268
~Lisa's POV
My heart squeezed tight. "Kill her?"
"Yes." Lira's voice was quiet, heavy. "That was their way, wolves were taught to destroy what they feared, and they feared her love for him. But he refused. Instead, he turned his back on them. He walked away from the power he had been born into. That night, he went to your mother's cottage and told her that he would rather live in exile than in a world that hated what he loved."
For a while, I couldn't speak. My throat ached, and my eyes stung again. "He really left everything?" I whispered.
Lira nodded. "He did. Your mother wept when he came to her. She told me later that she tried to push him away, told him she didn't want him to lose his place or his family. But he told her, 'If I lose you, I lose everything.'"
The words hung in the air like a song too sad to hum.
