Freya hovered in the bedroom doorway, watching Nors gently lower his sleeping wolf onto their bed. He covered her and then stared down at her with a deep frown on his face.
"Tell me," he said quietly and she knew what he wanted to hear but she didn't think it was necessarily a good thing for him to hear it.
"Nors, she's going to be fine..." she started to say but his head whipped around and his deep green eyes bored into hers. She sighed and entered the room, moving to sit on the bottom of the bed.
"She was fatally wounded by the time I got there," she said quietly. "The vampires knew the other wolf was with child. They went to kill it and Ashleigh protected her friend. I did everything I could to keep her alive until you could come and heal her."
Nors was stiff, fury rolling off him in waves, but his tone was cold and hard when he next spoke. "Why didn't your blood heal her?"
Freya swallowed hard and bit her lip, not wanting to answer him but knowing her brother would not stop until he knew everything. "From everything Loretta told me, the vampires beat Ashleigh numerous times to try and get them to talk. They saw her as the weaker of the two and the one most likely to break. They also saw Loretta's protectiveness towards her and thought she would break eventually if she watched her friend's suffering. When Ashleigh became too damaged they healed her with their blood and started again. By the time the fatal blow happened your wolf probably had sustained so much previous damage that even my blood wasn't strong enough to heal her."
A deep shudder went through Nors' big body and he sank to the bed beside his Ashleigh and stared at her with tortured eyes. She should have talked. They both should have. They should have told the vampires everything and then neither of them would have suffered the brutality of what his kind had done to them.
A little voice inside his head whispered that they would have died as soon as they did talk. He tried to ignore it, tried to be furious with Ashleigh and Loretta for holding their silence but deep in his heart he knew they would have been killed if they had. It didn't dull the ache in his heart at the thought of his wolf being beaten endlessly by the vampires. He had failed her. He should have ignored everything else and gone to her immediately.
"Nors, this isn't your fault," Freya said fiercely, knowing her brother so well. She just knew he would find some way to blame himself for what had happened to his wolf. She may not understand how he could love a Were but she could clearly see how much he adored Ashleigh and how much the little wolf loved him too.
"It is," he hissed through clenched teeth. "If I had left her with her pack last year, if I had never brought her home in the first place then she would never have been a target for Daniel. She would never have had to endure what she's just been through." His voice was raw with pain, his eyes moist as he tried not to think about what she'd suffered. He knew his kind well, and just how cruel they could be.
"She would be dead if you hadn't brought her home and you know it," Freya answered in a hard tone, striving to break through the wall of misery Nors was building up against the world. "You told me she was going Rogue after the death of her family."
Nors didn't answer her, couldn't take his eyes from his precious woman lying sleeping in his large bed. He couldn't deny his sister's words but he couldn't reconcile them either with the deep well of guilt that invaded his body to battle with the fury and the pain rushing through him.
Freya moved then, wrapping her arms around Nors from behind and holding him tightly as she felt his big body shake and heard the pain in each distraught breath he took.
"Don't do this to yourself, Nors," she whispered softly. "Don't torture yourself like this. I know you. You'll do something crazy like send her away when she's healed and tell yourself that it's for her own good. You'll only hurt both of you by doing so. Don't overreact."
He stiffened in his sister's embrace, wondering if she was inside his head reading his mind or if she really did just know him that well. He was under no illusions that everything would be okay with his people despite what had happened tonight. If protecting Ashleigh meant sending her away he would do so. He never wanted her to experience what she had just been through again. He never again wanted to know the agony of seeing her lying in a pool of blood, her life slipping away .
Freya could see she wasn't getting through to him so she twisted around until she blocked his view of his wolf and took his face in her hands. Her deep green eyes met his and she hissed fiercely at him, anger and concern warring for dominance within her.
"Don't you dare do this to her," she said harshly. "She was so brave and strong tonight. She knew she was dying and all she could think of was you. She begged me to keep you safe, Nors. To keep you alive. Don't you dare disrespect her like this. She's been through so much to protect you, to protect the baby. Don't make it all for nothing. If you truly love her then respect who she is as a person and allow her to make her own decisions."
Nors stared into his sister's fierce eyes, pride rippling through him as he listened to her words. They hit him hard, breaking through his guilt and pain. The first time he had met Ashleigh she had been racing through a war zone trying to save the children of the pack. She had been strong and brave that night too and had lost everything she'd held dear at the time.
Now she had sacrificed herself for those she loved again and he was thinking of sending her away. She would lose everything she loved if he did that. Freya was right and he knew it. He would be punishing Ashleigh if he sent away and he'd be ripping out his own heart too.
The pride he felt for his wolf almost overwhelmed him. The same pride rushed through him as he looked at his sister. "You champion her," he said quietly, amazed at Freya's turnaround, how she could go from hating Ashleigh for being a wolf to now fighting so fiercely on her behalf.
Freya swallowed again and turned her head to look briefly at the sleeping woman and then turned back to her brother with a serious expression on her face. "You were all she thought of," she answered softly. "Her love for you shone through her pain and suffering. How can I hate someone who loves you as much, if not even more than I love you, Nors? She was willing to give her life for you. That alone earns my respect."
She frowned slightly, an almost irritated expression crossing her beautiful face. "I feel some affection towards her," she admitted as if it was being dragged out of her. "In time I am sure I will come to love her as fiercely as you do. I accept her as my sister and I accept her as your mate. I admire her strength and courage. I would stand at her side and protect her because I know I would be protecting your heart and she is worthy of being saved. That's the best I can do at the moment, Nors."
Nors stared at his sister in amazement. He'd never heard her speak so warmly of another person before, not even one of their own kind. In Freya's world there was only him , everyone else meant nothing to her. He knew this was a huge step for her and he folded his arms around her tightly and held her close.
