lip and slowly slid my phone out of my pocket, setting it down on the space on the wall between us. He swiftly grabbed it, shifting his jacket over the device to hide the bright light. When he set it back on the wall, the screen was dimmed to the lowest, and I would've missed the message keyed across the screen entirely had it not been for the glow of the street lamp near us.

Abnormality in stance detected.

My eyebrows shot up at the unusual message that I couldn't even begin to decipher. But when I cast a sideway glance at Dimitri, who refused to look at me; all the response I got from him was a deliberate jerk of his head in the direction of the pack. Hesitantly, I followed the direction of his gaze, my eyes navigating through the varying hues of fur; some glossy, others darker under the moonlight, tails down and heads bent in what seemed like mourning, and –

I stilled, a sudden shiver of realisation glossing its way down my spine.

Was it truly mourning? Or was it –

I almost jumped in surprise when I felt something nudge me, and when I glanced back down, I realised that Dimitri had typed another message when I was focused on observing the wolves. Bracing my hands on the wall, I lowered my head and tried to read the message without being entirely obvious about it. There were only three words on it and I felt my breath catch at the first:

1) Alpha

Without reading the rest of the message, I took my attention off the phone to look at Jed. This was an area I wasn't quite acquainted with; the books on mythology and folklore I read hadn't particularly highlighted this aspect of werewolf behaviour, and I had a feeling that I'd find better information if I'd actually studied a book on wolves.

Dimitri was right. One quick glance at Jed – his sleek black fur was impossible to miss, along with the fact that he was standing right in front of everyone. His gaze was still directed at the casket, but his head was instinctively lifted, tail up and looking every bit like the intimidating, dominant Alpha that he was.

Mentally cataloguing his appearance, I glanced back down at the phone.

2) Pack

The rest of the pack was standing in the way I'd already observed. Tails down, heads bent, not in mourning, as I'd come to realise. Perhaps animals had emotions, but they were more in sync with their instincts than anything else. And when it came to wolves, instincts would lead a wolf to assume a stance that could only be considered as passive in the face of its leader. And when wasn't a wolf passive?

Only in the face of another wolf they do not consider Alpha.

The thought flashed in my mind just a split second before I glanced back down and realised that Dimitri's next word affirmed what I now suspected.

3) Outlier

A chilling dread seized me, and it wasn't the same hollowness I felt when I found that Spike was dead. No, this one was different – this one made my toes curl in terror, my spine blanketed with a chill that seemed to engulf me whole, and I dragged in a sharp, painful breath as I stared at the outlier that Dimitri had already spotted:

One wolf in an obscuring brown coat of fur that blended in perfectly with the rest, tail down, head bent; only not entirely the same as the rest because its head was not as lowered as the rest were, and its ears were just slightly pricked.

We had a rogue on our hands. An outlier, a traitor, a Judas.

This was a perfect pretence, I thought as I stared at the wolf, the realisation dawning on me feeling like sharp shards raining down in my head. It's a shame your instincts gave you away.

All the clues were adding up, like a plethora of puzzle pieces that were slowly but steadily falling into place. I remembered how Jed had once placed his hand over the book hidden beneath my jacket and gave me a necklace with a silver blade.

Don't trust anyone, he'd said.

Did he already know that there was a rogue in Titan, or had he merely suspected it? But then just as quickly as that recollection came, there was another one following on its heels, this one sending my head spinning with the suspicion that there was more than met the eye. After all, Jed's mother had thought differently in her notes.

Rumours are that the following packs may be home to members of the syndicate, she'd written. Bergelmir, Fenrir, Ganymede, Kalyke, Surtur, Titan.

Was that wolf just a rogue? Or was it one of the monsters too?

Suddenly, I felt very, very afraid. Not just for myself, but for Jed and the rest of Titan. "I'm going home," I murmured to Dimitri, fighting to keep my voice calm. Surreptitiously, I slipped my phone back into my pocket and stood up. "Can you walk me back?"

To anyone else within earshot, I would've sounded perfectly normal, just tired, like the funeral had exhausted me. And if I was being entirely honest, it had – the sadness was exhausting, but there was the pressing matter of finding out if our suspicions had been right. Dimitri didn't miss my pointed glance and his eyes narrowed for a brief second before he let out a sigh and grabbed his black jacket, begrudgingly pushed himself off the wall.

We walked back in silence, and I knew better than to bombard Dimitri with a volley of questions at a time like this. No, it was too risky and the night was too quiet. Our voices could easily travel if we spoke. It wasn't until we reached the front porch that I turned to him, finally figuring it was safe enough and we were far away enough to speak.

"Can you wait out here until Jed gets back?" I asked him. "There are some things I need to check."

"What am I – your fucking guard dog?" Dimitri rolled his eyes but, after a moment or two of hesitation, reluctantly settled down on the front steps, chucking his jacket aside and bracing his elbows on his knees. "Hurry up."

"I could get you a drink or something to eat or – "

"No, I just need you to hurry up before I die of boredom. Do you really want to attend two funerals in a day?"

Despite the sombre mood all round, I found my lips tugging up in a faint smile as I shook my head at his sarcasm. "Thanks. I won't be long," I told him gratefully, and headed into the house, letting the front door swing shut behind me.

Once inside, I made a beeline for the library, pilfering through the boxes that Jed had stored in the bottom shelves. He'd been sorting through most of his mother's things over the past few days – discarding the painful memories, safekeeping the treasured ones and sifting out the convoluted history that would somehow aid us in taking down the monsters. When he wasn't sorting through the boxes, I'd stashed them away in the library for safekeeping, behind a hoard of books that kept them perfectly hidden, only to take them out when Jed needed it.

But now was the time to unravel everything and I rummaged through the boxes until I'd found the one labelled Photographs. If Jed had found out about the ring from the photos he'd seen of his father and brother, I had no doubt that I'd be able to find another clue from one of these as well.

It didn't take long for me to find them. Find the photographs that had been pointing to the signs that sat right under our noses all along. I had just finished stacking them into the furthermost corner of the box for Jed to see at a later date when I heard a commotion from outside. Had it not been for the fact that I'd left the door to the library wide open, I wouldn't have heard it at all.

That was my cue. They'd probably all shifted back by now and the service was over. Quickly shoving everything back into its original place, I left the library, carefully shutting the door behind me. When I stepped into the main hallway, Lorraine's loud shouts were all I could hear, jarring and mutinous in the silence.

" – can't even set foot out of Titan-land!" I heard Lorraine say angrily, as I stepped out of the house and shut the door behind me. She was gesturing wildly as she spoke to Jed, who had his jaw clenched in clear aggravation as she stopped him from heading back home. "If it isn't a curfew, it's perimeter breaches, and what good is stepping up security when my mate was killed despite it?"

There were several other people, mostly the members of the pack closest to Jed, who were standing around and watching Lorraine's meltdown. Lance and Adrian were attempting but failing to dissuade her from yelling at Jed, while Dimitri was exactly where I'd left him earlier – sitting on the front steps of the porch and watching Lorraine with an overall air of boredom, like she was making a huge deal out of absolutely nothing. Jed spotted me first and the tense look on his face relaxed just fractionally, before Lorraine began yelling at him all over again.

"If you were any bit the Alpha we all thought you were, you'd be stepping up your game here," She said harshly, unfazed by the loud gasps and sharp protests at her words. Lance hastily apologised to Jed for his sister's behaviour, while Adrian looked exasperated by her tantrum. She ignored them and threw a furious glare at Dimitri. "You would not be allowing such lowlife trash into Titan – he's the reason Spike is dead!"

"It would've been the easiest thing in the world to snap your mate's neck like a fucking twig," drawled Dimitri, now looking mildly irritated by the way she was making him a target. He deliberately flipped the switchblade several more times in his hand and sneered. "But I wasn't paid to off him so I'm afraid I can't claim credit for that."

"You didn't have to be the one to off him, asshole," spat Lorraine. "You could've easily been a rogue still in contact with Prometheus. You should never have been allowed to go scot-free and were it not for you cowering behind our Luna every chance you get, I would've run you out of here before anything could've happened to Spike!"

"Lorraine, don't do this – " Lance insisted, placing a calming hand on his sister's shoulder, but she shook him away before whirling back around to face Jed, her eyes flashing in fury.

"Declare war on Prometheus, Alpha," She hissed, glaring defiantly at Jed, who simply looked at her calmly. "Because if you won't, more people are going to be dead. Titan would be destroyed, and more people would suffer the same fate as my mate. Or are you too much of a fucking coward to go to war?"

I didn't miss the way Jed tensed at her words, his fingers furling into fists by his sides, and I automatically took a protective step forward. "War's only going to bring about more bloodshed," I said quietly, trying to meet everyone's gazes squarely when they turned to look at me before finally meeting Lorraine's gaze. "Just think about the ramifications of – "

It didn't register to me that the words I'd said had hit a raw nerve until Lorraine angrily yanked her arm away from Adrian's loose grasp. "Do you even know the hell I've been through ever since I lost my mate?" She snarled, sounding absolutely livid now as a terrifying, primal growl ripped from her throat before she took a bold lunge forward at me.

Everyone seemed to move at once. I had almost begun to brace myself for her attack when I found Jed in front of me in an instant; his hands gripping my elbows firmly as his tall, broad frame blocked an irate Lorraine from charging right at me. Dimitri had bolted up and taken a firm step into Lorraine's path, while Lance and Adrian were physically restraining her by gripping her arms tightly, with Katya and Jade desperately trying their best to calm her.

I wasn't going to lie – I was terrified, and not because of the fact that I'd almost been attacked; but because of just how much Lorraine had changed in the wake of Spike's death. Jed seemed to sense that I was trembling and he tugged me closer towards him, looping a comforting arm around my waist as he pulled me in until my cheek was resting lightly against his chest. I automatically let out a relieved sigh when I felt the comforting warmth of his body, wanting nothing more than to head back into the house and curl up against him until I was filled with nothing but thoughts of him.

"Alpha, if I may offer my perspective on things," began Giles after awhile, his voice hesitant as he tried to get Jed's attention. Jed stiffened and turned to him, eyes guarded as he waited for Brutus to continue speaking. "I don't think war's an entirely bad idea."

There was a pause – unsteady, uncertain, conflicted as everyone present considered the option at hand. War had never been an option prior to this; I always figured Jed was on the defensive because he didn't want to be on the offensive the way Claudius, and then Malthus, had always been. But Lorraine, whose eyes were now gleaming with something very akin to terrifying vengeance, had planted the seed of doubt in his mind.

Brutus was the next to break the silence, a grim look on his face as he nodded. "Best burn them to the ground before they burn us."

There were murmurs of assent at this – the ones who usually accompanied Jed on missions seemed all in, while the minority kept their opinions to themselves but looked disagreeing. Lance was the only one among the latter group who voiced his opinions, saying, with a solemn shake of his head, "Spike wouldn't want this. I know he wouldn't."

"How would you know what Spike wants?" Lorraine hissed indignantly, but thankfully didn't say anything more after that.

"We've got enough people." Adrian's voice was quiet, thoughtful, when Jed turned to look at him. "Enough weapons. We could take them down if that's what you want."

"You can't." Dimitri's voice was unexpected, a sudden chill that seemed to douse the overall atmosphere. He'd taken a step back during the discussion to lean against the nearest pillar, but he was looking directly at Jed now. It was a look that spoke volumes, because it was cautious in the same way he'd looked at me earlier when he was pointing out the abnormality to me. "You're underestimating Prometheus."

"Right, because we have to take your word for it since you're so trustworthy." Brutus's voice was laced with blatant sarcasm; but unlike his usual cocky statements, Dimitri simply gave him a contemptuous look before glancing away, returning to flipping his switchblade around again.

Jed let out a quiet sigh that I barely heard, but rather felt because he'd still had his arm latched around me. I wondered if anyone else could sense his trepidation – that internal warring between being the Alpha that he wanted to be and being the Alpha that everyone else wanted him to be. Finally, after a few seconds of inner turmoil, he glanced over at Adrian, whose eyebrows knitted in faint worry as he regarded Jed.

"Alpha will take everything into consideration," said Adrian, after Jed had mind-linked him. "In the meantime, he suggests that we all head back and get some rest, and he'll give us an answer by tomorrow."

There were mumbles of agreement at this and everyone slowly began to head home. Dimitri shot me a pointed look before trailing after the others, careful to keep a wide berth from them because of the volatile situation. Adrian was the last to leave and, hesitantly, he clapped Jed on the shoulder in a comforting manner before stepping away. Jed had tensed at the action, but he seemed more at ease around Adrian than the rest and nodded a vague goodbye before tugging me back into the house.

Once the door clicked shut in place behind us, the rest of the house felt painfully empty. Static silence filled the air between us and it was almost like we could physically feel Spike's absence even here, even in a place where he seldom stepped foot in. But the harsh reality of losing him hung between us like a suspended piece of tattered string that you didn't know how to link back to anything, but it was there and it was painful and it left a gaping emptiness within you for a long while after.

"You didn't eat at the diner earlier," I said at last, staring up at Jed, whose eyes were shuttered with some frighteningly vacant expression. He looked at me, but it was like looking through me and I tried to pull myself together. "Are you hungry?"

He shook his head slowly, the action so mechanical that I realised he was in that state where you numbed yourself to everything, and all that was peripheral ceased to matter. I couldn't even tell him about what Dimitri had suspected or what I'd found out after. Jed was tethering on the precipice of his breaking point and I pushed everything else aside and just focused on him for now. Without thinking, I reached over to lace my fingers through his and tugged him closer to me.

"Come on," I told him, pulling him into the kitchen after latching the door shut, and he willingly followed.

The moonlight streaming through the windows seemed to bathe the kitchen in an almost ethereal glow, but I tapped the light switch on swiftly because the dark reminded me too much of shadows and death. Sitting Jed down at the table, I began to heat up some leftover food that I'd stored in the fridge. It wasn't long before I'd set out a plate of food in front of him, a half of his usual portion since I figured he didn't have much of an appetite anyway. Jed stared at the plate blankly and I let out a quiet sigh.

"Jed, you have to eat."

When he remained entirely motionless, I sighed again and stood up, the chair scraping quietly against the floorboards. With a few steps, I was standing beside him and I didn't hesitate to reach down, framing his cheeks between my palms and tipping his head up so that he was facing me. He seemed to relax into my touch but his eyes were still carefully blank when he met my gaze.

"Jed," I started quietly, blinking back the tears that suddenly sprung to my eyes when I saw how broken he looked. His eyes slowly latched on mine when I murmured his name, and I saw a faint flicker of recognition in them. Taking that as a good sign, I took a deep breath and continued. "I need you here, with me. I can tell what you're thinking and I know that you have a one-track mind right now that's preoccupied with avenging Spike's death. Almost everyone's thinking it. But this involves you more than anyone else, and before you do anything, I just need you to think about what you're going to do. Are you doing this simply for revenge or are you actually ready to face your brother?"

He flinched at my words, his jaw clenching as he pulled away from my grasp. His actions sent a sharp, stinging pain through my chest because it felt like a rebuff, but I steeled myself nonetheless and focused on him. He was swallowing rapidly as he averted his eyes from me, and I knew he was just inches away from breaking down.

Maybe this wasn't such a bad thing. There were many stages of grief – as I knew ever since my grandmother, the only family I had left, passed away. And sometimes, instead of wallowing and spiralling through the different stages of grief, perhaps you needed to hit rock bottom, to sink lower until there was nowhere else to go, before you could gradually pick yourself up and piece the fragments of your heart back together again.

"I'm sorry Spike died, Jed," I said at last, my voice quiet as I placed a gentle hand against his cheek. "I'm so sorry your friend died."

For several long seconds, he was completely still. But then I caught the first fleeting glimpse of hurt flash across his eyes, before the blank expression on his face swiftly crumpled into something entirely stricken with grief. It was like finding that trigger where everything he'd carefully put together, all the walls he'd built to shut people out all this while, it all just fell apart and all that was left was him, just him – devastated, frightened, broken him.

I moved forward before he could begin to feel embarrassed, and he held himself entirely still when I curled my arms around his shoulders. But the moment I wasn't looking at him, I felt him let out a shudder, and then his shoulders were shaking with silent sobs as he wound his arms around my waist and buried his face against my neck. I kept silent throughout, knowing that if I said anything, pride might compel him to pull away again; so I simply angled my head to brush my lips briefly against the top of his head, feeling his hot tears seep into my skin and keeping my arms wrapped around him tightly.

Because it seemed that when our world fell apart, there was nothing else we could do but hold on to each other and never let go.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

When I woke up, it was to the sunlight streaming through the windows, casting soft but dazzling hues on the bedspread and on my face. I vaguely noticed the faint silence lingering in the background; it felt like static, the kind that had you suspended, hanging, waiting, waiting for –

Then clarity sudden sparked a chord in me and I blinked twice, registering the loss of the body warmth that had filled the right side of the bed the night before. Jed hadn't been able to fall asleep until I tugged him into my bed, and it seemed like it was becoming a habit for us. If he had shifted into his wolf form and slept next to me during that bout of nightmares I had all those weeks ago, then it was my turn to comfort him these two days – tugging him into my bed and curling up next to him until his breaths evened out as he finally succumbed to sleep.

But his side of the bed was empty now, and I stared at the rumpled sheets for a moment, the lingering indent on the other pillow. When I finally turned on my other side, a slip of paper on the bedside table caught my eye and I reached over, neatly plucking it off the nightstand. The note was short and, in his hurried penmanship, read –

I'm so sorry, Quinn.

But this is what I have to do.

I let a quiet sigh escape me as I turned back on my other side and stared at the empty space, feeling the paper crinkle beneath my fingertips as I held it tight. Titan was officially at war with Prometheus, and I had no idea how to feel about it.

"I hope you know what you're doing," I whispered, letting my eyes slowly fall shut as I tried to picture Jed next to me, but the air was still and cold and empty.